Writing about Violence

I've made it my mission to read the other books nominated for the Edgar Award for "Best First Novel." Not only does it seem like the right thing to do, but as a connoisseur of crime fiction, I am eager to discover the best new talents on the scene. At the moment, I'm deep into Nic Pizzolatto's Galveston, a tough-talking, tough-minded book that deserves the praise it's received. Next up is Bruce DeSilva's Rogue Island, about which I have also heard many great things.

After I make my way through the Edgar nominees, I am eager to read Andre Dubus III's, Townie: A Memoir. I had the privilege of studying with Andre at Emerson College, where I received my MFA, and he taught me many valuable lessons about how—and why—to write.

Clayton Moore has a great interview with Andre over at Kirkus Reviews. I recommend it in its entirety, but here's a section that really spoke to me:

The sequences about your fights are gripping, but observant, too. What are some of the challenges in writing about physical violence?

Writing about physical violence is challenging in the same way writing about sex is challenging; you have to walk this fine line between being too explicit and too idealistic. If you write too explicitly, the reader is just watching a physical action, like it’s pornography. If the writing is working too hard to show the beauty or ugliness of the act, then the reader gets a romantic treatment of the subject, which strikes me as dishonest. So, because I, like a lot of people, know first hand what being in a physical fight feels like, I worked hard in this book to simply capture that on every level I possibly could—its physical choreography, its emotional and spiritual dimensions while engaged in the act, etc., and I tried to do all this without moral judgment, though that certainly shows itself later on.

I understand completely what Andre means about how easily writing about violence becomes a kind of pornography. In fact it's a source of real ambivalence for me as it relates to crime fiction. Real violence is horrible (I can say that from personal experience). Sometimes, I become uncomfortable when I contemplate the idea of entertaining people with stories of murder and maimings. I have to remind myself that human beings crave these stories for a variety of powerful psychological reasons. The best I can do is work hard not to romanticize acts I find abhorrent.

Authors Are Anchovies

Along with Borders' descent into Chapter 11 bankrupcty, Margaret Attwood's keynote at the Tools of Change publishing conference is the talk of the book industry this morning. Every author likes to hear that he or she is the foundation of the entire business. But just because it's flattering doesn't mean it's not true.

Killer Mysteries

I'm extremely psyched that my forthcoming novel, Trespasser, is mentioned with books by Ian Rankin and Walter Mosley in the new Kirkus Reviews:

Paul Doiron leapt from the editorship of Down East magazine to the big leagues of crime writing with his soulful debut novel The Poacher’s Son, which introduced game warden Mike Bowditch and earned a place on Kirkus’ Best Mysteries of 2010 list. Now in Trespasser, Mike must reopen old wounds in order to catch a killer with friends in high places. “The story picks up seven months later,” says Doiron. “Mike’s girlfriend has moved back in with him, and he’s trying to get on with his life, but he’s been left deeply scarred in ways he doesn’t want to admit. This is a book about guilt in many forms.” (Minotaur, June)

I'm not sure about the big league part. If anything, I feel like a Pawtucket player up for a cup of coffee, as they say, with the Red Sox.