AN IMAGINARY INTERVIEW

 

 

 

 

Fictional Interviewer: The novel Dead Man’s Float appeared on the literary landscape just recently. Because the author Nicholas Maes is completely unknown to the public, it goes without saying that the media is hardly beating a path to this brave soul’s door. In consequence, never one to back down in the face of adversity, Nicholas Maes has decided to interview himself. Good evening Mr. Maes. I trust you are well.

Nicholas Maes: Very well, thank you.

FI: Could you provide us with some basic facts about yourself?

NM: I’d be glad to. I grew up in Montreal, playing Batman and reading comics – a healthy childhood in other words. At the age of ten, my Dutch father moved the family to Holland for a year and half, possibly because he wished to relive the charms of his own childhood (a strange desire this, given the fact he lived through the German occupation). Soon after our return to Canada, my mother was diagnosed with cancer and eventually died – I was fourteen at the time. For the next few years I retreated into myself and developed, of all things, a passion for Greco-Roman antiquity. It’s true that when I tried to study Latin on the high  school level, I was given Industrial Arts instead; luckily this inconsistency caused an old friend of the family to tutor me in Latin and, generally speaking, to fan the flame of my interest. When I reached my university years, naturally I studied Classical languages and wound up with a PhD in the subject (with a specialty in Homer).

FI: To make a long story short…?

NM: At present I am married, have three children and teach Classics (part-time) at the University of Waterloo, as well as history at a Jewish high school in the Toronto region.

FI: Describe yourself for our audience.

NM: I am six foot four, have muscles with the consistency of cheese (Havarti, not cheddar), have lost three-quarters of my hair (the rest has turned grey) and have crooked lower teeth (as well as lots of fillings).

FI: You sound like a real catch. It’s a good thing this isn’t one of those dating services. But I suppose we should talk about your writing. When did you decide to start writing fiction?

NM: When I turned twenty-one, I came into a small inheritance which I spent on a cycling trip around Greece. As I was by myself, and the sites would close every day at 3 PM, I had lots of time to kill. That’s when I started keeping a journal and writing short snatches of fiction. By the end of the summer I was so engrossed in these exercises that I decided, more than anything else, I wanted to write fiction full-time.

FI: But your first novel Dead Man’s Float was only published this October?

NM: Yes. I’ve written other novels, plays, a children's adventure and several short stories – the latter have appeared in various journals – but my first big breakthrough occurred just recently.

FI: Tell us something about Dead Man’s Float. What were you setting out to achieve when you wrote it?

NM: You really sound like a professional interviewer.

FI: Thank you. Back to the question, please.

NM: Like many Jewish/modern writers, I have a morbid fascination with the Holocaust. On the one hand, my family on my father’s side was in Holland during WWII and had to survive the Nazi occupation – no mean feat considering my grandmother was a full-blooded Jew. Besides my personal interest in this period, I find the sheer influence of the Holocaust, as far as modern politics and culture are concerned, incalculably great and a source of endless speculation. My personal and general interests, then, made the Holocaust a natural choice of topic when I considered exactly what it was I wanted to concentrate my literary efforts on.

FI: The novel is centered round a character who is pursuing a rock star. Can you explain this strange construction of events?

NM: I didn’t want to write your conventional Holocaust tale – there are so many excellent ones in existence and, given my removal from the horrendous suffering, I thought a reconstruction of the camps, for example, would be artificial and (dare I say) exploitative. My own interest was more a matter of exploring the implications of this disaster on our popular culture now – hence the collision between Nathan Gelder, an aging half-Jew who has lost his parents back in Holland, and Leonard Barvis, a rock star of enormous proportions. What starts off as your traditional Holocaust tale – pre-war innocence, the impending storm, disaster – moves off on a different (and I’d like to think a very interesting) trajectory.

FI: The main character, Nathan Gelder, is floating in his memories. What are we to make of this?

NM: I wanted a narrative device that would enable my main character to move credibly between the past and the present. As a result, Nathan Gelder has experienced a stroke and is convinced that he is swimming in his memories. At the same time, while he himself is paralyzed, he can hear the exchanges taking place around his bed – in this part of the narrative it dawns on his family, and society at large, that this senior was possibly responsible for the death of rock star Leonard Barvis.

FI: Whom is this novel intended for? Jews? Twenty-somethings? Yuppies? Yippies? TWITS?

NM: TWITS?

FI: Tenured Wizards of the Ivory Tower.

NM: Hmm, I see. Frankly, I strongly suspect Dead Man's Float will appeal to a broad cross section of readers. The principal character is a half-Jew, with the Jewish half dominating over the gentile one, but his struggle to define himself, and the juxtaposition of the very modern alongside a more traditional way of thinking, should stir the curiosity of your typical, intelligent reader.

FI: How much of this story is autobiographical?

NM: Some bits have been lifted from my family history – my father’s mother was Jewish, his father was Christian and a waiter in a four star restaurant – but most of the adventures are a product of my imagination.

FI: Where do you fit into the Canadian literary tradition?

NM: I really don’t know. I don’t think Dead Man’s Float is your typical Can Lit novel – the emotional range is broader, the subject matter is more varied and, all in all, the tone is brash, pushy….

FI:… This is a novel about Jews after all.

NM: I suppose. At the same time, I’ve spent most of my life in Canada, have been formed by the ‘Canadian Spirit’ (for want of a better term) and, overall, believe this novel, which at first sight has more of an American veneer than a Canadian one, should find a place for itself on the Canadian literary firmament.

FI: Do you think you sometimes go too far in your novel? I’m thinking in particular of the riots towards the end of the book….

NM: Shhh! Don’t give the plot away. No. The book is brassy and pushes at the edges, but it follows a trajectory that is both natural and necessary. I have no regrets, in other words.

FI: Well thank you very much, Mr. Maes. I would like to give the last word in this interview to someone you probably know all too well. You can come in now, mystery guest!

NM: Hello.

Mystery Guest: Hello.

NM: You look familiar. That overcoat of yours and the paring knife in hand, its blade still coated with bits of food….

MG: You damned right I look familiar. I’m Nathan Gelder, your main character, you son of a bitch.

NM: No. That’s impossible. Things like this happen only in novels – bad, cheesy novels at that!

Nathan Gelder: They also happen in imaginary interviews, like this one here.

NM: Well, what do you want?

NG: I just want to tell you to your face that, yes, you’ve written an engaging, indeed a fascinating book, one that readers will be unable to put down, but at a cost, you fucking prick.

NM: I’m afraid I don’t understand….

NG: Don’t be coy with me! You created a great novel by toying with my destiny, by putting me through hell, by airing all my dirty secrets in public, by making me fall in love and cry and gnash my teeth and kick and scream… all at your discretion! And because of you I have the blood of a rock star on my hands! Did you ever ask yourself how I would feel about this venture, huh? Me, Nathan Gelder, not to mention you know who, sensation, gyration and world domination….

NM: Don’t tell me he’s here as well…?

NG: Never mind him! I just wanted you to know that, if I ever get the opportunity to pick up a pencil and start manipulating you and your affairs, well, I won’t hesitate a second. And believe me, buddy, the results are going to be a fucking nightmare….

FI: On that note, I think we’ll wrap this interview up. Many thanks Nicholas Maes, author of Dead Man's Float. You too Nathan Gelder….

NM: The pleasure has been mine.

NG: That’s what you think! You haven’t heard the last of me...!