About
John Brandon's
Arkansas.
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To buy
Arkansas,
click here.
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Tour Dates
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There are the days: the dappled grounds, the aimless yard work, the hours in the booth giving directions to families in SUVs. And then there are the nights, crisscrossing the South with illicit goods, the shifty deals in dingy trailers, the vague orders from a boss they've never met. Sooner than Kyle and Swin can recognize how close to paradise they are, in this neglected state park in southern Arkansas, the lazy peace is shattered with a shot. Night blends into day. Dead bodies. Crooked superiors. Suspicious associates. It's on-the-job training, with no time for slow learning, bad judgment, or foul luck.
John Brandon was raised on the Gulf Coast of Florida. During the writing of this book, he worked at a lumber mill, a windshield warehouse, a Coca-Cola distributor, and several small factories that produce goods made of rubber and plastic. His favorite recreational activity is watching college football. This is his first book.
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Praise.
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"Arkansas is an excellent reading experience ... John Brandon's kind of talent will last and succeed through its own excellence. I kept waiting for his string of funny and interesting writing to come to an end and be replaced with regular everyday writing but it didn't. It kept being funny and interesting."
—D.C. Berman (of the Silver Jews)
"It is dark and violent and complex. It has the tone of Cormac McCarthy. It has characters out of Flannery O'Connor. It is Southern in all the best ways, which means that its heart and soul have universal appeal. A fantastic debut."
—Kester Smith (of BookPeople, a bookstore in Austin, Texas)
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Published Reviews.
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San Francisco Chronicle
"Brandon's 'Arkansas' Losers Flee Boredom"
By Joan Frank
April 6, 2008
John Brandon's remarkable first novel will blow away a certain readership. With assurance and economy, Brandon serves up a tale of three young men who've taken one look at straight life and drop-kicked it: college exile Swin Ruiz, shoplifter-loiterer Kyle Ribb and entrepreneur-turned-dealer Ken Hovan, known as Frog. Swin and Kyle, numbed by the loser landscapes surrounding them (Tennessee and Florida), and having no grander design than to avoid boredom, wind up working for Frog in Little Rock, Ark., as drug couriers. They are headquartered, wholesomely, in a state park. A candy-popping Texas nurse named Johnna joins them, a postmodern Wendy to their Lost Boys.
Brandon lays down a backstory for each character that blisters with such creepy, suffocatingly real particulars, a reader feels stricken to recognize them. He brilliantly evokes the trailer-trash, time-biding cultures of the Southern states: bland, stagnant cities; towns stuffed with plastic, Wal-Mart junk and gimcracks; and the shuffling, dim lives lining the road to hell, along which our anti-heroes speed. Why? Because the alternative—straight life—is worse than death. Consider this piece of Frog's evolution:
"You apply to be a roofer. You've never done roofing work but you know which tools are involved and that roofing, like stock brokerage or scooter repair or coffee-shop management or exotic dancing, can be learned in about three days."
Or Kyle's first and last conventional job, a bicycle repair shop gone belly up:
"Kyle smelled the grease and the dust. A clock ticked behind him. ... He couldn't believe people crammed their lives into belittling routines just for steady money. What was the big deal about ... getting a tiny check made tinier by taxes every two weeks for the rest of your life, continually voicing the same stale complaints that working stiffs have been voicing for centuries ...? Alarm clocks, layoffs, cigarette breaks, backaches, carpal tunnel syndrome, company parties, and always the steady little checks."
"Arkansas" rants against the Machine, in a voice combining Raymond Chandler's side-of-the-mouth noir with Quentin Tarantino's gleeful-psychopath wit and Mark Twain's episodic romance of the journey. Better add Holden Caulfield, too:
"Kyle's new girlfriend, Nora, watched movies made in war-torn countries and was fond of the word 'eclectic.' Her jewelry was dangly and her tan lines out of whack. She often looked at Kyle with mild confusion, as if he were the wrong month of a calendar."
Picaresque, sly, bitterly funny, the novel hooks us at once with its blithe, cutting insights, many of them throwaways: "Most adults, [Swin] noticed, had little range to their personalities." "Like all small men who can fight, you are thought of as crazy." "The [car] seat would not recline at all; it forced Kyle into the posture of a responsible citizen who trimmed his azaleas and bought cleats for needy punks." These boys are damaged, shrewd, often painfully right. We can't not care for them.
But buckle in. A body is burned to bones in lingering, thoughtful detail. People are gouged in the eye, stabbed, shot, hammered and tortured. The camera does not turn away. Most of the victims, in fairness, are bad or stupid. And most readers familiar with media of recent decades won't blink. Brandon's special cunning ("Sopranos"-like) is to marble his characters' cold-blooded traits with thick dollops of domesticity: vacuuming, baking, gardening, going out for rib dinners, watching cable television.
Open "Arkansas" anywhere: Sentences lock together; paragraphs are drum tight. Misfits carry out misdeeds in prose so pitilessly and hilariously accurate you have to look twice. Introspection, of a sort, is plentiful: "[Kyle's mother's] death was mere verification to Kyle that the world had no intention of offering him a worthwhile life." We get a tight, intricate plot, a truly hair-raising climax, one of the most intriguing villains to surface in recent memory, and a moving, surprising end (the book's last line is a thing of beauty). And epiphanies: "[T]his life of crime he'd forged [...] was the same life lived by sales associates. There was no more rebellion for the thinking man, Swin knew. Rebellion was stored in a distant warehouse under a fake name."
Brandon's energy never falters. He has enough to tweak his own book, as Swin dreams of writing a novel about these misadventures: "Before he knew it, the literary world would beckon, plying him with readings, interviews, panels, awards, and Swin would look at them with pity and decline. Very kind, he'd say, but I believe I'll stick with welding."
"Arkansas" is a whopping debut. If it is also ultimately a confection, revving a reader like a sugar high, creating a kind of puzzled hunger for the next sentence to either transcend all prior cleverness or finally break open to reveal something deeper than the same flawless bandwidth of wittily bleak ultracool—never mind. I'm craving the sequel.
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PopMatters
"Existential Criminals: The New Organized Crime Family"
By Justin Dimos
March 24, 2008
Next stop: Arkansas.
Picture some no-name state park outside Little Rock, one dilapidated house on the grounds that used to operate as a woodworking school, smack dab in the middle of nowhere, barely registering the slightest blip of existence on Earth, and then you'll have the heartland of John Brandon's existential criminal racket.
Inside this dank house dwells a modern rough-and-tumble man named Bright who, in addition to posing as the ranger in order to secure the park as one of Frog's many continental drug fronts, has the burnt remains of his first professional casualty stashed in a lamp box marked X-MAS STUFF sitting in the attic. As Bright watches television and cooks a hardy, yet unidentifiable gristle, two new drivers named Swin and Kyle lounge in the shabby trailers out back, awaiting direction.
Will their next stop be Hot Springs, and will they be moving cocaine? Or will it be Louisiana, and will the shipment be heroine this time? But none of that matters to Swin and Kyle. Seems that someone, maybe God they speculate, long ago, in the midst of their childhood perhaps, let the proverbial air out of their tires, and heaven knows how, but they wound up in Arkansas, friends. In Kyle's own words, "Maybe it was only people who wanted things, who felt guilty about getting things and frustrated about not getting things, who needed a philosophy."
This is Brandon's vision. This is Brandon's Arkansas.
As Arkansas opens, readers are introduced to Swin and Kyle, two seemingly different men who share but one sentiment: the desire for complete freedom with as little responsibility as possible. Swin, a smart-aleck intellectual who fancies himself a modern day Robin Hood, stealing jewelry from the rich and depositing the pawned profits in his poor little bank account, soon drops out of school, abandons his sisters to a mediocre stepfather, and starts "breaking the laws of the land." Kyle, years after hearing of his mother's accidental electrocution and watching her, night after night, slowly descend into death, holds a series of odd jobs into his 20s, none of which seem to satisfy him, and he even dates a few bohemians, none of whom he finds remarkable, before he eventually surrenders to his calling, organized crime.
Together, Swin and Kyle forge a friendship that can only be called convenient. Each of them considers their meeting no more profound or meaningful than a puddle left by the rain. Swin's know-it-all sarcasm rakes Kyle's nerves, and Kyle's simple-minded, practical attitude toward the world, never giving "high" concepts more thought than a piss, boils Swin's blood.
C'est la vie. As far as Swin and Kyle are concerned, both of them are "guilty to have life and not know what to do with it." All they know for certain is that they're no better than puppets, and a powerful man named Frog is the one pulling the strings. But who is this Frog guy anyway?
Brandon's dark sense of humor then takes an even darker twist. Turns out you're Frog. Sometime in the '80s, bored, bossless, directionless, you purchase a pawnshop and sell pirated videos out of the back room. Later, you move PCP, you torture, you kill, you adopt a middleman, you mold two farm boys into your street eyes and ears, and, finally, voilá! all your hard work has paid off, you have your own private drug empire, and you consider the farm boys your sons, your family.
But things go awry when Swin and Kyle return after a run to Louisiana only to find Bright and some kid dead in the attic, having killed each other. Inexperienced and disconnected, they decide to keep the 40 large in the laundry room and wait for word. Months pass, and still no sign of Frog. No one will return their cryptic phone calls. Boredom begins to itch away at them, compelling them to purchase another car and even get a hold of a gun.
Despite their boss's death, they continue the drug runs. Swin knocks up a local nurse named Johnna and begins to dream about his coming son, building a nursery complete with model solar system. But Frog (you) is getting suspicious at this point—these two kids could be your worst enemies—and it's high time you sent your boys to size things up.
Definitely a noteworthy and exciting first publication, Brandon succeeds in creating a new kind of philosophical dilemma—the modern existential criminal crisis—but for that same reason, readers might be discouraged. Obviously, the existential thriller takes a certain kind of reader, one with patience. His characters don't necessarily deepen or change, but rather attempt to survive their own meaningless existence. Not a book for the squeamish, nor one for those who read for emotional resolution.
Think Camus' Meursault meets Tony Soprano.
Brandon's narrative and voice still manages power. His attention to the human condition and the humanity of lowlifes is moving. Swin dreams of publishing a memoir about his criminal experience that would undoubtedly earn him academic praise, praise he would scorn of course. Alone in the house, Kyle repeatedly recalls his mother with fondness and briefly contemplates life, saying "Like the bums of Little Rock, who had never asked him for change, God knew better than to bother ..."
Divided into three sections, the first (Boredom Is Beautiful) of which is mostly the establishing of Frog's organized crime ring as well as Swin and Kyle's backstories, Arkansas doesn't leap into action until the second part (The Bodies). But once moving in full force, readers will undoubtedly empathize with these lost souls, their numb attitude toward the dead and the dying, and the hope that flickers as the promise of a child born among them starts to take shape.
As Swin and Kyle scrounge and fumble through their present situation—a dead boss, two overweight farm boys on their tail, Frog manipulating their every move from the shadows, a football loving nurse with impeccable nails turned sober, expecting—readers will learn the value of giving up and starting over.
Brandon's premier novel is a must for those who love the criminal and the stern, yet dark optimism of the existential. His vision of Arkansas is unique, his wit is sharp, and the sympathy he has for his characters is genuine. For all the dark alleys Brandon explores, both physically and psychologically, Arkansas's power rests in its redefining and restructuring of the criminal's only hope: family.
(Rating: 7 out of 10)
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Publishers Weekly
Review: Arkansas
January 7, 2008
Brandon introduces his main characters gradually in his quirky debut about a bunch of rootless drifters who form an unstable drug-distribution network in Arkansas: Swin Ruiz, who pulls his first scam before dropping out of college; Kyle Ribb, a shoplifter who stumbles on a job as a courier; and mysterious Ken Hovan (aka "Froggy" or "Frog"), who begins with bootleg tapes but graduates to run the shadowy organization. Tangential characters include a middleman, Pat Bright, who oversees Swin and Ruiz in their nebulous and phony cover jobs in a state park, and a black woman known only as "Her," who passes packets and instructions to the couriers. As Swin and Kyle try to puzzle out how to survive in a crumbling organization, their futile attempts to create some semblance of a normal life evoke only pathos. Not evil as such, these unsympathetic people simply fall into a rut that leads inevitably to violence and death.
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The Portland Mercury
Review: Arkansas
By Alison Hallett
Issue: March 13–March 19, 2008
Add novelist John Brandon to your list of hipster-sanctioned must-reads: His first book, Arkansas, has just been released by the McSweeney's Rectangulars imprint.
The predictably well-designed hardcover tells the story of two disaffected Southern boys who have drifted into a life of crime with the same nonchalance that someone else might take a job as a Subway Sandwich Artist. Mercifully, though, any Bret Easton Ellis comparisons are forestalled by Brandon's skill at sketching characters who are at once morally unmoored and emotionally appealing.
Kyle and Swin are aimless, thuggish types who find themselves living in a state park, masquerading as rangers, and working for a mysterious crime leader known only as Frog. The two fancy themselves outlaws, but it's clear to the reader (if not to the boys) that they are merely bit players in a high-stakes operation—and, worse, that almost from day one, they are botching things. Swin is a self-described intellectual who overestimates himself and underestimates those around him, while the simpler Kyle mistakenly believes that "instinct" can always be trusted to make the right decisions. This tension between head and gut is a constant push and pull in their partnership. ("So what if Kyle was a truer criminal, Swin thought. Kyle was a simpleton. Swin was probably the smartest person for a hundred miles. One of the smartest people in this state.")
The two run drugs, meet women, and commit their first murders, all the while settling into a comfortable routine in the park—at least until Frog realizes just how badly the two are screwing up.
The novel jumps from perspective to perspective—even dabbling in the second person to tell Frog's story—and at times it can be difficult to keep track of a narrative that is constantly slipping in time to provide back story on different characters. Brandon's writing is so sparse it sometimes feels blasé, but the tension between his hard-boiled prose and his characters' appealing naiveté makes the novel work, like if The Outsiders' Sodapop and Ponyboy got into hardcore drugs. Swin and Kyle are kids—albeit kids who might stab your eye out with a plastic fork—and it's hard not to root for them, even as their lives are increasingly overrun by violence and depravity.
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Library Journal
Review: Arkansas
By Donna Bettencourt
February 15, 2008
Brandon's first novel details the grim misadventures of two young drug runners, Kyle and Swin. With boss Pat Bright, they work for a mysterious man named Frog out of a neglected Arkansas state park, as dead bodies pile up in more and more gruesome ways. Bright, whose past is littered with despicable activities, suffers a ghastly death at the hands of Nick, the nephew of a drug customer. After Kyle kills Nick, they dump his body in a swamp and take charge of Bright's operation. The only positive influence in their lives is Swin's girlfriend, Johnna, a nurse who adds a woman's touch to their dumpy trailer. After Johnna gets pregnant, Swin realizes there is no future in what they've been doing and dreams of something better. But as Kyle says, the world has no intention of offering them worthwhile lives, and the distressing conclusion bears him out. Some readers may have difficulty with the violence—others may not care about the misfits crowding out the story—but this uncomfortable book will find an audience in most large public libraries.
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Reviews From
Our Subscribers.
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Alex Vernon, of Little Rock, Arkansas:
People outside Arkansas have trouble imaging where it sits on
the map, and, I suspect, have less of a sense of the Natural State than
they do of the state of my childhood, Kansas (flat wheatlands with
open skies, Midwestern milquetoast Republicans, missile silos,
tornadoes, and ruby slippers). Arkansas isn't the Deep South; it isn't
the Midwest. It lacks the next-to-Texas quality of Oklahoma, even
though it is next to Texas. As John Brandon's novel Arkansas quips,
"Little Rock keeps embarrassing itself by trying to attract tourists,
claiming to be a technological hub and cultural capital. Capital of
what? The Northwestern Mid-South?" And elsewhere: "Here's your
restaurant. The Heartland Fryer. Is this the heartland?"
Brandon's Arkansas isn't Arkansans' Arkansas. The novel does
occasionally ground itself in recent state history, such as references
to Little Rock's gang troubles of the early 1990s and the Mitch
Mustain drama of the Razorbacks' 2006–2007 football season. But the
novel also deliberately decouples itself from the state whose name it
bears: the description of Hot Springs does not bother with accuracy,
and the Barnett Building in downtown Little Rock does not exist.
Actually, it does exist: it's the name of Brandon's parents' bank
building in Florida.
Brandon has traveled through Arkansas a number of times, as he
and his wife have crossed the country for her career. But he has never
stayed in the state longer than a hotel night. In this sense,
Brandon's Arkansas is Brandon's Arkansas. His transient experience
informs the book. None of the major characters call Arkansas home;
they each find themselves in the state accidentally. And though much of
the novel is set in a park-ranger housing compound (including two
trailer homes) at the Felsenthal wildlife refuge, in the southern part
of the state, the characters' drifting nature and their constant drug-
running turns the book into a road narrative.
The nowhereness of Arkansas to non-Arkansans, and the state's
frontier heritage, pulls the imagination in a certain direction.
Unlike Annie Proulx's Close Range: Wyoming Stories, this novel is
bound by realism, but otherwise similarly locates itself in a place
where—at least for its author—anything can happen. The Coen brothers'
Fargo strikes me as a better comparison, in the use of a nowhere
setting to explore acts of violence and character that just might
actually occur. As with that movie's title, the book's title creates an
interesting tension. Does the nowhere setting remove place as an
influencing factor in order to highlight character, or is imagined
nonplace itself a bit deterministic? "Arkansas is what I say it is,"
the book's drug boss declares. Really?
Action drives Arkansas. "The only thing I can control," Brandon
told a college literature class of mine this spring, "is that it's not
boring." But the action does not come at the expense of character.
Notably, in his pursuit of action and character, Brandon resists the
easy. The most significant murder takes place just offstage, all the
more disturbing for being left to our imagination; and the novel
resists simple, clichéd psychologies, like that default motivation for
the disturbed—child abuse: "The first time they'd met, to satisfy
Nora's desire for sharing, Kyle lied and said his mother had molested
him as a child ... The truth was, his mother had raised him in an even-
tempered, resigned way before being electrocuted when Kyle was a
teenager."
The novel gives us two almost-twins as foils for its main
character pair, Kyle and Swin—two young men about my students' age,
and with enough college experience to make them oddly familiar to this
particular audience. It also gives us the romantic
interest of one of the men, a woman named Johnna, who almost provides the sort of false
happy closure Melvin Jules Bukiet has wryly argued marks "the basic
wondrousness that has since come to permeate the McSweeney's circle of
loveliness." Almost.
Johnna's role aside, Arkansas is a book about violent male
restless intimacies, with Robert Stone's Dog Soldiers coursing through
its pages (including the Nietzschean trappings). Written and set in
the early 1970s, Stone's novel uses the lostness of the immediate post-'60s era as explanatory context. The lives of Brandon's characters
are sadder, their story less significant, for lacking such historical
moment. The other book one can't help but mention is the classic
gritty frontier Arkansas violent road-trip novel, Charles Portis's True
Grit. Whereas Portis's characters become larger than life, Brandon's
never do. Frog, the drug boss, fancies himself such a figure. "You
never asked for your life to become a great story," he tells himself.
"My story should never be recorded. It should be pieced together and
passed down, exaggerated, doubted, insisted upon." But Frog's story
is not the stuff of Southern epic. In this relatively realistic
novel, it never could be. His fancy borders on pathetic. Which seems to be
exactly what Brandon wants us to know.
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Kathleen Fairweather, a citizen of Arkansas:
While John Brandon's Arkansas appears a work of fiction, it could certainly pass for a real-time moment in the catfish capital of America and national headquarters of the KKK. I've never combined meth with acid, but I imagine the result would be something like this hypersurrealistic setting populated with assorted saviors and miscreants wandering through this Baptist Nation.
Cue the lightning bugs,camouflage couture, and the dueling banjos for a truly authentic literary experience not typically found in modern literature, or the state of Arkansas.
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Shaun Williams, of Fayetteville, Arkansas:
Arkansas perfectly captures my Arkansas, the real Arkansas, from a
perspective that most natives never experience personally. I don't mean just
weaving the names of various cities and locales into a story that could
take place anywhere. The crimes and the various characters mixed up in the
excitement seem better suited for a more noteworthy state with
more noteworthy cities, but John Brandon's compelling tale doesn't feel like
it could have taken place anywhere else. We have our own weird and true
tales of drugs and murder. Truth is, I wish this were one of them.
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Brock Elliott, of Fayetteville, Arkansas:
John Brandon's Arkansas is not about the Natural State in any
literal sense. Though it is largely set in the foothills of southern
Arkansas, there is little about the book that would change had it been
titled Alabama or Tennessee instead. However, Brandon manages to
create a visceral sense of the state, capturing perfectly that
hunching, humid malaise that squats upon the entire region, slowing
movement to a crawl. The pine-lined trailer parks. The mosquitoes
swarming in the thick air. The pungent, belching factories and the
languorous landscape. This book is simultaneously an entirely
invented Arkansas and a reflection of its true reality.
Within this reality exists an array of characters, each of whom
seems unconcerned by the immutability of his or her own fate. They are
vagabonds, accepting of the machinations of an unjust world. They
appear unable or unwilling to alter their shared trajectories, even as
it becomes apparent that their course will end in bloodshed. And
thus, as violence and death become the agents of catharsis, Arkansas
assumes its place within the Southern Gothic tradition, following the
likes of Flannery O'Connor and Cormac McCarthy. It is a novel of the
grotesque punctuated by moments of grace; a story of drug runners and
murderers who play house and dream of family life. Arkansas is
powerful stuff, darkly humorous and unflaggingly tense. A wonderful
debut by a talented writer.
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A Conversation
With John Brandon.
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McSweeney's: Where were you when you started the novel that became Arkansas?
John Brandon: Chattanooga. I was working at a plant that produced the little perfume samples that go in fashion magazines. And lotion samples—sometimes I got free lotion. All I did was stand in one place and box them up and build the boxes into pallets. I was at one end of the machine and this guy named Alan was at the other end. He did most of the talking. He was an ex-hippie, not very hippie-ish anymore. I'd never been to California before, so he told me all about it. When he was young, he went to the same Buddhist church—temple?—as Richard Gere. He was still ticked because Richard Gere had beat him out for a woman. I used to tell him not to worry about it, that there was no shame in losing a chick to Richard Gere. He'd say, "Yeah, but back then he was just Richie. And I was better-looking."
McSwys: How'd that job fit into the rest of your life? Aside from the lotion, I mean.
JB: I had the perfect work shift in Chattanooga—6 to 2:30. I would come straight home and take a three-hour nap before dinner, then I'd be fresh to write from about 7 to whenever the coffee place closed. Chattanooga is known for its hair salons and coffee houses, weirdly, and my favorite place to write was called Chattz. It was far enough away from the happening part of downtown—please don't laugh about Chattanooga having a happening part. There was never anyone in Chattz and they didn't play music and the people who worked there didn't try to chat with you, even though it was called Chattz. It was the best little writing hole I've ever had. I have a hard time writing at home, for some reason, and I don't recommend being that way, because it puts you at the mercy of coffee places and public libraries and nearby colleges. So I wrote a bunch of Arkansas in Chattanooga.
Eventually, the job at the perfume place gave out, so I worked at a plant where they made plastic bowls for fast-food chains, a tire warehouse, a hardware store. There was an open house for aspiring high-school teachers, in a gym, where all the schools had a booth and you could network or whatever. I put on a tie and went down there and walked a lap around the place and left. I had taught high school in Memphis and the whole time I'd had that job I hadn't written a word. I knew that would happen again if I taught again. Being around paper and pens and computers and books all day, not to mention dealing with high-school kids, always put me in the mood do to nothing but drink and watch TV all evening, every evening.
McSwys: That sort of short-lived optimism seems to have worked its way into the book—putting on a tie as a bold step toward a respectable life, and then realizing it's just not going to happen.
JB: Yes. Like Kyle and Swin, there's been lots of times, and probably more to come, when I've had to latch on to anything that seemed like good news, when I've had to take my optimism wherever I could get it, in small doses.
McSwys: So you ended up moving across the country.
JB: Yep, we went to Oregon. The coffee shops in Oregon were loud, but luckily I had lots of earplugs from the lumber mill where I worked. I felt like a schmuck, wearing earplugs and thereby letting everyone in the place know that their chatter was bothering me, but it had to be done. We worked 4-10s, so I used my long weekends for writing.
McSwys: Does that mean 4 days a week, 10 hours a day?
JB: Indeed. I was well into Arkansas by then, and I think it helped that I was away from the South. It made me miss it and write about it more. I missed barbecue terribly, and it was fall, so I missed college football. I don't think I'm shocking or offending anyone if I report that college football in the Pacific Northwest isn't what it is in the Southeast. It's not the most important aspect of life.
McSwys: What were you doing at the lumber mill?
JB: We made wooden arrows. We'd start with these huge cedar hunks that took all your strength to lift, and the hunks would go from saw to saw, getting cut smaller and smaller, until they finally reached me, at the last saw, the one that actually cut them into arrows. The people I worked with were great. They went on bear hunts.
I think I was pretty close to happy in Oregon. Over those long weekends, I'd write all day and then we'd go to the beach at night and have a fire and drink. Hard to beat.
McSwys: And what state had to follow Oregon?
JB: Arizona. We went to Phoenix. Phoenix is pricey in the winter months, so we ended up with a crappy place. And I had probably the worst job I've ever had, at the cornerboard factory. I'm not going to bother explaining what cornerboards are. Just know that they're melted plastic gunk that gets quick-cooled, so the whole time I was at work I was breathing burning plastic. Seems like it should be illegal. The machine would keep breaking, so you'd have to keep running up and down the length of it, trying to catch the problems before they jammed the machine up. Every single one of my co-workers was Mexican. About 30 of us, and every single person besides me was Mexican. They were good dudes, mostly family men. They would tell me about these street markets where you could get name-brand sneakers for cheap. They would share their tamales with me. But the job itself sucked.
McSwys: What about Phoenix?
JB: Phoenix is kind of a bummer of a town if you live on the west side. Tempe and Scottsdale are better, but we lived in Glendale, the poor part of Glendale. The only thing to do on weekends was to escape by going hiking in the desert. I didn't get a ton of writing done—maybe one session a week, which meant about four to seven pages. The book was coming along, though, and I knew it.
McSwys: Were the gloomier parts of the book written in these gloomy settings? Or the more chipper parts, as an escape? Or does it just not work like that?
JB: I think when I write stories it maybe works that way, but when you're a good ways into a novel, the novel is calling most of the shots.
McSwys: And so where'd you escape to?
JB: Rhode Island. We thought we were clever because we called Providence "downtown Rhode Island." I knew I was coming down the homestretch with Arkansas, so I went pretty much every night to a nearby bookstore and wrote. I had a good shift again, 6 to 2:30, so I'd get my nap and grab dinner and go write. We had a roommate, a girl we'd met in Oregon who was also moving to Rhode Island, so I didn't feel bad being gone a lot to write. I worked at a little molding house that made rubber grips for tools. The boss gave me a 50-cent raise after, like, a month because he said I worked hard.
McSwys: Did you? Work hard, I mean?
JB: Always. Well, not always. If I feel like I'm not being treated like a human should be treated, then I don't work hard. That happens—sometimes you have bosses that are real assholes. Not too often, though, to me.
McSwys: And after Rhode Island?
JB: Virginia Beach. My job was good. We made diploma frames. The town was nothing to speak of, particularly if you were from Florida and weren't going to be dazzled by a big beach. That big beach is really all they have. Really good lemonade on that beach, though. I don't remember writing a lot, but I know this is where I finished Arkansas, because I sent it off to a couple friends to read, and when they called to discuss, each in his and her own time, I was out by the above-ground pool, drinking beers. We were staying with friends, and they had a big, fun backyard. I used to mow it.
I did some revising there in Virginia Beach, at a very famous coffee place from Seattle—not Seattle's Best, a different one—and then we were on to Florida and then New Mexico. Nondescript factories. During all that time, I was sending off to agents and getting rejected. A couple asked to see the whole manuscript, but then I wouldn't hear from them for a long, long time, and finally I'd bug them and they'd say no. Mostly, though, I didn't really get read. Most agents take new clients only on recommendations from writers already in their stable, so it's kind of a long shot when you're sending stuff in as Joe Schmo. It was after New Mexico, in Washington, D.C., that I finally sent some pages of the novel to you guys at McSweeney's, and you guys have such excellent taste that you couldn't resist it. I remember being at work, at the windshield warehouse, and getting a call from the managing editor of McSweeney's and having to step outside to talk. You were asking me questions about the grand themes of Arkansas, and my boss was yelling at me to talk on the phone on my own time. It was a great moment.
McSwys: And where are you working now?
JB: A Frito-Lay distributor in northern Virginia.
McSwys: Doing what?
JB: Loading carts and pallets of chips onto trucks.
McSwys: Do you get to eat the chips?
JB: We're not supposed to, but I think the people that work in the front part of the warehouse where the offices are, the people who wear ties, don't consider petty chip theft worthy of starting a fight over. If everyone who worked at the warehouse ate nothing but chips all day, it wouldn't make the tiniest dent in profits. Chips are so cheap to make, and so crispy and wholesome.
McSwys: Do they taste fresher, crispier, anything like that? Are they still warm from the oven or whatever? Tender?
JB: We don't make the chips. It's just a warehouse. But I assure you that Frito-Lay products are always fresh, crispy, and wholesome.
McSwys: If you were to try to sneak a nap someplace, what Frito-Lay product could be piled into the most comfortable bed?
JB: I don't think they're a Frito-Lay product—I think they just use us for distribution—but I'd have to go with Funyuns. They don't have sharp edges, and they're airy.
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