Eric is a fantastic writer and a personal inspiration to me in that regard. He's penned countless stories, blogs and poems, as well as a compilation of short stories entitled "Destination", a memoir entitled "My Salvation: A Memoir in Fragments" and most recently a collection of poetry entitled "No More Personal Pronouns", all available at Lulu dot com.
WSJ- How long have you been writing?
EJ- I've considered myself a writer since before I learned how to write. I started writing short stories in the second grade. We were given an assignment to write about our pets. I didn't have one, so I made one up -- an alien creature named Greensprings.
WSJ- Wow! Greensprings! That's great. I'm wondering if 'fiction' has always carried the connotations of 'lying' in your mind's eye... Like Homer (Simpson) says: "I'm not lying, I'm writing fiction with my mouth."
EJ- Not at all. I've never considered it lying at all, and have regarded writers who say they get paid to lie as being simpletons. On some level I've always seen fiction as a way of extending my own experience of the truth. Now I know it is the basis of compassion. When I put myself in your shoes, that is a fiction. I don't really become you in any way whatsoever. Yet, I can have empathy because of this capacity of imagination. A lie is something else entirely.
WSJ- So real fiction is compassionate, not deceptive?
EJ- Good fiction tells the truth about the nature of reality outside the sphere of one's own bubble of consciousness. It has the potential for compassion, but its real aim is to get at the truth. There are many levels to this. Bad fiction titillates or merely entertains, or tries to manipulate the truth, and in the process skews it (e.g. propaganda).
WSJ- or "light verse"...
EJ- or Ayn Rand.
WSJ- When did you write "Destinations"? How old were you?
EJ- Its "Destination" -- singular, dammit.
WSJ- I was just testing you. Ahh yes, so it is.
EJ- I wrote some of the earlier stories, like Chuck's Wife in 1993 when I guess I was 23. I wrote the later stories, like 'Destination' in 1998, when I was 29. Of course, there is no way to tell when I wrote each story, but that's the range.
WSJ- Why are so many of the stories about Infidelity?
EJ- The main reason for that is because it was a gimmick, in a way, to explore relationships between men and women, a tool used by the stuff I was reading at the time. I was reading a lot of Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, John Updike, John Cheever -- and they all write a lot about infidelity. So I was basically doing what the writers I admired did.
WSJ- It's been a few weeks since I've read your stories, but what has stuck with me the most are the images: in "Lovers" the two adolescents in a "lovers spat", in "Sinners" the scene of the dinner table, etc. In one I remember a crazed ex-lover hiding in the bushes across from a hotel. How important is "imagery" in your work?
EJ- I think it is important, especially in those stories. I don't think I consciously say, "I'm going to create this specific image in order to make a point", but as I write, as it plays out in my mind, the images sometimes take on meaning as the story progresses, or I allow them to become motifs that support a more general theme. The two adolescence, of course, become the violence of thwarted love, the dinner table a sort of anti-last supper...the guy in the bushes...well, he's just pathetic. The guy coming through the window in the last story, though, is the pale soul seeking the knowledge of love...inappropriately. So it's very damn important, dammit.
WSJ- Details. Especially in "Lovers", the fight scene. What the teens were wearing. Their posture. His moustache, her bra-lessness. Are these pregnant? Or passing? To me, it is the apathy of the surrounding crowd that causes this to be perhaps the most sticky image of the whole book. As in, it sticks in my head. "Confessions", "Lovers", and "Sinners" were the three I most recently revisited, so I'll probably return to them them most. Of the three, I think "Lovers" is my favorite.
EJ- "Confession" -- singular!
WSJ- My pinky finger gravitates towards the "s". Forgives me.
EJ- The significance of the details or lack thereof depends, I think, on context. The physical descriptions of the kids who kill each other are to keep you reading, make it stark, paint the picture -- there's no intended meaning in her lack of a bra or his mustache. But the reaction of the surrounding crowd is of course significant. That's also a highly stylized story
WSJ- And what do you mean by "stylized"?
EJ-It's stylized like abstract art or certain kinds of film. People don't really talk that way, using dialogue as an example.
WSJ- It moves a lot- from the scene in the mall to the apartment to the hotel to him walking and back. The subtleties of a crumbling relationship are very well done- if I can commit the fallacy of complementing the author during the interview. But what is it about? What outside of your "bubble of consciousness" is it getting at?
EJ- It's outside my bubble of consciousness in the sense that I am communicating possible human responses to certain situations that other people can identify with, such as the wife being so sick of her husband's lack of care and confidence that she can barely stand to talk to him. Or the husband's repressed jealousy and mistrust, combined with his despairing desire to be loved. The story is about the despair of trying to love, but not knowing how, not knowing what love is, but continuing to act it out in repeatedly, the repetition of despair. It is true in that most humans have or suffer from that condition.
WSJ- Do you like it? Do you think it's good? Do you think people "get it"?
EJ- Yeah, it's all right. I like the beginning better than the end. I think people get it on whatever level they apprehend it. I've known many people who got it.
WSJ- What about the book in general?
EJ- Do I like the book in general? Do I think people get it? I think the book as a whole has some consistent themes. It's flawed. It's me learning how to write. I like it all right. I think I can do better.
WSJ- Are you ? I mean, are you writing more these days? Do you have any goals? And what about thematically? How has your writing changed?
EJ- I'm not writing more these days, but I didn't write much then either. Almost every story in the book was written in one sitting with the exception of the title story, Destination, and Confession was revised about a hundred times to try to get down to bare bones in terms of the spare use of words. I have goals to write novels. Thematically, I'd probably expand to other themes. I think that my writing is changing in that it is becoming more holistic, less rigidly jointed, not quite as..."sleazy".
WSJ- I have to admit, my first impression was that the book was rather sordid, maybe even arbitrarily so, but on a second reading, I became much more enthusiastic about the stories. You mention who you are reading when you talk about what you are writing: who are you reading now?
EJ- When I wrote that I had a huge thing going on in my head about the various ways people despair in the Kierkegaardian sense, and I was reading a lot of K. Some forms of success or identification are forms of despair, which is a lack of authentic identity. The real self is entombed. This I would contrast with anguish, which is becoming authentic through suffering. I think I know more about that now, so my themes change, have a fuller more embodied note, rather than the repetitious clanging of despair. But I am not writing as often as I should.
WSJ- Is "Should" synonymous with "Want To"?
EJ- No, I truly and sincerely believe that I have a divine calling to write, and that implies an obligation. I have been reading a lot of different kinds of things, more nonfiction than I used to...I also had a period of investigating genre writing, a lot of mysteries, some science fiction, and writing from other cultures.
WSJ-How have you come to believe that you have a divine obligation to write?
EJ- It is my occupation, although I am not paid for it. I have had the need and desire to write since my very earliest memories. It is an extension of prayer, my tilling and plowing to which I am called. I felt this especially develop as I was writing the title story, 'Destination'.
WSJ- So your desire to write is tied up with your idea of who you are as an individual and of God? Of reality?
EJ- I don't recall how I came to that realization. It is just obvious to me, just as someone who knows he is called to be a priest, or someone else knows he is called to something else. Unfortunately, the ethos of our culture is more concerned with making money than with authentic work, so there is no common understanding of what an occupation is. So it becomes absurd to say someone is called to shuffle papers for a corporation. No one feels that, except perhaps rarely someone will say, 'this is where God has me, so I will do it unto Him'. Being a writer is my occupation, not my deepest self.
WSJ- So. Who are your top 5 writers?
EJ- I'd say Dostoevsky, Iris Murdoch, John Gardner, Andre Dubus and Stephen King have all had the most influence on me.
WSJ- And do I remember you saying that you were an avid ‘zinester in your younger years?
EJ- I started writing "Simpson's Gazette" in elementary school, typing it up and distributing copies. In Junior High I produced “Inner Images of the Creative Mind”. In high school, I continued to do that, and I'd get a bunch of the high school kids to write and do art for it. The football team, believe it or not
WSJ- Sweet. So why don't you do one now..?
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