TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe.
Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?
Wrecks and Ruins has been described as a novel about how
relationships are built and how they evolve or dissolve over time. It’s an
anti-love story that corrects itself. The main character, Stu, believes that
romantic love is like the cycle of a cicada: a few months of excited
buzz—romance, lust, excitement—followed by monotonous silence that can’t live
up to the noisy promise at the start. Stu is drawn to wrecks and ruins, which
he photographs, and in time he comes to connect his collection of broken things
to his collection of broken relationships.
Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And,
which character gave you the most trouble, and why?
The most interesting character to get to know was probably
Tiffany. The other characters were loosely based on characters from a short
story I wrote long ago, so it was like a reunion getting to know them again.
But Tiffany, Stu’s love interest, was a new character, and I knew I had to make
her special. She had to be Stu’s equal or superior in every way, had to keep
his habitually diminishing interest, and deserved her own story arc.
The most challenging character wasn’t necessarily a person,
but a thing: COVID-19. I wrote the first
draft in 2018, with no idea that we would be in a worldwide pandemic. I
couldn’t just shift the story because they were tied to the cycles of the
17-year cicadas. To make it more complicated, a number of scenes take place at
or reference actual concerts that the characters attend, and those all needed
to stay in the accurate years and seasons. Even in my first round of rewrites,
in 2020, I was writing as though the pandemic had ended by 2021. Although I
wrote in additional scenes and references to COVID, it was a challenge to weave
it all together.
Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s
road to publication.
Emotionally, this book started at a high point because the
first draft was written in a flurry during a crazy three-day novel contest. Of
course, there were a few rewrites with expanded scenes and development in the
years after those initial three days. That burst of activity at the start seems
fitting, given the protagonist’s view of romantic love. The publisher of my
former novel, Loyola’s Apprentice House Press, got first dibs at the manuscript
and accepted it, so there wasn’t the same convoluted journey to publication
that I’ve experienced with other novels. The low point of writing this was
probably when I dusted if off during Covid and realized the puzzle I needed to
take apart and reassemble because of all the previous scenes that took place in
a “business as usual” world instead of during a pandemic.
What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?
Read more. I think of all the tips and advice I’ve received
over the years, that was probably the most helpful. When you read other
fiction—similar to your own and unlike it—you soak up the styles and stories
and it helps as you continue your own writing. Books on writing are great, but
I’ve probably become a better writer more from reading other fiction and
creative nonfiction than from any courses or writing guides.
My favorite writing advice is “write until something
surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?
How quickly time passes by a person. The majority of this
novel is in the present, but it falls back to other times, in 1987 and 2004 and
2009, and even forward into 2023. But most of the characters, although
evolving, are the same at the core—and so are their bonds to one another. I
think that reflects real life. There are friends I’ve known since middle school
who have grown in so many ways, and yet, they seem to be much the same at the
core. It surprised me a bit that I could write from the same character’s
perspective as a teenager and a 50-something and, at the core, the character
was very much the same despite his journey, his development, and his evolution.
What’s something about your book that you want readers to
know?
I like to set my scenes in real places, to ground them in
reality but also to provide additional “aha” moments for readers who may
recognize those places. There are scenes in this novel in Baltimore, Las Vegas,
Annapolis, Virginia, Bryce Canyon, and even Vilnius. Taking it a level beyond
that, I set some scenes in specific moments, such as concerts when they really
happened, election cycles, and cicada cycles. The 17-year cicadas serve as a
metaphor and a marker of the passage of time.
Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any
food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)
No recipes, exactly, but some exotic drinks. In the scenes
taking place in Lithuania, Stu and Tiffany drink Krupnikas, the Lithuanian
version of Krupnik, or honey liquor. They also drink Riga Balsam and Tallinn
Vanna, other popular liquors from the Baltics. I’ve thought about serving those
up at a book event, if we’re back to having in-person book events with shared
refreshments when the book is released.
*****
READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: www.EricDGoodman.com
ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK: https://bookshop.org/books/wrecks-and-ruins/9781627203845
LISTEN TO THE AUTHRO READ AN ABRIDGED VERSION OF “CICADAS”
ON BALTIMORE’S NPR STATION, WYPR (Author’s note: “Cicadas” is the story that I
wrote in the early 2000s and the inspiration for Wrecks and Ruins.): https://yourlisten.com/edgewriter/cicadas
