The 40 But 10: Greg Fields

 

I had decided to retire the literary Would You Rather 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!

Today we are joined by Greg Fields. Greg is the author of Through the Waters and the Wild, winner of the 2022 Independent Press Award for Literary Fiction, the Independent Publishers Association Award, the New York Book Award for Literary Fiction and two other national recognitions.  His first novel, Arc of the Comet, was published in 2017.   He is currently an editor for his publisher, Koehler Books, and a regular presenter at numerous conferences and workshops including the International Dublin Writers Festival. 

 

Greg is also the co-author with Maya Ajmera of Invisible Children: Reimagining International Development from the Grassroots. He has won recognition for his written work in presenting the plight of marginalized young people through his tenure at the Global Fund for Children, and has had articles published in the Harvard International Review, as well as numerous periodicals, including The Washington Post and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.  

Why do you write?

I write to try to understand my own life. 

 

I believe that there is no such thing as true fiction.  Everything we write is the product of experience, observation, absorption or interpretation.  When I write, I’m actually trying to consider the central and most critical conclusions of my own journey, and, if I’m truly fortunate and well focused, there may be some universality in all that.

 

But when I sit down to write fiction, I’m writing for myself and from myself.  The themes are personal, and there are seldom any lasting resolutions. 

 

My writing revolves around the critical questions we all must face – Where do I go now?  What do I do?  The questions demand asking, even though the answers are elusive, sometimes illusory, and just beyond our grasp.  But what matters is the asking of them.  As long as we can do that, we remain alive, and open to what’s around us.

 

Do you have any hidden talents?

I can cook.  Really, I can.  I learned a bit of the skill in college when I grew tired of eating ramen or macaroni and cheese every night.  But whatever skills I had took off when I married my amazing wife, who spent part of her time in and around restaurant kitchens.  The woman could turn roadkill into a five-course feast, and I learned so much from her.  Name a cuisine, and I’ll find a way to make something palatable – tapas, dolmas, cavatappi, whatever.  It’s a gift.

 

What’s the most useless skill you possess?

When thinking this over, I asked my son what he thought.  His response: “Being a writer.”  He’s a wise guy, but he had a point.  Writing doesn’t pay, it’s an incubator for stress, self-doubt and rejection, and it’s isolating. In a classic social sense, the lad is absolutely on-target.  What’s the point of it?

But there’s something in our nature that compels connection through stories, through shared perspectives, through the aggressive realization that we are not alone in what and how we think and feel.  Writers build bridges, and extend their hand outward to any who would grasp it.

 

Few writers ever get rich, but all have immense wealth.  So maybe it’s not as useless a skill as my son might think.

 

 Describe your book poorly.

Couple of losers stagger their way through their young years and into middle age. One lives on the streets and the other drifts along like a leaf caught in a stiff breeze. No one’s happy.  Maybe in the end they learn a few things.

 What is your favorite way to waste time?

So much to choose from – doom-scrolling the web, binging on Netflix, crosswords, Wordle and Duotrigordle.  But I probably waste more time watching baseball when it’s in season, and following its off-season machinations when it’s not.  There’s something peaceful about the game, something that ties the time together and makes me think of summer, and youth, and all the potential we once had.  It ties me to my father, and to all the people I either played with or coached. 

Maybe it’s not a waste of time after all.

 

What are some of your favorite books and/or authors?

The most important book in my life has been Pat Conroy’s Prince of Tides. Pat was the most honest writer of our times, and he did it all with a lyricism that made words soar like birds in a blue sky.  At had offered encouragement throughout the writing of my first novel, and was a giving, generous soul whom we lost far too soon. All his works are exceptional, but Prince of Tides reads almost like a prayer.

I’ve also come to love the work of an Irish novelist, Niall Williams – Four Letters of Love, the Fall of Light, This Is Happiness. In some ways he reminds me of Conroy’s exceptional lyricism, perhaps with themes that are a bit softer than Pat’s.

And there are new and brilliant authors coming along every day – Dean Cycon, Finding Home: Hungary 1945, an absolute master of historical fiction; Rachel Stone, The Blue Iris; Deborah Hufford, Blood and Rubies, and so on.  Such a privilege to open up to best use of our language, the best use of our thoughts and talents.

 What are you currently reading?

I’ve just completed James by Percival Everett, a retelling of Huckleberry Finn from Jim’s perspective. Brilliant stuff. 

I tend to alternate between new fiction and rereading the ‘important’ books, so next up is probably a revisit of The Great Gatsby or Tender Is the Night.  Fitzgerald works well in the autumn.

What’s on your literary bucket list?

Nothing.  I’ve already lived beyond my own fantasies.  I’ve published three novels, won awards that I treasure, been accepted as a writer in both the US and Ireland, and developed a loyal readership.  And because of all that I became an editor for my publisher so that I can work with other writers at various stages of their own journeys.  What could be better than spending my days around books, and writers? The challenge now is to preserve what I have.  There’s nothing left to chase.

Well, maybe the Nobel.  But who am I kidding?  I’ve been fortunate beyond all measure.

 

 If you were on death row, what would your last meal be?

My favorite meal has been sitting on my deck with my wife, watching the sun go down, nibbling on fruit and cheese, sharing a bottle of wine, and finding the things that roam around in our minds and in our hearts.  If I had one meal left, it would be on the deck, where the best part of me would also be the last manifestation of everything I love most.

 

What scares you the most?

Losing my passion.  Waking up one morning and thinking that nothing matters, that there’s no point in engaging with curiosity and wonder the people, things and purposes around me.  That would be death itself.

And snakes.  Snakes make me crazy.

 

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Check out the book on amazon here

“In the end I believe our faults define us more than our virtues.  Shakespeare’s greatest plays, the tragedies, revolved around their heroes’ flaws rather than their glories”

 

Matthew Cooney and Donal Mannion shared their time as boys in a rundown neighborhood, without fathers, without comfort, without a sense of tomorrow, then went their separate ways, one to chase the trappings of maturity, the other to the streets.  Their days shrouded in boredom, their nights filled with the thrill of the chase, each sought his place and his purpose.

 

Within their struggles are the challenges of escape, of outrunning the roll of the dice that placed them where they are, and, in the end, of defining what it means to be alive, to constantly strive for the things that are just out of reach.