Interview with Jack Dugan

Well let’s get started by asking, when did you first begin writing?

I began writing when I first saw a line of words upon a page that I had written.

I mean, when did you actually start writing?

I was writing then.

Most people think that writing means putting words into a structure.

Most people are wrong.

Who are you to say such things?

I’m nobody.

OK, we’re here to talk to you about your novel, Lint in My Navel, just published by Broken Petals Press.

Good for you. Wait, which we are you talking about? Is there someone else here?

Lint doesn’t really seem to be about much of anything. There’s no resolution, the conflict is not even clear, though it is filled with undirected conflict.

Which way do you direct your conflict? Do you think you’re in charge, or something?

All I’m saying is that it’s generally acknowledged that a good story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and develop characters. We need to know what the characters are thinking, feeling. The characters in Lint are not fully developed. They just do things and say things and then they move on.

The characters in life are not fully developed. A fully developed character is another euphemism for unbridled egotism. The writer regaling in himself, without ever admitting it. It’s a horrible arrogance of a knowledge that doesn’t exist. The people and stories in life are unresolved. That’s the point. Fiction is fiction, but fiction without truth is useless. No amount of ‘research’ can produce a true story.

Did you do no research for Lint?

I certainly did, but I didn’t know it at the time.

You feature dialogue quite strongly in your writing. The narrative is sparse.

People will talk, you know. I get tired of reading things where every piece of dialogue must be accompanied by a description of what the speaker is doing, or thinking, or feeling. Or long descriptive passages as we enter the mind of the character. Nobody enters anybody’s mind, ever, anywhere, on this planet. It’s pretension. But I guess that’s what they call ‘character development’. Or long monologues where the writer sticks his, or her, bloody little viewpoint into it, and craps all over us. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t heard anyone talk that way since I was in high school. It sucks, and it isn’t profound, it’s just self-indulgent. Most novels could be cut in half.

But isn’t that what this is, the narrative? On page 44 you write:

‘There may have been a point, a defining moment, when Duncan first crossed over from the believing side to the non-believing side. It seemed to him that there was such a time, but he couldn’t find it in his memory. He finally came to conclude that the reason for this was that it had happened at a very early age. He couldn’t remember his first pair of shoes, he couldn’t remember his first steps across a living room carpet, he couldn’t remember his first taste of blueberry pie, he couldn’t remember his first run across a leaf strewn lawn on an autumn afternoon, and he couldn’t remember the first time he saw that he was being fed a pack of lies, that the story was a shuck, that the greatest fiction was the fairytale people had concocted in order to live with themselves, the self-congratulatory and self-perpetuating advert for themselves that allowed them to avoid all confrontation with their actual place in nature.’

What did you mean by this?

Damned if I know. I was drunk. A little stoned too. I think it had something to do with hypocrisy. The hypocrisy is probably in using the third person.

Elsewhere you seem to use the literary device of….

Literary device? What is a literary device anyway? Is it like a strap-on? Something you use when you can’t get it up?

You don’t seem to set much store on formal study of literature.

A Master’s degree in creative writing is probably good for wiping your ass. Really, if you feel the need to take a creative writing course then you’re not a writer. Go wash the dishes or watch Oprah on tv.

Trouble is, is that people get too picayune. They need to forget what they were told by their masters and learn how to write again. They’ve lost all feeling. Someone once criticized me for repeating a word in the same sentence (in an off-the-cuff and vernacular blog entry by the way): ‘That all depends on what the meaning of is, is.’ I’ll get back to her now now.

Do you see any value in formal study?

Well, there is the time and opportunity to read, which one must do at some point.

What do you think the novel is about?

Which novel? The novel? Think of your life. Is it of less value than other lives? Novels have always been about supposedly ‘interesting’ or ‘important’ people, events, epochs, wars, upheavals, etc. Fuck that shit. There are stories everywhere and it’s wrong to lose them, if we tell them honestly, they turn out to be good stories. Honesty is important. It’s the real window into the world. I could care less about a writer blathering on about characters he couldn’t possibly know anything about. Of course anger is important too.

What’s the difference between poetry and prose?

Are you for real? There is no difference. It’s only so-called ‘poets’ that will make this distinction. It’s all writing. Poetry is prose and prose is poetry. Poems are nothing but snippets of prose that punch far above their weight. Anything else is pure phoniness. Any writing should serve its purpose. The fake formalism of most ‘poetry’ is enough to make any strong person puke.

Will you give any readings from Lint?

Lots of people say poetry was meant to be read. What a load of shit. If that was true then most poetry would never see the light of day. That’s what people who are afraid to stay home alone at night say. Poetry was meant to be read as if it was being spoken. No, I’ll only read for big bucks, or at least a piece of ass.

You seem to be getting a little tipsy.

Indeed. One more beer, then we’ll be OK.

Well, let’s wrap it up by asking, what’s next?

Besides a tune or two on the guitar I think we’ll call it quits for now. I have a story about childhood, but that will have to wait. Turning a life into art takes some time. Cheers to all the writers; remember, tomorrow we die.