David Albertyn is the author of the novel Undercard. Also a tennis coach, he is based in Toronto.
Q: How did you come up with
the idea for Undercard, and for your character Tyron?
A: The idea for Undercard was
really several ideas that all fortunately fit together.
My first idea was that I
wanted to write a story about four estranged childhood friends whose lives were
suddenly on a collision course, and delve into how they navigated their
conflicting loyalties.
My second idea was that I
wanted to explore the issues of inequality and excesses of power in an urban
setting, and how they manifested from a variety of angles.
My third was, having spent
time inside the inner workings of a sports stadium, to have a major sports event
take place and the real action going on in the background, somewhere deep
inside the arena.
In terms of Tyron
specifically, I initially built him the way I built the other three
protagonists: I wanted each of a different background, primary sport,
profession, and parents’ profession. So Tyron is Black, a decathlete, a Marine,
and his parents were activists before their deaths.
This idea to make his parents
beloved activists led me to his central conflict: does he follow in his
parents’ footsteps, as his community would like, since it is a time when
activism is needed, or does he finally rest and live for himself after being
responsible for so many people in the military for so long?
My father was involved in the
anti-apartheid struggle, and when I return to South Africa, people across the
country from all different backgrounds will bump into me and say, I know your
Dad, please tell him I say hello, he’s such a great guy, and so on.
So in this one experience of
Tyron’s, in relation to coming from away reviving the memory of beloved
activist parents, I could draw from my personal experience in addition to my
research.
Q: The book takes place over
24 hours--what was it like to write a novel with such a short timeframe?
A: It was both really fun and
really stressful to pack this book into 24 hours. I had to at times rearrange
scenes and rewrite sections to make sure it all fit together properly, and
making sure that the time stamp at the start of each scene was accurate and coordinated
with the timeline of everything else going on was exhausting.
One of the things I had
explored in my previous writing was cutting between past and present, which I
found allowed me to cut superfluous parts of a story and retain only the
substantive parts, while still not making it feel rushed or incomplete.
So though the plot takes
place over 24 hours, the entire story takes place over 20 years, and during
this one calamitous day we are given character reflections that fill in the
pasts that led up to the pressure cooker of the present.
Q: Undercard is set in Las
Vegas. How important is setting to you in your work?
A: I think setting has
differing levels of importance depending on the project. In the book I’m
currently working on, which is of a smaller scale, I feel like I could set in a
variety of locations.
In Undercard, however,
setting is extremely important, as I don’t think it could have been set
anywhere other than Las Vegas.
Vegas, as a setting, was able
to meet all of the demands of the story I wanted to write, from a vast
dichotomy between haves and have-nots, to a centre of major boxing events, to a
sweeping, majestic surrounding landscape of mountains and desert, to simply being
a sexy, intriguing setting to catch people’s attention.
Q: What do you hope readers
take away from the book?
A: First and foremost I hope
they have a riveting experience.
Consuming stories has been
such an important part of my life since my early childhood—I really can’t
imagine what my life would’ve been like if I didn’t always have an adventure
(or several adventures) I was currently participating in through the books I
was reading—so I take great care in trying to craft a story that will be a
worthwhile experience for each reader.
From a broader perspective I
hope people feel like they’ve engaged in a meaningful discussion while going on
a journey with these characters.
Of course readers should come
to their own interpretation of this book, and any book, but my takeaway from
all my research and thinking about these subjects so deeply while writing it is
that we need to invest in each other. Invest at the personal level, at the
communal or city level, and invest at the global level.
That sacrificing our time,
money, and energy for other people is not only good for them but in the long
term good for ourselves too.
Q: What are you working on
now?
A: Right now I am working on
a murder mystery dramedy set in the tennis club world, and I’m really excited
about it.
While it’s still crime
fiction, it’s much funnier than Undercard, and is more mystery than thriller.
There is also a lot of sex in this novel, and while there are a couple of
murders, a lot is about the sordid relationships that revolve around this
tennis club.
As someone who’s coached
tennis for a long time, I just feel that it’s an area that has a lot of
potential for amusing storytelling that hasn’t been mined nearly enough.
Q: Anything else we should
know?
A: I would say that one
aspect of the book that was a major focus of mine and I did a lot of research
on, which no one has really focused on much, is the character of Norman
Bashinsky. Bashinsky hardly appears in the book, but he plays a major hand in
the lives of the characters and the unfolding of events.
When writing this book I very
much wanted to shine a light, not only on the ways in which people are
suffering, but on people in positions of power and how their involvement in a
host of business and political ends is deeply connected to the ways in which
communities are marginalized.
At one point during my
research, I actually thought of making Bashinsky the main character of this
novel, and the current four protagonists just side characters in his story. I
ended up not going in that direction, and as I said, Bashinsky barely appears
in the novel, but I feel that in the background he still has a full story arc.
One other thing people should
know is that the audiobook is amazing, for everyone who likes audiobooks. The
narrator really did a spectacular job.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
No comments:
Post a Comment