Interview with Michael Martone

The following is an interview with Michael Martone, author of Alive and Dead in Indiana, Safety Patrol, Fort Wayne is Seventh on Hitler's List, Pensees:  The Thoughts of Dan Quayle, Seeing Eye, The Blue Guide to Indiana, The Flatness and Other Landscapes, Unconventions, and Michael Martone.  He has also edited at least four anthologies. He teaches writing at the University of Alabama.
   
   
Dan:
   
Thank you, Michael, for taking some time away from everything to answer some questions.
   
Michael:

Thank you.  Sorry to be away.  So away as to not have email! How retro is that!
   
   
   
Dan:
   
Is it true, in your opinion, that one should absolutely NEVER start a story with "Rrrrrrring! The alarm clock went off."?
   
Michael:

Well, I have seen a lot of stories begin that way.  Of course my other rule is:  Don't do anything half-assed so if you start a story with Ring it might be made better if all the following paragraphs also began with Ring.  I think young writers begin with that opening because they think that stories are told in the same order lives are lived.  In order.  But also what is interesting is the line that usually follows.  Something like "Bill sat up and thought about his day..."  What I think is happening is that you have just asked someone to write a story so they sit down and think about it and in the story they create they dramatize sitting down and thinking.  Funny.
   
   
   
Dan:
   
The most recent book on shelves with your name on the spine is Rule of Thumb - a collection of 73 authors giving an anecdote, or idea, about writing, which you co-edited with Susan Neville.  How many authors did you have to ask to get the 73 authors worth of stories?  How did you and Susan go about deciding which to ask to participate?  Do you have a favorite piece or two in the collection?
   
Michael:

We asked about 100.  Many it was a least resistance sort of thing.  Asking writers as we ran into them at readings, the awp convention, etc.  I like Steve Tomasula's piece with it's crossouts.  John Barth's, Lydia Davis's.  But I like a little bit of all of them.  I like the lists of Rick Barthelme and Robin Hemley.
   
   
   
Dan:
   
You've edited a few books now - what is it about editing, versus writing, that you enjoy?
   
Michael:

Most of my edited books are anthologies of new material.  I like coming up with an idea that appeals to writers--lord knows i can't pay them much.  I like the element of collaboration in this working together in a medium that is usually so solo.  I also like lists and listing and taking a look at an over look subject with a group of similarly obsessed
writers.

   
   
Dan:
   
Alive and Dead in Indiana came out in 1984, and was published by Knopf.  Do you think it was easier for a story writer to find a publisher 20 years ago than it seems to be today?
   

Michael:

Certainly in commercial houses then as there were editors who were still interested and those houses were still publishing poetry too at the time.  The full effect of the Thor Power Tool court case was not in play in 84 yet too.  Soon there after the structural mandate for the big selling book was fully in play.  My book did get published but only
stayed in print for 6 months.

   
Dan:
   
I find it interesting, especially in light of your most recent fictional publishing, that Alive and Dead in Indiana does not appear to have any contributor note or author description at all - just a nearly full back cover photo of you in front of what appears to be an aluminum sided house.  I don't recall, was that somewhat standard at the time, or did you just not have much to say about yourself yet?

Michael:

It was really the function, the style of the editor Gordon Lish.  That photo was interesting too as I had it taken long before I knew about the book.  I was visiting the writer Mark Kramer--his siding--who was having a photo taken for a new book--and he suggested to Kelly Wise to take a few of me in case I needed it someday.  And I did.
   
I think from that time it has been true I have gotten more involved in the making of my books.  Back then an author got paid 10% and that's pretty much what you were to the publisher.  They bought the book from you and did with it what they wanted.  I think of it as the author being bauxite and the finished book the aluminum can.  The author is the raw material.  I think now with the technology and the commercial changes the categories of author, publisher, editor, reader, are all collapsing.  All becoming one thing.  A new siding on the house.
   
   
   
Dan:
   
While you seem to have your own particular style already established by the time this book came out, it really isn't until the very last story, Vocation, that you seem to really branch out and experiment with the form.  Were you just beginning to push some of the limits of story writing, or was it a conscious decision by Knopf to look for some of your more straightforward work to publish?
   
Michael:

You'll love this.  It was the lawyers.  Vocation was added because three other stories along the lines of the others--monologues by and about famous people--were kicked for invading privacy.  The book was shrinking fast.  Vocation--aka Fort Wayne Is Seventh on Hitler's List--was written before all the other stories in the book.  I have now had two run ins with lawyers.  I have invaded privacy.  I have infringed trademark.  Now to violate copyright and I'll have the trifecta.
   
   
Dan:
   
The next collection, Safety Patrol, came out in 1988 from Johns Hopkins University Press.  It contained 12 stories that seemed to focus on the idea of safety, and pretty uniformly stated there was no such thing (going so far as to nicely point out that the way paint companies were able to obtain that bright yellow so often used for safety paint was to add lead, a toxin).  While you were living in Massachusetts when the book came out, I believe much of it was written while you lived and taught in Iowa.  Was there something about Iowa that led to your concentration on safety and the futility of thinking about it?
   
Michael:

It goes back even further.  My father worked as a switchman for the phone company--a mechanical switchman--and when he say the digital age coming he thought what would be the safe job to have.  Safety he realized. There would always be accidents and death.  But even safety wasn't safe.  When ATT was broken up even that job was eliminated
   
   

Dan:
   
By 1995, you've published two more collections of stories, and the latest, Seeing Eye, includes 3 sections and 34 stories - your work is getting more economical piece by piece.  Do you look back and see that you were becoming less interested in writing longer, maybe more traditional stories, at this point?  Do you consider the work being done at that time to be more slice of life, or character study, than plot driven stories?
   
Michael:

I see having babies.  I had two and began writing in the seams of time babies create.  During feedings.  Naps. I was always less interested in narrative always more interested in the lyric, in voice, in juxtaposition and association.  I also became very interested in the context of art.  How the same words are read differently depending on where they are
read. 
   

   
Dan:
   
Seeing Eye saw as the middle section, a re-publishing of a short collection of pieces entitled, Pensees:  The Thoughts of Dan Quayle.  I realize the man was a Hoosier, but wasn't that sort of like kicking a dead puppy?  Couldn't you have delved into the head of, say, Richard Luger?
   
Michael:

Well, he was my representative in Congress and the book isn't about, I think, Dan Quayle as much as it is about waiting.  I think of it as my Waiting for Godot.  It had to be a vice president then for me and Indiana has the most vice presidents in history.  You know them--John Marshal and Skylor Colfax and Dan.  Dan Quayle is the only vice president to have a vice presidential library by the way.  An amazing place in Huntington, IN.  I think if you read the book one finds it isn't about making fun of him but attempts to examine a character who knows he is a laughing stock, knows his job is a joke.  It is very Hoosier in that it is about not mattering and knowing that and living with that knowledge.  I actually think it is, um, sympathetic.
   
   
   
Dan:
   
Then comes The Blue Guide to Indiana, a fictional travel guide to the state that dominates your writing.  I understand some of this work was actually published in little local newspapers, and not completely described as fiction?
   
Michael:

Most of it appeared in weekly newspapers and magazines in Indiana as actual things to do.  We did get a few people calling in when they couldn't find the actual place.  I got a call from the Washington Post doing a story on little known federal facilities.  I had made up one that was The Federal Research center for Coffin and Casket Standards.  It was in Batesville--the real home of the Batesville casket company.  When I told the reporter it was made up he said: That's too bad.  That was one of the good ones.

   
   
Dan:
   
While I found the book incredibly funny, I do wonder just what was going through your mind the day you concocted the idea of The Trans-Indiana Mayonnaise Pipeline?
   
Michael:

Well, you probably noticed that all the food mentioned is white.  Marshmellows, eyeless catfish, pork cake.  Having grown up on Midwestern potluck it just seemed to me that such a thing should exist if it didn't really. 
   
   
   
Dan:
   
I did notice the white, but didn’t grasp the Midwestern context.  Next up was The Flatness and Other Landscapes, a collection of essays about the Midwest, published by the University of Georgia Press, and winner of the AWP Award for Creative Nonfiction.  First off, the age old question, what do you consider Creative Nonfiction to be?
   
Michael:

For me the more interesting binary is story not story.  Fiction and nonfiction for me is the subject of my fiction and nonfiction.  See above.  I was very pleased that a contributor's note from Michael Martone was reprinted in Best American Essays.  When ever a bunch of prose writers get together that is the worry fiction non.  They worry it.  Poets never worry it.  Is a poem nonfiction or fiction or both or neither?  I like that.  Okay I write prose poems.  I really don't like the move that says creative nonfiction should be narrative, should be memoir.
   
   
   
Dan:
   
In terms of the book itself, is it a compilation of essays you had written over some time, in visits back home, or from when you resided in Indiana and Iowa, or did you do all of the things you write about, specifically with this book in mind, over a short period of time?
   
Michael:

It represents the long period of time.  Most of the pieces were occasional.  Written as assignments.  It took awhile for them to accumulate into a book.
   
   
   
Dan:
   
Do you enjoy writing essays any more than you do writing fiction?  Do you find yourself in the same mindset when you tackle both forms?
   
Michael:

I do.  Perhaps the only difference is that the fiction tends to be now these tiny parts that are like components building into this larger book.  The non fiction tends to be stand alone from essay to essay.  Theme related but not form related so much.
   
   
   
Dan:
   
Your wife is a poet.  Are you each other's initial readers?
   
Michael:

She is mine.  I am not hers.  Always been that way.
   
   

Dan:
   
Your most recent title, the one we're hailing at the LBC this week, is titled Michael Martone.  It contains some 45 or so contributor's notes that at times seem to contradict each other.  Many of these were published in literary journals prior to FC2 putting the book out.  When you wrote the first of these, were you already thinking of a full length book of them?
   
Michael:

No the first appeared as the author's note in Blue Guide.  I had always wanted to do something with Frank Burns from MASH being from Fort Wayne.  Once I wrote it, I liked the possibilities it opened up.  Perhaps most interesting was the fact of its demand of third person.  Most everything I had done was in first.
   
   
   
Dan:
   
It seems that the book is being looked at more like a unique form of a novel than a collection of shorter works by those who are writing about it - do you agree with this assessment?
   
Michael:

Yes, I think now it is a book and if you go with a label I would actually call it my memoir. 

I miss the fact that the book couldn't do what the individual pieces did.  Namely, I published them in the contributors' notes section of many magazines with no work in the front of the book.  So I don't appearing in the table of contents but as a note.  I love all the editors who allowed me to do that.
   
   

Dan:
   
The blurbs for Michael Martone include one from Michael Martone.  Was this a bit of playing around on your part, or more an indication that the Michael Martone of the contributor's notes is indeed a fictional character?
   
Michael:

Both I think.  I am still thinking about that form.  The blurb.  I love it.  I do it all the time.  There is also a review of Michael Martone by Michael Martone in Rain Taxi.
   
   

Dan:
   
You've also published a collection of essays, prefaces, and speeches, Unconventions:  Writings on Writing.  I've not read tons of books on writing, but this one seems pretty unique as it rarely gets into nuts and bolts of writing on a step by step detail.  Are you aware if it's being used in any classrooms anywhere?
   
Michael:

I am not sure yet.  Pretty new.  But you are right.  I am more theory than craft.  Writing programs at Universities--that's a book right there--are situated between journalism on the one hand and the art department on the other.  Most writers I have worked with feel uneasy talking about art.  Craft seems like something you can teach.
   
   
   
Dan:
   
You've taught at Iowa, Syracuse and now at the University of Alabama.  Do you enjoy teaching?  Do you find it helps you stay creative with your own work?
   
Michael:

I love teaching.  But I have evolved my ideas about teaching.  I like to create interesting environments for student writers.  I have them write a lot of different kinds of things in different media, genres, etc. I am not really interesting in the topic of good or bad writing but more interested in the teaching a habit of curiosity and exploration.  I think of myself as a Montesorri  teacher.  I watch where the student goes and then follow after him or her in the enriched environment.
   
   

Dan:
   
Lastly, if you were a character in Fahrenheit 451, what work(s) would you memorize for posterity?
   
Michael:

In the Heart of the Heart of the Country by Gass, Rebecca by Donald Barthelme, Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth.

Funny.  Fort Wayne--the real one--had one of those contests where the whole city would agree to read one book.  My Fort Wayne was 7th on Hitler's List was a finalist but Fahrenheit 451 won.  So I guess too I would memorize Fahrenheit 451 in the spirit of community development.

Comments

[Alyson Hagy]

Nice interview. I've long been a fan of Martone's fresh and intelligent approach to writing. He's got to be one of the most curious scribes around. And thank goodness for his approach to fiction and nonfiction. No neurosis there. The new book, MICHAEL MARTONE, is hilarious and smart. Thanks for keeping such a good writer in the public eye.

A. Hagy

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Writing is required in every college now. It is an integral element that allows for clearer communication. Teachers with those credentials are needed more and more in the school system but many schools have underprepared teachers. Although I'm unfamiliar with Michael Martone, I'm sure that this type of reading material could be required reading for upper level students.

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