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10 Questions for John Baum


“Devon is a fourth-grader in Guilford, Connecticut when he begins his work in Fairy Theory. The project for Language Arts grows way beyond the single-page, class presentation. He fills notebooks with ideas and stories and maps and fairy family trees. He learns to shut-up about his ideas because it is not wonder or admi­ration in his friends’ voices when he hears them say Devon actually believes that stuff. He keeps quiet for a long time past fourth grade.”
from “Everything is Fine”, Fall 2018 (Vol. 59, Issue 3)

 

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I think my first full-length story was about a twelve-year-old boy who goes to the beach, and meets a girl named Kelly. They dance, and then they kiss. It was based in truth, all but the kissing part. I burned it. I was twelve. The first piece I wrote and actually showed to friends was a blatant Hunter S. Thompson rip-off called “Bourbon Days Above the Mason Dixon.” It was a partly fictionalized version of an unhinged week I spent in Delaware with friends at the tail-end of Christmas break in college. The friends I showed it to were a part of that crazy week, and they still have a hard copy, despite my urging them to burn it. Wonderful memories—bad bad writing.

What writers or works have influenced the way you write now?
I was in college when George Saunders’ Civilwarland in Bad Decline came out, and I remember reading the title story and thinking, “I had no idea you can do that in a story.” I had the same reaction to T.C. Boyle’s Descent of Man. It struck me these writers were having fun. A couple of years ago I read Michael Chabon’s Telegraph Avenue, Mary Kay Zuravelff’s Man Alive!, Jess Walter’s The Financial Lives of the Poets, and Aimee Bender’s The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake in relatively quick succession. Those three books stuck with me—their humor, structure, language, oddity, and their ability to target truth really blew my hair back. I’m fascinated and in awe of writers who evoke humor and empathy and pathos in realistic, meaningful ways. To that end, I read and reread Lewis Nordan, Flannery O’Connor, Mat Johnson, and George Singleton. Finally, while I am ashamed to admit I have yet to complete Moby Dick, the bedroom scene with Queequeg and Ishmael in Chapter 4 is literary slapstick at its greatest. 

What did you want to be when you were young?
I had a hard time imagining myself as a working adult beyond college. At one point, I thought I’d be a golfer. Later, in high school, I thought I’d be a musician. For a very brief time, I thought about the military. My father was in Vietnam and my grandfather was a Colonel in WWII, and they were pretty good models. 

What inspired you to write this piece?
This story is an amalgam of several failed stories. I had a story about a coyote, a story about a boy who believes in fairies, a story about a boy who sneaks out at night and spies on neighbors, and a story about a boy dealing with the stress of moving halfway through childhood. Isolated, they weren’t working, but over a period of time they ended up here, together. Also, I wanted to set a story in Columbia, South Carolina, where I grew up. It’s a town that is subject to awful heat and humidity, and one summer when I was young we attempted to fry eggs on the sidewalk. It worked. That memory stuck in my brain for years, and I started there. While the fried egg scene didn’t make the final cut, it gave me an inroad to a story that borrows heavily from my childhood.

Is there a city or place, real or imagined, that influences your writing?
The South influences my work, for no other reason than I’ve spent my entire life here. I’ve tried to write about other places—London, New York, California, but the attempts feel false. I don’t set out to make an argument for or against the South, I am just comfortable setting my pieces here. This story in particular was inspired by Columbia, and even though I spent most of my childhood there, it’s the first time I’ve used it in a story.

Is there any specific music that aides you through the writing or editing process?
For first drafts it has to be silent. For later drafts and editing I might put on jazz. I like the older, straight ahead stuff: Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Coltrane, Monk, Ben Webster, Chet Baker. Instrumental only. I have a hard time writing with other people’s words floating around.

Do you have any rituals or traditions that you do in order to write?
I usually can’t write facing a window because my mind wanders way too easily. This took a while for me to accept. I loved the idea of being inspired by a view, but I realized that I write better facing a wall. I write most of my first drafts by hand, and I am particular about my pen. The kind I like I can only find on Ebay. They ship from Japan. I’m not bragging—it’s a pain. Also, I cut myself off from the world if I can: I close the door, turn off the phone, cut off the internet, and turn on one of those noise machines that purrs white noise.

Who gets the first read of your work?
My wife knows me better than I do, and she has an amazing eye. She is fearless and pulls no punches. Because I have a problem with patience, she is quick to let me know that something isn’t ready, especially when I am itching to get it out there.

If you could work in another art form, what would it be?
My instinct is to say music. Specifically, jazz—trumpet and drums. But realistically, the hours would kill me because I’ve somehow mutated into a morning person. So maybe this goes back to the question about what I wanted to be when I was young: I always thought it would be great to be a cartoonist. I used to trace Calvin and Hobbes and Bloom County cartoons. Sometimes I still do. So, if I had to switch art forms—and could do so with ease—I’d be a cartoonist, sitting in a tall chair at one of those white angled desks, channeling my inner Bill Waterson, Berkeley Breathed, and, yes, Charles Schultz. 

What are you reading right now?
A writer friend in Houston recently sent me Ghost of a Person Passing in Front of the Flag, a poetry collection by Vietnam Veteran D.F. Brown. Not only did the poetry floor me, but it also rekindled an interest in the Vietnam Conflict, so I am making my way through A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan. Dixie Luck, a collection of stories by Andy Plattner, an essay collection called Up Up, Down Down by Cheston Knapp, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which I am currently teaching to high school juniors. Also, I have the 2018 O’Henry Prize Stories waiting for me on my bedside table.

 

JOHN BAUM’S work has appeared in Blue Mesa Review, Booth, Whiskey Paper, Saint Ann's Review, and elsewhere. He is an English teacher in Atlanta and has recently completed a short story collection and is at work on a novel.


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