August 19, 2008
When Jonathan Miles stopped by the store a few weeks ago to read from his new novel, Dear American Airlines, he let drop his admiration for and his association with the great Oxford, Mississippi, writer not initialed W.F. Before he died in 2004, Larry Brown authored ten books, five of them highly acclaimed novels. Though we have a copy of Big Bad Love at the store, I've never read Brown's work. Worried that his posthumous reputation has suffered a tad from that special brand of New York literary parochialism--God forbid you proudly lived your life without a Brooklyn zip code--I asked Jonathan to discuss what set Larry Brown apart from the pack:
How did you know Larry Brown?
I met Larry in 1992, when I was 21, at a bar we both frequented in Oxford, Mississippi called City Grocery. I’d just published a short story in a local alt-weekly, which had apparently caught his attention, because he introduced himself and invited me to dinner with him and his wife—during which, I should note, he got up and danced on the table beside us, because one of the neighboring diners had once wronged him. Twisted his bootheels right in their food—the table dance as act of vengeance. That alone was enough to make me want to hang out with him forever. From that night forward we developed a close close friendship—a relationship that ultimately came to resemble a father/son relationship, though Larry could play the crazy uncle role just as often. His family more or less adopted me, to the extent that when I say “home,” I’m talking about the Brown house.
I met Larry in 1992, when I was 21, at a bar we both frequented in Oxford, Mississippi called City Grocery. I’d just published a short story in a local alt-weekly, which had apparently caught his attention, because he introduced himself and invited me to dinner with him and his wife—during which, I should note, he got up and danced on the table beside us, because one of the neighboring diners had once wronged him. Twisted his bootheels right in their food—the table dance as act of vengeance. That alone was enough to make me want to hang out with him forever. From that night forward we developed a close close friendship—a relationship that ultimately came to resemble a father/son relationship, though Larry could play the crazy uncle role just as often. His family more or less adopted me, to the extent that when I say “home,” I’m talking about the Brown house.
What influence did he have on your writing?
An immense and crucial influence, though perhaps not the kind of influence you can spot in the text. Larry taught himself to write, and willed himself to become a writer, against steep odds: He had a family to support, and worked multiple jobs to do so; he’d had no literary education beyond the English classes he almost failed at Lafayette County (Miss.) High School; and the endless stream of rejection letters (more than one hundred) constantly sucked the wind out of him. Yet he persevered. His discipline and determination were just breathtaking. Look, writing is difficult, it’s an act of endurance—every writer experiences those moments of self-doubt and frustration when the prudent course seems to be to quit, when everything seems tilted against you, when you just don’t think you’ve got the drive, the chops, the talent. But Larry’s example rendered those kinds of thoughts moot. With him around, there was no way not to press on—because how could you justify quitting to him? And, oddly, that feeling only intensified after he died. To give up then—and there were lots of times I wanted to give up, and in fact, at one point, I did, abandoning a prior novel after 700 pps. and seven years of work—would have been to disrespect his memory. Even now I hear his voice: Keep going. Write it.
An immense and crucial influence, though perhaps not the kind of influence you can spot in the text. Larry taught himself to write, and willed himself to become a writer, against steep odds: He had a family to support, and worked multiple jobs to do so; he’d had no literary education beyond the English classes he almost failed at Lafayette County (Miss.) High School; and the endless stream of rejection letters (more than one hundred) constantly sucked the wind out of him. Yet he persevered. His discipline and determination were just breathtaking. Look, writing is difficult, it’s an act of endurance—every writer experiences those moments of self-doubt and frustration when the prudent course seems to be to quit, when everything seems tilted against you, when you just don’t think you’ve got the drive, the chops, the talent. But Larry’s example rendered those kinds of thoughts moot. With him around, there was no way not to press on—because how could you justify quitting to him? And, oddly, that feeling only intensified after he died. To give up then—and there were lots of times I wanted to give up, and in fact, at one point, I did, abandoning a prior novel after 700 pps. and seven years of work—would have been to disrespect his memory. Even now I hear his voice: Keep going. Write it.
How was he as a teacher/mentor?
It’s a bit strange: I never thought of him as a teacher/mentor when he was alive. Maybe because the word “mentor” seems so pompous, I don’t know. I remember being introduced as his “protégé” once, at an Oxford book signing, and Larry and I both kind of recoiled as if the person had suggested we were dating. It was much more informal than that. I’d give him stories to read, and he’d give me manuscripts to read, but, while he was obviously the Master, it just felt like writerly sharing. Like two guys raising the hoods of the cars they were restoring. He never took a red pencil to a manuscript. No, it wasn’t until after he died that I came to understand the education I’d received. It never occurred to me, as we’d be riding around Lafayette County in Larry’s truck, listening to Robert Earl Keen and drinking beer and talking about books and writing, that I was getting an education. It just felt like two guys shooting the shit about the things they loved. Only later, when lines of his would come back to me, when I realized the way in which he’d guided my writing and reading life, when I’d remember him verbally working out snarls in his own writing while we drove and talked, did the realization hit me: That was an education, and as great an education as anyone could wish for.
It’s a bit strange: I never thought of him as a teacher/mentor when he was alive. Maybe because the word “mentor” seems so pompous, I don’t know. I remember being introduced as his “protégé” once, at an Oxford book signing, and Larry and I both kind of recoiled as if the person had suggested we were dating. It was much more informal than that. I’d give him stories to read, and he’d give me manuscripts to read, but, while he was obviously the Master, it just felt like writerly sharing. Like two guys raising the hoods of the cars they were restoring. He never took a red pencil to a manuscript. No, it wasn’t until after he died that I came to understand the education I’d received. It never occurred to me, as we’d be riding around Lafayette County in Larry’s truck, listening to Robert Earl Keen and drinking beer and talking about books and writing, that I was getting an education. It just felt like two guys shooting the shit about the things they loved. Only later, when lines of his would come back to me, when I realized the way in which he’d guided my writing and reading life, when I’d remember him verbally working out snarls in his own writing while we drove and talked, did the realization hit me: That was an education, and as great an education as anyone could wish for.
What was the Oxford scene like when he was alive?
In the early to mid-nineties, incredibly lively. The Oxford American was based in Oxford then, so there were local opportunities to publish nationally, and the living was cheap & easy & funky, so you could actually survive as a fledging writer. There was and is a fantastic bookstore on the town square, Square Books. Barry Hannah was teaching at Ole Miss (and still is), and his classes were filled with transient writers who’d been drawn to Oxford—or with locals, drawn to writing—by the high voltage of the writing scene, and by Barry’s own wicked voltage. It was all very loose and freewheeling. Back then there was no MFA program at Ole Miss, so I think the crowd of aspirants was more varied, a little woollier. There was a sense of geographical magic. You had Faulkner, you had Larry—people wanted to drink the water, eat that soil.
In the early to mid-nineties, incredibly lively. The Oxford American was based in Oxford then, so there were local opportunities to publish nationally, and the living was cheap & easy & funky, so you could actually survive as a fledging writer. There was and is a fantastic bookstore on the town square, Square Books. Barry Hannah was teaching at Ole Miss (and still is), and his classes were filled with transient writers who’d been drawn to Oxford—or with locals, drawn to writing—by the high voltage of the writing scene, and by Barry’s own wicked voltage. It was all very loose and freewheeling. Back then there was no MFA program at Ole Miss, so I think the crowd of aspirants was more varied, a little woollier. There was a sense of geographical magic. You had Faulkner, you had Larry—people wanted to drink the water, eat that soil.
What is it about his work that sets it apart in American literature-—Southern or not?
Authenticity, for one thing. Lots of writers have made working-class Americans their subjects—when Larry started writing, “Dirty Realism” was all the rage, with Carver disciples (mind you, Larry was one) churning out bleak story after bleak story about underclass existence—but for most of them it was literary slumming. Look at Richard Ford, who started there, but found his true voice with middle-class Frank Bascombe. Many of these writers were tenured writing professors who were drawn to marginalized characters and ramshackle settings for the same reasons they were drawn to folk albums and blues festivals—for the soulful authenticity, or the perception thereof. Even Faulkner wrote about his Snopses from the high reserve of Rowan Oak, a columned house grand enough to be named. Larry didn’t grow up with people who named their houses. And Larry wasn’t “drawn” to these characters; he knew them, and, apart from his literary ambitions, he was one of them. So his stories were “true,” in that fictional sense: There’s genuine, authentic life in his pages, and I don’t believe anyone—Carver included—got the true grit of American working-class life down on paper as well as Larry did. It burned Larry to no end when he’d come across a poseur, some pith-helmeted writer venturing to the other side of the tracks for his fictional material. I remember his disgust at one short-story writer egregiously fumbling a coonhunting scene, and the offense he took when another celebrated writer, who’d claimed a hardscrabble background similar to Larry’s, turned out to have invented that past. For Larry, lying was the ultimate sin, and though it may sound counterintuitive, you didn’t lie in fiction, either. To cite the old writing saw, Larry wrote what he knew. And what he knew—the weary desperation of living from paycheck to paycheck, the downcast turmoil of life on the margins, the ways in which hopeless people lash out against their circumstances (violence, booze, sex)—was, and is, something we desperately need to hear.
In the land of Faulkner, how was he regarded?
Very, very warmly. Maybe Oxford learned its lesson with the way it treated Faulkner, but I don’t really think that was it. Larry was a humble, generous, kindhearted man who earned everything he accomplished, and no one could begrudge him anything. His heart was sometimes too big for his own good. I remember him complaining one day about the hours of work he’d lost from reading a “godawful novel” of 600 godawful pages that some aspiring writer had sent him. I asked him why the hell he’d kept reading it if it was so bad, and he looked at me as if I’d just said the rudest thing imaginable. “Well, he sent it to me,” he said.
Does he have a legacy?
Absolutely. And not just among writers, though his work has a solid cult of literary admirers. I helped organize a charity tribute concert last year, in Oxford, because so many songwriters were inspired by Larry. Robert Earl Keen, Alejandro Escovedo, and Vic Chesnutt, among many others (hell, even Tim McGraw wanted to play, but had a scheduling conflict), traveled to Oxford to perform, and not one of them would even accept money for their travel expenses. His work inspires an almost limitless passion.
And I've never read one of Brown's novels. Where should I start?
With the novels, start with Joe. It will haunt you for years. Then go to Dirty Work, his first novel, which is an acrobatic feat of storytelling about two wounded Vietnam vets lying side by side in a hospital. Father and Son will hit you with the force of a runaway log truck. But don’t neglect the short stories, especially those in Big Bad Love. They’re so fierce, so bare. After reading Larry, so much of contemporary fiction can seem like twee parlor games. Or like the meat we buy in the supermarket: safe and clean and precut in its saran-wrap packaging, with no ties to the animal it came from. Larry is there with the steaming, just-killed carcass, rooting around in its belly to pull out the guts, hands covered in gore, a Marlboro dangling from his lip, saying there it is, life, that’s the truth of it. Look at it.
Absolutely. And not just among writers, though his work has a solid cult of literary admirers. I helped organize a charity tribute concert last year, in Oxford, because so many songwriters were inspired by Larry. Robert Earl Keen, Alejandro Escovedo, and Vic Chesnutt, among many others (hell, even Tim McGraw wanted to play, but had a scheduling conflict), traveled to Oxford to perform, and not one of them would even accept money for their travel expenses. His work inspires an almost limitless passion.
And I've never read one of Brown's novels. Where should I start?
With the novels, start with Joe. It will haunt you for years. Then go to Dirty Work, his first novel, which is an acrobatic feat of storytelling about two wounded Vietnam vets lying side by side in a hospital. Father and Son will hit you with the force of a runaway log truck. But don’t neglect the short stories, especially those in Big Bad Love. They’re so fierce, so bare. After reading Larry, so much of contemporary fiction can seem like twee parlor games. Or like the meat we buy in the supermarket: safe and clean and precut in its saran-wrap packaging, with no ties to the animal it came from. Larry is there with the steaming, just-killed carcass, rooting around in its belly to pull out the guts, hands covered in gore, a Marlboro dangling from his lip, saying there it is, life, that’s the truth of it. Look at it.
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