Ask the Author: Cameron Mackenzie
Answered Questions (1)
Cameron Mackenzie
There are two answers to this question, a logical one and an illogical one. The logical answer is that I was reading Chabon's "Gentlemen of the Road" and it occurred to me that a pseudo-serious literary work could be exciting and adventurous and touch on the mythical in a sincere and genuine way. That's the kind of book I wanted to write--one that was intellectually challenging AND transportive and adventurous.
The illogical answer is that I heard a song called "Pancho Villa" by Sun Kil Moon, and it's slow and heavy and magisterial--kind of Neil-Young-y--and I said to myself that I wanted to write like that song sounded. After I started my book on Villa I'd listen to that song constantly, but I could never figure out the words, save one couplet: "in 1925 / he closed his eyes." I thought that was strange, because Villa was assassinated in '23, until I googled the lyrics and figured out that the Pancho Villa of the song was not the Mexican Revolutionary, but was instead a Filipino boxer whose ring name was Pancho Villa--a name given to him by an American trainer in the Philippines. He was a featherweight champion who died after a fight in 1925 in San Francisco, not 4 blocks away from where I was living when I finished the book. I don't know what all that means, but the real truth of the book lies somewhere in that web of association.
The illogical answer is that I heard a song called "Pancho Villa" by Sun Kil Moon, and it's slow and heavy and magisterial--kind of Neil-Young-y--and I said to myself that I wanted to write like that song sounded. After I started my book on Villa I'd listen to that song constantly, but I could never figure out the words, save one couplet: "in 1925 / he closed his eyes." I thought that was strange, because Villa was assassinated in '23, until I googled the lyrics and figured out that the Pancho Villa of the song was not the Mexican Revolutionary, but was instead a Filipino boxer whose ring name was Pancho Villa--a name given to him by an American trainer in the Philippines. He was a featherweight champion who died after a fight in 1925 in San Francisco, not 4 blocks away from where I was living when I finished the book. I don't know what all that means, but the real truth of the book lies somewhere in that web of association.
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