HOBART: Andrew Porter on Suburbia, the Dead Milkmen, and Staying Focused

Andrew Porter received his B.A. in English from Vassar College and his M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the Iowa Writer's Workshop. His stories have been published in One Story, The Ontario Review, and The Pushcart Prize Anthology, among other publications, and his work has been read on NPR's Selected Shorts.

His debut collection The Theory of Light and Matter received the Flannery O'Connor award from the University of Georgia and will be published next month by the University of Georgia Press. Andrew was kind enough to answer a few questions over e-mail.

Sean Carman: First of all, congratulations on the collection! For those of us just coming to your work, can you describe what these stories are about, in whatever way you want to approach the question?

Andrew Porter: Well, that's never an easy question for any writer to answer, but I'll try my best.

First of all, I'd say that on a very basic level I think that what I was trying to do with these stories is explore a very specific terrain—in my case, the terrain of the suburbs—and, more specifically, I wanted to explore some of the nuances of this terrain, the ways in which this landscape has changed since, say, the 1950s and 60s, when writers like John Cheever were writing about it. So, even though the stories aren't geographically linked, they're linked by that setting, and of course by some of the conflicts inherent to that setting.

Beyond that, many of the stories are also about memory and the way we reconstruct memory. All of the stories are written in the first person and most of them involve narrators who are in some way trapped in the past, still trying to understand something that has happened to them, while at the same time trying to move forward with their lives and deal with their current problems. I've always been interested in that, I think—in the relationship between the past and present—and so the theme of memory, and the reconstruction of memory, is something that runs through book.

SC: I want to ask what will hopefully be a friendly but also sort of adversarial question, if that's OK. Because the American suburbs, and especially the nuances of that terrain -- I mean, that's pretty well-traveled ground, right? You mentioned Cheever, and Kevin Brockmeier's blurb on your website mentions Richard Ford. Lorrie Moore also comes to mind. My question is, how do you bring that subject -- American suburbia -- alive? Especially where, it seems, you're writing straight-up realism, with no Goth kids throwing wild parties, or errant crows representing intrusions of another world or what have you. Is that a fair question?

AP: That's a perfectly fair question, Sean, and thanks for asking it. This is actually something I think about a lot, just as I'm sure writers who set their work in, say, New York City or the rural south, think about the many writers who've come before them who have set their stories in these places. In the end, however, I don't think most writers have much of a choice about these things. The territory you write about is the territory of your imagination, and for me, the world that occupies my imagination tends to be a fairly suburban one. For years in college I choose to deliberately avoid this terrain, partly for the reasons you mentioned, but I found that when I set my stories in other places the stories didn't resonate as much for me or for other readers. There seemed to be something missing in them. That's probably the best way I can explain it.

As for your question about keeping this landscape alive, I think it has less to do with the landscape itself and more to do with the way you personally choose to portray that landscape. In my stories, for example, I'm particularly interested in introducing marginalized characters into this world—the types of characters you might not see in, say, a John Cheever story or a Richard Ford story—whether it be an exchange student from Belize, a group of Amish teenagers, or a lesbian couple trying to raise a child. In a way, I think I'm trying to shake up or disrupt this world, but in another way I think I'm also trying to reinvent this landscape a bit, or at least give my own version of it. I grew up reading a lot of the suburban writers of the 1960s and 70s, but at the same time I never quite connected with their version of suburbia. It wasn't the suburbia of my own experience or my own imagination. And so I guess, in a way, that's what I was trying to say in my previous answer when I mentioned "nuances" or the ways in which this world has changed.

SC: One of the Hobart blog's avowed missions is to scoop the New York Times. It's not an easy task, but luckily the Times helps us out by asking the same three questions of every writer interviewed for its Papercuts blog. Not that we mind. They are good questions. So, since it's only a matter of time until a Dwight Garner interview of Andrew Porter, can you give us a three-song playlist from your Ipod, and describe each song and maybe also why you like it?

AP: Well, okay, I'll just be honest about this one. Usually about once a year I go through a phase where I start getting nostalgic for songs I listened to when I was like 15, and I'm kind of in one of those phases right now, so at least two of these songs are going to seem a little old, but bear with me, okay? Here goes:

(Original Dead Milkmen "Death Rides a Pale Cow" Cassette Tape Cover)

"Punk Rock Girl" –The Dead Milkmen

I grew up near Philly during the heyday of the Dead Milkmen, but I don't think I ever completely understood how big they were outside of the Philly area until much later. To me, they were just a local band. Anyway, I was recently driving around with a friend and suddenly "Bitchin' Camero" came on his stereo, and I was surprised to learn that my friend had grown up listening to The Dead Milkmen too (in Iowa!) That night, I went home and got out all my old Dead Milkmen tapes (yes, tapes) and was astonished by how well those songs held up. As for "P.R. Girl," well, that's just one of the greatest songs ever written. Funny, sad, sweet, irreverent—it's got it all. I've been listening to it a lot lately.

"Ambush"—The Figurines

My friend Matt Wallace introduced me to this band. I think they're from Denmark, but they sound completely American. Anyway, "Ambush" was one of those songs that I liked immediately, almost from the very first chorus. Since then, it's been getting heavy play on my iPod.

"Transmission"—Joy Division

Another trip down memory lane. I recently watched those two Joy Division films that came out last year—mostly because of the great critical reviews they got—and even though I wasn't crazy about either one, hearing those songs again made me a little nostalgic, and before I knew it I was falling back into the dark world of Ian Curtis. "Transmission" is pretty much a perfect song. What can I say? That music is just timeless.

SC: The Dead Milkmen! No way! One of my favorite bands in college. In Philly they may have been a local band, but they were very big among a certain crowd at the University of Wyoming. To us they were distant and famous. Our next question: What was the Iowa Writer's Workshop like? In what ways did it change you as a writer?

AP: Well, in answer to your second question, in my two years at Iowa I think the main thing that changed was that I went from being a guy who wanted to be a writer to being a guy who actually thought of himself as a writer. I don't know when that transformation occurred exactly, but I think it had a lot to do with the fact that everyone around me, my fellow classmates, were so serious about their own work and so confident about the fact that this was what they wanted to do with their lives that it kind of rubbed off on me. I mean, no one was saying, "Well, after I leave Iowa, I'm going off to work in advertising." These people were in it for the long run, and that had a very profound effect on me, especially at 23.

And of course the program itself and the community around it were pretty amazing. Next to New York, I don't know of another place in the country where you'll find a higher concentration of writers, or readers, or just general fans of literature. I remember going to see James Tate read at this enormous auditorium on campus, and the place was packed—people sitting in the aisles, pushing to get in the back doors, spilling out into the lobby. You'd think you were at a Metallica concert, not a poetry reading. And so you had that—this amazing writing community in Iowa City—and then all of these really talented writers in the program itself, many of whom have since gone on to become pretty successful, and a few of whom remain my dearest and closest friends to this day.

So, it's kind of strange. Because I went there so young, it's hard for me to know whether I would have stuck with it for so many years had I not gone there or had I not met the people I met there. I mean, these were the same people who basically kept me going during some pretty tough years right after I left.

SC: It's amazing how many MFA graduates say that the experience helped them identify themselves as writers. I think that answer gets at something about writing, and about the risk that any artist takes in committing to such a creative, idealistic, free, and at times futile, existence. And now our interview has overlapped with the sad news of David Foster Wallace's passing. Not that there is any connection between David Foster Wallace's death and the great risk of committing oneself to the creation of art. We don't know. But I have to ask if you have any thoughts you'd like to share, about David Foster Wallace, or about writing in general. If you had the attention of a class of bright young students at the Iowa Writer's Workshop and it was their last day of class, what would you tell them?

AP: Yeah, I'm still trying to process David Foster Wallace's death myself. Like a lot of people, I was a huge fan, both of him and his work, and obviously this is an enormous loss. Writers that original and innovative are rare. You maybe get one or two in every generation. I don't know what else to say except that it's just very, very sad.

As for your second question, it's hard for me to imagine what I'd say to a group of Iowa students, or any MFA students for that matter, but I guess if I had to say something I'd probably just tell them to concentrate on their work and not worry too much about what happens to that work once it leaves their desks. I realize that's probably easier said than done, but I really think that's probably the main reason why so many young writers get frustrated. They have an idea of where their career should be going, and then they look at where they are and wonder why they're not further along. They start focusing on the external—publications, awards, agents, etc.—and they lose sight of the work itself. I mean, in the end, there's just so much that's out of your control as a writer that it's almost pointless to think about it. The only thing you can control is the work itself, and making sure it's good, and if it is good, then you'll eventually have success. I honestly believe that. So, I guess that's what I'd say to them, though that's probably one of those lessons that most writers need to learn for themselves.

Anyway, this has been a lot of fun, Sean! Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me.

SC: No! The pleasure was ours.