Interview with Author David Vann - Page 3

Sliding into the truth from an angle, finding the story beneath the surface are important components of Vann’s writing. When asked about the emotional impact of writing such a deeply personal and powerful work, Vann freely acknowledges, “I was really emotional during the whole thing; I cried a lot while writing the stories. It was really intense emotionally, but it was part of the process of getting through the bereavement.” Emotion and feeling are critical to a work in Vann’s eyes, but must be approached properly. “It may seem hokey, but I feel like if a writer doesn’t feel anything, the reader won’t either.” However, when we discussed the concept of writing directly to emotion, Vann was definite. “Writing directly to the emotion would make for bad writing. You’re too close to it. The stories always happen behind something else. They happen through the indirect second story.”

Getting into that hidden “second story” forms the heart of Vann’s intensely personalized fiction. While “in my non-fiction I write about a lot that doesn’t tend to be my story,” Vann feels that “fiction works best if it’s powered by something real in the background.” His upcoming novel, Caribou Island is “entirely fiction, but it is trying to understand a couple of true stories. I find that I do best and my fiction comes alive if I have something real that I’m thinking about…It is difficult to give characters weight if they can’t have a touchstone in reality.” I asked Vann how he balanced the personal core of his writing with the feelings of those close to him. Even here, the writing comes first. “My mother’s been very generous about my writing. She says that if she likes the mother, she assumes that it’s her, and if she doesn’t, she assumes that it’s fiction. Writers have to just forget about their family. Family has to be sacrificed; it’s not as important as the writing.” He paused, “that may sound harsh.” Yet, even here, there is no compromise, “writers can’t write if they worry about what family is going to think…Writing exposes all of your shame.”

Exposure, shame, and frustration are not strangers to an author who literally “went to sea for five years” following the early failure of Legend of a Suicide to find a home in print. Though the winner of several prizes for literature including the Grace Paley Award, Legend of a Suicide, likely due to its subject matter, was difficult to place with a publisher, and was initially picked up only by a small house with a limited print run. During those five years at sea, Vann “didn’t write a word.” Vann’s escapades at sea led him to write A Mile Down his memoir about what turned out to be a disastrous seafaring career. When he finally began to write A Mile Down the book was “supposed to be about how everything worked out and he was living somewhere in the Caribbean, happily ever after, but then the boat sank and it made a better ending. So the book got published.”

Article Author: Christy Corp-Minamiji

Christy Corp-Minamiji is a livestock veterinarian, writer, and mother living in Northern California. She writes fiction and blogs on the eclectic range of topics that interest her.

Visit Christy Corp-Minamiji's author page — Christy Corp-Minamiji's Blog