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CHUCK KLOSTERMAN When did you realize your next book ought to be fiction? Did it have anything to do with positive responses towards “Something That Isn’t True at All”? Did it have nothing to do with that? A: That had nothing to do with it whatsoever. I’m not even sure anyone read that story. I made the decision to write a novel while I was putting CKIV together, but I had (kind of ) been thinking about it for several years. I suppose every writer aspires to write a novel. It’s the ultimate obstruction. Since, at first, the majority of people that will read Downtown Owl are likely fans of your non-fiction, were you concerned with putting too much of yourself into the characters? Mitch, Horace and Julia all have Klosterman traits. Were you worried your own personality might override theirs? A: I don’t think the characters are very much like me. One is a kid who hates rock music. One is a woman. One is a very old man. So I didn’t worry about putting too much (or too little) of myself into any of those characters. That thought barely crossed my mind. The only people who will actively see me in these people are readers who consciously look for that kind of relationship. But if people WANT to search for similarities, that’s cool, too. You can’t control anyone’s personal relationship to what you create. You contribute a column to Esquire called “Chuck Klosterman’s America.” It’s usually opinionated non-fiction. Is Downtown Owl the opinionated fiction version of what you perceive to be America? A. Not really. Not consciously. But perhaps unconsciously. That’s a really good question, to be honest. I do not know the answer. How do you think people from the Midwest would respond to your portrayal of life in small-town America? Everyone seems to spend their time getting drunk after working at jobs they hate. And is that much different from New York City? A: I hope they like it, but I’m sure some of them won’t. People reactions to art usually says more about their worldview than the art itself, so I try not to get consumed with other people’s perception of my motives. I just hope readers find it interesting and entertaining, which is really all I can do. The problems and lifestyles in this novel are (hopefully) universal. North Dakota is the setting for the book, but it could have been set elsewhere in a different era. That was just the time and place I choose. Julia seems to (kind of) have experienced your life in reverse, in terms of following work. Was that the inspiration for her character’s storyline? A: Partially on reality. That experience — moving to a rural area and suddenly being sexually interesting to everyone who’s trapped there — is an experience lots of woman in rural areas have. But everything else about her was just fabricated. The qualities of that specific character are not based on any real person. How did you conclude that Horace ought to be, not necessarily a conspiracy theorist, but someone attracted to the idea of American conspiracy? Was it to enrich his character? A: Everyone I know is a conspiracy theorist. It seems crazy not to be. Downtown Owl is both enlivening and depressing. When you read the book, which of the two did you experience more? A: I was depressed during the writing of much of this book, but I think that worked to my benefit. It’s strange: When you write a book, you never *really* read it. You never sit down and read it straight through for pleasure. The reading is always part of a process of editing or re-thinking. I’ve never read “Fargo Rock City,” for example. I’ve never read that book in sequence. Maybe I will in twenty years. It generally drives me insane to read anything I’ve written, because I always want to go back and make little changes or re-develop ideas or move things around or insert jokes or add footnotes. That desire never disappears. What I’ve come to realize is that part of writing is abandoning what you’ve written: at some point, you just have to send it to the publisher and never think about it again.
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