I had retired the literary Would You Rather interview series, but didn't want to stop interviews on the site all together. Instead, I've pulled together 40ish questions - some bookish, some silly - and have asked authors to limit themselves to answering only 10 of them. That way, it keeps the interviews fresh and connectable for all of us!
Joining us today is Edward Belfar. His collection of short stories, Wanderers, was published by Stephen F. Austin State University Press in 2012. One of the stories in the collection was chosen as the winning entry in the Sports Literature Association 2008 fiction competition, while another was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His fiction and essays have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Shenandoah, The Baltimore Review, Potpourri, Confrontation, Natural Bridge, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and Tampa Review. As a reader for The Plentitudes, he reviews both fiction and nonfiction submissions. He earned his BA in history and MA in creative writing at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and his PhD in literature at Temple University. He lives with his wife in Maryland, where he works as a writer and editor., and can be reached through his website at www.edwardbelfar.com.
Why do you write?
One reason for writing fiction is the joy that it brings me,
at least when it’s going well. In
contrast to a lot of my other work, my recently published novel A Very
Innocent Man is predominantly comedic in tone. Readers have said to me that they could tell
that I had a lot of fun writing it, as, indeed, I did. To create something new that gives others
pleasure is a source of great satisfaction.
At the same time, though, writing is just as much an act of discovery as
of creation. I find that building a parallel
world that functions in a more comprehensible manner than the one in which we
live sometimes helps me to gain a better understanding of the motivations that
underlie my own actions and those of the people around me.
What do you do when you’re not writing?
I enjoy cycling and have completed the Seagull Century, a
100-mile bike ride on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, every year since 2018, except
for 2020, when it was cancelled due to COVID. Some of my other interests include reading,
playing the guitar (poorly), going to concerts and plays, and traveling.
What’s your kryptonite as a writer?
The same computer on which I write is also connected to the web. Having to research something for a piece I’m
working on can prove hazardous because I am prone to falling down internet
rabbit holes.
What are some of your favorite books and/or authors?
I have too many to list, and my favorites tend to change
depending on what I am reading at any given time. I do have some constants, though. My list would skew heavily toward nineteenth-
and twentieth-century Russians: Tolstoy, Checkov, Gogol, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Vasily
Grossman, among others. I have read
Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita and Heart of a Dog a couple of times each,
and even the second time around, both books had me laughing out loud all the
way through. I do have a strong
predilection for dark comedy, so it is not surprising that some of my other favorite writers include Walker
Percy, whose fiction provided the subject for my dissertation, Flannery
O’Connor, Muriel Spark, Evelyn Waugh, and Jaroslav Hasek.
Describe your book in three words.
Kathy Fish, one of the writers who provided blurbs for A
Very Innocent Man described it as a “twisted redemption story.” The novel
covers a year or so in the life of a New York City physician named Robert Rosen,
who loses everything following his arrest for selling opioid prescriptions and
then attempts to reinvent himself as a life coach and motivational
speaker. His path toward redemption,
though, is anything but straightforward.
Would you and your main character(s) get along?
I probably would not get along very well with the main character of A Very Innocent Man, who is a rather unpleasant sort. On the other hand, observing—from a safe distance—the scrapes he gets into would provide me with much entertainment. Writing about them certainly did.
If you met your characters in real life, what would you
say to them?
It depends which ones.
Some of the characters in A Very Innocent Man, such as the
Russian mobsters, I would prefer to avoid altogether.
If you were stuck on a deserted island, what’s the one
book you wish you had with you?
That one book would have to be a doorstopper and worth
reading again and again. I’m going to
say Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate.
It is a great sprawling novel of Soviet military and civilian life
during World War II, by turns tragic and funny, grand in scope but acute in its
portrayals of individual characters. It
is a twentieth-century War and Peace, and it makes most other novels
seem small by comparison.
What is under your bed?
I don’t want to know.
Are you a book hoarder or a book unhauler?
I am definitely a book hoarder. My home is groaning beneath stacks of books for
which I have no room on my bookshelves.
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Life's going great for Dr. Robert Rosen. He has a New York City medical practice, his dreams of TV fame as "Dr. Sober-Up" are coming true, and he's making big bucks selling oxycodone prescriptions for cash. What could go wrong? Sure, his personal life is a bit rocky-his brother, mother, and son all seeing him as a swindler and a low life-but you can't have everything. Besides, he has a wonderful young assistant/girlfriend in Tamika Jones and a skilled if out of control mentor in Dr. Barry "Bulldog" Bullard, so really, who needs them?
Unfortunately, his opioid side business includes selling prescriptions to a bogus pain clinic run by Russian mobsters, mobsters who don't have a lot of respect for Dr. Rosen's position nor his fees, nor, for that matter, his apartment and personal possessions.
Inevitably, his house of cards collapses when one of his patients rats him out to the FBI and he is arrested. Out on bail, he can't work, he is hemorrhaging money, and the prospect of spending a long stint in prison looms. He's got to do something, but the more he tries to get ahead of his troubles the worse they get.
Finally he hits on a plan: reinvent himself as a life coach and motivational speaker. Once again, his fortunes appear to be on the rise. However, he finds, to his dismay, that he cannot escape his criminal past; the Russians have not finished with him yet.
In the spirit of John Kennedy Toole and Chuck Palahniuk, a Very Innocent Man is a darkly comic novel that, as with all good satire, may not be so absurd after all.
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