Scott Snyder
Author
of Voodoo Heart talks with Matt Borondy about writing to
Elvis music, working at Disney World, and defying the laws of gravity
Scott Snyder's debut story collection, Voodoo
Heart (Dial, June 2006), is the one book I've read this year
that I could tear through about fifty more times and enjoy it even
more on each sitting. It's that good. The set of seven stories has
been critically acclaimed by Stephen King, among others, and a recent
review by John Glassie in The Believer put it like this:
"In his entirely enjoyable and justifiably inventive debut
collection, Scott Snyder works in the area of the unlikely, as opposed
to that of the utterly impossible, focusing his imagination on what
could happen if the axis of the earth were tilted by just a few
more fractions of a degree."
The stories in Voodoo Heart involve topics such as: an
allegedly brain-damaged country singer with a cult following, a
dumpster outside a pawn shop, an old mansion near a secluded women's
prison, a man who watches for jumpers at Niagara Falls, and the
phrase "Happy Fish, Plus Coin." Three take place in central
Florida, where the author once worked as a Disney character.
Scott Snyder currently teaches writing at Columbia and lives on
Long Island, where he is working on a novel—sometimes from
the backseat of his car.
After you graduated from Brown in '98 you went to Orlando
and ended up taking on various jobs at Disney World—roller-skating
janitor, Buzz Lightyear character, etc. It just occurred to me that
around that same time, I was working a couple of I-4 exits away
at Universal Studios, though my experience was likely not as interesting
as yours given that I grew up in that bizarre city. What is it that
drew you to Orlando of all places? I ask because it's not a typical
post-graduate destination, and outside of maybe Jack Kerouac and
Zora Neale Hurston (who far predate Disney World), the area has
a pretty vacant literary tradition.
You worked at Universal? Now we have to tie our wrists together
and knife-fight...I wasn't actually that drawn to Disney at first.
I was more interested in working at the newspaper, The Weekly
World News—it's all Bigfoot sightings and alien babies,
Batboy escaping from his cave...I applied for a job there, but they
didn't end up taking me. (They're run by The Enquirer,
by the way, and to get into the building you buzz the intercom and
say: "Enquiring minds want to know...") When the job at
the paper fell through, I decided to try my luck at Disney. I'd
always had it in my mind as a back-up, but I really wanted to work
at the WWN (I had a subscription through much of college).
I did have a sense of wanting to work in Florida, though. There's
just something about it. The odd combination of retirees, tourists,
angry locals. The theme parks, the pawnshops, the beaches and swamps.
It really felt like the end of the country to me, like a gang plank
sticking out over the ocean.
To what degree is it important for fiction writers to put
themselves in untraditional situations (like roller-skating around
a theme park cleaning up trash)? Do you think that the substance
of your writing greatly improved by taking a year off from your
Ivy League education to hang out in the tourist-filled wasteland
of central Florida and work for Mickey Mouse?
That's a good question. I guess I don't think that it's necessarily
important for all writers to put themselves in odd contexts. For
me, it did a world of good for my writing. I'd lived in the Northeast
my whole life. I'd never worked for a big corporation, for minimum
wage. I'd never been so out of place before. At the same time, Orlando
felt like just the right place to be. Almost like a funhouse image
of home. All the things I ended up writing about, those things that
are deeply frightening to me—fear of commitment and growing
up, fear of losing loved ones, the wonder and terror of falling
in love—all of it was constantly being played out all around
me in this weird, cartoonish, magnified way at Disney, if that makes
sense. Disney is a perfect marriage of the wondrous and nightmarish.
Which is what I ended up shooting for in the stories.
You've moved on from your Disney experience to become a
writing professor at Columbia. What is the best advice you have
given your students from your own experience?
The golden rule in my class is that you can only write about what
interests you. Meaning that if what gets you is comedy, you should
write comedy, but if what excites you is a political issue, you
should write with it in mind, and so on. So the best advice I guess
I can give is to really force yourself to be brave and only ever
write about the things that excite and/or frighten you the most.
Plus, telling students this day after day, it keeps you honest.
You can't get on their case if you don't write from
the heart yourself when you get home at night.
If you weren't teaching or working in the literary world
in any capacity, what would you be doing now?
I'd definitely be working in comic books. I wanted to be
a comic book illustrator all the way up until college. I still practice
a lot, and my publisher was actually kind enough to let me live
out my fantasy in a small way and draw some simple illustrations
for the collection—I did those little drawings at the start of
each story.
It's a common assertion that the first book from a writer
is the most autobiographical. Do you feel as though any of the stories
in Voodoo Heart are especially reflective of your own life?
I do feel that they're deeply autobiographical, even though on
the surface none of the characters has anything in common with me.
They live very different lives than I do. But at the same time their
issues are mine, the things they struggle with. I try to place them
in contexts that force them to face the things they're most afraid
of or attracted to. Sort of like a psychological landscape, I guess.
A few of the narratives in Voodoo
Heart relate to flying, and from what I've
read, your next book, a novel, deals with early aviation. Where
does your interest in this subject come from?
I've always loved aviation, especially early aviation. When
I was a little kid, my grandfather used to build model rockets with
me. We'd construct them piece by piece, the body, the fins,
then paint them. We'd buy those cardboard engine tubes. We
launched the rockets in a field near his house. There's still
something that gets me about the idea of an object defying the laws
of gravity, escaping the earth's pull.
Your website says you're "a big Elvis fan (and not
in an ironic way)." Do you agree with the statement from Pulp
Fiction that it's impossible to love both Elvis and the Beatles
equally?
I do sort of agree with that—I remember that line well. I think
that to some degree Elvis fans are more about that singular coolness,
you know? The comet. The guy who's entirely his own wild new
animal. Beatles fans, I think, are more about the collective product,
the collaboration—the music.
Do you listen to Elvis when you write? How big a place
does Elvis (and music in general) take up in your life?
I often listen to Elvis when I write. I listen to other things,
too, but mostly Elvis. And he does play a big part in my life. It's
kind of personal, I guess. I really got into him when I was still
a teenager. I was a pretty nerdy kid (in case the comics reference
didn't already make that clear) and at some point I just wanted
to find something that would be both completely uncool and completely
mine. I was trying to discover something for myself then, I think,
when I first came across Elvis. But what happened was that I really
fell for him. I loved the music. And even more than this, I found
great inspiration in his story, especially his early years. When
Elvis was a teenager, for example, he had little reason to believe
in himself. He was poor, scrawny, covered in acne. And yet he came
to school dressed as though he was already a rock star, in pink
pants, a gold blazer, his hair swept up in a pompadour, eyes lined
with mascara. That confidence, that ballsiness, I found it hugely
admirable as a kid (still do). Over time, I got into all the different
phases of Elvis's career.
How would you describe your writing practices in terms
of the "set and setting" (borrowing a term from psychedelia)
in which you do your best writing?
I'm just a big believer in trying to be disciplined about
it, really. I don't have a set time, though I'm coming
to prefer writing in the early day. I try to always put in my hours
is the thing, at least three a day. I sometimes write at home, sometimes
at the library. When the weather's nice I like to write in
my car, which is an old model. I'm out on Long Island—my
wife's in school out here—so I can drive to the shore and
park, write in the big back seat.
Which story in Voodoo Heart was the most challenging
to write?
The title story was definitely the hardest for me. It took me about
five months to write, draft after draft. It's also my favorite
in the collection.
Is there a certain form that you feel most comfortable
with—short story, novel, novella? Which do you think you will
focus on publishing over the course of your career?
I like the short story form a lot, though some of the stories in
Voodoo Heart were beginning to lean toward novellas in
length. The compression necessary in a story works well for me.
I like playing with the claustrophobic, pressure cooker effect.
Packing a story with elements that attract and repel each other
at once. I just started work on a novel, though. It's about early
flight, as you know, and it's also for Dial.
You've been on our newsletter mailing list for a while
and seem to be an avid reader of online fiction (as well as a contributor).
What's your perception of the Web's place in the literary world,
especially as it relates to younger authors like yourself?
I think the Web's been great for creating a broader literary
community—granting writers access to readers and each other, providing
resources like literary news sites and blogs. It's also opened
up a whole new venue for all sorts of writing: not just fiction,
poetry and essays, but reviews, profiles, interviews (your interview
archive alone is a treasure chest). It's an exciting time
to be a young writer. Geeks unite.
What are the best books you've read this year?
I was lucky enough to get a couple books in galley form in the
last few months that I really loved. One was Kelly Braffet's Last
Seen Leaving (Houghton Mifflin), out in November—a terrific,
smart, literary thriller. The other was Karen Russell's upcoming
collection, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
(out in September from Knopf). Startlingly original and imaginative.
Both are must reads.
Are there any new authors whose work has flown under the
radar that you'd like to recommend to our readers?
Sure. My favorite collection of 2005 was Owen King's We're
All In This Together. It's an incredible book, sharp,
full of wonder and great story-telling. It comes out in paperback
from Bloomsbury this month.
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Posted:
July 10, 2006
