Q: Love and loss are powerful themes in the novel—how are they important to Kevin’s redemption?
A: Loss is obviously a universal experience and is essential for any kind of redemption. Loss can take many forms: loss of innocence, loss of integrity, or in the case of Kevin, loss of a loved one. His loss is greatly compounded, though, by the loss of his mother, who’s folded into herself after witnessing the tragic death of her youngest son. Kevin also must deal with the loss of the relationship with his father, who has stacked Kevin with blame and guilt. Here’s this fourteen-year-old kid whose world has just been torn apart. But out of the wreckage, Kevin finds a faltering path to redemption.
Q: Joshua’s death is a gripping, horrifying, and much anticipated (and dreaded) part of the story, particularly since it is referenced several times before the reader finds out what happened. Just as that was a catalyst for Kevin’s guilt, his mother’s shutting down, and their move to Medgar, was that a starting point of the story for you, or did it come later?
A: It actually was the starting point. A number of years ago, I met a good friend’s mother for the first time—she was an incredibly beautiful woman who seemed to carry with her a deep-set sadness that only showed itself in her unguarded moments. I asked my friend about it and she told me the story of how her older brother died before she was born—it was Joshua’s story. I was horrified, of course—it’s an experience well past any parent’s nightmare—but from it I began to build Kevin’s story.
Q: Who or what event in your life inspired the characters of Kevin, Buzzy, and Pops?
A: I think every writer mines characters and plot from their own experiences and certainly Kevin, Buzzy, and Pops have parts of me in each of them. I grew up about thirty miles outside of Washington, D.C., in country that very quickly became suburbs so Kevin and Buzzy are an amalgamation of that childhood. I never really knew my grandfathers and I guess Pops is the grandfather I wish I’d had—I suspect he’s the grandfather a lot of us wish we’d had.
Q: Kevin’s rescue of Pops—much of it by himself—is harrowing and both emotionally and physically wrenching. How were you able to put such a difficult but believable journey together? Did you hear any stories about similar experiences?
A: I’ve always been fascinated with how people behave in highly stressful, life-threatening situations—some rise to the moment, others curl up and go fetal. These situations strip away the fa?ade of the persona we’ve tried to construct and lay bare the person we really are. In Kevin’s case, his father has layered on so much self-doubt, guilt, and anger that it takes this difficult journey to awaken the strong, righteous, caring person he really is. Pops is his last, best hope for a normal life and Kevin knows it, owns it, and delivers.
Q: The earth’s healing power seems to be an important motif in the novel—you call it a madstone. What is a madstone and why is it important to the story?
A: A madstone is an old folk remedy to cure snake bites and fevers. It’s a calcified hairball-like thing from the intestine of a cud-chewing animal—you’re probably thinking, “Cool, where can I get one?” If someone is bitten by a copperhead or a rabid dog, the madstone would be applied to the bite and the poisons would be drawn out of the bite. Madstones vary in strength and effectiveness—a madstone from a cow is only mildly effective; a madstone from a deer is considered quite powerful. However, the madstone from a white deer is the most powerful of all and unicorn-like in its scarcity. Interestingly, madstones can’t be bought or sold or they’ll lose their power; they must be found or given.
In the novel, the earth becomes a madstone for several of the characters, drawing out the pain and poison from the losses they suffer.
Q: Do you believe in the magic or spiritual significance of symbols like the white stag?
A: Very much so. We only understand a sliver of the known world, let alone this mysterious, magical, spiritual unknown world that seems to exist in the ether around us. We’ve all had those “white stag” moments where we come upon the unexplainable or magical or spiritual. I think it’s the height of human arrogance to believe that existence ends at the observed world. Call them guardian angels, malaaika, fravashi, or spirit guides, the inhabitants of this possible netherworld populate nearly every culture—they are difficult to explain, impossible to prove, but a comfort if you believe in them.
Q: There is a recurrence of both physical and emotional violence in The Secret Wisdom of the Earth—to the land, within the community, and within Kevin’s own family. How does violence impact us as we grow up and shape the adults we eventually become?
A: There are two kinds of violence in the world: intended and unintended. Both leave a mark, but the scar of intended violence is quite deep and often slow to heal. It’s a scar that can debilitate and reshape lives in tragic ways. But through fortitude and resilience one can rise above. Paul is a great example of that. He suffers terrible beatings at the hands of his father, but through sheer will patches together a good life with Paitsel. The violence done to the mountains is obviously intended and serves as an allegory for Paul’s pain and for others who have suffered similar violence.
Q: Can you talk about your writing process—how do you work?
A: My writing process is all about stealing moments. I wrote the bulk of the novel while working in London and helping raise my sons. I’d get up at five a.m. and write for two hours, then head off to work. Come home and put the kids to bed, then revise what I wrote in the morning. Then I returned to the States and founded a search engine company (unfortunately not named Google). That job was twelve to eighteen-hour days and I didn’t write a single word for seven years—the job was just too demanding. The company was a spectacular failure and was one of many that became Google road kill. When that company failed, I joined a VC firm for a few years and went back to my five a.m./eight p.m. writing/revising cycle. That allowed me to finish Secret Wisdom.
Q: You’ve rendered the characters in Secret Wisdom so vividly—what’s your process for bringing them alive on the page?
A: I do a pretty deep character outline in my head—I get to know absolutely everything about them, understand their behavior and motivations completely. Then I let them loose in the setting and just see what happens. I don’t really work off of an outline; rather, I let the fully-formed characters drive the action.
The old writing chestnut “show, don’t tell” is probably the single most important technique in creating vivid characters. Place them in situations that reveal themselves to the reader…however, that reveal must also advance the plot.
Q: How has your experience running technology companies informed your writing?
A: Not at all; in fact the two are quite antithetical and take completely different skill sets. Writing by its very nature is an interior activity—you go on these internal journeys to the far neighborhoods of your brain, rattle some doors, and write about the people who answer. Being a good CEO requires a wholly different set of capabilities—exterior skills such as leading teams, communicating effectively to groups, having an unflaggingly positive attitude, decisiveness, reading people, hiring well, firing well. So no, running companies hasn’t helped my writing at all, although one or two of my past investors would argue that some of my business plans qualified as fiction.
I think where it has helped me is in understanding the business of publishing. Finding an agent is actually a lot like finding venture capital—many of the same tenets apply…stuff like doing your homework to find the right agent, making a professional approach, selling an idea. I was surprised how similar they actually are.
Q: What’s next? Are you working on a second novel?
A: I am. It’s a completely different story—different time period, different setting. I don’t want to give too much away, but I’m looking forward to sharing it.
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