Interview with R. Dean Johnson

Interview with R. Dean Johnson
By Josh Moberly

Aurora Staff Member Josh Moberly sat down with EKU professor and author of “Delicate Men”, R. Dean Johnson.  

 

 

Moberly: Alright, so. A conversation about Delicate Men. And you have a copy here, which is good because mine is at my house.

Johnson: Marked up, right?

Moberly: Yup.

Johnson: Frowny-faces and tears in places?

Moberly: Yup, you know it. Alright, so, we can start by talking about some of the individual stories. Or, how the stories that are in Delicate Men, wound up in Delicate Men.

Johnson: I didn’t start writing the stories with the idea of turning them into a collection of stories—Oh, I should tell you, too, that it’s a collection, not an anthology. An anthology is various authors collected together, while a collection is one author’s works together. Minor detail, but an important one.
Anyway, when I started writing the stories, I didn’t have it in mind that they were going to end up in a collection. I was just writing stories. But at some point, when I had probably written a few more than half of them, I started to recognize that there was some connective tissue. Not all the stories I had written, but a number of them had protagonists who were going against the mainstream, and who they were supposed to be, according to society. Not in radical ways, but in subtle enough ways that there was something to it.
I didn’t, until the last two or three stories, write with the collection in mind. Then I returned to some of the characters, too.

Moberly: Yeah, I noticed that. A number of characters show up in multiple stories. If I remember correctly, one of the minor characters from the short story “Delicate Men” is actually the main character of “Something Good.”

Johnson: Yeah. It’s his backstory, the year before.

Moberly: Actually, it’s two years before.

Johnson: Is it?

Moberly: Yeah, “Delicate Men” is in 1981 and “Something Good” is in ’79. Uh, I also noticed that the short story “A Second Delay” was set in 1996, and it’s being told by a character named Colin. “Delicate Men” is also from the point of view of a guy named Colin. Is it the same Colin?

Johnson: It’s him when he’s a kid, then when he’s an adult.

Moberly: Were those the only three stories that had the same character?

Johnson: The character from “Beginner's Guide to Brugge,” and also from “The People We Were,” he’s not a main character in “A Second Delay,” but he’s there. That’s him after he gets back.

Moberly: So, he does eventually conform.

Johnson: Well, he’s not conforming. He doesn’t go back to corporate America. It’s his backstory that he’s been working in this tower in L.A., then he loses his job and just decides to go to Europe. Then he gets back and he’s like “I can’t go back to that.” So he’s going to grad school, and—

Moberly: Well, he does have some pretty dark adventures in Europe.

Johnson: Yeah, he does.

Moberly: If you had put “Beginner’s Guide to Brugge” and “The People We Were” in chronological order, it would not have had the same punch. Because “Beginner’s Guide to Brugge,” it, you know—
Johnson: It changes your view of the character.

Moberly: Yeah.

Johnson: Yeah.

Moberly: Yeah, it’s not as dark, or depressing.

Johnson: You’re right. I definitely placed them in that order that on purpose, because—Well, for two reasons: I think “Beginner’s Guide to Brugge” isn’t as dark and depressing, but there’s still darkness to it.

Moberly: Oh yeah, there’s definitely darkness there.

Johnson: And I’ve had people who read them early on who wanted to question his sexuality, and to me I don’t question his sexuality. I think he’s aware of his sexuality, he knows what his sexuality is, he’s not confused about it. He has a confusing moment, in “Beginner’s Guide to Brugge,” but in “The People We Were,” he doesn’t have any confused moments, in that respect, and I think if I had the stories reversed, you would just assume he’s confused about his sexuality, and that’s not what the story’s about anyway, overall. So, I was careful with the placement of those two stories. But it’s been interesting to see how people respond. A lot of people who’ve read the book respond to “The Beginner’s Guide to Brugge,” especially, and that character. Worth discussion, apparently.

Moberly: So, minor spoiler: At the end of “The People We Were,” Jim goes off to Spain. Does he have any adventures in Spain, that you haven’t got down yet? Anything mulling about the brain right now, about his adventures in Spain? Does he run with the bulls?

Johnson: That’s a good question.

Moberly: Or does he go to the town where they do the running of the bulls in the complete opposite point in the year where there’s nothing going on?

Johnson: Yeah, he doesn’t make it for the running of the bulls, but he’s happy not to.

Moberly: He wants the authentic experience of this town, not the one that everyone knows.

Johnson: Yeah, he’s no longer looking for adventure. Now he’s looking for solitude, for peace and quiet.

Moberly: Yeah, I could see that, after the stuff that happens.

Johnson: Yeah, that was the criticism of that town from the guy he sells the drugs to, the Spanish guy. That guy hates the town, because it’s boring, most of the time, and so that’s the reason he goes there. It’s boring, he’s boring, and that’s what he’s looking for.

Moberly: I have to admit, I kind of hated Jim just a little bit at the end of “The People We Were,” for what he does. I was like “Oh man, why? Why did you—oh man, you…”
I can understand why he did it, I probably would have done the same thing, but I hated him for doing it.
Johnson: Running away?

Moberly: Yeah. But at the same time, what else could he do?

Johnson: I didn’t know what he was going to do.

Moberly: Really?

Johnson: Yeah.

Moberly: You had no idea what he was going to do, in the lead-up to that scene?

Johnson: I get to that scene, he’s comin’ back to the hostel, and I want him to know she’s doing drugs. At one point, I just want him to walk in on her, you know, almost like he’s catching her cheating on him, but she’s not, she’s doing drugs.
But then it became that idea that she’s continuing to cheat, like, “she’s not who I thought she was. She’s not who I thought she was, and this is who she really is, and look at what it’s doing to me, I’ve gotta get out of here.” And he’s already run away from problems: He loses his job, he loses his girlfriend—which you don’t find out till “The Beginner’s Guide to Brugge,” but—he loses these things, and his response is to run away. And so, in some ways, that’s his mindset right now, at this point in his life.

Moberly: At some point, does he stop running away?

Johnson: That’s what’s hinted at, in “A Second Delay.” He’s getting ready to run away, he’s running from California now to Kansas to go to graduate school, and there’s that idea that “I wanna go somewhere where’s there’s solitude, where there’s quiet,” so that’s why Kansas is a good choice right then. I couldn’t, you know, have him go up to Berkley or out to NYU or anything like that.

Moberly: I noticed an interesting parallel, because we’ve discussed your background before. You were doing the whole corporate thing—I don’t know if it was out in California—but you quit, and went to grad school in Kansas.

Johnson: Right.

Moberly: So, how much of these stories draw from the life of Johnson Johnson?

Johnson: A lot of things start with experience. I know Kansas because I lived there for three years, and I know the culture shock that comes from going from California to Kansas. And then, where I think fiction becomes its own animal, and good writing, is where the character starts to take over the story, and starts to say “I’m a real person. I’m not longer a version of you.”
And so for Jim, in that respect—well, when I went to Kansas, I went there because they offered me a good deal. I got accepted to other schools, but they didn’t offer me any money, so I went for financial reasons. I didn’t want to go to Kansas. I didn’t desire the prairie, in any way shape or form, and I liked the idea of becoming a writer, so it wasn’t that I was trying to escape corporate America, I just knew it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do.
But my character Jim, he’s now desiring solitude, and quiet and he wants to be focused on something, and he definitely wants to be away from the corporate side of things, whereas I settled for that kind of environment, and it ended up being great for me, but if I could have gotten the full ride to San Francisco State, I would have gone to San Francisco State. It would have been awesome to live in San Francisco, I would have been excited to be living in California—they let me in, but they didn’t offer me a dime.

Moberly: Yeah, that’s where Robin Williams lived the majority of his life.

Johnson: I’ve been up there, visited friends up there, and it’s a dynamic city.

Moberly: It’s a wild town, from everything I’ve heard.

Johnson: Yeah, so what I was considering, what I was doing with Jim later, with his narrative arc, I needed him to go somewhere that was credible, but quiet. And I know Kansas, so I grabbed Kansas.

Moberly: There’s another story in here that has something to do with Kansas, and that’s a good jumping-off point. Let’s talk about “Cards for All Occasions,” because I’m aware that two of the main characters come from Kansas, and they have both taken radically different courses with their lives. Specifically, Eric and his cousin, Walter.

Johnson: Wedge.

Moberly: Yeah.

Johnson: He’s Wedge, now. *laughs*

Moberly: *laughs* They both come from Kansas, and Eric is in the greeting card racket, which is the last thing a creative writer wants to do with their life. And then there is Walter, who has done a lot. He escaped Kansas, went to Chicago, now he’s in southern California. And the way these characters start off in Kansas, they’re young guys who you could tell were related because they could pass for twins.

Johnson: Right, but they’re still their own characters.

Moberly: Well yeah. Then, when they come to themselves in their 40s, Eric still looks pretty much the same as he did way back when, and the way that you describe Wedge, as he goes by now, he looks like Verys from Game of Thrones.

Johnson: Well he’s transformed himself. I mean, this is a story that started off with a job. I was like, “I’m gonna have a guy who writes greeting cards, what can I do with that? That’ll be fun.” And the first version of the story was, instead of being set up the way it is now, to read like a play—

Moberly: Yeah, I was curious why you chose that, when I first started reading.

Johnson: Well, it was supposed to be like theater, because that’s what Wedge does, and what Eric is doing when he goes out to visit Wedge is creating drama where there shouldn’t be any, and that’s because, even though he doesn’t know it himself, he’s jealous of what Wedge has done with his life. Because Eric, early on, was the golden boy, and he did everything that the family would have wanted him to do—

Moberly: He’s a guy who’s unable to let go of the past as well.

Johnson: Yeah, he’s peaked. And the greeting cards are part of that, because even if you’re great at it, you’re always anonymous, and you’re not really an artist, and Wedge is an artist.

Moberly: Yeah, Eric isn’t working on anything on the side. He doesn’t have a novel boiling in the background while he’s writing these Hallmark cards.

Johnson: And he doesn’t have a relationship either. It’s not like he makes all this money and he’s putting it towards a family, he’s just unable to commit, and he’s unsatisfied.
And I didn’t know that when I started writing it. I just thought it would be funny to write a story about a guy who writes greeting cards and went out to a convention, and then I thought of a credible character who could cause the conflict, and I still didn’t know how it was going to go. And then with the character Juno, it was just like “I’ll have Wedge have a partner, just to add tension to it,” but then as I was writing that I realized that Eric would be—well, Eric isn’t a bad guy, he’s just protective of his cousin, but he’s lost touch with who his cousin is.
His cousin’s happy, his cousin’s successful in his own way, but his cousin’s always been, he thought, this unattractive guy, then he meets Juno, and he has no problem with his cousin being gay, but when he meets Juno, who’s supposed to be this really slick, good looking guy, and it would be like if your not so good looking cousin who you never thought was successful was suddenly with this much younger hot woman, you would think “oh, she’s just after him for something, whatever she can get, she’s bad for him. She’s going to screw him over in the end and break his heart,” and Eric really believes that, but it’s not because of who Juno is, it’s just that he’s failing to see what Wedge has become.
And so that’s supposed to be the tension of the story. I hope it comes through, but it wasn’t that complicated when I started writing.

Moberly: The brilliant thing though, Johnson, is that Eric is unable to see his own hypocrisy. Because both he and Wedge are both dating someone who’s much younger than them.

Johnson: Right. But, of course, Eric’s is going to be socially acceptable. And older guy can get away with dating a much younger girl, but a guy isn’t as easily accepted to be dating another guy, especially not a May-December romance on top of that. So what Wedge does, Eric can do in the light, in full view of the public, and get away with it. He’s not homophobic, although he might come of that way. I hope he doesn’t, but…
Anyway, he thinks he’s very progressive with his brother, and he even supports him financially—

Moberly: He’s actually one of the only members of the family that even acknowledges the truth.

Johnson: Right. It’s generational, you know. But yeah, for Eric it’s really not an issue, he really is trying to reach out to his cousin, but he doesn’t see the hypocrisy, and he doesn’t even like the idea of him being called Wedge—

Moberly: Which was a Star Wars reference!

Johnson: Right, right.

Moberly: Of all things, a very obscure Star Wars reference.

Johnson: Well they would have grown up with it, and they would geek out together over it. But Eric can’t accept it that way.
Early on, there were sub-headings throughout the story, and they were lines from Eric’s greeting cards. And that was fun, but it didn’t quite work. And then I came up on the idea of structuring it like a two-act play. That’s why at one point, the second time Juno and Eric are alone together, the dialogue switches from traditional fiction dialogue to drama dialogue, and at some point in that dialogue, when Eric is trying to create a scene, Juno starts to figure out what he’s doing, and his dialogue goes back to traditional dialogue.

Moberly: Yeah, it was around that point I started to realize that’s why you had written the dialogue that way.

Johnson: Yeah, because for Eric this is all a drama, and he’s going to rescue Wedge, he’s on a mission.
For me, that was one of the basic lessons I learned in grad school about writing. You have to sit in your character’s chair, and make your character do what your character would do, not what you want them to do. I want him to see his cousin and be all “oh my God, you are totally happy and this is great, let’s get some beers and hang out.” He’s acting like that, but he’s plotting. It’s a chess game—

Moberly: It’s acting.

Johnson: Yeah, it really is.

Moberly: Sitting in the character’s chair, you are entering the mindset of the character. And sometimes, you hate doing it. Let’s talk about a character from one of these stories whose chair you hated sitting in. A character who you did not like having to be.

Johnson: Oh, you want me to pick one?

Moberly: Yeah, just one that you can think of.

Johnson: That’s a good question, but I have to think about it.

Moberly: Because this would be a good opportunity for writers who are going to be reading this interview.
Johnson: Garrett, who is the antagonist of the title story, “Delicate Men,” is a bully. So it’s hard to sit in his chair, because he had to be a bad guy, but I also know that if I made him flat, he wouldn’t have been as interesting. So I had to try and find a way to make him empathetic, so I worked really hard in that story to make him reluctant to fight.
He tries to find ways to talk Clifford out of the fight. In an early draft, it was because he was afraid to fight, but I learned from writing the character, I know he’s not afraid to fight, he just really doesn’t want to be a jerk. But he’s caught up in this cult of personality, they all think he’s awesome, so he feels like he has to do it. So he’s victimized too. He’s not aware as a kid, but he doesn’t want to lose status. So he’s not doing this because he hates Clifford, or because he thinks he’s better than Clifford; he’s strictly doing it because he wants to be in the position that he’s in.

Moberly: Yeah, if he doesn’t do it, he’s going to basically humiliate himself in front of his clique.

Johnson: Yeah, so I hated it early on, because I had to do this, and then I started to understand it, and then I felt for him, so I wrote that other story, the backstory for him, about baseball, where he’s a good baseball player, but he’s having a bad day, and he wants to do something good, and then it’s dramatic irony because he does something good, but it happens to be against one of his best buddies. It’s painful. He succeeds by knocking someone else down, someone he actually likes.
But I didn’t know that until I had written “Delicate Men,” and then went back, to learn more about who he is. And I feel sorry for him. And Clifford a little bit too, but not as much, because Clifford knows who he is. Clifford is awesome in that story. He’s the kid who gets picked on, but he’s owning it.

Moberly: Okay, let’s talk briefly about the shortest story in this collection, “No Better.” It’s two pages, really one and a half.

Moberly: This is a single, flash-in-the-pan scene. Two people, outside of a nightclub, and they encounter a couple of homeless people. And then, as quickly as we are introduced to them, it’s done. How difficult was it to write a story that short?

Johnson: It was about twice that length when I wrote it. I revised it several time, and I got it perfect, I thought, and I started sending it out to journals. And the fiction editor at Redivider said “I really like this, but you don’t need the first half of the story.” There was no promise that if I cut it in half and sent it back, they would publish it, thy just said I needed to cut it in half.
So, I thought about it, resisted it, followed the advice and liked it much better. That said, both versions have been published, under different titles. Because it’s a different story with the first half on it. Really the first half is the backstory of who Zane is. I published both versions, but then when I had to choose which version went in the collection, I chose the shorter version.

Moberly: Why? Was it because you were being charged by the page, or..?

Johnson: No, nothing like that. Actually it’s a very slim collection, so more pages probably would have been better, but I wanted to open the collection with something good and sturdy, so that was part of the reason, I wanted something short at the beginning. And I think Zane is my poster-man for who the “delicate man” is. He is in control, and he exudes confidence, but he’s shaken—he won’t show it, but he’s shaken—by this homeless guy, because he gets it. He gets it now that he’s just as much a pariah, just as much a problem as people would view this homeless guy as. The things he’s doing really aren’t good for anyone, and he has that moment where he realizes what the homeless guy is doing, and that the homeless guy has to do it. Zane doesn’t have to do it, he’s socialized to do this, but he realizes that for the homeless guy it’s really not a choice.

Moberly: Alright, now let’s talk about this: The collection is divided into three parts. What’s up with that?
Johnson: Initially it wasn’t. It was just stories, you know, and then I had three stories that had really young protagonists. And I thought “well, how are they delicate men?”

Moberly: Yeah, in section two, they’re all, like, 11-to-18.

Johnson: Yeah, if I was going to do it chronologically, part two should have been at the beginning of the collection, but I thought that might mess with the reader’s head, if I called this collection “Delicate Men” and they start reading about young boys early on. So, those become backstory to the delicate men, where they come from. That’s why I started off with Zane. Like, “here is a delicate man. Here’s what a delicate man is.” I wanted it to establish, you know, men, and then follow up with the backstory.
Then in part three we’re coming back to a contemporary idea of delicate men, but those stories aren’t as serious.

Moberly: Now, these stories were published in other locations prior to them winding up in the collection. So, any useful advice you can give to the aspiring writer who’s going to be looking through Aurora. Not how to get published, necessarily, but how to get something like this going.

Johnson: Be persistent. If you send your work out when it’s perfect, you never send it out, so you get it to a point where you’re satisfied with it. The title story of the collection, “Delicate Men,” I was told—it was the only story in my whole life where, in workshop, people said “this story’s awesome, you should send this out,” even the professor said it. It’s never ever happened in any other workshop I’ve been in.
So I did send it out, and it got rejected 56 times.

Moberly: 56 times, before it got accepted.

Johnson: One of the places I sent it to was a place where my professor said “send it to this place, tell them I told you to send it, because I’m one of their editors.” And they rejected it.
So I went back and reevaluated it, and I didn’t know what I could change in the story, so I kept sending it out because I knew it was a good story, an that’s just what happens. Every once in a while I would get a nice rejection note, but it would never offer any feedback, so I couldn’t make any changes
Now that story “No Better”? I got feedback, and I read it, and I was like “yes, I can make that change” and as soon as I did, somebody published that story. “Beginner’s Guide to Brugge,” because it’s in second-person, I got feedback from two or three different editors who said “I really like this, but I won’t publish it in second-person. I would publish it in first person.” And I thought about changing it to first person, but it had to be in second person, so I just stopped sending out that one.
So the persistence, I think, is—well, you need persistence, but you also need to be willing to listen to the advice you get, and consider changing—but in the case with “Delicate Men,” I stuck to it, and I’m glad I did. And since then, it’s been anthologized twice, and published on an online blog. It’s had a life, beyond its initial one. And it’s in here, so it’s been published four times! I knew it!

Moberly: Alright, Delicate Men by R Dean Johnson. That’s a lie, his name is Johnson Johnson, but you’ll find it under R. Dean Johnson.

Johnson: Well, it looks good on the cover.

Moberly: Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever you say, Johnson. You can find it on Amazon. Buy it.