[Script Info]
Title: 
[Events]
Format: Layer, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text
Dialogue: 0,0:00:06.02,0:00:12.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I think that if the reader can know the true story and the background, that it changes the reading
Dialogue: 0,0:00:12.50,0:00:18.31,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and I think it changes the reading for the better because I think that there's something that happens
Dialogue: 0,0:00:18.31,0:00:24.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in writing there's an actual actor transformation that occurs on the page, in the writing.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:24.99,0:00:31.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,When I was writing about my father's suicide I worked on the book for 10 years and I didn't know
Dialogue: 0,0:00:31.23,0:00:36.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,how to write about it, and I wrote too literally at first. I wrote about the day we found out he died
Dialogue: 0,0:00:36.14,0:00:38.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and so we were all crying and it's impossible to read.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:38.82,0:00:44.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But then I was writing the short novel that's in the middle of the book
Dialogue: 0,0:00:44.68,0:00:50.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and half-way through there is an enormous surprise where everything changes and I didn't see that
Dialogue: 0,0:00:50.02,0:00:55.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,moment coming until I was half-way through writing the sentence and so the next day I went back and I
Dialogue: 0,0:00:55.07,0:01:00.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,planned to cut that and continue with my plan, but I reread all the pages leading up to that moment
Dialogue: 0,0:01:00.83,0:01:07.27,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and it was like seeing them for the first time, even though I wrote them, I saw all this pattern in them
Dialogue: 0,0:01:07.27,0:01:10.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for the first time, that was leading to that moment that I hadn't seen
Dialogue: 0,0:01:10.93,0:01:17.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and that changed everything for what I thought about writing, and, and the best pages in the book
Dialogue: 0,0:01:17.38,0:01:22.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,are right after that where it's crazy and I have no plan. And so my feeling about telling an
Dialogue: 0,0:01:22.30,0:01:28.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,audience about the background of the story is that there is nothing to hide, it's, it's, I want an
Dialogue: 0,0:01:28.06,0:01:34.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,audience to know that my father did commit suicide when I was 13, I want them to know that he asked
Dialogue: 0,0:01:34.45,0:01:41.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,me to come and spend a year back in Alaska with him and I said no, and soon after is when he killed himself.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:41.07,0:01:46.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Because when I was writing this tale of a boy and his father going homesteading for a year, that was a
Dialogue: 0,0:01:46.76,0:01:51.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,second chance to say yes to my father, to spend that year with him, and I didn't understand that when I
Dialogue: 0,0:01:51.66,0:01:57.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,was writing, it never occurred to me when I was writing, that I was getting a second chance to go spend that year with him.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:57.93,0:02:01.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And so there's something powerful I think that happens in fiction, at an
Dialogue: 0,0:02:01.43,0:02:06.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,unconscious level, where's there's all this pattern, and I think that you can only really see that if you
Dialogue: 0,0:02:06.07,0:02:12.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,know what the true story is in the background, and so I'm always happy to say exactly what's true
Dialogue: 0,0:02:12.18,0:02:18.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and not true in the books, because I'm very interested in what the fiction has made out of those past events.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:18.34,0:02:23.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I think there is something in our unconscious that wants to take the very ugly events and wants to turn
Dialogue: 0,0:02:23.26,0:02:27.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,them into something beautiful, wants to reshape them, wants to have a kind of redemption.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:27.76,0:02:33.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I thought that I would, that this book would be how I'd get closer to his despair and I would finally
Dialogue: 0,0:02:33.38,0:02:37.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,understand him, and I would understand the final moments, and that was what I was trying to do,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:37.43,0:02:40.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because I felt I had been cowardly in all of my other short stories about him,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:40.93,0:02:44.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that they were pretty but that they were cowardly, they didn't get close to that despair,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:44.68,0:02:49.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,so I thought this would be a novel that by the end would follow right into his final moments, into the
Dialogue: 0,0:02:49.33,0:02:53.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,point where he kills himself, and then I would understand it better when I got there.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:53.30,0:02:57.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But halfway through the boy kills himself, he, the father hands him the gun because the father is
Dialogue: 0,0:02:57.43,0:03:02.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,suicidal, the boy looks down at it, and I realised right then he's just going to put it up to his head and fire,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:02.62,0:03:07.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and there's no thought whatsoever, and it was only years afterward that I could try to understand
Dialogue: 0,0:03:07.18,0:03:13.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that moment and what, what happened, you know, and, and I could see partly it was revenge,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:13.43,0:03:17.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that partly it was a psychological revenge, that all these years I've had to carry around my father's
Dialogue: 0,0:03:17.85,0:03:24.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,suicide, so in the book the boy kills himself and the father has to literally carry the boy's body all
Dialogue: 0,0:03:24.71,0:03:30.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,around, from one island to the next island, so I made him carry my body around for a while, and
Dialogue: 0,0:03:30.50,0:03:37.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I of course was completely unaware of that but it took a few years later to understand that, that partly that was revenge.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:37.26,0:03:43.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,In the 2 books, in 'Legend of a suicide' the primary relationship was a father and son and the boy is the main character really.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:43.59,0:03:47.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,In the next one 'Caribou island' it's a marriage and Irene is the main character.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:47.88,0:03:54.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But the antagonists, the boy's father and Gary, Irene's husband, you're right are very similar
Dialogue: 0,0:03:54.22,0:04:00.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in the kind of pressure that they put on Irene and the boy, and that acts out in different ways in the books.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:00.60,0:04:06.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But they both have a sense that if they go back into wilderness and they go back into nature
Dialogue: 0,0:04:06.62,0:04:11.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that they'll find some better self, and that they'll find a way, for the boy's father he believes he'll be able
Dialogue: 0,0:04:11.83,0:04:16.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,to run away from his problems, that his despair will vanish, he'll find a way out of that despair and
Dialogue: 0,0:04:16.68,0:04:21.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,his despair with women in particular, that his second marriage that he's broken up through infidelity
Dialogue: 0,0:04:21.70,0:04:23.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,like the first and that he wants back.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:23.76,0:04:30.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And Gary has a little bit different dream which is that he's never actually, he's always felt alone and so
Dialogue: 0,0:04:30.92,0:04:38.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,he married and had kids but he actually wanted to be alone also, and he believes that this cabin is, will be
Dialogue: 0,0:04:38.75,0:04:44.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the better shape of himself, it will be the outward shape of a man, and that he'll connect outwards,
Dialogue: 0,0:04:44.18,0:04:48.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,sort of aniously into nature. This is a dream that comes from the British romantic poets, through the
Dialogue: 0,0:04:48.67,0:04:55.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,American transcendentalists, a dream that our imagination with a capital i connects to nature with a capital n.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:55.22,0:05:00.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,That they are actually the same faculty and that we'll find our innocence, our child self, when we go back.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:00.35,0:05:05.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I don't actually believe this, I think that when we go into nature we just find a mirror,
Dialogue: 0,0:05:05.02,0:05:09.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and it's a mirror that amplifies, so if what's happening inside of us is terrifying what we find in
Dialogue: 0,0:05:09.76,0:05:12.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,nature is even more terrifying, it's amplified back.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:12.82,0:05:18.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So I don't have the dream anymore, I can't believe it, but the funny thing is my life is still arranged
Dialogue: 0,0:05:18.07,0:05:22.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,so that I'm constantly going for the dream. I live in New Zealand on a ridge overlooking the ocean and
Dialogue: 0,0:05:22.93,0:05:29.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,hills, and I go hiking and go windsurfing, and I spend part of the rest of the year on a boat in Turkey,
Dialogue: 0,0:05:29.01,0:05:34.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,along the coast, in beautiful little coves, and so I'm constantly seeking out a kind of solace and comfort
Dialogue: 0,0:05:34.68,0:05:40.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in nature, and a lot of it, a lot of time spent by myself there, and yet I don't believe the dream at all.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:40.93,0:05:46.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I had a dream for a long time that I'd be some sort of mountain man, that I would head off into the hills,
Dialogue: 0,0:05:46.68,0:05:52.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and I would live out in a cavern and all that, and I loved backpacking as such, but what I realised
Dialogue: 0,0:05:52.68,0:05:58.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,after a while was that I can't really be alone for more than 2 or 3 days, and then I just start to feel
Dialogue: 0,0:05:58.46,0:06:07.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,so lonely, and I need other people, and I'm just not cut out for it, I can't really be the kind of loner out in nature.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:07.84,0:06:12.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I did actually build a boat to sail non-stop solo around the world, which is going to be 5 months
Dialogue: 0,0:06:12.60,0:06:17.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,alone, and I was committed to it, and I had all the food on board and everything, but the crossbeams
Dialogue: 0,0:06:17.76,0:06:21.54,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,weren't strong enough between the halls, and so I had to turn back.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:21.54,0:06:25.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So I had planned to set out but I have to admit that although I felt some excitement about it,
Dialogue: 0,0:06:25.70,0:06:29.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and I love sailing, what I felt mostly was despair and dread.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:29.46,0:06:35.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The idea of being alone for that long actually was something that felt terribly wrong.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:35.22,0:06:41.09,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,My writing is very unconscious and my life has been led very unconsciously too, and I've had
Dialogue: 0,0:06:41.09,0:06:46.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,repetitive disasters, I have an ability to repeat the same mistake 2 or 3 times, and partly it's
Dialogue: 0,0:06:46.84,0:06:50.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because of not having any idea why I'm really doing what I'm doing.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:50.26,0:06:56.22,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I went to sea for years as a captain when I couldn't get 'Legend of a suicide' published, I couldn't get published for 12 years,
Dialogue: 0,0:06:56.22,0:07:00.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and so I went to sea and became a captain on sail boats, and I was repeating my fathers life,
Dialogue: 0,0:07:00.99,0:07:06.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,he was a dentist who didn't like being a dentist, so he went to sea, he became a commercial fisherman in Alsaka,
Dialogue: 0,0:07:06.42,0:07:10.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and he loved it, but it was also disastrous for him, it didn't work out in the end.
Dialogue: 0,0:07:10.46,0:07:14.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And so when I went to sea I was repeating his life, but I wasn't really aware of that when I
Dialogue: 0,0:07:14.92,0:07:20.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,was doing it, so I've sort of lived the method you know, I've gone out there unconsciously and
Dialogue: 0,0:07:20.34,0:07:25.86,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,experienced the disasters and train wrecks, just like my characters do in the novels.
Dialogue: 0,0:07:25.86,0:07:30.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,What I like about writing is it feels like a religious practice to me, where it's every morning,
Dialogue: 0,0:07:30.01,0:07:35.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,just a couple of hours, and it's a time of meditation in a way, of reading through the 20 or 30 pages
Dialogue: 0,0:07:35.84,0:07:38.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,up to the point where I'm going to add a new page.
Dialogue: 0,0:07:38.70,0:07:46.57,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Then for the next hour it just comes in kind of brief, like quick flashes that are my page or two for that day,
Dialogue: 0,0:07:46.57,0:07:52.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and there's a kind of immersion in that, and a kind of unconsciousness, and although I'm an atheist and
Dialogue: 0,0:07:52.84,0:07:59.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I don't have any religious beliefs, I feel like writing satisfies that desire that we have,
Dialogue: 0,0:07:59.63,0:08:03.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I think we probably all have, some need or desire for something like religion.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:03.85,0:08:08.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So it's been tremendously satisfying in that way.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:08.47,0:08:12.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I'm not thinking about what the shape of the sentences will be when I'm actually writing them,
Dialogue: 0,0:08:12.30,0:08:17.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,they just come very quickly, and I type as fast as I can think, so it's very fast, and the books
Dialogue: 0,0:08:17.00,0:08:21.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,are published the way that they came out in the first draft, so I don't think about it then,
Dialogue: 0,0:08:21.68,0:08:27.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but I actually study language every day, I've been translating Beowolf every day from old English,
Dialogue: 0,0:08:27.30,0:08:34.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,seeing that part of our language, the old part from a thousand years ago before it was combined with French,
Dialogue: 0,0:08:34.84,0:08:45.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and, so I'm thinking about meter and syntax in my teaching also, I teach from lingusitics in the history
Dialogue: 0,0:08:45.82,0:08:51.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of the English language, when I'm teaching style in fiction, so I think about it a lot
Dialogue: 0,0:08:51.26,0:08:56.57,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but when I'm actually writing I don't think about it, but to me it's very rythmic, I mean the whole, the text
Dialogue: 0,0:08:56.57,0:09:04.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,is put together through vision of landscape and through a rythym in the prose,
Dialogue: 0,0:09:04.01,0:09:08.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and that's what I'm looking for, and that's why I read through the previous 20 pages before I start to write
Dialogue: 0,0:09:08.70,0:09:10.86,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,is so that I'll feel that rhythm to it.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:10.86,0:09:16.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Writing is really therapeutic, it has to be more than therapy, writing and therapy are both about truth,
Dialogue: 0,0:09:16.75,0:09:22.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but writing is also about the beautiful, it also has an aesthetic goal that therapy doesn't have.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:22.18,0:09:26.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And writing that doesn't have that aesthetic goal is just crap, it's just therapy, and,
Dialogue: 0,0:09:26.71,0:09:32.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,not to say therapy isn't valuable, but it doesn't have that artistic or aesthetic aim.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:32.70,0:09:38.79,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So one thing I was surprised by in spending all these years thinking about my father and writing about him
Dialogue: 0,0:09:38.79,0:09:44.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,is to realise that I don't really understand the final moments of his suicide any better than I ever did
Dialogue: 0,0:09:44.26,0:09:48.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,right from the beginning. I understand all the patterns in his life and what led to suicide
Dialogue: 0,0:09:48.58,0:09:55.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,becoming possible, what could have put him to that final moment, but then I can never make it inevitable,
Dialogue: 0,0:09:55.34,0:09:59.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I can never say "Oh, this is why he had to do it".
Dialogue: 0,0:09:59.00,0:10:02.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,He always could have at the last moment, he always could have decided not to,
Dialogue: 0,0:10:02.68,0:10:05.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and I can never erase that, I can never get rid of that.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:05.38,0:10:09.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I also wrote a book about a school shooting, a mass murderer, I profiled him,
Dialogue: 0,0:10:09.59,0:10:14.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and I had access to all of his mental health history, all of his emails, everything, 1500 pages of files,
Dialogue: 0,0:10:14.75,0:10:21.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and even with all that information I could not get to the point where I could make his shooting and suicide inevitable either.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:21.98,0:10:26.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I could see where it was possible, there are half a dozen narratives leading to that moment,
Dialogue: 0,0:10:26.00,0:10:31.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but I could not get it to where he had to do it. He could have not done it at the end.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:31.01,0:10:35.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And that's interesting to me, that in fiction there's a kind of open endedness,
Dialogue: 0,0:10:35.38,0:10:41.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,we can't ever actually make it to where our character had to do the final act that they do.
Dialogue: 0,0:10:41.34,0:10:46.64,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We can only get close to where it becomes plausible, where we can see that it makes sense,
Dialogue: 0,0:10:46.64,0:10:47.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that it could have gone that way.