I like to tell myself that I am basing my characters on people
I know, and never on just me or on stock, literary types. This is the only way
to get variety. Walter Terry, the main character of my novel Apocalypse
TV, is based on a friend of mine who is very tall, huge, gentle, and
very articulate and smart. But I also know that his moodiness, his inner
thought and ideas, come from me. I know that his obsessions—even his tendency
to be obsessive—all come from me.
As a contrast, Walter’s sister Melissa seems completely
other than me—I enjoyed listening to the way that she talks down to Walter. A
few of the other characters are based on fighting stereotypes of one kind or
another. Brittney, on the reality show, starts out being eye candy, but it
becomes apparent rather quickly that she’s bright and longs for an authentic
relationship with God. She’s just been hurt—and I guess that is a lot like me.
I also know that my experiences become what happens to my
characters, although I look for them to often react differently from the way I
did.
What is the quirkiest
thing you have ever done?
As an introvert, I am good at hiding. But two things—in
eighth grade, when I knew two guitar chords, I played in a band called The
Wormstretchers at a school dance. Second, my most quirky writing got published
four years ago in a small online journal, The
Oddville Press. My story, “Subtleman Loses his Day Job, an Origin Story,”
concerns a wimpy divorced guy in his early thirties who believes that his super
power is being subtle.
When did you first
discover that you were a writer?
I think I first learned this in the fourth grade, in 1965,
when I heard my father typing in the basement—he was a newspaper reporter. The
next day, I went to the basement, saw his papers and notes lying around the
Smith-Corona, and I started typing a story. Then I read it to my father, and he
said, “That’s good. It reminds me a little bit in one part of Mark Twain. Now,
rewrite it.” I was so encouraged that I wrote a bunch of other stories that
year, most of them exaggerated accounts of toboggan rides or satires based on
my friends.
How wonderful to have
parental support at a young age. Tell us the range of the kinds of books you
enjoy reading.
I began, I suppose like many people, by reading fantasy in junior
high and in high school. But I have also enjoyed a great number of literary
novels. I read C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, and Ray Bradbury in high school, then read
too much Hemingway in early college. Then, my junior year of college, as an
English major, I discovered Dostoyevski, William Faulkner, and Flannery
O’Connor. Today, I just finished reading a murder mystery by Daniel Taylor, and
I also appreciate satire. I’ve been reading a lot of George Saunder’s work
lately. The Tenth of December, The
Braindead Megaphone, and Lincoln in the Bardo
are all incredible works of real insight. Marilyn Robinson’s Gilead
is wonderful, and I like the short stories of Sherman Alexie. I recently read a
short novel by Neil Gaiman, but it really wasn’t for me. Today I teach a course
in nonfiction, so I try to find good memoir and nonfiction that’s not
self-help. Oh, and I always am open to reading great poetry. Susan Delaney
Spear’s Beyond All Bearing has been a
very helpful read for me at this time.
How do you keep your
sanity in our run, run, run world?
I think that any art that slows me down and makes me pay
attention is very important. I like to pay attention. Music helps with this,
and I play a lot of it—Jackson Browne, classical music, some jazz. I play the
guitar and the bass on our church worship team, and that gets me through every
week. But I also have found over the last nine months since we lost my youngest
son (he took his own life) that writing is keeping me from despairing. I’ve
been keeping a journal of my son and my grief and trying to remember as much as
I can. This has helped me in some ways to move forward a little. Also, I do
read the Bible, but since losing my son, the scriptures that speak to me now
are not the ones that would have spoken to me before. People try to help me by
quoting scripture, but the verses they quote are actually hurtful and
alienating, because they show that they don’t understand that I’m hurting, and
the verse is meant to motivate me to get up and quit moping. The verses almost
come off as accusations that I’m lacking in faith. My wife and I are
discovering in this year of very hard loss that many in our church, at least,
don’t understand grief or how to help people to work through loss. People in
church can tend sometimes to be a bit too triumphal.
That’s true. I’m so
thankful that our church has a grief program that helps those who’ve lost loved
ones. How do you choose your characters’ names?
Sometimes, as with Walter Terry, the narrative POV character
of my first novel, the name just appears. At other times, I’ve discovered a
character’s name through the family they grew up in. For example, a character
I’m writing about in my new novel went through two different names before I
realized that his father had named him Clement, after the second century church
father. He’s awkward with that name because he’s now a Buddhist, but that’s his
name. Names, I’ve noticed as a teacher, often follow trends. I’m a baby boomer
and grew up with at least two Debbie’s or Deborah’s in every class from first
grade to college. Today, as a teacher, I’ve met many Kristin’s and Kaitlin’s or
versions of that name. I’ve noticed that Kaitlin seems to have replaced
Catherine, which was my sister’s name, and it’s a name I love. Today I meet
many Chloe’s and Sean’s. Sometimes it helps to have read a lot and to think
about names in terms of ethnicity, without going into stereotypes.
What is the
accomplishment that you are most proud of?
I was proud of finishing my Ph.D. in composition and then of
getting a full-time job as a teacher. But today I am very proud of the fact
that I have become a competent teacher who can help other writers, because I
grew up introverted and never thought I’d be able to speak clearly in front of
a room full of people.
That’s wonderful. If
you were an animal, which one would you be, and why?
I would be a cat,
because although I am standoffish and introverted, I also love to be helpful
and belong, even if at something of a distance. Also, I’m nocturnal and would
love to sleep all day.
What is your favorite
food?
My grandmother’s chicken and spaghetti. My mother’s parents were
Calabrian (Southern Italian), and I grew up with this wonderful cooking, which
we lost when my grandparents were murdered in 1974.
Wow! You’ve gone
through a lot. What is the problem with writing that was your greatest
roadblock, and how did you overcome it?
Descriptive writing has always been a challenge to me. I’ve
always found dialogue easy to write because I like to listen to the way people
talk, and I got some training for that in a playwriting class I took in college.
But describing a character or a setting in a few well-chosen images—that’s
really hard. I’ve been overcoming this difficulty by practicing it more and by
studying other writers, noticing, for example, how Neil Gaiman and some other
writers do this. This is helping.
Apocalypse TV is a story about Walter Terry, who is an English
professor but who is also a little naïve, and who goes on a reality TV show
because he has been told it will be religious and serious, and he will be
influential on it. The show follows Walter and a group of contestants as they
travel across the country, face challenges, and try to talk to people about
God. I first got the idea from a British reality TV show that aired in 2007 and
was like this. Popular, religious, and academic culture mix, and there is some satire
and engagement with history. The theme of guns also enters immediately on page
one, and I tried to honor the Chekov rule (If a gun appears on page one, it
must be used in the story). The narrative shows Walter Terry getting in over
his head in the filming of the reality show, and as guns factor in to the story
more and more as they travel in America, the story becomes something of a mystery—Who
shot Walter?
Please give us the
first page of the book.
Minutes before his sister texted that she had moved their
father to a hospice, Walter Terry listened behind half-empty rows of chairs in
the Haskins Room as the new writer-in-residence read from her work. It was an
early draft, she had announced, and it concerned a bride-to-be hunting elk in Wyoming , a part of the
country Walter had never seen. And it came to him with sudden finality: he
could never write a great American novel; he had never shot a gun.
Nothing was more American. Faulkner, Hemingway certainly, both
knew guns. And Walter had never felt one kick back and ruin his shoulder. He had
never had the gunpowder residue spotting his hands, his face, and his clothes.
Those details? They came from TV.
The writer had to feel it, not just hear about it.
His colleague’s writing signaled that she knew guns, and
Walter had never shot a beer can. He couldn’t tell a Smith and Wesson from a
Remington. He wouldn’t know if they were names for handguns or rifles. Sure, he
could Google them. But how many others wouldn’t have to?
Interesting. How can
readers find you on the Internet?
My website is at http://thomasallbaugh.com
, where readers can sign up for my newsletter. And I have an Amazon author
page.
Thank you, Thomas,
for sharing this book with me and my blog readers.
Readers, here are links to the book.
Apocalypse TV - PaperbackApocalypse TV - Kindle
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13 comments:
great interview Tom, I enjoyed reading it and learning more about you.
Thanks, Janice. I've found these questions really got me thinking about some things.
Sorry I just noticed that I needed to put where I am located. I live in Victorville, California. I also wanted to say that I really loved reading that you wrote short stories as a child.That was something I did also.
I wrote mysteries similar to my favorite character at the time, Nancy Drew. Of course I was always Nancy Drew and saved the day. LOL
Yes, we write based on the reading that influenced us. I read _The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet_ under the covers with a flashlight after bedtime.
Adding this to my wishlist! A new author for me, and this story sounds so intriguing.
Dianna (TN)
Diana, this is a character and plot driven story. Thank you for your interest!
Sounds like a good one! Melanie Backus TX
Thank you, Melanie. Walter was an interesting character to write about.
Enter me!!
Conway SC.
This sounds intriguing.
Abigail in VA
Abigail, thanks for your comment and interest.
This sounds great!
Blessings!
Connie from KY
cps1950(at)gmail(dot)com
Thanks, Connie.
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