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An Interview With Alex Irvine

Alex Irvine was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He has lived lots of places and had lots of jobs. His novel A Scattering of Jades appeared from Tor in July 2002, and a chapbook of his stories was recently issued by Small Beer Press. His short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Vestal Review, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. He lives in Portland, Maine, with his wife Beth and twins Emma and Ian and dog Gus.

Alex Irvine is the author ofDown in the Fog-Shrouded City .

Wormhole Books: Your Wormhole chapbook, Down in the Fog-Shrouded City , has been described as noir high fantasy. Does that even begin to do justice to this complicated story?

Alex Irvine: When I think of high fantasy, I tend to think of pseudo-medieval stories centered around country bumpkins who discover they're really kings. This story isn't that. In my mind, it's a story about how love makes us complete, but that doesn't really address the question of its genre status. It certainly is noir-ish, and it certainly is fantastic, so I guess I don't need to quibble about the "high" part.

WB: Please speak to this story's genesis.

AI: Well, like so many other things, this story is Franz Kafka's fault. I have been reading him with great admiration for a long time, but until this story I've been nervous about actively trying to write in a Kafkaesque mode. Then I recently re-read The Trial and the passages in which K. is drained of energy in the labyrinthine office building really started to ricochet around in my head (as readers of the story will doubtless notice). That, and I was reading some of the great American noir novels, notably Kenneth Fearing's The Big Clock . But even more than that, the story came from the lyrics of a song by a neo-hippie jam band called Widespread Panic. The song is called "Jack," and in it there is a wizard catching peanuts between his teeth. All of those things came together and gave me a scene, and from there the rest of it unfolded.

WB: How do you control the broad and pervasive influx of pop cultural influences? Can you simply ignore them? How do you sort them?

AI: It's mostly an unconscious process. Most of pop culture is crap, but as so many people have said, most of everything is crap, so that shouldn't be held against pop culture alone. I'm a bit overeducated, so many of the influences in my writing come out of canonical literature that I ran across in grad school. But things like noir and music find their way in. I'm not drenched in pop culture the way that someone like Stephen King is (plus I couldn't afford the rights to all of the song lyrics he uses), but you can't avoid it. Like anything else, contemporary pop culture is a resource for the writer who is willing to see it that way.

WB: What do you think your major strengths as a writer are?

AI: This story doesn't really display this quality, but I tend to like my dialogue. I don't know if that's a good thing or not, since because I tend to like it I also tend not to work as hard at it as I should. Also I believe in my reader. Too many writers condescend to their readers, and readers know when this is happening. Judging by the sales figures of some of the writers who I think do this, though, it might not be a bad commercial strategy. But the books I admire are written by people who believed that their readers were committed enough and intelligent enough and interested enough to give a work their full attention and energy. This is different from making the reader work hard, as in much experimental fiction (which is fun but not what I'm trying to do). When I say attention, I mean that a good work of fiction inspires a commitment on the part of the reader. That's what I try to do.

WB: Your first novel, A Scattering of Jades , was recently published by Tor in hardback to some very positive critical reception. It's a little hard to categorize, since it's an historical fantasy dealing with such elements as the great New York fire of 1835 and Mesoamerican mythology. What was the genesis of this complex tale?

AI: I went to Mammoth Cave and immediately wanted to write about it. Stephen Bishop, a character in the novel, was a real person, and his story was fascinating enough that I had to use him in the book, I hope responsibly. Then during the course of some reading about the cave I came across an account of a mummy recovered from the cave that had been buried with accoutrements very similar to those seen in the graves of the cultures that immediately preceded the Aztecs. After that, I was off and running. I'm not sure how all of the Tammany Hall and Aaron Burr stuff got started, but I do remember finding connections that made the book's internal history suspiciously plausible-if, of course, you grant the existence of magic.

WB: The novel incorporates one of America's great showmen, himself an almost mythic character, P.T. Barnum. Is it true you're a descendant?

AI: Probably. I did some research into the Barnums, and-without getting too deeply into boring genealogical details-it would be very surprising if I wasn't a descendant of Barnum's. At least as far as I could tell without devoting tons of time to researching the question. The "probably" of course fell out of the relationship when Tor was putting the publicity materials together, which is okay with me. PT would have done the same thing, right?

WB: You've got a strong formal academic background. In today's publishing arena, do you think being tagged as a writer with strong literary tendencies is a good or bad thing?

AI: Commercially I think it's probably bad because people automatically assume that literary equals difficult. I don't believe that, and I think I've managed to write some fiction that is literary and accessible and enjoyable. At least I hope so. My direct engagement of my literary influences doesn't always mesh well with writing genre fiction; just as literary audiences tend to expect less of genre fiction, genre audiences tend to regard literary fiction as elitist and snobby. So I try to work between, to write fiction that people in both audiences will find interesting.

WB: Your wife and you are recent parents of twins. Congratulations! But how has this affected the rhythms of your writing?

AI: Thanks! The kids are of course miraculous, but their presence has meant that my most fertile working hours, which tend to be 9pm-2am or so, are off-limits for the time being because I have to get up at 5:30. So I'm scrambling a bit, and not as productive as usual. As soon as the kids are sleeping through the night, though, I'll be back to my night-owl self.

WB: As a comparatively new writer now making a very large splash in the sf field, what kind of advice would you offer the aspiring even newer writers?

AI: I'm not sure I have much to offer that hasn't been said elsewhere. But: First, read. Look at the writers you enjoy and want to emulate. Then, write. And trust yourself when you think something is good; you might be wrong, but if you can't trust your instincts you're never going to get anywhere. My first published story was written in 1994 and rejected consistently for the next four and a half years until Gordon Van Gelder bought it. The story didn't get any better in those intervening years; it just had to find an editor who felt the same way about it that I did. A lesson in perseverance, I guess, or maybe just stubbornness.

WB: At this point your short fiction sales have included most of the prominent sf markets, along with a fair representation of specialty fiction publications. What are some of your current unrealized ambitions?

AI: I keep trying to write a story for Analog , but every time I try it the story ends up more suitable for F&SF . This is probably okay and an indication of my predilections as a writer. Also, lately I've begun wanting to publish in literary magazines. I have halcyon visions of the Paris Review and Ploughshares .

WB: Are you interested in trying your hand at other media than print?

AI: Yes. I just wrote a screenplay, which is in all likelihood going to wander around desks in Hollywood forever with no result. It was a lot of fun, very different than fiction and in a way an eye-opener with respect to showing me some of the ways that I tend to approach writing. A good experience. If I sell it, the experience will be that much better. And I'd like to write a biographical screenplay about Philip K. Dick, but I think there are about fifty people in line ahead of me there.

WB: You read fiction as well as write it. What are you presently seeing either in or out of sf that is exciting you?

AI: Since the kids were born, I have hardly had a chance to read for pleasure (also I've been so sleep-deprived that I can't follow anything more challenging than Go, Dog, Go!). But I've enjoyed Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay , short fiction by Kelly Link and Jeff Ford...let's see, what else...Kim Stanley Robinson's most recent book, The Years of Rice and Salt , is monumental, and Patrick O'Leary's The Impossible Bird is a beautiful book about brothers. I'm sure I'm forgetting something that I was raving about yesterday.

WB: On behalf of our readership and staff, we thank you for participating in this interview.

AI: Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

Down in the Fog-Shrouded City Alex Irvine A noir high fantasy Learn more...