Matthew F. Jones is the author of the new novel A Reckoning Up Black Cat Hollow. His other books include A Single Shot. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Q: What inspired you to write A Reckoning Up Black Cat Hollow, and how did you create your character Jack Spinks?
A: The entire novel was born from a single vision – a set of headlights coming at me on a dark, desolate road in rural upstate New York I was walking up after the bicycle I had been riding had a flat tire.
The next time I sat down to write I saw a driver behind those lights, a distracted man burdened by a heavy mental weight of some kind, and a girl the lights picked up who might have been real or might have been a vision borne of that mental weight.
That made me very interested in the man – Jack Spinks – in who he was, in what was weighing on him. As a writer who relies mostly on listening to his characters, I discovered those things mostly through Jack’s actions in trying to help the distraught girl his truck’s headlights picked up.
The more I wrote I realized Jack and the girl’s characters were in part a composite of people I knew or knew of in my own life.
Q: The author Brian Panowich said, “Matthew F. Jones is the true heir apparent to the kingdom of Cormac McCarthy.” What do you think of that comparison?
A: It’s an honor to be compared to a writer whose work I much admire.
I understand where the comparison comes from. McCarthy wrote dark, psychologically intense fiction that explores violence, morality and the human condition, as I do in much of my work, including in this novel.
Though it seems to me McCarthy’s work explores violence in universal terms, as an inevitable human condition removed from human choice or conscience, whereas my work explores the psychological aspects of violence and credits the existence of self-awareness and the ability of human beings to understand and confront their own guilt.
Though our work explores similar themes, McCarthy’s novels, it seems to me, take place in a sort of mythical landscape ruled by an elemental, cosmic force, devoid of God or choice, whereas my work is more earthly based and confronts those same themes in psychological, humanistic terms and credits the existence of human will.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: I have never known the ending of any novel I’ve written before I started it. To me that would be the same as knowing how a person’s life story would end before they’d lived it.
Part of the joy of writing for me is discovering through the writing who the characters are and where their story is going. It’s about trusting the characters you’ve created to take you on this journey.
That said, there were more than a few times when I realized I had gone in the wrong direction and had to go back to discover why. In those times it felt as if I was lost in a vast wilderness, searching for the one road that would lead out of it.
Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: I had a working title for the novel that my publisher wasn’t enthralled with. She asked me to come up with some other options.
When I happened upon this one, it felt exactly right. I think any reader of the book will understand why. In one sense, the entire night that the book encompasses was Jack’s reckoning.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m superstitious about saying much about the novel I’m currently working on. Though a quite different story and setting from A Reckoning Up Black Cat Hollow, it is at the same time a gripping, psychological character study.
I’m also in the middle of reworking for the umpteenth time an original screenplay I wrote several years ago that on two separate occasions was close to being made before the funding fell through. It’s attached to a new director who’s known of and loved the script for close to 10 years. Hopefully, the third time will be the charm.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: My hope is that readers of A Reckoning Up Black Cat Hollow will love the novel as a gripping, pulse-pounding thriller and admire it as a psychological character study of a good, but deeply troubled man.
For whatever reason one chooses to read it, I hope they will enjoy it, and I am very grateful.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
No comments:
Post a Comment