an interview with Mark Jude Poirier

Mark Jude Poirier has written two collections of short stories (Naked Pueblo, Unsung Heroes of American Industry) and one novel (Goats) and "love it when prancing magical unicorns pop into stories to save the day!" We felt the urge to find out why.

In Naked Pueblo, there is a subtle commonality running through the stories, both in the form of setting and characters. Was this something you set out to convey, or did it just manifest itself?

It just manifested itself, except in "Tilt-a-Whirl" --that was more planned. I knew I wanted to do another Chigger story, and I knew I wanted it to be from a different P.O.V., but I made a conscious effort to keep the mood the same as the rest of the stories. If you look closely at "Tilt-a-Whirl," it's the quintessential Naked Pueblo story.

There is a line in the movie Orange County, where Kevin Kline says that all good writers have a conflicted relationship with the place they grew up in. That seems like a good outsider opinion of your view on Tucson. Would you agree with that?

I didn't know he was in that film.

Yes. I agree with that. I always say Tucson is a really ugly city in a really beautiful setting. Once in a while, I think it would be great to live there again, but other times I'm so glad I don't. I was just there for four days for my brother's wedding, and by day four, I was ready to get the hell out. Days one through three, though, I spent wondering why I ever left. I appreciate it more and romanticize it more when I'm not there--like strip malls and 107-degree heat are somehow life affirming and stunning.

How did you get a story published in Jane Magazine?

Back when she had her own talk show on cable, Jane Pratt and I used to date. We were both really into squish films (big chicks in high-heels stomping on bugs and other critters). She was into crickets and I was into worms. Things fell apart when we realized that was all we had in common. We still chat once in a while, and whenever I'm in New York we hook up for sex (mostly oral).

Actually, I have a smart agent who thought the women at Jane might like my story.

Are you a NASCAR fan? Would you be able to single out the NASCAR driver in a random line-up?

Huge fan. The biggest fuckin' fan ever! As a former pit-stop fluffer, I could only single out a NASCAR driver in a random line-up if everyone were not wearing pants. Rookie of the year, Ryan Newman, is hung like a donkey, by the way.

Okay, I was never a pit-stop fluffer, and I hate NASCAR.

Goats is your "coming of age tale." It seems like reviewers love to categorize books as the "Catcher In The Rye, of their generation." We didn't notice that plastered on the back of Goats, and we're happy because of it. Thoughts?

Goats is a backwards coming-of-age story--all the adults need to grow up, and Ellis needs to act more like a kid, I think.

I wish however, that Goats, like Catcher in the Rye, were required reading for tenth graders and psychopaths all over the world. Why isn't it? I hope the next lunatic who makes the headlines is clutching a copy of Goats when he or she is hauled off to prison. Wouldn't that be amazing?

I want them to plaster the following on new editions of Goats: "The Catcher in the Rye for today's lunatic!"

The characters in Unsung Heroes seem to be more dynamic and complex. Most of them have suffered horrible tragedies. Was this a progression that came out of writing a novel?

I was reading a lot of George Saunders and Annie Proulx when I wrote Unsung Heroes of American Industry. Both Saunders and Proulx are able to create super-complicated and dynamic characters in their short stories, and I was hoping to do the same. So, basically, I just ripped them off.

The horrible tragedies came from a lowering of my Paxil dosage.

pics taken from Bold Type

You wrote a story called "Note On The Type". We notice those at the end of books. Where did the story idea spawn from?

Oddly enough, from the end of books! The porno stuff came from my own prurience that I've cultivated over the years with the help of the Internet and re-runs of Magnum PI.

Many of your stories mix the surreal and absurd with undertones of real human feelings. Is this duality something you strive for in your writing?

I try to find the beautiful in the ugly, so sometimes I have to heighten the ugliness or heighten the beauty. The heightening is when the surreal and absurd come into play.

For the record, I love it when prancing magical unicorns pop into stories to save the day!

The basics: Who do you like to read for fun? For inspiration? What is your writing atmosphere? Music?

Other than Proulx and Saunders, I steal from Rick Bass, Denis Johnson, Stacey Richter, William Gass, and my friend Malinda McCollum, who has yet to publish a book but will soon because she rules. I read a lot more than I should, I think. The Onion has been making me very happy lately, and so has The Book of Margery Kempe. And Ken Kesey. And Moliere, which sounds pretentious, I know. I think I should write more. I had a novel due on October 1st. I need to get on that.

Unsung Heroes mentions you were awarded a Chesterfield screenwriting fellowship. How's the screenwriting going?

What differences have you found in writing for the screen v. print?

I like screenwriting a million times more than I thought I would. Maybe I'm a moron, but I actually think it's pretty fun and pretty challenging. I mean, it's easy to get the right software and write a screenplay, but it's really tough to write a good one, especially one without an exploding helicopter sequence.

Writing screenplays has helped me see the value of structure in my fiction. My new novel should be much tighter than Goats in terms of structure.

By the way, when I refer to "structure" I don't mean the clothing store for gay men with bad taste and limited resources.

What is the manliest thing you've done in the last year? Least manly?

Least manly: get porked.

Manliest: get porked.

What are you currently working on. Will we be seeing anything soon?

There's that pesky novel that I mentioned above, which I should finish in February. It'll be out in about a year after that, I think, although, it was supposed to come out in the fall of 2003. I suck relentlessly.

I'm working on two original screenplays and I'm adapting Goats, which will definitely star Brad Pitt as Goat Man.

I have a story coming out in Tin House. It's really fucked-up, if I do say so myself. It'll be a smash hit!