“I’m a novel guy first and foremost. I prefer the format, I prefer the solitude, and I like being lost in a grand project, completely alone for however many months or years, that’s my idea of a good time.”
Patrick deWitt
Two wild and wildly different novels have been met with huge acclaim, and now the movie of his first screenplay is on its way. Does this signal a career change? Mark Reynolds finds out what makes Patrick deWitt tick.
His debut novel, Ablutions, looked at the underbelly of LA through the eyes of a whiskey-addled bar worker and became an instant slacker classic. Following up with the darkly comic The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt takes readers back to the Old West with a tale of rivalry and affection between sibling hired killers. Jumping to another wildly different genre, he has also written quirky coming-of-age loner movie Terri, which has been wowing audiences at Sundance and other festivals and is due for release this summer.
In the new novel, Eli Sisters narrates his and brother Charlie's mission to kill and steal the secret of one Hermann Kermit Warm, who has invented an outlandish new method of extracting gold from rivers. Eli is devoted to Charlie, but troubled by his reckless violence and behaviour swings, and has recently begun to question the motives of the mysterious "Commodore" who sent them on their quest. Bloody, scary and hilarious at every turn, reviewers have variously likened deWitt's latest to Charles Portis, Mark Twain, the Coen brothers and Cormac McCarthy among others. But deWitt is wary of such comparisons.
"Oftentimes when reviewers compare an author's writing to another author, the effect can be somewhat belittling," he asserts. "Of course, you want whatever you work on to stand independently from anyone else's work. But as a young reader I was completely charmed by Charles Portis, and I still am. And this is rare for me in that a lot of the stuff I liked when I was younger I can't really return to, or when I return to it I don't really like it as much. But Portis is an example of someone I admire a lot. I'm happy he got such a bump out of the Coens' True Grit remake. I like that book a lot, but his best novels are The Dog of the South, Norwood and Gringos. In terms of the other authors, of course I like Mark Twain but that's someone I haven't read in quite a while. Cormac McCarthy I have read some of, but I can't claim to know his work particularly well, or claim him as an influence."
The brothers' quest contains more than a passing nod to Don Quixote and The Odyssey (and in turn, the Coens' O Brother, Where Art Thou?), in which the journey embarked upon takes unexpected twists, leading to greater self-knowledge. As slow-witted Eli realises he's being sold short by both Charlie and the Commodore, he also acquires compassion and civilised habits, acknowledges and tries to overcome his rage, offers kindness to an orphaned boy and to animals, and even finds love of sorts. Along the way they engage with a motley array of ne'er-do-wells, cheats and losers, witches and whores, fellow murderers and crooked lawmakers.
"It's funny, a lot of the things wound up happening in the book are things I normally consciously avoid," he asserts. "I have complained before about books where people go on a trip and meet a bunch of eccentric characters, and every person they meet is a sort of wonderful, knowledgeable oddball, as opposed to how it is in real life where you go from place to place meeting truly boring people. But I wound up writing exactly that kind of book: a kind of Odyssey road trip where they meet one "seer" after the other. I don't know how that happened. I kept meaning for them to meet less interesting people, but it's that time period that, looking back now, seems to lend itself to these larger-than-life characters - though I don't think for a second this is how it really was back then; this is very much a sort of specialised world that I've created for them."
So was the plan to subvert ideas of traditional Western tough guys? The brothers are certainly tough guys, but there's a weariness about their station in life as hired killers that hints at better choices to come.
"Yeah, I did want to address that. You know, upsetting the model of the stoic American male, especially in Westerns. I found that introducing real-life neurosis was a nice way to do it. I would hope a traditional Western fan could read this and enjoy it, but it's also written for people who don't necessarily like them. I've never been a big fan of Westerns myself. I don't mind some of the trappings as long as there's something else to help it out."
Neurosis, self-doubt, and a patchwork approach to dealing with the worst life can throw at them all lead to some graphically dark comic scenes, like when Eli's deadbeat horse loses an eye, and the open wound is treated with alcohol and then dentists' anaesthetic - the only medications to hand.
"Yeah, the question of why I'm so cruel to horses has come up a couple of times. I don't know why I did it. I was thrown from a horse when I was younger, but I didn't hold the horse accountable for it. I promise to stop: no more horse mangling in my work!"
Once the scene is set with "Oregon City, 1851", the Wild West landscape isn't much described, but there's a litany of acute bodily and mental stress and multiplying desperation as all the brothers' plans go awry.
"This is the same with Ablutions as well: I had a thing for describing physical sensation. This is something I'm drawn to. I don't know why necessarily, but injury and sickness and things like that, it's something that I can sit and imagine what it would feel like, even if it's something I've never been through, and I enjoy doing that very much. I'm all for descriptions of surroundings, but in this instance for some reason it just didn't really move me. I mean, if you're writing a Western, you don't really need to describe the scenery unless it really drives the narrative. We know what it looks like; it's all been burned into our psyche. In that way it was fun to start from a position where you don't have to describe much, and you can just focus on the human element."
Which is all about Eli conquering his demons while sticking to his principles, and working his way towards some kind of emotional mind-map.
"It's an emotional story," deWitt agrees, "but it didn't start that way. There are drafts where it was much more circus-like. There was much more to do with the witch and the spells she cast. It became this enormous, fantastic story and I looked at it at some point - I think my wife chimed in as well and said this is... obnoxious, basically. It was clear the story should be focusing much more clearly on the relationship between the brothers, and Eli's relationship to the world. I pared that back drastically and focused on the human element."
One blurb about the new book suggests both novels are "about the things you tell yourself in order to be able to continue to live the life you find yourself in, and what happens when those stories no longer work". Is this a decent summary of what he was aiming for in both books? That life lessons can be learned and corners turned by both hired killers and pill-popping alcoholics?
"I would say so. The similarities for me are here are people who have reached their limit. They're both about people - in different ways, obviously - who are unhappy with their station in life. Particularly in what they do for a living, for money. One is of course much more dramatic than the other: a murderer's tale versus the tale of a dishwasher, but these are people who are unhappy for different reasons, but have reached a limit where they recognise that things have got to change quickly."
DeWitt worked as a dishwasher and a bartender in LA, so to what extent was Ablutions based on his own experiences? Were the bars he worked in also populated by dropouts and dreamers, and as seedy as the one he describes?
"I wish there was less of me in there," he laughs. "I worked at the bar for six years. It was at times a very happy job for me, as it allowed me to have my days free to write, and it was cash, all under the table, so that worked for me as well. I had no skills other than writing, and at that time had nothing publishable even though I'd been writing all along. When I started at the bar I was still trying to write novels time after time, and I'd get to about page 50 and realise I'd basically wasted a whole bunch of time, and I didn't have the foundation to see the project through."
Aside from the protagonist's fuzzy plans to escape from his dead-end life, Ablutions is striking for its second-person narration, plus the stuttering use of the word "Discuss..." at the start of many episodes and diversions. DeWitt is disarmingly open about how he came to adopt this styling.
"When I decided to start writing about the bar," he explains, "I was still working there and I was drinking a lot at work, so I'd tend to forget things. A little happening would take place and I'd think 'That'll be really good. I should write about that.' But the next morning I wouldn't remember. This happened enough times that I started taking notes at work. At this time, the manuscript was still in the first person, but there's something about a first-person alcoholic's story... it's something you've seen so many times, it wasn't quite sitting the way I wanted it to sit. Anyway, someone at some point must have taught me to take notes in the second person. Rather than write about exactly what happened, I'd just write 'Discuss when such-and-such happened'. And then instead of using 'I', I'd write 'You are washing the dishes when so-and-so walks up. Discuss this.' So really it's just a bastardisation of my own note-taking style, which is where the subtitle, 'Notes for a Novel' stems from. It got to the point that my desk drawer was filled with yellow Post-It notes with all these second-person notes all over them. But the notes themselves were very exciting, and I found that in translating them to the first person something was lost. Then I tried translating them into the third person, and that didn't work for me either, so in a way I was stuck with the second-person voice. But that was certainly a big breakthrough for me. Once I had that, then the rest seemed to fall into place and it was just a matter of getting it all down."
Yet despite the repeated imperative, discussion is something the protagonist completely fails at. The limited communication he has with his wife is based in attempting to cover up for his addictions. There's a fleeting realisation in the closing pages that there are feelings that "at some point, should be discussed" but still he hasn't addressed any of them.
"Yes, I remember writing that line and it making me laugh. You need little things to amuse yourself when you're spending all this time alone in a room..."
There's a link here to Warm's deathbed speech, where the brothers' victim-turned collaborator says: "Most people are chained to their own fear and stupidity and haven't the sense to level a cold eye at just what is wrong with their lives." It's an observation that appears to straddle deWitt's work through very different genres and time periods.
"Without these interviews, and this is why I enjoy doing them, I would never think how the works relate to one another, if there are common themes in my work or what I'm drawn to, because a lot of it is subconscious and you just do whatever comes out and whatever keeps you going. I just put it out and hope for the best really. I don't intellectualise, it's all about instinct. I'm seeing now more and more - I thought they were completely different, and of course they are in many ways - that there's a link between the two books. It's kind of a general dire attitude. I don't know if I employ it in everything, but it's something I have access to. I think I've changed a lot since I wrote Ablutions. My life has improved, I'm much happier. But there were many years in my life when I guess you'd say I wasn't particularly happy, so I have access to these feelings, and it's easy enough for me to employ them. And I expect this is something that will always come up in my work. Not like a "fuck the world" attitude exactly, but just a general dire attitude towards humanity. And having experienced that at a certain point in my life, I'm glad it's passed, but I'm also glad I went through it because it's a handy thing to be able to use."
Perhaps surprisingly, the world-weary optimism of Warm's words even chime with the strapline for teen movie Terri, which runs: "Life's a mess - we're all just doing the best we can."
"Yeah, that's the one they're going with, and I guess it's a good definition of that story. I'm not sure how it relates to the novels. I find the protagonist Terri is the exact opposite of me, which is someone who is not cynical, someone who looks for and believes in the best in everyone. At that age I was totally cynical and dark-minded, and assumed everybody had ulterior motives. So with Terri I wanted to go the opposite way and try to write someone who is optimistic basically. It's a bit of an oversimplification to call him that, because he's also realistic in his way."
Terri has at its centre an oversized teen misfit and his mutually supportive relationship with a garrulous and well-meaning vice-principal. The film will be released in the US on the 4 July weekend, and terrific performances from Jacob Wysocki and John Reilly, along with rave reviews from festivals, look set to propel it to the level of super-indies like Juno and Napoleon Dynamite. I asked deWitt how deeply connected he feels to the production, and what his expectations are for the film's release.
"Working on Terri, I was involved in a way a screenwriter's never really involved: in terms of what the music should be, with all the casting decisions I could at least put in my two cents, but basically as soon as I finished the writing, the rest of it all took over and I've been sort of happily ignorant. I went to a screening or two, I'll probably go to another. I went on set for a couple of days, but they were the two worst days to go. It was outside in a parking lot and about 110 degrees - I should've picked something indoors with air-conditioning. But it was very strange and wonderful to watch them film it, because from a fiction-writer's view, the voices are in your mind and unless you see it re-enacted you always hear it that way: you read it the way you imagined it. To hear someone's take on your writing, through the actors interpreting the words, was very jarring at first. The actors are all very talented and were doing a great job, but I hear each line very specifically in my mind, so even if they paused between a certain couple of words or whatnot, it left me sort of shaken up a little bit. But I got used to it by the end of the first day, and then I could just settle and enjoy the spectacle of it all."
DeWitt and director Azazel Jacobs got to know each other when both were living in the same Los Angeles neighbourhood southeast of Hollywood.
"His girlfriend, who is now his wife, and my then girlfriend who is now my wife were friends when we were all living in Echo Park," he explains. "I knew Azazel by sight but I didn't know him other than to say hello, but we got to a point where, you know, everyone in LA says they are something, everyone's a dancer or a painter or whatever. Of course many of them are very talented, but more of them aren't. When you meet someone who says they're an artist, especially in a big city, you approach it with a certain wariness I guess. Anyway Azazel heard that I fancied myself a writer and I heard that he fancied himself a filmmaker, and I think we each assumed that the other had no talent because that's so often the case. And we wound up swapping. I showed him a rough draft of Ablutions and he showed me a rough draft of his screenplay for Mother's Man, which is a feature that he did that I thought was just great. It's a very interesting, sad and funny film. And actually, he filmed a bit of his film before that, called The Good Times Kid, at the Ablutions bar, and he cast me as a bartender. I'm in the film for about five seconds."
DeWitt moved to Portland to develop the screenplay. Is that as close as he now wishes to live to LA?
"I can't imagine a set of circumstances that would have me living in Los Angeles again. A director needs to live there, but from the point of view of a writer, I'm not one of those writers who has to go and pitch things, and if I did, I could fly down, I'm close enough. I lived in LA for a long time but I'd always break it up. I'd go back to Canada, or the Pacific Northwest. I returned for a long while, but the thing that sort of broke it up for me was when my son was born and I didn't want him to live there. So I can go back whenever I want to go back, but I can't imagine living there. I wouldn't completely rule it out; I still have a lot of friends own there. My wife and I did have a life down there, but so far we prefer it here. I get a lot more done. There's too much to do in those big towns, I'd never get anything done. If I want to go on producing I need a certain degree of solitude, and I have it here."
So, with a foot in both camps, how does he see his career panning out? Novelist or screenwriter or both?
"If I could figure out a way to write a book and then adapt it after, I guess that would be ideal," he says. "But I think I'm a novel guy first and foremost. I prefer the format, I prefer the solitude, and I like being lost in a grand project, completely alone for however many months or years, that's my idea of a good time. I started a new book I'm about seventy pages into, which takes place in New York and Paris, so I'll be doing some travelling. I've got a residency next year in Paris, so my family and I will go over there for three or four months and I'm looking forward to that. We have a bit of a group there: I have a French publisher, and I'm friendly with my translator, and so we snuck our way into this residency thing and now I'll be focusing on the new novel. With fiction I do feel that I've got much more of a handle on it, that it's more up to me as opposed to all the other unknowable factors. There's a million ways a movie can be screwed up, and that good ones are occasionally made is really down to a good part of luck and tenacity."
An option has been taken up on The Sisters Brothers, and deWitt is at work on the screenplay. It's not an area he's comfortable discussing until the movie is green-lit, but his enthusiasm for the project, though understated, shines through.
"I think The Sisters Brothers could work well," he suggests. "Ablutions by contrast could be an interesting TV show, but I think The Sisters Brothers is set up nicely, it sort of landed in a nice way in terms of the storylines of the brothers and everything like that. I think it could work out all right."
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The Sisters Brothers and Ablutions are published by Granta Books.
Find out more about Terri and watch the trailer
Mark Reynolds is Literary Editor of The Drawbridge.
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Wednesday, 25 May, 2011
In Interviews
- Amitav Ghosh
- Patrick deWitt
- James Frey
- T.C. Boyle
- David Vann
- Jonathan Safran Foer
- What would you give?
- Michael Holroyd
- Jonathan Franzen
- Tom McCarthy
- Bret Easton Ellis
- Miguel Syjuco
- Joe Meno
- James Kelman
- Joshua Ferris
- Neel Mukherjee
- Javier Marías
- Dave Eggers
- Richard Flanagan
- John Banville
- Helen Oyeyemi
- Amit Chaudhuri
- Rana Dasgupta
- Edmund White
- Tobias Hill
- Christmas Books
- Russell Hoban
- Will Self
- Aleksandar Hemon
- Kate Summerscale
- Philip Gourevitch
- Simon Gray
- Aravind Adiga
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