The Rake Magazine

Tag: interview

  • A Rakish Interview with Minnesotan(-by-Proxy) Author Bart Schneider

    This is Minnesota. There’s Café Barbette, there’s Galactic Pizza, there’s the Armajani Bridge stretching from the Sculpture Garden to Loring Park. Except really it’s a month from now, the Republican National Convention is in town, and there’s a right-wing/neo-Nazi plot underway to kill three Jewish abortion doctors. This is the world of Bart Schneider’s new novel, The Man in the Blizzard, a highly Minneapolized – and highly entertaining – page-turner that involves violins confiscated by the Third Reich, minor brainwashing perpetrated by a therapist/hypnotist, and the aforementioned murder conspiracy. The man enlisted to solve it all is private detective Augie Boyer, who is more prone to smoke a bowl and memorize a poem than to follow any leads. The Rake contacted the author – whose previous books include Blue Bossa, Beautiful Inez, and Secret Love– by phone, and talked with him a bit about his new novel.

    The Rake: You make a remarkable amount of references to local landmarks and businesses in this book; did you view this at all as a love letter to Minnesota?

    Schneider: It quickly became like that. For a while I was trying to figure out how to get back out here to California, which is where I’m from, but I spent twenty-five years in Minnesota. I raised a family there, had a career or two, and wrote a few books. And so I’m really fond of the place. I loved it at first because it had such a wonderful inferiority complex compared to California. And, you know, it’s so rich with culture. I wanted just to paint the place as well as I could.

    The Rake: Did you need a little distance from the state to imagine it as you have?

    Schneider: Nah. The three novels I published earlier were all set in California. So I did have the distance from those. But they were also set in the sixties and the seventies, when I was much younger, and couldn’t have been really fully cognizant of the experiences that were going on that I was writing about – the Civil Rights movement. But this one is set in the present tense, so I thought I should just go for it. Be right now.

    The Rake: Did any of the real personalities, like David Unowski (of Magers and Quinn), know they’d be in the book? And were they all right with it?

    Schneider: With David I asked permission, because I actually put words in his mouth. And he said, "Yeah, cool, cool." I didn’t really put words in anybody else’s mouth. So I hope nobody minds. I haven’t heard from Bill Holm, I don’t know if he’s seen it yet.

    The Rake: It seems like you got to have a bit of fun writing this.

    Schneider: It was a fun one. I needed to write something fun after my last book, which was about suicide.

    The Rake: There are some fairly explicit comparisons between right-wing republicans and Nazis…Were you (or your publisher) at all worried about alienating readership?

    Schneider: They publish Anne Coulter. So this is baby stuff compared to her, right? The Nazi thing came from the violin material, and I had that thought early on — it’s kind of fascinating that that’s really true. The Sonderstab music was some agency that sent bureaucrats in after the Nazis had plundered different cities to come assess and collect the instruments. And Hitler really was going to set up a museum of cultural items from vanquished civilizations.

    The Rake: Was politicizing the novel in the way you have your intent from the beginning?

    Schneider: It just seemed like a nice opportunity. I was writing the book before the convention was even coming to town. I just had this Labor Day thing, where women would give birth at the Capitol as a sort of rally. Which I didn’t think was that huge a reach, because if you remember Pawlenty in his first term sanctioned a Christian revival at the State Capitol. It’s just one step beyond, you know. And then, lo and behold, the RNC did me the great favor of setting the convention in the Twin Cities, on Labor Day. It seemed dumb not to work it in. I decided at a certain point that I really wanted to write a present moment novel, and I had a hard time at first before the convention thing fell into place, but that set it in stone.

    The Rake: Moving beyond the plot, you’ve dedicated this book "To the poets and all their mysteries." Just wondering if you’d riff a bit on that.

    Schneider: I came up as a poet, and it’s a part of my life. I get really excited about reading poetry. And Minnesota’s got such a core of wonderful poets. I’m dumb enough to be surprised that more people don’t read poems. It’s the same with fiction, but it’s even worse with poetry. When we listen to music, we don’t necessarily think we’re going to understand it, but I think people really come to poetry with that sense that it’s a riddle to be figured out.

    The Rake: And Augie — as the book progresses he becomes more and more existential. A couple times he mentions wanting to go away alone, turn off the ‘leaky faucet’ that is his world. Has poetry helped him?

    Schneider: I’d be shy of attributing anything practical to it. I think you read poetry and it does you good, but it’s not a cause-and-effect kind of thing. It’s a nutrient to feed yourself. And I like Augie’s pothead approach to it. I love when he says, "Having truly cultivated the dumb part of myself, I must have a fantastic aptitude for poetry."

     

  • A Rakish Interview with Darin Strauss — Part II

    Part II (To see the first part of this interview, click here)

    "If you don’t belong to a book club," Ron Charles wrote in The Washington Post last week, "Darin Strauss’s bitter and brilliant new novel is reason enough to start one." The novel – Strauss’s third – marks a departure from the author’s previous books, both of which were (somewhat incidentally) historical fiction. More Than It Hurts You sets us in über-modern Long Island, a place where George Clooney, Austin Powers, and "Everybody Loves Raymond" all figure into the collective consciousness (while Fitzgerald and Tolstoy hide in the shadows).

     

    The book finds its thematic center in a rare disease called Munchausen by proxy, in which a mother will harm her child to get attention forherself. Playing out the drama are three principal characters: Dori Goldin, the young mother accused of Munchausen; her unknowing husband Josh; and Dr. Darlene Stokes, an African American physician who suspects foul play when Dori brings her infant into the ER.

     

    As their lives tangle in the courtroom and in the press, morals are trumped by flashy headlines, and relationships become so clouded that Josh doesn’t know whether to trust the doctor or his wife. Before long, More Than It Hurts You transcends its storyline, as the syndrome becomes symptomatic of something larger – America’s masochistic obsession with attention in general, and the ramifications thereof.

    The Rake

    With all its references to pop culture, it’s clear you were aiming for a contemporary feel in this novel. Another aspect that makes it feel so contemporary is its use of dialect. Was this something you knew was vital to making the book current?

    Strauss

    I was really conscious with the Intelligent Muhammed stuff [Darlene Stokes’s father – a newly released ex-convict]. I wanted it to be authentic, but it’s always risky being a white guy writing a black guy’s voice. You don’t want to sound like a caricature. Actually I listened to a lot of hip-hop, and I went down to where the ex-cons are dropped off. It’s actually a place, where if you don’t have anyone to pick you up from jail, that’s where you go.

    The Rake

    Did your students unwittingly help out with some of the dialogue?

     

    Strauss

    Teaching definitely helps with keeping your ear fresh. There’s one point in the hospital, in the first chapter, where Josh comes across an email, and that comes I think from emails I get from my students.

     

    [The email goes like this: "what up kid im so sorry im not around for you but U will beat it lookemia is "BULLSHIT" I am here with Marisa who thinks I am SO into nice walks on the beach under the sunset lol"]

     

    But a lot of the speech came from a friend of mine who’sactually in ad sales, and had the job that Josh had. I was able to watch him interact, and see how that happened. Also I read a lot of Don Delillo – I think he has modern-speak down.

     

    The Rake

    Is listening to your characters talk a way for you to understand them?

     

    Strauss

    Yeah, going back, with Chang and Eng I was thinking, ‘How am I going to make characters from men that are so different from me?’ I thought their speech might be a decent way to do it. Then I found out neither spoke English, though, so that wasn’t going to help me. I had the thought that I should make one speak better than the other. Because if one speaks better, that can mean something: He’s more studious; he’s more serious. And so on. Pretty soon character begins to emerge.

     

    The Rake

    A book I hope you’ll riff on is Anna Karenina. You use the word ‘Happiness’ in the first sentence of the More Than It Hurts You, and happiness/unhappiness is a theme that recurs throughout the novel, which seems to be a sort of tip-of-the-cap to Tolstoy.

     

    Strauss

    Definitely I had that book in mind. I wanted Josh to be a bit like Stepan Oblonsky – just a very likeable guy, despite his infidelities.

     

    James Woods argues that Tolstoy’s characters are all symbolic of one thing, all have one primary element to their natures, but then they’ll often surprise themselves by going against that. I wanted to create Darlene in the same way. The way she walks gives her a false impression of weight. I tried to make her multi-dimensional by having her surprise us, like when she’s trying to figure out how to tell Leo she loves him, which is not very natural for her. Heaviness is her norm, but she tries to break through it. But then she always falls back into herself. Actually I was thinking of a bunchof Tolstoy books. The flashback of Darlene’s life is based on something from The Death of Ivan Ilyanich.

    The Rake

    You’ve said your method for dealing with historical fiction is to do as much writing with as little research as possible, and then when you’re done to go back and make sure the facts match. Were you able to use the same tactic here, with all the hospital content?

     

    Strauss

    I blew it in this. With Chang and Eng, I wasn’t sure if the manuscript would get published. So I think I was a little more relaxed with it- I wasn’t afraid of people going over it with a fine-toothed comb, because I wasn’t sure if anyone was actually going to read it or not.

     

    This one I knew would get published. Doctors would read it, and I didn’t want them to say, ‘No no no – this isn’t how it is.’ The first chapter, which is set in a hospital, took me a year to write, but then it was way too researched and jargon-heavy. It seemed like a bad episode of "ER." I ended up taking a lot out, and realized that so long as I knew what I was writing about, and had a sort of command over the material, I didn’t necessarily have to add every little thing in.

     

    The Rake

    You are not one half of a conjoined twin, nor are you a turn-of-the-century flim-flam artist/boxer. You are, however, an assimilated Jew who grew up in Long Island, and has spent time both at Tufts and NYU, much like the characters of this book. Was this a conscious decision to align your biography with theirs?

     

    Strauss

    I was thinking, as long as it’s set in contemporary America, I might as well set it in some place that I know. Actually it was partially so I wouldn’t have to do so much research, I could save myself some time.

     

    But even though I knew the setting, in a lot of ways this book was harder than Chang and Eng for me. People said it must be hard to write that one, from the perspective of a conjoined twin, but it was kind of easy. All I did was think about how I would act if I were attached to someone.

     

    But it was much harder to make Dori relatable andsympathetic. In my first draft I thought I was being subtle, but then I showed it to friends, and they all said, "Oh, so she’s crazy." I had to tone it down abit.

     

    I wanted to examine parenthood from different angles, and Dori’s was a difficult angle. How could I make her poison her kid and still be likable? It was tough to get inside her head. In any relationship there are alot
    of ambiguities, and that’s another thing I really wanted to examine, especially through Dori and her marriage to Josh. This book is very much about how you can never know someone fully, no matter how close you think you are to them.

     

    Part II (To see the first part of this interview, click here)

    Darin Strauss is the author of the international bestseller Chang and Eng and the New York Times Notable Book The Real McCoy. His work has been translated into fourteen languages. The recipient of a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction writing, he lives in Brooklyn, and teaches writing at New York University.

     

     

  • Ashwin Madia – the Man, the Myth, the One Democrat Who Won’t Call Michelle Bachmann Bat-Shit Crazy

    If the ongoing
    national embarrassment that is the Democratic primary hasn’t yet caused you to gouge
    out your eyes     with a rusty spork, you may have noticed that the local political
    campaign season is in full swing. And because this year’s campaigns are already
    shaping up to be nearly as contentious as the debate over whether the spawn of Billy Ray is
    just penance for the Western World’s sins, or if her popularity is simply a
    sign of the end times, The Defenestrator has been tasked with ferreting out the
    secrets of this year’s crop of candidates for local and national office.

    Why have we been
    saddled with this thankless task? Because the staff of The Rake wants nothing
    but the best for its readers, except Ann Bauer, of course. That
    lush wants nothing more than to get you loaded and avail herself of your firm and
    nubile body. But in these times of rapid-fire political rhetoric and
    skyrocketing consumer prices, knowing is half the battle. Yo, Joe!

    In any case, the
    first in our series of candidate interviews takes us to scenic Congressional
    District 3, encompassing most of the Twin Cities’ western suburbs. Ashwin Madia
    recently took home the DFL endorsement in the race to replace longtime GOP
    stalwart, Jim Ramstad, in the House of Representatives. Madia, having never
    held office anywhere but in the University of Minnesota’s Minnesota Student
    Association     – where once upon a time Homer Simpson
    managed to make a serious run at the presidency    , was not expected to make a
    strong showing, let alone beat the presumptive nominee, Teri Bonoff.

    But he did beat her.
    He beat her like a bad bad donkey, in fact. And now he’s all but certain to move on to the general
    election against GOP candidate Erik Paulsen. We caught Madia in the midst of a
    fundraising frenzy just after the nominating convention and he was gracious
    enough to to give us an interview, a few talking points, and at least a little
    insight into why anyone might want to vote for someone insane enough to
    put a lucrative law practice on hold after returning from a war zone so he can
    take a shot at gaining membership to the DMZ otherwise known as the United
    States House of Representatives.

    Defenestrator: So,
    how’s the fundraising coming?

    Madia: We set a state record for an unknown candidate. We
    raised 161k in two months last year. In Q1 of this year we raised 196k. To be
    able to raise that kind of money, it shows that we’ve got a good message. It’s
    resonating.

    D: What made you
    decide to run for U.S. Congress, rather than trying for the state legislature
    or other local office first?

    M: Because I care about these issues, the Iraq War – I want
    to find a way to end it. I care about global warming. I care about civil
    liberties. Those are federal issues. Some people think there’s a path you have
    to take, city council, local government. We’ve all got something to contribute.
    I don’t think you have to be a politician already to contribute to our
    discussion. We all have a voice in this.

    I thought this was an opportunity to serve our community and
    instead of complaining all the time about where our country was going, I
    figured it would be more productive for me to step forward and actually try to
    do something about it.

    D: When did you get the idea? Did Iraq drive you so
    insane that you had to come up with ways to torment yourself when you got back
    home?

    M: I pretty much started to think about it when Jim Ramstaad
    retired. I wasn’t really thinking about it in Iraq.

    D: Apart from
    scamming on babes in
    burqas    , what were you doing in Iraq?

    M: I was creating a strategic system to establish rule of
    law in Iraq. It involved coordinating with the State Department, Justice
    Department, UN, European Union and Iraqi judges to develop a strategic plan to
    establish rule of law in Iraq. It was a lot of phone calls, a lot of meetings,
    a lot of supervision. A lot of meetings with different interest groups and
    brokering compromises to come up with plans everyone could agree on.

    For example, I went down to meet with the British in Basra
    and the British foreign service to find out what plans and strategies they were
    implementing to strengthen the Iraqi legal system and take that back to Baghdad
    to fit that in strategically with what we were trying to do throughout the
    county. We would get assessments of the status of rule of law programs around
    the country and go brief the generals that were leading the multinational
    forces on what was going on and the way ahead.

    D: Why’d you join the
    Marines?

    M: It was a good way to serve and I really wanted a
    challenge. Whether you’re a grunt or a pilot, you do the same training and I
    wanted to see if I could do it. I really enjoyed the challenge.

    D: The DFL tried to
    position you as a former Republican intent on undermining the party from within
    by encouraging SUV use and alienating the party’s base from the wisdom of Al
    Gore. Republicans are trying to position you as a hedonistic Communist, bent on
    legalizing drugs and using tax dollars to help Eliot Spitzer open a brothel.
    Who’s right?

    M: I don’t think either one of them is right. What I am is
    an independent voice for MN. It’s true that most of my principles line up on
    the democratic side now. But 10 years ago Republicans wanted to amend the
    constitution to balance the budget. They obviously don’t now. I think the
    labels have gotten so mixed up that I prefer to go issue by issue and say where
    I stand. In the end I’m a fiscally responsible and socially moderate democrat.

    D: So why not go the
    same direction but stay Republican?

    M: I don’t know. It seems like a lot of that party has
    adopted the philosophy of spending all that they want, cutting taxes at the
    same time and borrowing from China to make up the difference.

    D: You mean you don’t
    want to give the Chinese the opportunity to finally take their revenge on the
    white man for hooking them on Opium?

    M: No comment on that one.

    D: Coming out of a
    particularly vicious cat fight with the wily, but oh so short Terri Bonoff, How
    do you feel about parties having presumptive nominees? What’s it mean for the
    political process?

    M: Terri was a fantastic candidate. She ran a very spirited,
    very classy race and I’ve got a lot of respect for her. I think what this
    election shows is that even today if you’ve got a strong message, you can trump
    money and endorsements and name recognition and all the other things
    politicians use to win elections.

    D: Do you see this as
    a sea change?

    M: I think this is an election where people are much more
    willing to consider candidates who are from outside the political mainstream
    and just love our country. They’re willing to consider values and authenticity
    over traditional political experience.

    D: What do you think
    has changed to allow that? Why are people looking for that change    ?

    M: Because the country is in the shape that it is. Because
    they think the country is on the wrong track and they want someone who’s going
    to get it back on track and in the right shape again.

    D: People seem to think
    the country might function better if Washington nuked itself and became a
    post-apocalyptic wasteland populated only by the mutant spawn of Newt Gingrich
    and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Any thoughts on how you’ll change that perception?

    M: In my mind, good policy is good politics. What that means
    is that Washington needs to start delivering. We need to end the Iraq War. We
    need to balance the budget and we need to get our economy back on track. We
    need to address global warming. If we start delivering on actual results for
    the American people, then I think they’ll start to have more faith in
    government.

    D: How do you think
    you can make that change? And don’t give me any of that one man can make a
    difference crap. I mean, sure, Keanu Reeves was kinda cool as "The One" in the
    first Matrix movie, but the only thing worth watching in the sequels was Monica
    Belucci    .

    M: By working my tail off. I think there are a lot of people
    throughout the country who feel the same way I do – That we need a new kind of
    leadership in Washington. I think, and I hope, that we’ll see a new kind of
    politics in the coming years.

    D: Iraq – get the
    hell out? Stay the course? And
    now for something completely     different?

    M: I think we’ve
    created a very tough situation over there. It’s hard to leave and it’s hard to
    stay. So what I favor is a gradual withdrawal. Phased out over about two years.
    With a limited number of forces left behind to protect our diplomatic presence,
    to target high ranking members of Al-Qaeda and to prevent genocide if we start
    to see it on massive levels.

    D:
    How would that withdrawal occur? Benchmarks? A phased drawdown?

    M:
    A phased drawdown over about two years, with a force left in Iraq to protect
    our diplomatic interests, target high ranking members of Al Queda, and prevent
    genocide in conjunction with other nations. Ultimately, it’s up to the Iraqis
    to reach a political solution. We can play a role in helping with security in
    the interim, but a lasting peace has to be an Iraqi peace.

    D:
    And what happens if Muqtada Al-Sadr takes over Basra and, being too impatient
    to wait for the afterlife, holds nightly 72 virgin parties in the streets with
    the Iraqi army powerless to stop him?

    M:
    Hopefully, by drawing down gradually, and by leaving some forces in Iraq for
    the missions discussed above, we can decrease the possibility of chaos in
    Iraq. But ultimately, it’s true that Iraqis themselves hold the power for
    their own destinies.

    D:
    Apart from the ability to kill a man 6 different ways, courtesy of the USMC,
    what are you bringing to CD3?

    M:
    I’m fiscally disciplined, socially tolerant, independent-minded Democrat.
    I am a Democrat, but my biggest focus is on finding answers to the big
    challenges facing our country, not party affiliation. I think that makes me
    similar to most voters in the 3rd District.

    D:
    Most people think politics is about nothing more than money. Now that you’re in
    full-on fundraising mode, what do you say to that?

    M:
    There are many good, honest, and decent people who are kept out of public
    service because of money. When I got into this race last October, I made
    a commitment that I wouldn’t be one of them. So my team and I have worked
    very hard to raise what we need to get our message out. Having said that, real
    campaign finance reform is long overdue because the fundraising demands on
    candidates are really out of control.

    D:
    How would you contrast yourself with Erik Paulsen?

    M:
    I’m an independent-minded and pragmatic problem-solver who is more committed to
    getting our great nation back on track than advancing a political
    ideology. I come from outside the political system and I’m not an insider
    – I think that will be an asset as I seek to bring real change to Washington.

    D:
    If anything, the state legislature has become even more contentious than the
    Federal, with DFLer and GOP alike focused more on sticking it to the other
    party than on conducting business in the people’s interest. Do you think this
    is how politics is trending? Or are we just stupid enough to elect a room full
    of assholes?

    M:
    No, I think politics will start trending in the reverse direction. People
    are so hungry for something different and a new kind of politics that they’ve
    been reaching outside of traditional areas to find new kinds of leaders, who
    lead based on ideas, not insults. It’s true that sometimes politics gets
    out of control in terms of the nastiness involved, but I think those are the
    exceptions, and for the most part, people are voting for good leaders committed
    to change.

    D:
    How do you feel about party unity? Does being a member of a political party
    give you a responsibility to that party, or are you ultimately responsible
    elsewhere, as Ron Erhardt has mentioned on numerous occasions after he was
    buggered by his own party.

    M:
    Party unity is important and as Democrats we’ve been at our best throughout
    history when we’ve come together to tackle the big challenges facing our
    country- leading our nation through the Great Depression and fighting to bring
    long overdue civil rights for all to our nation, for instance. But at the end
    of the day, I think a legislator’s biggest responsibility is to his or her
    constituents, not a political party.

    D:
    You’ve mentioned George Bush is the reason you switched parties in 2003. But
    I’ve seen chimps on Discovery Channel do a better job of portraying
    conservative values than him. What makes you a Democrat? Why not a Libertarian,
    apart from that whole actually "wanting to win" thing?

    M:
    I’m more concerned about getting things done for our country than what label
    people put on me. I want to responsibly end the Iraq War, balance our
    budget, address global warming, make health care more accessible and
    affordable, and stand up for civil liberties in our country. I want
    government to work efficiently and effectively, without taking a dime more in
    taxes than it needs while still ensuring the Federal government runs properly,
    and I also don’t think government has a role in pushing its social values on
    citizens. It’s my belief that my values and positions are shared by more
    Democrats than Republicans, though if there are Republicans out there who
    believe in some of the same things, then I want to work with them to get good
    bipartisan legislation on each of these topics.

    D:
    What about the pending Senate race? Franken vs. Coleman — other than the fact
    that this race feels like it should be run in New York, what’s your take on
    what’s shaping up to be a particularly vicious contest?

    M:
    I think Al is a great candidate, as is the other candidate running for the
    Democratic endorsement, Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer. Either one will make for
    an exceptional US Senator.

    D:
    Before you started running for office, you know – back when you had a life,
    what’d you do with your spare time? Defending our fair city from the undead
    predations of Cindy Brucato, perhaps?

    M:
    You’re right that when you’re running for office, you really don’t have time
    for too much else – it takes over your life. Before I got into this, I
    liked playing pick up basketball, watching old movies, and going out for dinner
    with good friends – typical stuff. My friends stopped taking my calls a
    few months ago (I think they think I’m calling to ask them for contributions),
    so I’m looking forward to spending some time with them after the campaign.

    D:
    Michele Bachmann – direct connection to God or just bat-shit crazy?

    M:
    Now, now – be nice. I disagree with a lot of what she stands for, and I
    think she’s out of step with most Minnesotans on a variety of issues. I
    think she’s in for a tough reelection race.