We don't usually do interviews at FFO. But I'm making an exception for CS DeWildt.
A newcomer to the world of noir, Chris shook off his more literary inclinations to get down and dirty with us here in the gutter. He has impeccable tastes in titles and a seriously fucked-up worldview. Needless to say, I'm a big fan of the man and his work. And after you read this interview, I think you will be too.
A newcomer to the world of noir, Chris shook off his more literary inclinations to get down and dirty with us here in the gutter. He has impeccable tastes in titles and a seriously fucked-up worldview. Needless to say, I'm a big fan of the man and his work. And after you read this interview, I think you will be too.
CS DeWildt on Candy and Cigarettes, The Hero Code, and Escaping the Shackles of Convention
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1.) So let’s get this
out of the way. We met because you stole my title. Or maybe I stole
yours. Either way, we’re bonded by Candy and Cigarettes, which is the name
of my blog and your novella. I came up with the title because I used to pick up
girls in rehab with candy and cigarettes. How about you?
It's a great title isn't it? I was thrilled to be the first
person who thought of it, ever. And of course I am honored that you decided to
use it too. Second. After me.
Okay, in truth I thought I did my due diligence, which meant
going to Amazon and typing in “Candy and Cigarettes.” It wasn't until the
publication ball was rolling that I Googled the title and I found your blog;
this must have been in maybe 2010? So yeah, I was like "That sucks...but
whatever." I either read this or
made it up right now, but the same thing happened to Harper Lee with To Kill a Mockingbird. She thought it
was a great title, used it, and only later realized it was also the phrase
Truman Capote had tattooed on his asshole. Either way, in our experience I
think it has proved to be quite serendipitous.
In my world the title means a couple different things. First,
it's a metaphor for the simple pleasures in life, the little things that keep
you going. Your life may be a pile of shit, but candy is always sweet and
cigarettes are always a comfort. That's a lesson my beaten-down characters have
learned to use, subconsciously, as a survival skill.
The actual phrase came to me when I was working in a gas
station after high school. You'd get these young girls who'd come into the
store on Friday nights, tarted up and looking like they wanted to get fucked,
even though they wouldn't know what to do with a cock if it was gagging them. These
girls came in and loaded up their arms with candy before coming up to the
counter and asking for cigarettes. The juxtaposition of the items always struck
me as significant. They became a symbol for not only that period of time
between childhood and adulthood, but also innocence and corruption, which is a
major theme in my Candy and Cigarettes.
2.) Speaking of
your novella, which I just finished. A terrific, twisted, fast-paged read. The
entire time reading it, I kept thinking: Jim Thompson. Not that the style
or even story are that similar. It just felt like Thompson to me. How much of an influence would you
say Thompson has had on your writing, if any?
Thanks. Originally I went to film school and wanted to be a
screenwriter so I'd say my storytelling has been influenced as much by cinema
as literature. Admittedly though, I have come to the noir dance pretty
late...at least in terms of slapping a genre label on my writing and the
direction I'm trying to go. I read my first Thompson book, The Killer Inside Me, very soon
after finishing a late draft of C&C.
It was an epiphany. I literally said to myself, "Wow, I just wrote a crime
book." And then there was no going back (the contemporary indie-noir
community is so seductive after begging for a seat [without luck] at the literary table). So
yes, I think you could say I have been significantly influenced by Jim
Thompson. He is my favorite of the bunch, but I was also reading a lot of
Cormac McCarthy at the time and his influence definitely slipped in, but his
inspiration—to use a nice rejection letter phrase—may have "overcooked"
the writing a bit, particularly with regards to the piece as straight
"genre fiction," but I make no apologies. I have a novel in
publication limbo currently that I pitched as "what you would get if
Thompson and McCarthy fought to the death behind a backwoods bar." So
yeah, those two are definitely my literary heroes and though I made a conscious
effort to step it back a bit in later drafts, you can't help but see the
influences if you read their stuff. One C&C
reviewer actually mentioned McCarthy in his review, which
was simultaneously thrilling and embarrassing. At the end of the day
I am an artist and don't want to be forever suckling the teets of my heroes. I
want to make my own mark.
3.) Lloyd Bizbang is
the hero of C&C. Although that
might not be the right word. He’s unlike
most leading men, and you pull off a neat trick of making him victimized but
not a victim. Were you aware you were skirting such a fine line?
Lloyd was one of those characters I didn't know
much about until I wrote him. I didn't go in with any real idea of
what I wanted from him as a protagonist. His whole life he has been the victim
of circumstances beyond his control and so to a point, other than surviving
day-to-day and self-medicating, Lloyd has very little going for him. If I could
sum up his character in a word it would be “stoic.” He rolls with the punches
and doesn't complain, doesn't cry. He deals, that’s it. In a
sense he’s beaten down; he’s long ago given up trying to change his station in
life and he’s resigned to being an outcast; however, he meets every challenge
with a resolve that can’t be quashed. He may know in his heart the outcome, but
he will not allow himself to be a victim if he can help it. I was reading a lot
of Hemingway shorts around the time I was writing C&C and I was really taken by what the “scholars” call the Hero
Code. Simply put, bravery or maleness or bravado doesn't have to
manifest itself in every situation to be at the heart of the character, but the
character must realize that [his] survival is tied to making a stand against a
loosely defined “tyranny,” be it a fish, a lion, an illness, or another person.
Lloyd is always capable of overcoming the obstacles, but the catch is that he
has few resources, few choices, and the ones he does have are not positive in a
traditionally heroic sense. His position is one that can only be made worse,
and as a result his heroism is not so much in overcoming the final obstacle as
it is facing it without fear, accepting it and preserving his fighting spirit.
It’s the only thing that is absolutely his and in keeping it, he has the final
victory.
So to answer your question, was I aware? Not beyond keeping
the man consistent, allowing him the mental strength to persevere. I felt that
if Lloyd came out on top he would actually lose the quality that allowed him to
survive a life of misery. What’s Lloyd going to do if he “gets the girl,” so to
speak? He’s a rock, and a rock doesn't need to do shit but be a rock.
You can do what you want with such an object, but it remains what it is. It’s
always hard, it’s always heavy, and if you’re not careful those seemingly
innocuous qualities will end you.
4.) So you're
applying the Hero Code...to an antihero. Interesting. Do you think this is the
primary allure of noir & hardboiled fiction? The antihero and his fervent
adherence to a unique moral code?
That’s a really good question. And I wish I had an equally
good answer. For me, yes, I find the antihero a fascinating archetype and I’ve
always been drawn to it. I like the morally ambiguous. I like the internal
struggle to do the right thing versus the physical obstacle. I like a person
who looks at the world and says if I can’t win within their rules I’m going to
make my own. We read for escape and what better to escape than the shackles of
convention imposed on us by our culture and institutions? I truly wish I had
the balls to just say fuck it and go all the way, just let my Id loose and go
wild. But I don’t, so I do the next best thing: I make myself a god to a bunch
of fuckers that do have the balls. They are crafted in the image from the dust
and debris and shit of my memory. And I love them all.
5.) Your work seems
decidedly grounded in dystopia, the wounded characters and relationships. It's not an optimistic view. There's
a piece of yours I read called "The Human Zoo," in which convicts are
put on display, reduced to animalistic origins, and "The Squirrel
Hunter" is a bleak rumination on the circle of life. Your piece we
published, "McRib," which is the most popular story we've ever had,
is about—well, people can read the damn thing; it's a 1,000 words. My
point is...you seem like such a nice, regular guy. Am I missing
something?
I may seem that way, “nice.” But then you get to know me and
realize I’m just an asshole like everyone else. Yes, my stuff is dark. Am I
cognizant of that as I’m working on it? Of course. [B]ut I don’t think it comes
off as pure shock, at least I hope not because that’s never my intention. I
guess necrophilia and gay golden-shower incest fantasies might shock some
people, but that’s not the point. I don’t want to titillate or exploit or simply
make people squirm. These are the things my people are into, that’s all. I
don’t want you dislike them because of these things, but like them in spite of
them. I want to write characters that challenge you to like them. A friend and
I were just talking about this John Gardner book On Moral Fiction. Now Gardner has a lot of shitty opinions,
particularly some about what art is in writing and I dismiss a lot of what he
says, but he understands that true morality can’t be dealt with in fiction if
we have these fully developed protagonists and these one-dimensional “bad guys,”
and on that point I completely agree with him. Now if Gardner was here to read
this, or any of my fiction, I’m sure he’d say I was off base and that I suck,
but fuck him. If he’s so smart why’d he crash his motorcycle and die?
6.) OK. Here's the fun part. Pimp what you're up to
now. Where can we find your books? What's you're latest novel about? Agents?
Publishers? Anything you got to further your career, the floor is yours.
Currently I’m waiting to hear back from my new publisher
Martian Lit (martianlit.com), so I can start the edits on my novel Love You to
a Pulp, as well as collection of shorts. LYTAP is a hardboiled noir thing set
in rural Kentucky. It’s a feel-good piece full of violence, deviant sexual
appetites, and double crosses. I’m also working on a new hardboiled novel, an
expansion of a currently unpublished 8,000 word short called “The Louisville
Problem.” Hopefully people will be reading that short very soon. These are also
set in Kentucky. I lived there from 2003 to 2007 and the place had an
incredible impression on me. When I left I never thought I would ache for it
the way I do.
Candy and Cigarettes
is available at the usual online vendors, Amazon and Barnes & Noble and
Goodreads, as well as over at vagabondagepress.com. If you’re too cheap to
shell out $3 or too lazy to exchange an honest review for a free copy, then my
site csdewildt.com has links to all of my shorts, most of which are available
online for free.
As for agents, I’m sick of sending out queries. It has been
a waste of time and a distraction from the real stuff I need to be doing, i.e., writing books. Sour grapes? Not necessarily, because, yes, I admit, I would love
an agent to scoop me up and help me take my work to the next level
commercially, but it’s a crapshoot. My approach now is to simply get my
stuff out there, get a reader base and try to build my brand. I have no
illusions of mega success. My goal is to simply be able to say “I am a writer,”
not “I am a writer/whatever else I’m doing to keep my kids fed.” I just want to
sell enough books to be able to focus on it full-time.
