Q & A interview
Author Interview with Bill Smoot
1. How did you get the idea for this novel?
Back in 2013, I started teaching in the college program at San Quentin Prison. Walking into the prison in those early days of volunteering, I found myself gazing up at the high walls and wondering how someone might escape. My experience was very much like Allison’s on her first visit to the prison. Then, as fiction writers are wont to do, I began to imagine an escape plan. I wondered who would be escaping and why. What was that person’s backstory? The story began to take form, and in 2020 I started writing the novel.
2. Is there a lot of your experience teaching at San Quentin in this novel?
The chapters that take place inside prison walls drew upon what I have seen and heard in my fourteen years of going into San Quentin. But my characters and their actions are mostly products of my imagination.
3. Why did you decide to compose the novel as a series of very short chapters?
One way to tell the story of a life—or two lives in this case—is to create select scenes, stringing them together like bits in a mosaic. I started writing this novel in that way—the death of James’ father, the day they leave their little house in Sacramento, his first encounter with Black Snake. I liked the way it was going, so I made that my story-telling mode. It’s not original, so I was partly going to school on other writers. Joyce Oates has done it, and Anthony Doerr does it in All the Light We Cannot See, a novel I really love.
4. How did you create the characters of Allison and James?
In my first imaginings, the character who would help an inmate escape was some version of myself. But I knew that wasn’t right, so “myself” was just a placeholder until the right character came along—and she did! I don’t want to sound too woo-woo here, but I don’t create characters in a deliberate and rational way. Instead, I ease my mind into a receptive mode and wait for the character to appear. Allison arrived, first as a young girl, watching her father in his basement workshop. Then she read Nancy Drew, came of age, and her life continued to unfold in my imagination.
Next, I had to create the character who would need to escape. Like Allison, James grew in my imagination, first as a boy of 12. It occurred to me that among the archetypes of young males, one is the Good Boy—who wants to listen and learn, to do the right thing, to obey the rules. That’s James. Good Boys become choir boys and Eagle Scouts. They often pay a price from their peers, especially the Bad Boys. At San Quentin, I have recognized a few of my students as former Good Boys. As a child, I myself was a Good Boy, so that made James easier to write.
5. And yet this Good Boy commits a murder?
Oakland in the 80s is a place in which a being a Good Boy is like walking a tight rope. There are constant threats that make it easy to lose your balance and fall. At the moment Spike is killed, James ceases to be a Good Boy and becomes an Avenger. It both continues and destroys his essence as a Good Boy. Like so many definitive moments in life, it is a great and painful contradiction.
6. Allison is radically different than James, and yet they collaborate on a prison escape.
In terms of demographics, yes, James and Allison are polar opposites: straight-gay, Black-White, male-female, underserved Oakland-suburban Indianapolis. But in another way, they’re the same person: introverted, watchful, a little nerdy and shy. For each, their isolation gives them a kind of freedom to grow and develop, unshaped by forces of conformity. Each is mission-driven. James wants to follow in the footsteps of George Washington Carver, and Allison wants to be Nancy Drew.
Of course, there are other differences. Even as a child, Allison was not a Good Girl. I think of her as the classic Huntress—independent and determined. Which she carries into adulthood.
7. Your education—a PhD, in fact—is in philosophy. Is there much philosophy in this novel?
There are writers who do that brilliantly. Thomas Mann and Milan Kundera come to mind. But no, San Quentin Exodus is not explicitly philosophic. However, it has been said that every novel addresses the question, “What is the nature of man?” In that way, I see my novel as speaking to those great questions. For example, it is due to external circumstance that Allison, a teacher who loved Nancy Drew novels as a child, does something that would shock anyone who knows her—she plans an attempted prison break. It is a free act, but a free act that would not even be possible had she not met James, and had James not be dealt a ten-year parole denial, had she not read Nancy Drew novels, had her father not taught her how to problem-solve. There we have an example of Sartre’s view that we are always free to make something out of what has been made of us. James, too, exercises that same kind of freedom. So philosophy may be found in the novel, but implicitly.
8. In the past few years, many have argued strongly that a White author should not create a Black character, especially a point-of-view Black character.
Oh, yes. Many publishers, editors, and agents won’t touch such works. I have followed the controversy and read the writing on both sides of the issue, which is difficult and complex. At the end of the day, my own feeling is that an important function of fiction, both reading it and writing it, is to help us understand one another. Success is partial—at best. It’s hard enough to understand ourselves, let alone someone else whose life experience is very different than our own. But we have to try, especially given the current state of our world. I am inspired by works—whether poetry, film, or fiction—that tackle the challenge of building empathy and understanding. For my film class at San Quentin, I recently screened Barry Jenkins’ film, Moonlight. It had guys in tears. Barry Jenkins is not gay, but he had the courage to make the film about a gay man. And it worked—because he’s empathic, his film is empathic, and viewers are moved toward empathy and care.
Whether in my novel I have succeeded in creating fully human characters—be they Black, lesbian, or felons—is a question for each reader to answer. All I know is that for me, James and Allison are fully human. No stereotype loves its dog the way James loves Spike.
In my other works of fiction, I have created point-of-view characters far outside my demographic: children, females, and gays. I recently published a short story from the point-of-view of a coyote. If the coyote caucus decides to cancel me, so be it.
9. Describe how you work. What about motivation, writer’s block, that sort of thing?
I taught for fifty years, and I wanted so much to do a good job that I overworked and overprepared. I consistently had a sixty-hour work week. For that reason, I was unable to commit myself to writing except in a fringe and minimal way. When I retired in 2018, I was so happy at last to be a fulltime writer that I never had issues with motivation or writer’s block. I feel gratitude that I’m able to write. I find writing a first draft to be difficult, but I love revising. I feel like a sculptor smoothing out the rough edges.
10. How did you start?
On the day Kennedy was shot a boy in my high school classroom say he hoped he died. I was sixteen. I wrote about that for the school paper, and from that time—whether I was writing or not—I felt in my soul that I was a writer. I was a journalist in college, and later had to write things I didn’t much enjoy, like a doctoral dissertation, but writing fiction was always the dream. So now I’m living my dream.
11. What do you hope your reader takes from this novel?
Like any novel, San Quentin Exodus is a bit of a Rorschach. Perhaps some will see there some moment of recognition, or empathy, or inspiration. That would be my hope.
Beyond that, since a large part of the novel takes place within prison walls, I hope that readers will become aware—or be reminded—that incarcerated people are as fully human, deep, troubled, and complex as only humans can be. They have hearts. For fourteen years, it has been my privilege to teach them works of literature, film, and philosophy. Whatever I have given, I have received back in greater measure. Truly. That is why this novel is dedicated to them.
1. How did you get the idea for this novel?
Back in 2013, I started teaching in the college program at San Quentin Prison. Walking into the prison in those early days of volunteering, I found myself gazing up at the high walls and wondering how someone might escape. My experience was very much like Allison’s on her first visit to the prison. Then, as fiction writers are wont to do, I began to imagine an escape plan. I wondered who would be escaping and why. What was that person’s backstory? The story began to take form, and in 2020 I started writing the novel.
2. Is there a lot of your experience teaching at San Quentin in this novel?
The chapters that take place inside prison walls drew upon what I have seen and heard in my fourteen years of going into San Quentin. But my characters and their actions are mostly products of my imagination.
3. Why did you decide to compose the novel as a series of very short chapters?
One way to tell the story of a life—or two lives in this case—is to create select scenes, stringing them together like bits in a mosaic. I started writing this novel in that way—the death of James’ father, the day they leave their little house in Sacramento, his first encounter with Black Snake. I liked the way it was going, so I made that my story-telling mode. It’s not original, so I was partly going to school on other writers. Joyce Oates has done it, and Anthony Doerr does it in All the Light We Cannot See, a novel I really love.
4. How did you create the characters of Allison and James?
In my first imaginings, the character who would help an inmate escape was some version of myself. But I knew that wasn’t right, so “myself” was just a placeholder until the right character came along—and she did! I don’t want to sound too woo-woo here, but I don’t create characters in a deliberate and rational way. Instead, I ease my mind into a receptive mode and wait for the character to appear. Allison arrived, first as a young girl, watching her father in his basement workshop. Then she read Nancy Drew, came of age, and her life continued to unfold in my imagination.
Next, I had to create the character who would need to escape. Like Allison, James grew in my imagination, first as a boy of 12. It occurred to me that among the archetypes of young males, one is the Good Boy—who wants to listen and learn, to do the right thing, to obey the rules. That’s James. Good Boys become choir boys and Eagle Scouts. They often pay a price from their peers, especially the Bad Boys. At San Quentin, I have recognized a few of my students as former Good Boys. As a child, I myself was a Good Boy, so that made James easier to write.
5. And yet this Good Boy commits a murder?
Oakland in the 80s is a place in which a being a Good Boy is like walking a tight rope. There are constant threats that make it easy to lose your balance and fall. At the moment Spike is killed, James ceases to be a Good Boy and becomes an Avenger. It both continues and destroys his essence as a Good Boy. Like so many definitive moments in life, it is a great and painful contradiction.
6. Allison is radically different than James, and yet they collaborate on a prison escape.
In terms of demographics, yes, James and Allison are polar opposites: straight-gay, Black-White, male-female, underserved Oakland-suburban Indianapolis. But in another way, they’re the same person: introverted, watchful, a little nerdy and shy. For each, their isolation gives them a kind of freedom to grow and develop, unshaped by forces of conformity. Each is mission-driven. James wants to follow in the footsteps of George Washington Carver, and Allison wants to be Nancy Drew.
Of course, there are other differences. Even as a child, Allison was not a Good Girl. I think of her as the classic Huntress—independent and determined. Which she carries into adulthood.
7. Your education—a PhD, in fact—is in philosophy. Is there much philosophy in this novel?
There are writers who do that brilliantly. Thomas Mann and Milan Kundera come to mind. But no, San Quentin Exodus is not explicitly philosophic. However, it has been said that every novel addresses the question, “What is the nature of man?” In that way, I see my novel as speaking to those great questions. For example, it is due to external circumstance that Allison, a teacher who loved Nancy Drew novels as a child, does something that would shock anyone who knows her—she plans an attempted prison break. It is a free act, but a free act that would not even be possible had she not met James, and had James not be dealt a ten-year parole denial, had she not read Nancy Drew novels, had her father not taught her how to problem-solve. There we have an example of Sartre’s view that we are always free to make something out of what has been made of us. James, too, exercises that same kind of freedom. So philosophy may be found in the novel, but implicitly.
8. In the past few years, many have argued strongly that a White author should not create a Black character, especially a point-of-view Black character.
Oh, yes. Many publishers, editors, and agents won’t touch such works. I have followed the controversy and read the writing on both sides of the issue, which is difficult and complex. At the end of the day, my own feeling is that an important function of fiction, both reading it and writing it, is to help us understand one another. Success is partial—at best. It’s hard enough to understand ourselves, let alone someone else whose life experience is very different than our own. But we have to try, especially given the current state of our world. I am inspired by works—whether poetry, film, or fiction—that tackle the challenge of building empathy and understanding. For my film class at San Quentin, I recently screened Barry Jenkins’ film, Moonlight. It had guys in tears. Barry Jenkins is not gay, but he had the courage to make the film about a gay man. And it worked—because he’s empathic, his film is empathic, and viewers are moved toward empathy and care.
Whether in my novel I have succeeded in creating fully human characters—be they Black, lesbian, or felons—is a question for each reader to answer. All I know is that for me, James and Allison are fully human. No stereotype loves its dog the way James loves Spike.
In my other works of fiction, I have created point-of-view characters far outside my demographic: children, females, and gays. I recently published a short story from the point-of-view of a coyote. If the coyote caucus decides to cancel me, so be it.
9. Describe how you work. What about motivation, writer’s block, that sort of thing?
I taught for fifty years, and I wanted so much to do a good job that I overworked and overprepared. I consistently had a sixty-hour work week. For that reason, I was unable to commit myself to writing except in a fringe and minimal way. When I retired in 2018, I was so happy at last to be a fulltime writer that I never had issues with motivation or writer’s block. I feel gratitude that I’m able to write. I find writing a first draft to be difficult, but I love revising. I feel like a sculptor smoothing out the rough edges.
10. How did you start?
On the day Kennedy was shot a boy in my high school classroom say he hoped he died. I was sixteen. I wrote about that for the school paper, and from that time—whether I was writing or not—I felt in my soul that I was a writer. I was a journalist in college, and later had to write things I didn’t much enjoy, like a doctoral dissertation, but writing fiction was always the dream. So now I’m living my dream.
11. What do you hope your reader takes from this novel?
Like any novel, San Quentin Exodus is a bit of a Rorschach. Perhaps some will see there some moment of recognition, or empathy, or inspiration. That would be my hope.
Beyond that, since a large part of the novel takes place within prison walls, I hope that readers will become aware—or be reminded—that incarcerated people are as fully human, deep, troubled, and complex as only humans can be. They have hearts. For fourteen years, it has been my privilege to teach them works of literature, film, and philosophy. Whatever I have given, I have received back in greater measure. Truly. That is why this novel is dedicated to them.
No comments have been added yet.
