A CONVERSATION WITH CHRIS BOHJALIAN

 

W&B: What authors or experiences influenced your decision to become a writer?

 

Bohjalian: When I was 13, my family moved from a suburb of New York City to Miami, Florida, and we moved there the Friday before Labor Day Weekend. The following Tuesday I started school, and then that afternoon I went to my new orthodontist—a sadist, it would turn out, if ever there was one. He gave me some orthodontic headgear that looked like the business end of a backhoe. I had to wear the device for four hours a day. And so that autumn I would come home from school, put in my headgear, and then go straight to the Hialeah Miami Lakes Public Library. There I read.

I read William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist, Thomas Tryon’s Harvest Home and Peter Benchley’s Jaws. I read a somewhat higher caliber of literature as well: Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, and Joyce Carol Oates’ Expensive People. From Blatty and Benchley and Tryon I learned about the importance of linear momentum; from Lee and Oates, I began to understand that the first person narrator in a novel is every bit as made-up as the fictional constructs around him or her. And from them all I learned that I wanted to write.

 

W&B: What inspires the particular stories you write? I am especially interested in your unique—and very human—characters.

 

Bohjalian: I tend to write about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Essentially, I drop my neighbors or my family or my friends or myself into seemingly untenable situations, and then watch what happens.

W&B: Most of your novels take place in Vermont, your home state. How many of your stories stem from places you know and from real events? For example, did the flood that killed the Sheldon girls in The Buffalo Soldier really happen?

 

Bohjalian: I would not say that my novels are autobiographic. But there certainly is autobiographic minutiae in many of them. To wit: That flood that opens The Buffalo Soldier really occurred—except for the reality that no one was hurt (thank heavens). But you can read the details of the devastation that flood caused in my essay about the destruction of the Lincoln Library in my collection, Idyll Banter: Weekly Excursions to a Very Small Town. My novel with the most autobiographic detail does not take place in Vermont. It is set in New Hampshire and Manhattan, and that novel is Before You Know Kindness.

 

W&B: How much research did you do before (or during) the writing of The Buffalo Soldier or while writing your other novels? How do you go about this research?

 

Bohjalian: My novels have all taken a lot of research. For The Buffalo Soldier, I spent time with moms and dads in multiracial foster families, with their children, with state troopers, and with social workers. I did the research as I was writing the book, since it helped me to add depth to the characters as I worked. Basically, I just track down the midwives or transsexuals or state troopers I want to interview, and invite them to breakfast or lunch. And then I hang around with them for as long as they will allow.

 

W&B: What got you interested in using the experiences of the Buffalo Soldiers (a group of people you couldn’t actually meet) as a narrative thread for a novel? How did the idea come to include letters of Buffalo Soldiers in a novel that focuses on loss, grief, family, marriage and foster care in a contemporary setting?

 

Bohjalian: I think it was the little boy in me who has always been interested in the Plains Indians Wars, and the role played by the Buffalo Soldiers. I think I always knew they would figure in some way in a novel of mine.

 

W&B: What is the source of the letters? In deciding to include them in the novel, why did you focus on the “rules”?

 

Bohjalian: I made those letters up. Many readers presume they’re real, and I am certainly flattered. But they were a device to give readers a sense of the knowledge that Alfred was gaining—and how it was impacting his sense of self and his self-worth.

 

W&B: Did you shape the story and chronology of the Sheldon family (in all its forms) first and later add the letters of Veronica Rowe? The letter excerpts that seem to serve as epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter also function as codas commenting on the chapter that came before. Did you play with this effect at all, with the connections between the two stories?

 

Bohjalian: Yes, absolutely—thank you for noticing. The letters do serve as chapter epigraphs—as a parallel story and as a bit of foreshadowing.

 

W&B: Did the idea of using the lyrics from Bob Marley’s song “Buffalo Soldier” as an epigraph come to you early in the process or later? Do you see this sentiment as pertaining to numerous characters?

 

Bohjalian: A lovely thought: Yes, I think the epigraph is as relevant for Terry Sheldon as it is for Alfred. I hadn’t thought about that until you asked, but I think you’re onto something. And I did indeed have the Bob Marley song in mind very early on—you bet!

 

W&B: How do you tie your disparate narrative lines together, and at what point? For example, did you flesh out the scenes of Phoebe’s family before or after you knew the ultimate nature of her relationship with Terry?

 

Bohjalian: I rarely have the slightest idea where my books are going. I had no idea that Phoebe was going to wind up pregnant until my wife came across a home pregnancy test kit in a rest stop ladies’ room. We both found this notion very sad—we imagined a teen girl going to the rest stop because she didn’t dare take the test at home—and before I knew it, Phoebe was taking such a test in a highway rest stop and discovering that she was pregnant.

 

W&B: Considering the numerous dramatic (natural and man-made) events that take place in the novel, it is the characters that always take center stage. Is this a difficult balancing act for you, working between the significant incidents that drive the narrative and the way your characters respond to these stimuli?

 

Bohjalian: Oh, I just put the events out there and see how the characters respond. And I think my books are at their best when characters are responding to each other—and not to natural events. I really believe that.

 

W&B: Indeed, the realistic portrayal of relationships between characters is one of the strengths of your work. For example, one reviewer referred to the “beautifully observed domestic psychology” of The Buffalo Soldier. Is this what you were aiming for in this book or in any of your other novels?

 

Bohjalian: Yes, I did want the book to be a very precisely experienced, authentically rendered domestic chronicle. In a way, my model was Kent Haruf’s absolutely lovely and haunting and poignant novel, Plainsong.

 

W&B: That is a wonderful novel full of rich characters, and it is ultimately the story of so many of them growing together, whether up or older. Did any of your own childhood experiences or emotions come into play in the creation of Alfred’s character, and especially his growth process?

 

Bohjalian: There is a lot of me in Alfred. I moved frequently as a kid—four different schools in four consecutive years at one point—and so I was always the new kid on the block. I used that sense that I was always the outsider in my creation of Alfred.

 

W&B: Your novels often take place in small towns, and The Buffalo Soldier is no exception. What draws you to explore the dynamics specific to smaller communities? Do they function in a way that better suits your narratives?

 

Bohjalian: Sometimes, the issues can be examined more closely in a small town: You have fewer people, less ambient noise. You can focus in a little more carefully. But I love big cities, too, and certainly there are great novels set in the suburbs. My two most recent novels, Before You Know Kindness and The Double Bind, are set largely in Manhattan and Long Island and Burlington, Vermont (a city), and I hope the characters are just as real and the issues presented just as convincingly.

 

W&B: Regardless of where they are set, your novels often touch on sub-cultures, from animal rights activism to homeopathy, from to midwifery to foster care, from dowsing to transsexuality, leading a New York Times reviewer to refer to you as an “issues novelist.” What draws you to explore these out-of-the-mainstream perspectives? Do you feel your novels have provided some insight into those on the margins of our culture?

 

Bohjalian: I am fascinated by the cultural margins. And while I am, first and foremost, a storyteller, I am always pleased when my work leads someone to re-examine an issue or think of it in a new light.

 

W&B: In an earlier interview, you referred to the characters of The Buffalo Soldier as an “ensemble cast.” I assume you would agree that this is true of the characters in at least some of your other novels as well. Is creating this “ensemble” something you strive for in your writing or does the “cast” come together on its own as if it was just meant to be?

 

Bohjalian: I don’t have outlines. And so when the characters come together in an ensemble, more times than not it is the result of many, many drafts. It’s also interesting to me how many characters appear in a first draft and never make it to the final draft—or how many have their parts scaled back, or grow in ways I hadn’t expected. The Heberts, for instance, were only comic relief in my mind in the early drafts of The Buffalo Soldier. Obviously, that changed.

 

W&B: You often write using a first-person narrative. How did the writing of The Buffalo Soldier differ and was third person the only choice once you decided to structure the novel using the perspectives of numerous characters?

 

Bohjalian: Of my last six novels, three have been in third person and three have been in first. It’s no coincidence that my last three have been third person. It’s more difficult than first person and demands greater narrative control. I’m older and more experienced now. But third person also offers greater rewards in terms of how you can impart information to the reader and the vocabulary—and, thus, precision—that is at your disposal.

The Buffalo Soldier initially was going to have two first-person narrators: Terry and Laura. And it was going to be a he-said/she-said meditation on grief. There was no Alfred originally, and no Phoebe, and no Heberts. But when they arrived, I shelved my first-person approach and went to the third.

 

W&B: On what do you draw in order to write from the points of view of so many disparate characters?

 

Bohjalian: Imagination and research. I think a lot . . . and I have lots of lunches with people far more interesting than I.

 

W&B: The Heberts share chapter headings, unlike the other main characters. Is this a commentary on the closeness of their marriage as compared to the distance at which the other characters seem to relate for the most part?

 

Bohjalian: Oh, it’s nice to think so. I used to have a lot more of both Heberts in middle drafts. And so when in the end it was mostly Paul, I couldn’t bring myself to title those chapters with only Paul’s name.

 

W&B: Your comments are especially interesting considering that the Prologue in The Buffalo Soldier exhibits a different writing style than the rest of the book and is the only section that does not announce a point of view. Is the narrator in some sense the town, a choral narrator as in William Faulkner’s story “A Rose for Emily”? Did you ever consider revealing the information about the flood more slowly throughout the book, perhaps as Alfred pieces together the story?

 

Bohjalian: I did want authorial omniscience there, yes—someone who could share with the reader what the girls’ bodies were like as the current carried them downriver, and convey the epic scale of the flood. And that meant doing something different from simple third-person subjectivity.

 

W&B: Terry’s brother Russell is the only somewhat well-explored and plot-driving character who does not get his own point-of-view chapters. He is an interesting and complex character; were you ever tempted to give him any more play in the novel or was he always fated to be a foil?

 

Bohjalian: Bingo: Foil only. Plus, I just didn’t like him. Mostly I was inside the heads of people I liked in this particular novel.

 

W&B: Your characters do engender empathy: I think readers eventually understand and accept the complex motivations of each, even if they do not initially understand their actions. Does the story or do these characters ever take over or do you always remain in control?

 

Bohjalian: Hah! I wish I were in control. More times than not, it’s their show.

 

W&B: Your novel Midwives was selected for Oprah’s Book Club in 1998. How did that event change the course of our career? What are your thoughts on the influence of Oprah Winfrey and her Book Club on the literary world in general?

 

Bohjalian: No one has done more for fiction and reading than Oprah Winfrey. She has reminded us all of something we try to teach our children and grandchildren all the time, but as grownups we all too often tend to forget: Reading is meant to be fun. It is capable of evoking from us the same enthusiasm as movies and music and stage plays, if we only give the notion a chance. She’s the best, and I will always be honored beyond words to have been a part of her Book Club. It was a great, great gift.

 

W&B: Tell us about your new novel, The Double Bind, which is coming out in February of 2007, just before your visit to Rochester. A synopsis of the novel is included in the Annotated Bibliography in this Reader’s Guide. I understand that this fascinating story stems more directly from an actual person and his true story than the stories in your other novels.

 

Bohjalian: This novel had its origins in December 2003, when Rita Markley, the executive director of Burlington’s Committee on Temporary Shelter, shared with me the contents of a box of old photographs. The black-and-white images had been taken by a once-homeless man who had died in the studio apartment her organization had found for him. His name was Bob “Soupy” Campbell.

The photos were remarkable, both because of the man’s evident talent and because of the subject matter. I recognized the performers—musicians, comedians, actors—and newsmakers in many of them. Most of the photos were at least forty years old. We were all mystified as to how Campbell had gone from photographing luminaries in the 1950s and 1960s to winding up at a homeless shelter in northern Vermont. He had no surviving family we were aware of that we could ask.

The reality, of course, is that Campbell probably wound up homeless for any one of the myriad reasons that most transients wind up on the streets: mental illness. Substance abuse. Bad luck. We tend to stigmatize the homeless and blame them for their plight. We are oblivious to the fact that most had lives as serious as our own before everything fell apart. The photographs in The Double Bind are a testimony to that reality: They were taken by Campbell before he wound up a transient in Vermont.

Obviously, Bobbie Crocker, the homeless photographer in this novel, is fictitious. He is not Bob Campbell and this book is not his story. But the photographs you will see in The Double Bind are real.

W&B: Readers can see those photos, learn what you discovered about Campbell’s life, read an excerpt from the novel, and watch a multimedia trailer about it on your web site, www.chrisbohjalian.com. I’m sure a visit to your site will inspire even more people to read, and enjoy, your work, and hopefully to join us when you visit Rochester this March.