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| photo by Todd R. Lockwood | |
Stephen Kiernan, born the sixth of seven children, still eats incredibly fast. A former wrestler and rugby player, he wants everyone to know that he is not angry anymore. He has tended bar, operated a jackhammer and been a salesman, all of which prepared him ideally for decades working in newspapers. He is a doting dad to two amazing lads. Most of his writing occurs with a cat in his lap. He's the author of two nonfiction works, Last Rights and Authentic Patriotism. His debut novel, The Curiosity, was published by William Morrow on July 9, 2013.
On your nightstand now:
Mark Twain by Ron Powers, the first biography I've read slowly because it is so good; The Round House by Louise Erdrich; and last year's winners of the Bakeless Prizes at Breadloaf. Also half a dozen books I'm reading as research for my next novel, which I will not name under pain of torture.
Favorite book when you were a child:
In elementary school, we could mail-order paperbacks from Scholastic for 25 cents each, and I bought $2 worth every month. I was an omnivore: mysteries, histories, sci-fi and all the great sentimental dog books by Albert Payson Terhune. The other author I loved early was Tolkien. I grew up a 15-minute bike ride from a golf course. The summer I was 12, I would find a shady spot well away from the fairways, lie in the grass, and travel to Mordor for hours. My parents had a shelf of fancy books in red leather covers that no one else ever opened, which began my discovery of literature: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Black Beauty, Treasure Island, the collected stories of O. Henry.
Also, because I had five older siblings, I read precociously--Sometimes a Great Notion, As I Lay Dying, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Damon Runyon Omnibus, all before age 14. In high school my favorite was Tom Robbins's Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.
Your top five authors:
Only five? Gabriel García Márquez, Leo Tolstoy, David McCullough, Knut Hamsun (despite his personal politics), Mark Twain. And now I could name 55 more.
Book you've faked reading:
In grad school in Iowa, I took a "great novels" seminar with Francine Prose, who told us that Proust's Remembrance of Things Past was her favorite novel. I made a valiant effort but repeatedly fell asleep while reading it. When class came, I participated actively for a while. Once the discussion passed page 400 or so, I closed my mouth. Since I tend to talk too much, perhaps not finishing certain books is good for me.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Pan by Knut Hamsun, a forgotten Nobel Laureate. So simple a love story, language as clear as water, with a strange and beautiful moral landscape. Also a few of my friends are immensely talented writers, and I am shameless about touting them. It is taking immense restraint not to name them here.
Book you've bought for the cover:
At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien, which I ended up liking only a little. But it was the blurb on the cover that got me: "This is just the sort of book to give your sister--if she's a loud, dirty, boozy girl." --Dylan Thomas.
Book that changed your life:
So many, and in such different ways, it's impossible to list. For example, the summer I was 15, I read, consecutively, Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Grapes of Wrath. By September I was a different person.
Favorite line from a book:
"The enemy of the black is not the white. The enemy of capitalist is not communist, the enemy of homosexual is not heterosexual, the enemy of Jew is not Arab, the enemy of youth is not the old, the enemy of hip is not redneck, the enemy of Chicano is not gringo and the enemy of women is not men.
We all have the same enemy.
The enemy is the tyranny of the dull mind.
The enemy is every expert who practices technocratic manipulation, the enemy is every proponent of standardization, and the enemy is every victim who is so dull and lazy and weak as to allow himself to be manipulated and standardized." --From Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins.
Or this:
"For if Jack Buggit could escape from the pickle jar, if a bird with a broken neck could fly away, what else might be possible? Water may be older than light, diamonds crack in a hot goat's blood, mountaintops give off cold fire, forests appear in mid-ocean, it may happen that a crab is caught with a shadow of a hand on its back, that the wind be imprisoned in a bit of knotted string. And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery." --From The Shipping News by Annie Proulx.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss.
Writing habits:
While I carry my ideas around all day, fiddling with them like coins in my pocket, I write best in early morning--most days starting at 5:30 but sometimes as early as 3:30, facing east, on my laptop. Needless to say, I am therefore an expert at the deep, brief nap. During first drafting I rarely take even one day off, for fear of interrupting the dream. If I am working on a difficult passage, I'll grab a basic Bic pen and write longhand on a legal pad. I use the pens till they're empty, and have hundreds of Bics with empty ink cartridges. After many years of working in noisy newsrooms, it is now a deep pleasure to write in total silence.