Jess Walter, So Far Gone

In this episode Brett sits down with author Jess Walter to discuss his new book, "So Far Gone". They talk about which character he's written he relates to the most, the backdrop of Spokane Washington, and the eternal battle we all currently face.

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https://www.jesswalter.com

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https://www.instagram.com/jesswalterbooks/

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Transcript

Brett Benner: 0:01

Hey everybody, it's Brett Benner and welcome or welcome back to another episode of Behind the Stack. I hope you had a great weekend wherever you are. I actually. Just got back a little bit ago from one of the no kings protests here in Los Angeles, which was really fantastic. I went to the West Hollywood one and amazing crowd, amazing show of people. Dustin Lance Black spoke and he was just fantastic, but it really gave a needed boost of solidarity and. Just community, which was so fantastic. So, before we get into our author chat today, I wanted to just to talk about a few other books that were coming out today. The first is by Nikki Erlich called The Poppy Fields. Nikki Erlich wrote the book, the Measure, which was a bestseller a few years ago. This one says, A high concept, speculative novel about heartache, hope, and human resilience. The poppy fields explores the path of grief and healing, a journey at once profoundly universal and unique to every person posing the questions. How do we heal in the wake of great loss and how? Far are we willing to go in order to be healed? Then I'm reading this one right now and it is so good, but definitely triggering, which is Joyce Carol LO's New book Fox, A spell binding novel of literary and psychological suspense about the dark secrets at surface after the shocking disappearance of a charismatic mecurial teacher at an elite. Boarding school by the legendary author who's surely on any shortlist of America's greatest living writers. It is really well done. I think this is the first time that Joyce Carol oes is really tackling something like this, which is really kind of a mystery thriller. But, it's fantastic so far. Then. Controversial author James Fray, his new book Next to Heaven comes out today, which sounds a little soapy and fun. I think there's almost more publicity about James Fray than there is the book itself comments that he made about using AI to write his books, not to mention his past history with Oprah Winfrey for his autobiography that he wrote and apparently made up large parts of, but, this is about a group of people, very wealthy people in New Bethlehem, Connecticut, and a party that is thrown and before the night is over, someone is going to be murdered. There'll be multiple betrayals and, Events that will shatter new Bethlehem's, carefully constructed facade. I have to be honest, it still sounds kind of fun regardless of all the scandal surrounding him. Jason Green has his new book came out today, UN World, from the author of Once More, we Saw Stars Comes a gripping novel about. Four intertwined lives that collide in the wake of a mysterious tragedy set in a near future world where the boundaries between human and AI blur the story, challenges our understanding and consciousness of humanity. So those are just some of the books that are out today. Now, onto today's author, I was really thrilled to sit down with author Jess Walter for his new book. So Far Gone, I've been a big fan of Jess Walter's work for a long time, so this was absolutely a treat for me and he's just the nicest guy. So, a little bit about Jess. He's the author of 10 books most recently, the Story Collection, the Angel of Rome and the bestselling novels, the Code Millions and Beautiful Ruins, the Zero finalist for the National Book Award, and Citizen Vance, winner of the Edgar Award. His work has been published in the 34 languages and his short fiction has won O Henry and Pushcart Prizes and appeared three times in Best American short stories. So please enjoy this episode of Behind the Stack. I'm, I'm Brett. It's, it's, yeah. It's really great to meet you.

Jess Walter: 4:02

Nice to meet you Brett.

Brett Benner: 4:03

I'm such a fan of your work, so I was, thanks. I was really, uh, tickled that you were coming on today.

Jess Walter: 4:07

Thanks Brett. It's great to be here.

Brett Benner: 4:09

You've had, you know, a myriad of novels, seven novels, two collections of short stories, a nonfiction book. You were the recipient of the eighth Ground poll award. You were the finalist for the National Book Award in 2006. I was just looking yesterday on seven of your books have received, one of those coveted stars on Kirkus for whatever that's worth. I know, but, but people seem to like those things. You've lived in Spokane your whole life, right?

Jess Walter: 4:33

I have, I mean, I guess, you know, I did go 15 miles away for college. So, but yeah, and I, it's just become this great home base. I, I was one of those kids who wanted to leave from the time I was about seven, and then family responsibilities kind of kept me here and, and then at this moment I realized I was from this place. And so I venture out quite a bit, but it's, it's my home.

Brett Benner: 4:57

something else that I, that I read about you is that you, and I'm sure this is what the many writers have this as well, that you're writing multiple things at once. How do you balance that and how also does that, is it one voice begins to become more pertinent or more nagging to you that that kind of takes the lead? Or how do you balance that? And when do you write? Are you a morning person or? I am a morning person.

Jess Walter: 5:18

I was, I got out here, it's, uh, 8:00 AM uh. In, uh, Spokane and I got out here at five and, um, wrote for a couple of hours. I'm working on a short story. I just went to hear this expert talk about ai, a financial expert talking about all how much money is gonna be made in, in ai. And so I was, I've been working on this short story about a guy like him who gives a presentation. So, um, and that's often the way I'll work. I have a novel that I'm working on, but, I became so terrified of writer's block when I first left my newspaper job, and I was just deathly afraid someone was gonna come drag me out of my comfy office here. And although I didn't have this office then and make me go back to my newspaper desk, and so when something would, when the writing on a project would. Become stuck or or I couldn't find my way around something. I got into this habit of just starting something else, and at the time it seemed like a fatal flaw that I wouldn't ever finish anything. And so I'm writing this novel about. Italy and Hollywood in the 1960s and I just keep getting stuck in it and dropping it and writing something else and, and it wasn't until I finished Beautiful Ruins after working out for 15 years off and on like that, and having other projects come bump in. That I realized how, maybe it's kind of singular that I work this way, but just how effective it was because that novel got better every time I came back to it. And every time I allowed myself to work on something else, I became a different, better writer with more experiences. And so now I just don't fight it. I write. Something until I sort of hit a wall. And that wall can last two or three days, but then I try to switch to something else and, and then when I come back to that thing that I was stuck on, I, I always find that I see it with a kind of clarity that I didn't before. And that's just sort of the way I've always worked. And it also allows me to veer off into different forms, different genres, different voices. It's almost like being an actor and. Just looking through the offers and seeing which jobs you can take, it's like, oh, I wanna play this role. I wanna play that role. You know? And that for me is kind of thrilling. I mean, maybe I'm a character actor of novelists.

Brett Benner: 7:31

Now, wait, do you, when you go back to something. Are you a revisionist immediately or did you Oh yeah. Just moving forward and then go back.

Jess Walter: 7:38

I go back to page one and it's interesting how, while I'm away, an idea, a vision of the thing starts to sort of crystallize and I realize what it is I love about that piece and

Brett Benner: 7:49

Mm.

Jess Walter: 7:50

And then. And it isn't necessarily that I know what I don't like, but I know what I feel like needs to be retained in the revision. When I went back to the Cold millions novel, you know, set in the early words, I realized I've got too many speeches in here. What I really love is this sort of steinbeckian language and playing with it in that way. And so what brings me back to the book is sort of what I concentrate on, but now I go back to, it's funny, the first sentence of beautiful ruins ca, a dying actress arrived in his. Arrived in his village, the only way one could come directly in a boat that motored into the cove and bumped against the rock jetty. That sentence had 4,000 different iterations. The actress arrived in his village. You know, the actress came to his village. His village was, the actress was dying, period. You know Oh, right. In a Hemingway style. And every time I go back I would kind of rework those sentences and find my way back into it. And, and I do that when I start writing every day. I. Go back a page or two and read what I've done to sort of immerse myself back in that voice and time and place. And it's probably the one habit that I find myself forgetting and having to write, remind myself is if I read it out loud and hear it, then it feels so much, then I can find my way back into it.

Brett Benner: 9:04

Interesting. I love all that stuff you said in terms of equating it to even being an actor. And it made me wonder, is there one, is there one. Character that you've written that you personally identify with the most?

Jess Walter: 9:15

Wow, that's so interesting. I have found myself writing inordinately about actors in, um, in my last story collection, the Angel of Rome, the main story, the Angel of Rome, is about a guy who bumps into an actor and that kind of changes his life. There's a story in there called Famous Actor, beautiful Ruins, of course has actors in, so I, I do quickly found myself connected to that, to that style of art. Again, being able to play all these different. Parts and throw yourself, throw yourself into them. But I think the character that always I related to the most was Pasquale, who spends his whole life in this small town, in Italy. And I have absolutely nothing else in common with him except that we both sort of dreamed of a larger world and then did our best to bring the larger world to the place where we lived. He tries to build this massive resort, and it's all in his mind. I'm gonna build a tennis court on a cliff, and the Americans are gonna come and for me. Um, taking what's in my mind and then bringing it out to the world, often said in stories in Spokane or around Spokane was a way to, you know, to have that larger world while staying here and taking care of, you know, my kids and my mom who was dying and my dad who had Alzheimer's and, you know, all these sort of responsibilities that piled up, that, you know, caused me to, in a, in a, uh, Frank Capra, it's a wonderful life way, sort of stay in my hometown and make the best of it. All those things, um, you know, enriched my life in this way that now I wouldn't trade a second of them. But I, I did have to find a way to bring the world to the place where I lived.

Brett Benner: 10:50

I love that. It also made me think of that, you know, that I think it was John Lennon life was what happens when you're busy making other plans. Yeah. And uh. So for our viewers, listeners, do you have a kind of elevator pitch since we're talking to, you know, actors? Yeah. For, uh, for the book?

Jess Walter: 11:09

Yeah. Maybe an escalator pitch. Okay.

Brett Benner: 11:11

Yeah.

Jess Walter: 11:11

That's great. Slow sort of rise. Yeah. Uh, you know, the novel really came from this i, this sensation I had starting about two years ago that I wanted to just close myself off from the news from the world. I had a sense we were drifting into Trump. Part two and, and more than even politics or party or anything like that, it was just the, the way in which truth had been undermined and we could not agree on a common reality. So the idea of throwing your cell phone out a window and just disappearing was for me, what drove the novel. And so that's what the novel's about. It's a former environmental reporter named Reese Kinnick who just decides one day he is had enough of his conspiracy theorist son-in-law and he. Punches him in the face, throws his phone out the window and retreats to a piece of family land with, an abandoned, cinder block house in it. And, and he stays there for seven years. And when the novel starts, two kids are on his porch and he comes out and asks if they're selling magazines or chocolate bars and they inform him that there is grandchildren and. From that moment, Reese Kinnick has to come out of his life and confront the world that has not gotten any saner since he's been gone and try to track down his grandchildren and, and his daughter who's gone missing.

Brett Benner: 12:26

I wanna start just simply with the title. Yeah. Because it's so loaded in so many ways. It is. Yeah. There, you know, there's. From Reese, from the country. Yeah. From, escaping from society. All of it. Yeah. It's just, it's, it's such a perfect title. There's no question there. It's just an observation.

Jess Walter: 12:46

Yeah. Thank you. It was, it's as always, I had three, two or three titles battling for, for the, for the top of the book, and it was late in the book, and I was writing about. One of the characters who has dementia, and they remarked that he's so far gone that there's not much left. And I just thought that was my subconscious telling me that that is what the book's about. It's, and it's a, it is both a question like who, who's reachable still. Um, and this happens in families. I mean, I don't think we've ever come to a place where politics has fissure families. Since the 1960s and in the 1960s it was establishment parents and their anti-establishment children. And now it's something I think, deeper and darker. And so you know who, you know, which of your family that, that heads off in these directions is too far gone, you know? And is Kinnick too far gone? Is he so far gone in his, in his, um, denial of the world that he can't come back to it? So it did feel to me exactly like the title I was looking at.

Brett Benner: 13:45

Yeah, I was. I was going back, and you can correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I, I woke up this morning, I was thinking about it and thought, you never really make a reference, or there's not really a direct reference by mentioning, say, Trump by name, which I think is so interesting because all of a sudden I realized when I was thinking about the, this morning, I thought. Okay. Well that's what I've put on it. That's immediately, yeah. I mean, you're certainly talking about, but you're talking about, you know, white militias and you're talking about nationalism, but without putting that particular person to it, it's just of the time period. But of course, I just think it's fascinating the way, you know, someone's mind immediately connects and it's like, oh, they're Trumpers, they're Trumpers. Right, just because of where we are right now. Yeah. And even what an American flag has come to represent for so many of us on either side, whether right, wherever you are. But was that intentional on your part? Did you? Very much, yeah.

Jess Walter: 14:40

I mean, I, it, it, it's an interesting balance. I, because I come from a newspaper background, I'm often drawn to writing about what's happening now, and I, uh, I wrote a novel called The Financial Lives of the Poets about the 2008 financial crisis. I wrote a novel about. Our reaction to terrorism after nine 11. And so I really am drawn, but you also, I, I have a little note that I wrote myself years ago. Uh, a novel is a terrible way to break news because, because by the time it comes out, people know this is the world we live in, and so it has to do more than that. And so to make it universal, I I wanted to give Reese specific things. He was. Angry about it, but one thing that never goes away is the, the battle between reality and the stories we tell ourselves to make ourselves or to justify our behavior. Mm-hmm. One of my favorite books is of all time, and I go back to it, is Resistance, rebellion and Death by Albert Camus, who's writing about World War II and the Algerian situation and, um, these amazing essays. He writes with a German friend and he tells the German friend are. You are purposefully ignoring reality, you know, to to push forward the things you believe. And to me that's a much deeper, larger thing than which party wins, which candidate wins. You know, Reese is definitely against the right word tilt of the country, but it's more because of its effects. It's not, again, which party wins. And to me that was important. It was important to make it almost a philosophical argument and not one that is battled out on the op-ed pages.

Brett Benner: 16:18

Yeah. Yeah. Um, it's interesting because we're watching in the last year or so, a lot of books that have started to come out are reflective of the COVID era. Mm-hmm. The COVID crisis, the lockdown, all those kind of things. Um, and yet it's interesting to hear you say that you wrote this so fairly, it seems fairly quick for you in terms of two years, right.

Jess Walter: 16:38

Yeah, if this was a faster novel in part because it just felt so immediate and also the structure of it. I mean, my other novels beautiful Ruin the last two novels, beautiful ruins in the cold. Millions have casts of hundreds now. There's so many characters. Yeah. Different voices. They take place over years and years. 50 years for beautiful ruins. Um, and this one takes place in a few days. I had just come off a Charles Portis kick and Charles Port Portis is one of my favorite writers. And you know, I. Whether it's true Grit or Norwood or Dog of the South, he tends to set up a situation and then there's a road trip and I, and I really wanted to give myself that challenge. I wanted to write a Portis like novel. And so it is, it was a couple years and it was, and the other thing Portis does is he never allows the seriousness of the situation to get in the way of his. Humorous philosophy. He sees the world the way in a comic way, not comic like a standup comic, but in a way in which our folly reveals itself and reveals itself in the characters. And that's also the way I see the world. And so it was very much intentional. See how quickly can I turn this moment that we're in into something that I think is fast and funny, but has this seriousness at the, at the heart of it that we are all dealing with.

Brett Benner: 17:59

How do you, Jess? Grapple with, well, I'll just, because this is a thing that comes up for Reese, but kind of protecting yourself from the onslaught of all the bullshit.

Jess Walter: 18:13

Yeah.

Brett Benner: 18:14

In terms of this current.

Jess Walter: 18:15

Yeah, that, um, there was a, a cartoon I saw and it was this, um, freeway and it said, uh, can't get enough. And then, and then there was this OnRamp can't take anymore. And I feel like we're all that way with the news. We're like, ah. And then all of a sudden you just, you know, everyone talks about, I went on a media diet, I went on media fast, I quit Twitter, I quit this, you know, and that, and just think of that, that we are so inundated and. Depressed and frustrated that we have to turn off, you know, the, we have to not pay attention. And feeling that urge in myself and thinking that urge was probably not very healthy. That's exactly why I wrote the novel, was I wanna see if I turned away from all of this, if I allowed cynicism to cause me to no longer care about the plight of a student who protests and then gets. Sent out of the country, if I just decide to tune out what, what's the effect of that? And often as you do in fiction, you make the, the situation much more intense and put more at stake. But you know, my first book was about Ruby Ridge. Shootout in North Idaho involving, um, a white separatist family in the FBI. And so in my way in my world, I've been dealing with the, the push pull of this extremism and the response to it and the bending of reality and people. Wanting to see whatever story they see in these, in, in these events since 1992. And, um, and so in some ways this is not new. This is an eternal battle that we fight and, and we have to come down on the side of truth and justice as, as cliched and superman and boring as it sounds. We have to keep, you know, that's what the battle is. It's not a battle between parties or elephants and donkeys or, you know.

Brett Benner: 20:13

Right.

Jess Walter: 20:14

Eagles and pickup trucks. It's, it's, it's between reality and non-reality. And, um, and so, you know, I think that's how I deal with it is by, it doesn't mean I have to donate to a cause or March or anything like that, but I have to stand on the side of justice and truth, and I think that's what the characters have to find.

Brett Benner: 20:35

And I couldn't help but think of this too, it in terms of, I'm so interested to see now when this goes out into the mass world, people's reactions to it. Because, you know, I know like there's plenty of authors, Stephen King, Katherine Newman, anybody who writes anything that has any kind of, you know, which could be perceived as a political bent to it could get, you know, swathed, you know, painted with a, a brush. And so I'm sure you're aware of that or aware that could happen. I don't even know what I'm trying to ask really. I'm just, yeah. It's, I, I, I

Jess Walter: 21:09

mean, of course it's a concern and some people will say, I get enough of this in the news. I don't need to read about this Right on my off time. And there are people who look to books for escape and this, you know, I think, um, the humor and, and the, uh, and the suspense and the kind of the action in it all for a different kind of escape. But I also feel like. Books have many different purposes, and one of them is to reflect the as. Again, to go back to my guy, Camus, he called it the wager of your generation. And I think this is the wager of our generation. Are we gonna turn away? Are we gonna pay attention? And you know, I having written novels that were very timely, like the financial lives of the poets, I know that they have a moment when they arrive. And then they keep living and they, and it's amazing how prescient many books can be years after they come out. You know, we read them now and we say, this person speaking to the world we're in now. And so I think you just try to strike that balance. I learned long ago that not everyone is gonna like everything you write, and so if you know if some people are turned off by the politics, I think just as many will find a sense of, readers have already told me they find. This kind of sense of release in the fact that someone cat writes Catharsis. Yeah, catharsis. I thank you that someone writes directly into it. This is not an allegory, it's not, you know, it's, um, it's writing directly into what many of us are feeling and facing right now, and that feels a lot of times like my job, not all, not every day, but in this book, it certainly felt like what I was trying to do.

Brett Benner: 22:42

Yeah, and, and, and, and you do it very successfully. But I also think that, like we said before, because you are not mentioning, for example, Trump's name, and it is something that I think it's, it's more about, it is about a point in time and like I said, clearly I extrapolated something and put my own thoughts on it, and

Jess Walter: 23:01

yeah.

Brett Benner: 23:02

Felt as like before we, when we first started this, you know, I couldn't help but identify with so much of what Reese was saying, which I don't know if, again, that speaks to my age more than my sentiments. But the combination of all of it I think was, yeah. And you know, also his relationship is kind of a strange relationship with his daughter. Yeah. Which is so fascinating. But you also do it a remarkable job. It's interesting'cause I think in your mind, in construction you're thinking, you know, you're making this kind of. This story has to be slightly, whether it's you're saying heightened or, I don't remember the exact word you used. Mm-hmm. To kind of make it compelling and yet reading it, none of it seemed accelerated or heightened. Theatrically, I'll say.'cause there is a theatricality about it. You know, this very much feels like it could be a movie. This very much has that kind of through line. And it's because it's contained, because it has a small core group of characters. Um, and you get to know each other very well. Two things that I, one of the things that I love about reading, and I, and this is something I've discovered more as I've gone on and especially doing this podcast, is things that get brought up for me that I never would've known it, but first and foremost, yeah, Spokane. That's the first that I knew so little about and went onto it like a deep dive about, about it, and. Also the indigenous community that's there. Oh yeah. And can you talk a little bit about that? Because it does have a, it is a more, it's a very white population, but it is more racially diverse than I think people would, um, would even be aware of in terms of even Japanese, Korean, you have a very large kind of spread.

Jess Walter: 24:41

Yeah, I think the whole northwest, the whole Pacific Northwest, you know, that. I used to have to sort of orient people, my New York friends, and I would say, well, Seattle is Manhattan. Portland is Brooklyn. Um, Spokane is maybe Queens or on a bad day, Staten Island, you know, and so, so, so there's this sort. But, but they are predominantly white places. But most of the places that you go in the Northwest are named from the people driven from them. You know, Spokane is named for the Spokane tribe, you know, and so, and that. Tribe still lives there, as do the Colvilles and the Coeur d'Alene and the Kalispells, and, you know, all reservations surround Spokane in a way that most cities wouldn't understand, you know? And so, and, and it's for me, my family. So the, I send Reese Kinnick to the very house that my family owned and that we still own. Wow. We still, we still own that cinder block house on the edge of the Spokane Indian Reservation. And so for me to write stories set in this place is to acknowledge the fact that Seattle is named after Chief Chief South after you know that Wenatchee, Yakima, all the cities in my state are pretty much named for the tribes that used to live there and still live there. And that's the thing, I think. People often sort of assign Native Americans to the history books. And when you live in a place where reservation culture is so rich, where na um, where urban native populations are pretty, are pretty healthy, you, you know, it's, it's part of your everyday life. And so Brian is a character who is Reese's drinking buddy and friend, a former electrician and Air Force. Airman in the Air Force, who is his neighbor, and, and I wanted Brian both to be sort of, to be reclaiming his, his sense of the world. There's a great school in Spokane called the Salish School, which is teaching the interior Salish languages in an immersion style. And so I. I, I've taken a couple of classes and so, uh, I gave Brian the, you know, his, he can say a few things in his native language and that reclamation of culture is another big part that I wanted, you know, the characters to, to, um, you know, to, to reflect. And so growing up here, Sherman Alexi was, has been a good writer friend of mine for years, Spokane. Who's also a Spokane and Coeur d'Alene tribe. And so know, I, I think of Sherman, I think of other friends that I've had in writing Brian and giving Reese this sort of sidekick, you know, to go on his journey with him. Um, and that, you know, you know, there's this sort of tour of the West. They have to cross borders it from Washington into Idaho, from Washington into Canada to a, an elica festival. And so. That, that political question. I wanted him to, I wanted to not only see the far right, but also, you know, the sort of entertainment left, you know, the, these music festivals that pop up in the middle of nowhere. And so that, that felt like a good balancing place to send these two people, or to sort of see, um, you know, the insanity on both sides of, uh, of the world. You know, and Brian, you also, Brian was a perfect foil for that.

Brett Benner: 27:54

He's a great character and that music festival sequence is so funny, and I will say you, another thing I never thought I would know about and didn't know I needed to know about was Bing, which I will not say anything else about that, but I will let the reader experience that all to themselves. Thank God for things like the Urban Dictionary.

Jess Walter: 28:12

Right. Yeah. Well, it, I had, I talked to my daughter and son-in-law who liked to go to music festivals and, um, and my son-in-law actually sent me this guy who goes and reports on music festivals. And so some of the stuff I found out, I was like, oh, this is just too rich. So it was, yeah.

Brett Benner: 28:29

Well, again, it's such a brilliant thing because you've created, and Reese, it's almost like he's this, um, you know, uh, foreigner who's coming into discovering a new land. Um. Now wait back to that, back to your, back, to your house. You, do you guys use it? Do you? So

Jess Walter: 28:46

we lived there when I was a kid and it, and when we moved in, it was exactly as described in the novel. I've changed the directions a little bit because we, um, we've had a caretaker there for the last 20 years and he recently bought it and, um,

Brett Benner: 28:59

okay.

Jess Walter: 28:59

Part of the novel was me dealing with the fact that we were fine. My dad passed away. He had always dreamed of moving back there. So my grandfather owned a, a terrible cattle ranch that didn't do it, barely supported a handful of cows.'cause this, this land is so rough and rag and, uh, rugged. And then my dad. When I was in third grade, bought a piece right next to that and there was on the land this abandoned cinder block house with no power, no water. And so as a kid, when we first moved there, I remember going to the creek and getting creek water and boiling it and building a fire to heat the house. Very much what Reese kind of experiences. By the time we, we had power brought in, we dug a, well, you know, we did all the things that you do, but we lived there for a few years and then my dad kept the land and we still ran some cattle on it for a while. And in my dad's last years, my brother and sister and I would just take him up to the land and we would just walk around and pick up sticks and build fires and, you know, so letting that land go, I'd always sort of, my brother and sister and I kept it as this. As this sort of place we could go, you know, if we ever needed to.

Brett Benner: 30:06

Yeah,

Jess Walter: 30:07

it was, it's funny, by autobiography creeps into my work in these funny ways and, and as soon as I decided, oh, I'm just gonna send him to the place that I always imagined going, you know, and yeah. And that was, yeah, that was, you know, it made the place seem so real to me as I was writing it and, you know, and so when we sold it, we did the same thing Reese did. We stipulated that there be no clear cutting that it not be split into land. We carried the contracts so that we could do all those things. And so at the end of the novel, there's a moment where Reese has to, has to, and it's about 70 acres that we owned up there. My grandfather owned Wow, almost 600, but. Wow. There's, there's no irrigation up there. You can't really, you can grow. We would grow one cutting of alfalfa, but most of the land was these rugged cliff faces and forest. And so you, you really couldn't feed that many cattle, especially if you only get one cut really good farmland. You, you can find water and you can, you know, you can grow two, three cuttings. And so, but my brother and sister and I kept seven acres and we were just up there a week ago and we just like to go stand there and look around and. You know, and let it be wild. Let the trees grow. And if we can avoid the Turkey hunters this time of year, then it's a, it's a wonderful Yeah. I was gonna ask

Brett Benner: 31:21

what is, what is the wild, what is the wild You have turkeys. There's,

Jess Walter: 31:25

when I was a kid, we, when I was a kid, we had a bear that would come dig up our garden all the time, and my dad would wake us up and we would just peer over and watch this, this brown bear sit there and dig up, you know, uh, potatoes and carrots and things underneath them. And, um, but yeah, we had, I was a kid. We, we would. We never saw cougars, but you'd see their scat. We had a Canadian lynx come down. Lots of ton of deer, of course. Moose, um, tur, wild turkeys, you know, it, it, it was, it was great. And as described in the novel, much of it's been developed, you know, a lot of the neighbors, you know, those 500, 600 acre, Ranches and farms don't really work, so they've kind of split them up. And there's a lot of people looking to escape the world, you know, from California who've bought them. So now they're five acre pieces instead of 600. And our, um, our 70 acre, ranch is, um, I. The, the guy who owns it is a, works for a logging company and he drives a truck and then has, you know, farms a little bit, has cattle there. And, uh, I don't know what we'll do with our seven acres. We'll just probably walk out and stand on it until, uh,

Brett Benner: 32:35

just savor it.

Jess Walter: 32:35

Savor it, yeah. Yeah. Leave it for our kids. But it, but it's totally wild. A creek runs through it. You know, it's, there are just so few of those places that are, that don't have the fingerprint of people on them.

Brett Benner: 32:47

Yeah. No, you're absolutely.'cause yeah, we love to develop. I told you, I think when I first contacted you, I'm, we're moving in like two months to Bainbridge Island. Yeah. I remember just walking through it, these massive trees and these ferns that came up chest height, you know what I mean? Beautiful. That. Yeah. Yeah. And again, sometimes I don't know, again, if it's age that I'm so of suddenly like I'm, you know, it's, you know, you, yeah. The Walden esque part of it, you know? Yes. It's all pretty incredible.

Jess Walter: 33:16

But I, but I think that idea of being the steward of the place, and I wish my grandfather were, yeah. But the first thing my brother and I did when we got the land back is pull out all of the garbage and tractors and trucks and everything that my grandfather just drove into the woods and drove into the creek bed. You know, because that was how you treated your land when he was coming up and my. You know, we, we, we had a department of natural resources person tell me, do you guys vacuum your land? It's so clean. You know, we just, we clean all the garbage out. When trees fall, we, we cut'em up and make flash piles, you know, and so, yeah. Yeah, so I, I do think there's, you know, there's something about being, if you can afford a piece of land, there's something about being the steward of it and hopefully retaining, you know, allowing wildlife to live on it, retaining its natural state, you know, protecting its water. I mean, if you can do that for six acres, you know, then that, that's your little piece of hope right there.

Brett Benner: 34:15

Yeah. No, you're a hundred percent right. Uh, before we go I did, I did have to ask you. I know you're a big fan of, short stories. Yeah. Yes. Reading them as well as writing them. And so I'm so curious if you had a collection or one particular that you loved.

Jess Walter: 34:33

I. Lately I've been loving, like everyone, Claire Keegan, the Irish writer, her books are just a marvel. I, I mean, I go back to the short story writers who just inspired me. I, I just read Dublin again, which I always find my way back to the Dead, I think is a perfect story. You know, and, uh, but yeah, there are, boy, there are just no shortage that I, I have a, I have a whole shelf back there. Let me turn and see you. Which one jumps out at me? And Stuart Beck is a writer I go back to. I taught, uh, I, I was lucky enough to get to teach at the Iowa Writers Workshop and the. And a story of his pet milk that I taught. Incredibly short story, but it, it teaches you so much about time and movement and, I still hear from students who, who say that story to them. It was almost like they're in, it's, it's almost as if you can take. Literature and put it under a microscope'cause it's such a small story and you can see the things that you might not be able to see in a novel. It's like a one celled organism that teaches you about all of life. And sometimes you'll find a short story that does that. And so, I'll throw out Stewart Stewart Beck since his was the book that I looked back. I love that.

Brett Benner: 35:46

No, that's, that's awesome. Well, the book is fantastic. What I do love is, we didn't give too much away because I do feel like it's something that needs to be experienced. Yeah. And so I really look at, look at all those

Jess Walter: 35:56

little red tabs in there.

Brett Benner: 35:58

I, I did, I had a lot of tabs. I was, I was, I appreciate that. I was, I was writing quotes down and again, things that I completely identified with and emphatically, you know, nodding my head saying Yes, Reese, yes.

Jess Walter: 36:12

Well, let's let, let's, let's hope other readers identify with him as just as much.

Brett Benner: 36:16

Yeah, I, I would say for anyone who's had that impulse to throw their phone out the window and just drive off into the great unknown, this is absolutely the book for you now, but by independent, if you can just, Walter to spend such a pleasure, like I said before, I'm such a fan of your work. I'm Oh, thanks. I'm so excited for this and, uh, good luck with it all.

Jess Walter: 36:34

Thank you, Brett was great fun.

Brett Benner: 36:36

Thank you again, Jess, and if you like this conversation or other conversations you've heard on Behind the Stack, please consider giving it a five star review on your podcast platform of choice. It's really helpful to raise awareness for other people to help find the podcast so I can continue to keep doing this. I will be back later this week in my double feature June with Chris Chibnall, who is the author of Death at the White Heart. See you then.