Ask the Author: Brian Kindall
Answered Questions (8)
Brian Kindall
I don't remember ever reading Mr. Mysterious, but it sounds like my kind of book. I'll put it on my list. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I love those books that stick with you over the years.
Brian Kindall
Hi Debra,
Thanks so much for reading my novel, and for your thought-provoking question.
So, why is it that everyone Didier Rain sleeps with ends up dead?
I deliberately left the answer to that vague in order to put the reader in the same mindset as Didier Rain. Is it just a coincidence, or is he being punished by God? As with all matters concerning faith and religion, in my experience at least, there’s no way to know for sure. Rain is so haunted by his own Oedipal guilt and deficiencies as a human being that his every setback and disappointment feels to him like a curse inflicted from above. The very first line of the novel even implies that Rain suspects he’s being pranked by the invisible gods so ironically manipulating his destiny, which pretty much dictates his attitude throughout his whole journey. Also, there is the “thou shalt not” issued by Brother Benjamin at the beginning that warns of punishment if Rain partakes of carnal pleasures. That has to be in the back of Rain’s mind as he wakes to find both the no-name goat and Turtle Dove mysteriously dead after intercourse. But whereas the interaction with the goat was clearly taboo, his love for Turtle Dove was genuine, if naïve, and misguided. So, if love is as holy as Rain believes it to be, and if what he felt for the Indian maiden was true love, why was the result the same with both his sacred and his profane acts of love? I realize I’m only answering your question with a question, but that’s sort of my point - the ways of the gods are mysterious and nonsensical, driven by a logic that is beyond what a fallible, mortal man like Didier Rain can ever understand. In fact, maybe the gods are not involved at all. Readers are in the same boat with Rain - we can’t know what’s behind these mysterious coincidences.
One other thing that occurs to me is the symbolism. Rain is an everyman white European. The West was crawling with them in the 1800s, all of them driven by their hungers for land, wealth, and religious freedom, and all of them justifying their selfish actions with their belief in Manifest Destiny - their God-given right as virtuous Anglos to take what they wanted, even if it meant killing the natives and destroying the land. Turtle Dove is symbolic of the natural world of the American West. After the white man came and pillaged the land, that natural world was left largely dead. Rain’s rape of Turtle Dove is that same drama played out in miniature.
Thanks so much for reading my novel, and for your thought-provoking question.
So, why is it that everyone Didier Rain sleeps with ends up dead?
I deliberately left the answer to that vague in order to put the reader in the same mindset as Didier Rain. Is it just a coincidence, or is he being punished by God? As with all matters concerning faith and religion, in my experience at least, there’s no way to know for sure. Rain is so haunted by his own Oedipal guilt and deficiencies as a human being that his every setback and disappointment feels to him like a curse inflicted from above. The very first line of the novel even implies that Rain suspects he’s being pranked by the invisible gods so ironically manipulating his destiny, which pretty much dictates his attitude throughout his whole journey. Also, there is the “thou shalt not” issued by Brother Benjamin at the beginning that warns of punishment if Rain partakes of carnal pleasures. That has to be in the back of Rain’s mind as he wakes to find both the no-name goat and Turtle Dove mysteriously dead after intercourse. But whereas the interaction with the goat was clearly taboo, his love for Turtle Dove was genuine, if naïve, and misguided. So, if love is as holy as Rain believes it to be, and if what he felt for the Indian maiden was true love, why was the result the same with both his sacred and his profane acts of love? I realize I’m only answering your question with a question, but that’s sort of my point - the ways of the gods are mysterious and nonsensical, driven by a logic that is beyond what a fallible, mortal man like Didier Rain can ever understand. In fact, maybe the gods are not involved at all. Readers are in the same boat with Rain - we can’t know what’s behind these mysterious coincidences.
One other thing that occurs to me is the symbolism. Rain is an everyman white European. The West was crawling with them in the 1800s, all of them driven by their hungers for land, wealth, and religious freedom, and all of them justifying their selfish actions with their belief in Manifest Destiny - their God-given right as virtuous Anglos to take what they wanted, even if it meant killing the natives and destroying the land. Turtle Dove is symbolic of the natural world of the American West. After the white man came and pillaged the land, that natural world was left largely dead. Rain’s rape of Turtle Dove is that same drama played out in miniature.
Brian Kindall
I have a very clear sense of a Muse in my life. I know it's pointless to chase her. I can never catch her. I know it's useless to threaten or bully her into giving me a brilliant idea. That always leads to flat, spiritless writing, and I always feel bad afterward. And so I've learned to just let my muse know I'm interested in writing something new. I'll sort of whisper to her before I go to sleep at night. I suppose it's kind of like praying, asking for some sort of miracle. But I've learned to have faith. I've learned patience. Inevitably it pays off. She grants me the whole package at once, when I'm least expecting it. I'll glimpse the book's ending. I always tell her thank you, usually out loud. Someone watching might think I was crazy. But such experience often teeter on the edge of sanity, after all. A touch of lunacy is important. She seems to appreciate it. And then I get to work. I set out on the journey through the chapters to that far away ending.
Brian Kindall
I live in the mountains of Idaho with my wife and three kids. We have long winters and we get a lot of snow. There's a vast forest on one side of us, and a frozen lake on the other. There are no people around in the winter. It's primal quiet. One day I was watching my youngest son Lee through the window. It was snowing and he was standing outside barefoot, perfectly still, holding his palm up to the sky. His hair was white with snowflakes, his pose almost poetic. He could have been a statue, or something out of a dream. At last, he was rewarded for a his patience when a chickadee landed on his fingers and started pecking at the seeds he held in his palm. Although I couldn't hear what he said, I saw my son's lips move as he whispered something to that little bird. They seemed to be friends. It struck me that Lee was in touch with Nature in a way that was unique. I thought I might like to write a book about someone like that, and so I did.
Brian Kindall
I typically have one book I'm focused on, and one or two others for which I'm writing notes and preparing. Right now I'm about a third of the way through a middle-grade novel about a boy who makes a dubious wish. The boy's challenge throughout the story is in righting the cosmic wrong he's committed when he realizes his wish has come true.
Brian Kindall
Listen to yourself first. It's okay to like other writers, and even to imitate them to some extent. You can learn a lot that way. It's okay to listen to advice from all your critics. But when you sit down to write, speak from those deepest parts of yourself. No one but you can write from your point of view. Sharpen that point of view. That's what you have to offer to the world that's of the most value. Be honest and sincere with who you are. Be fearless and compassionate.
Brian Kindall
The best thing is making the little discoveries along the way. I'll be writing with my head down when some phrase or metaphor will come out onto the page and just click perfectly with what I'm trying to say. Then it's as if a window has opened inside of me. I have this lucid moment where I'm in love with literature, in love with humanity, and I just feel so privileged to be on this journey with everyone involved. I get a glimpse of my own mythology at those times - all those moments and influences in my life that have led me to write that perfect thing. It puts a lump in my throat. I pause, whisper a thank you to the gods, and then move on.
Brian Kindall
I don't really suffer from writer's block anymore, but I do get intimidated by my own big ideas for what I'm trying to create. Looking at an entire project before it's started can sometimes slow my forward momentum. Everything gains such a great weight when you're trying to write a masterpiece. It's like Flaubert's comma, where he spent all morning putting it in, and then all afternoon trying to gain the courage to take it out. I tell myself to remember that it's just a process. No one is watching. Like climbing a big mountain, it can only be done one step at a time. Mistakes can be erased, poor passages deleted. No one needs to see those first clumsy attempts. Once I remind myself of those things, the process is just fun.
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