Collagist Interview: Roy Kesey

Issue Eighteen features a deliriously good excerpt from Pacazo, Roy Kesey's new novel that Dan Chaon calls a "dark, hallucinatory journey that you won't want to stop." Roy, who just wrapped up the first leg of the American tour for his book release, talks here about life as a professional writer in Peru, as well as which tome he considers an "extraordinary mountain of a book," which food qualifies as the Peruvian equivalent of jojoba oil sex parties, and why he's so damn tired of cults.

Where does the excerpt fall within the context of Pacazo? What drew you to this excerpt in particular?

This bit comes from about halfway through the first section of the book, which is to say, about a fifth of the way through the thing as a whole. It was one of a couple of excerpts that I sent in for consideration, and the one that, I guess, most appealed to the editor, Matt Bell. I like it because it's well-contained—a single setting (in fact a single square yard, give or take), and a single short stretch of time—but it also takes great leaps in time and space, in ways that matter to the rest of the book. I enjoyed describing the German cultists. And I still really like that great rambling roil at the end.

The excerpt is set in Peru, where you're living now. Is much—or any—of the excerpt autobiographical, particularly the adventure in the jungle?

There are fragments scattered throughout that I pulled from life, but within the context of the book, they only matter to John's life, if that makes sense. God knows my daughter and I put in some time with The Blinking Game. I've sung the beautiful stupid unicorn song to my son. There was a small German cult in Piura around this time, though I knew little about them, and thus was free to invent. And yes, a number of the isolated jungle moments were mine, though it was a different part of the Amazon, and my reasons for being there were even less coherent than John's.

The narrator briefly mentions losing a friend to Jim Jones and the Cult of the People’s Temple, best known for their mass suicide in 1978, when over 900 Temple members took their lives in Guyana. What sparked your interest in this event? Will we return to more aspects of cult life in the novel?

I grew up in Ukiah (where The People's Temple had a church facility) and went to school in Redwood Valley (where The People's Temple was headquartered for several years in the late 1960s and early '70s). I was maybe nine years old when they started leaving for Guyana, and ten when the mass murder-suicide took place, and I didn't know any of the victims (or perpetrators) personally. But Ukiah only had about 12,000 inhabitants at that time, and Redwood Valley only 4,000 or so; the Sunday after it happened there were a whole lot of conversations after church that were abruptly choked off as a child walked up. It was a tense, creepy few weeks—fitting, I guess, after an event like that. It served as a sort of phantomish backdrop for a lot of what happened over the next few years. And it surely contributed to my own extreme lack of patience with cults and their leaders to this day. I hate how even the seemingly inoffensive ones are such bullies toward the weakest members of their groups; I hate how they ask for everything in return for some of the more absurd varieties of hope you'll ever encounter.

I'll also add that several years after the massacre/suicide at Jonestown, I met Tim Stoen, the assistant DA whose support for and membership in the church provided Jones with legal, financial, media and political cover for almost a decade, and whose 1977 defection from the church (over a custody case, of all things) eventually had a major role in its destruction. This would have been in 1985 or so. A lot of people still hated him for building so much of the structure that made the tragedy possible in the first place. When he spoke he was defensive and lawyery, but he was also deeply soul-tired—his six-year-old son was one of the 276 children poisoned at Jonestown. I found it hard to hate him much.

So that's my connection. As for whether or not we'll run into the cultists again in the course of the novel, the answer is (SPOILER ALERT!) maybe.

What are some differences between living as a writer in Peru and a writer in America? In terms of inspiration, quality of life, etc. What other places have affected you deeply as a writer?
A hard question to answer, because there are so many variables, almost none of which I know anything about. Also, I've only lived in the US as a writer for one year, whereas I've been writing in Peru for ten. That said, I think that in general it's much harder to make a living as a writer in Peru (that is, if you're writing in Spanish, and primarily for the Peruvian market) than in the US.
By that I mean, in the US it's extremely hard, and in Peru it's impossible. There's just not much of a legal book market here. (This is partly because the taxes and mark-ups on books are so outrageous—many paperbacks that would cost $10 in the US and the equivalent of $12-15 in Europe cost the equivalent of $20-25 here. Note that I said legal book market, though. There's a thriving black market, pirated copies sold from kiosks in all the big markets and by hawkers on the beaches and at every red light in the city. Which is understandable, given the ridiculous prices I just mentioned, but also makes it even more impossible for writers to make a living, since the only people making money on the pirated copies are the printers and the hawkers themselves...) There's almost nothing in the way of grants or fellowships. And there's no such thing as an MFA program down here, so that source of stability and income for so many US writers is simply not an option. So the Peruvian writers putting out books that would allow them to make a living in a kinder economic climate, they either move to Spain or France or Mexico or the US, or they simply write while working other jobs, as professors, lawyers, journalists, architects, diplomats...

For someone like me, though, it doesn't matter so much where I live. I mean, I'm writing in English, primarily for the US market, and I can send anything I produce to the US for free in milliseconds—to my agent, my editor, my friends, my family. Granted, most years (that is, all years in which I don't have a book coming out) I miss out on all the camaraderie and fellowship that takes place at all the conferences and roundtables and festivals and reading series and jojoba oil sex parties that you and your friends go to every weekend. On the other hand, I can have ceviche whenever I want, so, call it a tie.
Lastly, like everyone, I guess, I've been affected by everywhere that I've ever been, but especially the places I've lived (or visited repeatedly) and written in: bits of England, France, Croatia, the US, China, and Peru so far.

What/who are some recent favorite books/authors of yours?

I've just finished Steiner's After Babel—an extraordinary mountain of a book. Knut Hamsun's oddly undesperate Hunger. Stefan Zweig's Chess Story. David Vann's Caribou Island—I was lucky enough to read with him at a couple of places on a recent trip to the States. And I'm just now digging into Lidia Yuknavitch's collection Real to Reel, very much enjoying it so far.

Will your novel release include an American tour?
Speaking of which! If I'd gotten this back to you sooner I'd have mentioned all the great places that took me in during the recently concluded Phase 1 of El Tour del Pacazo: Washington College, AWP and environs, Mendocino College, the Healdsburg Literary Cafe, and West Virginia University. But since that's already all blown by, I'll just mention that for Phase 2 I'll be in New York (Pen Parentis, WORD, and a few other places) and Boston (for the Juniper Festival and a few other readings) in April—all the exact times and dates will soon be up on my webpage and Facebook page, and here at the Dzanc site as well. Same goes for Phase 3, a trip to California and Oregon in June. Hope to see you there!