Ask the Author: Nicholas Fillmore
Answered Questions (6)
Nicholas Fillmore
Hi Lew, appreciate your review. I had a real struggle trying to connect the two parts of this book, but do see the second part as essential to the "whole." Of course living the life and doing time are going to evoke different tones. I do think some of that irreverence reemerges in part two after my comeuppance.... Typos are like weeds, man, they seem to spring up spontaneously. I'll look out for those you pointed out.... FYI, next book is a family drama-type thing. Book 3 will be narrated by Satan ... so more irreverence to come, fear not!
Nicholas Fillmore
Thanks, but it's just the one (so far).
Nicholas Fillmore
Short answer: Stuff pisses me off.
Nicholas Fillmore
You don't have to wear a name tag. (Although sometimes you do.)
Nicholas Fillmore
Just walk away, if it's truly writer's block, i.e. the unconscious hasn't processed the information yet. But if you're just being a pussy—you'll know—sit your ass down and start writing. Reread to get yourself into the rhythm, and start writing. Even if you're not in the groove you can advance dramaturgical ideas and come back to work on the language later.
Nicholas Fillmore
I'm currently working on Sins of Our Fathers, which I'd describe as a personal historical-fiction. The Story's inciting incident is my father's return from the service—or rather my father's telling of his return—to find a note taped to the front door: "Moved."
"What was he going to do, 21 and his imagination stirred up by the Marines, the Republican Party and god knows what else? How was he going to live?"
"I want to understand my father on this night," I've written, "standing on the near shore of himself, some tentative first thought sunk like a piling into the mud…. And I want to understand him almost fifty years later, having crossed all the way into his life...."
In a sense I guess I'm picking up a fictive thread of my father's making (was there actually a note?) and running with it.
In the course of the book I've had opportunity to shuttle across four generations, probing for those points of departure, coloring summary details with my own imagination, and inventing dramatic scenes that explain underlying truths as I understood them....
I suppose the advantages and disadvantages of this method are one and the same: while constrained by the known, one becomes more highly trained on its significance—drawing out psychological implications from known details rather than imposing them from without; and verging into the unknown, following a kind of logic departing from last known facts. I have a blurry photo of my mother waving a little flag on VE day, for instance. And it must have been my grandfather, an amateur boxer and a troubled drinker, who took those pictures:
Somewhere there’s a picture of my mother, in sepia tones, on VE Day, waving a little American flag on the side yard of the Colton Street house. Just this one picture.—My grandfather squinting through the viewfinder of the little Kodak. Mom, bravely suffering from undiagnosed tonsillitis, squinting back in morning sunlight slanting over his shoulder. And Wanda clutching her apron on the front porch.—
In what other way might we conceive ourselves than in some eternal present in which all past and future moments are crystalized?—
Mom is waving the little flag. Al peering into the camera. And Wanda clutching her apron….
The big willow tree on the side yard moves lightly in a breeze coming up from the river.
“You try it,” he says, holding the camera for my mother and turning the focus ring.
My mother takes the camera as he capers around the yard. Then he stops and puts his hands up: Al Urbanski, 145 pounds and untouched.
My mother looks through the viewfinder and turns the ring until she is looking straight into clear, blue eyes peering between clenched fists.
“Al!” my grandmother says from the porch.
My mother’s finger flutters over the shutter release.
“Al!” my grandmother says.
Then she presses down until she hears the click. And everything goes dark.
The world is whirling around her, the willow tree and her mother on the porch and the little American flag lying in the grass as her father waltzes her about the yard.
She runs to her mother and aims the camera. Wanda smoothes her apron and smiles. It is a mother’s smile, full of worries. She presses down until she hears the click. Then Wanda takes the camera and hands it back to Al; takes my mother in the house and sticks a thermometer in her mouth.
In the little sunlit kitchen they talk in bright tones. Talk of things between a mother and daughter.
Al sorts type in the basement while listening to news reports on the radio. There are great celebrations: A million people on the street in London. And in Los Angeles and Chicago and New York. He goes out to the empty street for a cigarette. Comes back in and putters around some more. Then he grabs his hat and coat.
“I’m going into the shop he says,” jamming his fists down into the pockets.
“Are you sure?” she says.
“I’m sure,” he says.
“Do you have to?” she says.
“Wanda, please!” is all he can think to say.
Then he is on the bus to Hartford; then he dissappears into the crowd.
"What was he going to do, 21 and his imagination stirred up by the Marines, the Republican Party and god knows what else? How was he going to live?"
"I want to understand my father on this night," I've written, "standing on the near shore of himself, some tentative first thought sunk like a piling into the mud…. And I want to understand him almost fifty years later, having crossed all the way into his life...."
In a sense I guess I'm picking up a fictive thread of my father's making (was there actually a note?) and running with it.
In the course of the book I've had opportunity to shuttle across four generations, probing for those points of departure, coloring summary details with my own imagination, and inventing dramatic scenes that explain underlying truths as I understood them....
I suppose the advantages and disadvantages of this method are one and the same: while constrained by the known, one becomes more highly trained on its significance—drawing out psychological implications from known details rather than imposing them from without; and verging into the unknown, following a kind of logic departing from last known facts. I have a blurry photo of my mother waving a little flag on VE day, for instance. And it must have been my grandfather, an amateur boxer and a troubled drinker, who took those pictures:
Somewhere there’s a picture of my mother, in sepia tones, on VE Day, waving a little American flag on the side yard of the Colton Street house. Just this one picture.—My grandfather squinting through the viewfinder of the little Kodak. Mom, bravely suffering from undiagnosed tonsillitis, squinting back in morning sunlight slanting over his shoulder. And Wanda clutching her apron on the front porch.—
In what other way might we conceive ourselves than in some eternal present in which all past and future moments are crystalized?—
Mom is waving the little flag. Al peering into the camera. And Wanda clutching her apron….
The big willow tree on the side yard moves lightly in a breeze coming up from the river.
“You try it,” he says, holding the camera for my mother and turning the focus ring.
My mother takes the camera as he capers around the yard. Then he stops and puts his hands up: Al Urbanski, 145 pounds and untouched.
My mother looks through the viewfinder and turns the ring until she is looking straight into clear, blue eyes peering between clenched fists.
“Al!” my grandmother says from the porch.
My mother’s finger flutters over the shutter release.
“Al!” my grandmother says.
Then she presses down until she hears the click. And everything goes dark.
The world is whirling around her, the willow tree and her mother on the porch and the little American flag lying in the grass as her father waltzes her about the yard.
She runs to her mother and aims the camera. Wanda smoothes her apron and smiles. It is a mother’s smile, full of worries. She presses down until she hears the click. Then Wanda takes the camera and hands it back to Al; takes my mother in the house and sticks a thermometer in her mouth.
In the little sunlit kitchen they talk in bright tones. Talk of things between a mother and daughter.
Al sorts type in the basement while listening to news reports on the radio. There are great celebrations: A million people on the street in London. And in Los Angeles and Chicago and New York. He goes out to the empty street for a cigarette. Comes back in and putters around some more. Then he grabs his hat and coat.
“I’m going into the shop he says,” jamming his fists down into the pockets.
“Are you sure?” she says.
“I’m sure,” he says.
“Do you have to?” she says.
“Wanda, please!” is all he can think to say.
Then he is on the bus to Hartford; then he dissappears into the crowd.
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