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An Interview with Jack Driscoll
Jack Driscoll is an established Michigan author with numerous collections of poetry and fiction to his credit. Driscoll is a writer who dives unflinchingly into some of the darkest places of our relationships. His latest novel, How Like an Angel, once again dives into the world of broken families, specifically, the relationships between fathers and sons. With the same humor, style, and depth of spirit so prevalent in his writing, Driscoll offered us a unique look at his life as both author and teacher, and the inspiration behind his latest work.
AJ Gretz and David LeGault conducted this interview with Jack Driscoll in March 2006 for UpInMichigan.org. Both AJ and David are undergraduate students at GVSU.
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UpInMichigan.org: Your most recent novel, How Like
an Angel, was just released in hardcover eight months ago: How would
you say it compares to your previous works?
Jack Driscoll: Well, you always hope that everything you write is going to be the best thing you've ever written, because otherwise what's the point? And I'm not sure that everything you write is better than everything that precedes it, but I do feel good about this book. My singular obsession for the last thirty years has been the relationships between fathers and sons and this is definitely another father-son novel. I believe that I've gotten closer to confronting this idea more directly than I have in anything I've ever written, be it novels or short stories or poems. In many ways, I do think it's the best thing I've done.
UIM: It's interesting that you brought up the father-son issue right away; we've noticed that it's been a general theme throughout your writing career. Is this idea based on personal experience? Is this about you coming to terms within your own life, or is it just something that's always been interesting to you?
JD: Well, anyone who tells you that what they are writing is entirely invented is lying; there's an element of autobiography in everything. This novel is not about the relationship between me and my father, but it is about the relationships between fathers and sons. So even if it isn't about me, everything that I'm writing is filtered through me, and since that is one of my concerns, the writing is certainly personal. So, without going into a lot of detail it's clearly something that I've been trying to reconcile for a long time.
UIM: Now that you've written extensively on the topic – including poetry, short story collections, and novels -- do you feel like you're getting closer to saying what you want to?
JD: Yeah, I do, and I'm glad you brought that up; my answer is unequivocal and I do think I've gotten closer. You know, James Joyce promises that every man will be reconciled with his father and I'm not sure that exactly have, but I feel like I've gotten a lot closer to it in this new novel... I've never really forgotten what it was like to be a kid and I can write from that experience.
UIM: In addition to the father-son theme, we've noticed other recurring elements within your writing: particularly, broken relationships, isolation, and alcoholism. It seems very true to the Northern Michigan and Upper Peninsula region; there's an abundance of these troubling elements up there. Does living in the region cause these elements to enter your writing, or does it come from somewhere else?
JD: Well, I think that we are the aggregate of everything that we perceive; we're conditioned by where we live. And you know—from living in Escanaba—how long the winters are, and it has everything to do with how everyone functions. There's a standing joke up here that there are three seasons—July, August, and Winter—and I think that's not really an astounding observation because it has everything to do with how people function. The place itself conditions who we are, what our moods are like, etc. If you're going to live in a climate like this, getting 200 inches of snow every year, then you better figure out soon that you're not going to fight it; if you try, then you're going to lose. You have to give yourself up to it and find a reason to be there, and I think that scares a lot of people away. I happen to love it; I love the intensity and I can redirect it—this climate—into my writing. I don't find it oppressive at all.
UIM: As a professor at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Northern Michigan, do you find that in your students as well?
JD: Oh yeah. My students come from forty five different countries, including tropical climates, and they get here and all is well—for, you know, September and October—and then all of a sudden winter sets in and they can't believe it. They've never seen anything like it and you can see them wilting underneath it. It's severe; I love it, but it's not for everyone.
UIM: Outside of the student interaction, how has becoming a professor impacted your writing? Is it something you did out of necessity, or is it something that you've always wanted to do?
JD: Well, the thing we'd all love to believe is that we can make our avocation and vocation the same thing, but realistically we all can't. However, I think I've come pretty close to doing it. I only teach one semester a year anyway, so I have eight months out of the year to myself: that's when I get my writing done. It's a schedule that's entirely compatible to the writing lifestyle. I'm writing novels now, and I need that time when working with longer fiction. The school's been really good about giving me that kind of attitude; they've been entirely supportive of what I do.
UIM: Your work has shifted from short stories and poetry into novels over the past ten or twelve years of your career. Was that a conscious choice, or did it just happen?
JD: I think that it's been a natural progression for me. I don't think it was a conscious departure, but when I look back I can see that there were signs. My poetry was becoming more narrative so I turned to short stories. They were small at first and then they eventually began shaking out at eighteen to twenty pages; at that point it wasn't surprising that I might try something longer. Of course, since then the last three things I've written have been novels.
UIM: Do you envision yourself going back to shorter works at any point?
JD: I've actually begun writing short stories again; I don't think I'm going to write another novel for a while. I don't know if I'll go all the way back to poems, but I've been writing short stories for the past six months. The shorter form feels really good right now. I just don't want to commit to another five year project; it's just not in me right now.
UIM: Is it mostly about the time commitment?
JD: You'd think that novels would get easier to write after you've completed a few of them, but it's not the case. The first is the easiest because you don't know anything and you're receptive to almost everything. You want to raise the bar with every novel and when you do that it just gets harder. This last one took me five years and I don't have it in me to commit another five years to another project. With short stories, I can usually complete one in about a month. After a ten year hiatus, the short form just feels great right now.
UIM: Now that you've written some novels, have you applied any of the longer form elements to your short story writing? It seems like there'd be a stylistic evolution between the two.
JD: I'm not sure; I don't think I'm back where I started. I'm glad that I've written the stories that I had twelve years ago, but I'd like to believe that what I'm writing now is at least more emotionally complex than that. I'm a different person now than I was then; I'd hate to believe that my best work is behind me. I'd like to think that what I'm working on now at least has the potential to be better than any story I've written so far.
UIM: Junot Diaz spoke at Grand Valley a couple of weeks ago. He said that he reads stories he had wrote two years ago and doesn't even know who that person was. Is it like that?
JD: Exactly. I think it was W. H. Auden who said that rereading one's early work can sometimes give them the creeps. And it's not that I want to go back and revise things; that's who I was and I'm happy with that. But there is this thing, this term "puppy love," and there's sort of "puppy love" writing as well. It's who you were when you were younger so I'm hoping that what I'm doing now is going to be better than what I was doing before.
UIM: You mentioned that you felt like your writing is becoming more emotionally complex. How can you tell?
JD: I think that all writing is about feelings and what's unfolding inside you. It's all about giving shape to these things that you feel passionately about. When I'm talking about my feelings I'm talking about unfolding the emotions inside me. If we had a monitor here I could point to my stomach and I could say this thing down here that I'm feeling is powerful and turbulent and I'm trying to give expression to that. More often than not, those feelings turn out to be about loneliness and sadness and bereavement and, yeah, those kind of things. I've been trying to give voice to that—whether it be in poems or stories or novels—for a long time.
I tell my students that the hardest thing they'll ever do is write, and I believe that's true. If they don't have to write, then they probably shouldn't. They should go do something else because it's too hard otherwise. Giving voice to your emotions is just too difficult most of the time. From the time I've been 11 years old I've just felt this strong need to try and articulate what I've been calling these feelings, this thing that I want to talk about. And that's been a constant for the past 35 years.
UIM: So, you're saying that it's necessary to express these ideas regardless of who's reading it or what happens?
JD: Absolutely. I don't care about that stuff at all. When I sit down to write...well what you're talking about is more ego driven, and I try not to think about that while I'm writing. I'm just trying to say something—something that's eternal, ineffable. I just want to say something I believe is true, and if I can feel like I've done that and done it well then I'm happy. Whether I have a large or small readership, it doesn't matter; that never factors into the equation.
UIM: Do you ever read your own reviews, or do you go to Amazon and see what people are saying about your work?
JD: No because I don't know how to use the Internet [laughs]. If I did I probably would, but I really don't. I see most of the reviews because my publicist sends them to me. It is a little dispiriting if you get a lousy review, but it can really buoy your spirits if you get a positive one. That's a nice thing to see, particularly if it's in a big time venue like The New York Times or The L. A. Times or something like that.
UIM: We noticed that you mentioned a lot of national publications. Do you consider yourself to be a national author, or do you cater your writing to the region?
JD: Whenever you start talking about regionalism, you're going to pigeonhole yourself to some degree. Wherever I sell books is fine by me; if the majority of sales are coming from the Midwest, however you define it, that's fine by me. But even if my work is set in the Upper Midwest it can hopefully transcend to anywhere, being meaningful to everyone. I try not to worry about that kind of stuff.
UIM: Do you see other authors as being regional?
JD: I'm a a reader, and I'm a voracious reader. If I'm reading Tom McGuane, I suppose I'm reading a Montana writer, and if I'm reading Scott Momaday I guess I'm in the Pacific Northwest. You know if you read Thoreau you're in New England or if you read Robert Frost you're in New England or if you read Emily Dickinson you're in New England. Or if it's someone like Faulkner you're in the south. There's no escaping that and I think Americans have always been fascinated by that, but you don't think in those terms when you're sitting down to write something. You're just trying to say something.
UIM: It's interesting though that all of the authors that you mentioned are "nature-centered," or at least lived in areas that you would associate with the environment. More so than a New York author, for example.
JD: You're right; I didn't mention any city authors, did I? I've always been a small town person. It's where I feel comfortable. The writers who have influenced me the most are not urban writers. It's not that I haven't read them, but that's not the life I've led.
UIM: So you don't associate or connect with them at all?
JD: No. It's not my world; I don't know it very well so how do I authenticate that? I can't imagine in my wildest imaginings setting a novel in New York City. For me, that'd be like setting a novel on Mars or something.
UIM: And it's not something you would be willing to attempt some day?
JD: I don't think so. That would feel too alien to me. I have to feel comfortable with where I am, and the characters who frequent that environment, and urban characters are not people I feel very comfortable with.
UIM: That brings us to our last point: when you were starting out as a writer, were there any teachers, authors, or experiences that really influenced you? Did you have a make or break moment as a young writer?
JD: There was nothing in my childhood that encouraged me to believe that a writing life was possible. Nothing. Not my teachers, not my parents. I come from a business family; whenever I told anyone older that I wanted to be a writer, they acted as if it was something I would grow out of. They thought of it as sort of a childish fantasy. Of course, the question for me started being why it was they were reacting this way. Was there something wrong with being a writer? Am I the only one who feels the need to speak this way? Am I going to find myself in some weird, dark, Hawthornian place conspiring with Goody Cloyse and people like that? The signals were all wrong and I just wanted to know why they were assuming that this was a literal impossibility for me. Why was it something a boy from Hoyan, Massachusetts, was never going to do?
It was really disconcerting because I loved language and I really wanted to do this thing. I went to five undergraduate colleges because education just didn't make sense to me; nobody was speaking a language that had any impact on me. Finally—you asked about a defining moment—I studied with John Irving in this teeny little Vermont liberal arts college called Windham College. I must have been 23, 24 and I'd been to a lot of colleges that made no sense to me and here finally someone was saying you know if you want to do this I think you can do it. I think you have talent and I think you can do this. If he hadn't come along I wonder if I'd really be doing this at all.
UIM: What was it about the other colleges or other schools that was so difficult? Was it just a matter of not connecting with the right people?
JD: I think that was part of it. If you run into in an entire educational one or two people that are inspirational the way we always hope teachers will be inspirational, then I think you're pretty lucky. I didn't run into any of them; I can't even remember the names of any of my teachers because they were that unmemorable to me until Irving came around. Here was someone who was speaking a language I understood, that I'd waited 25 years to hear. He was telling me to, "do it. Follow your heart." That was enormous, and I had no idea who he was His first book had just come out and nobody knew to what heights he would ascend. I mean he wasn't a whole lot older than I was, maybe like five years or something like that, but he was the person I needed to meet.
UIM: Is that something you've tried to emulate in your own teaching?
JD: Absolutely. I would love to think that I might be inspirational in the same way to my students the same way he was to me.
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FEATURED:
An Interview with Peter Ho Davies