New year, new interview series! Looking forward into 2023, I have 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!
Justin Bryant is joining us today! Justin is the author of the 2013 memoir
‘Small Time.’ His fiction has appeared in Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Monkeybicycle, Thin
Air, and others. He is a 2008 graduate of the MFA program at New York
University and lives in Raleigh with his wife Sarah and their dogs Roxy and
Bryce.
What made you start writing?
I started keeping a journal one year when I
lived in England, and I found myself looking forward to sitting down to record
my day every evening. Because it wasn’t really creative, I soon became a little
frustrated, and I thought, ‘Well, I love reading fiction, so why not try to
write some myself?’ The very first story I wrote and submitted was published,
in The Iconoclast in 1991. Then reality kicked in and I picked up several
hundred rejections before I was published again.
What do you do when you’re not writing?
I coach soccer for a living, which
fortunately allows me a decent amount of free time to play with my dogs, work
on my car, and play tennis. My life’s main priority is making sure my wife and
my dogs are happy.
How do you celebrate when you finish writing a
new book?
I enjoy this question because I’m not sure
I have actually ever celebrated this. Maybe I should. It feels good to finish a
first draft, but I know I have years of revision ahead of me, so I tend to be
pretty understated about it.
Describe your book in three words.
Would you and your main character(s) get along?
Yes, but they’re a lot younger than me and
they would probably find me tremendously boring. They walk through jungles
chasing supernatural jaguars and shark-human hybrids, while I sit on my couch
with my wife and dogs, which is just the way I like it.
If you could spend the day with another author,
who would you choose and why?
Olga Tokarczuk. It would be fascinating just
to sit and talk about books and writing and try to get an insight into how her
mind works and the way she sees the world.
What are some of your favorite books and/or
authors?
The novel that made the greatest impact on me
was ‘The Magic Mountain’ by Thomas Mann. ‘Memoirs of a Survivor’ by Doris
Lessing and ‘Cancer Ward’ by Solzhenitsyn are up there. ‘Revolutionary Road’ by
Richard Yates will always be a favorite. Most people find ‘Jude the Obscure’
depressing, but that book is special to me. I love Graham Greene, Peter
Matthiessen, Fitzgerald, John Fowles, Donna Tartt, Colson Whitehead, Bolano, Nabokov,
Valeria Luiselli…I could go on forever and I’m forgetting a lot.
What is your favorite book from childhood?
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
What are you currently reading?
‘Minor Characters’ by Joyce Johnson. Her
memoir of growing up around the Beat Generation writers, and how the women in
that movement were marginalized or trivialized. It’s a fascinating book and her
prose is incredible.
Do you DNF books?
Yes,
definitely. Life is short and I’ve already lived 56 years of it. If I don’t
connect with a book, I put it down and move on with no hard feelings.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Big West: a largely unexplored region of
Calem, Central America, where time and gravity obey different laws, where
sloped lakes and mineral snow decorate the landscape, and where a grand resort
hotel existing simultaneously in three different eras hides from the modern
world. As satellites rain from the sky during a solar storm, Geoff has come
here to fulfill a mission he once believed in, but increasingly suspects is
pointless. Is it just a malarial fever dream, or are his dead parents really
here? Who is the shark-human hybrid always waiting ahead in the shadows? What
business does a mercenary known only as ‘the tall man’ have with him? And is
there any way for him to find his way back home?
In Thunder from a Clear Blue Sky,
Justin Bryant creates a world as irresistible as it is unsettling, as soulful
as it is strange. While a rag-tag team of military operatives navigates
dystopian conditions, from extreme weather and technology blackouts to a fabled
jaguar and a mysterious mercenary, this fever dream of a novel becomes
increasingly feverish. But for all its beautiful ambition, at its heart lies a
simple and powerful tale of love, longing, and devotion. I adore this bold,
poignant book!
- Jennifer Wortman, author of This.
This. This. Is. Love. Love. Love
"Readers who enter the world of Justin Bryant's Thunder From a Clear Blue Sky will find
themselves in a setting at once familiar and elusive. Here, a young man opts
for military service as a way to alleviate his student loans -- and soon finds
himself enmeshed in a surreal conflict, seemingly without end. Things get
stranger from there, and that's before the solar storms come into play. Its
reference points aren't the ones you'd expect -- Paul Auster's In the Country of Last Things, Lucius
Shepard's Viator, and Adolfo Bioy
Casares's The Invention of Morel all
come to mind -- and its destination is wholly unexpected. This is a journey
worth taking."
- Tobias Carroll, author of Ex-Members and Reel
Buy the book here:
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