The man of the hour, flanked by Andersen Prunty and CV Hunt.
This week is entirely dedicated to the brilliance of author and book reviewer extraordinaire Gabino Iglesias. My initial plan was to give him the questionnaire I usually give authors I don't know too well in order to save time but who the hell am I kidding? Gabino and I have been the only two independent book reviewers in the game that haven't faded out over time, so we know each other.
So I decided to sit down with him and have a real conversation. Because why the hell not, right? I hadn't read any of his books at the time, but I think it came out OK. You'll see I had other, more conceptual things in mind I wanted to ask him. Feel free to drop in and chat with us on social media using the hashtag #GabinoMania...
Ben: Congratulations on publishing Zero Saints. I mean, you've published other stuff before, but this one feels like an event. It's released by an up-and-coming press, it has gathered buzz and mystique over the last year, people are excited for its release Knowing the money in fiction is in television now, what made you want to write prose? Wh.y did you start writing Zero Saints for? I'm a big believer in creating art for the right reasons and these reasons can very from a person to another. I'm curious to know what are yours.
Gabino: I wrote a few scripts for short films back in the day. One of them was shown in a national contest and did well. Folks with YouTube skills can find some of that stuff if they want to waste their time and don’t mind watching shorts in Spanish. Apart from that, I’ve never had any interest in writing for TV mainly because I don’t watch TV. That being said, if anyone has a writing gig for me in TV, get at me. As for money, I decided a long time ago to focus on telling stories and forget about money, being an author's not about massive mounds of the devil’s dandruff on shiny coffee tables, pouring Crystal on naked ladies, and money. If that was the goal, I should’ve stayed in law school.
Zero Saints came about for many reasons. The first one is that I have this need to tell stories. We all do (if you haven’t done so yet, read Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal). We tend to get caught up in social media and acting like authors and shit, but most writers do this because they want to sit us down around a fire and then make us laugh, stick their tongues in our mouths, or slash our throats and watch our blood hiss as it lands on the burning wood. You know, figuratively speaking…in most cases. I had a few ideas that came together in my head and that became a novel. It had to come out. Writers have to write. Fuck your cats and your coffee and your practiced coolness and your Amazon rankings; it’s the putting words on the page that makes you a writer. The alternative for me is locking myself in the closet with a bottle of bargain scotch and telling the books in there about that time my boy Manu and I got hammered and tried to “rescue” some koi from the pond at a fancy sushi joint. The books are tired of the same stories, so I put them down on paper. I also wanted to write a book that bilingual folks could enjoy in Spanglish, a book about la frontera that actually had some real/accurate Spanish in it instead of some white dude’s Google translator version of it. I wanted to talk about a brown man who’s pushed to crime because the system is fucked. I also wanted to write about some of my memories and experiences as someone growing up amidst constant violence and in the middle of a maelstrom of syncretism and superstition. All of that came together and then the novel happened.
Ben: That's interesting, it seems that you have an intimate connection to the world of Zero Saints. Would you say that it was the story you've been trying to pry out all along? See, I got this intimate connection story thing going too and I find the process to be extremely slow because I'm obsessed with the precision of it. I want the thing to have the proper tone, the proper words, the proper everything. What kind of doubts and fears were involved with the writing of Zero Saints? How long did that take and were there a lot of rewriting involved? It seems to me like it's all stemming from the proper pipeline, so I'm really curious to know what was involved with the genesis of the project.
Gabino: A friend read the thing and asked me “What percentage of it is true?” I just smiled. There are chunks of it that happened to me. I just added some guns, death or a touch of the paranormal to it. That being said, it’s still a novel, meaning that it belongs to the realm of fiction despite the fact that some of what Fernando goes through is everyday life for a lot of folks who have been forced to leave their lives behind and cross the border. I wouldn’t say it’s the story that I’ve been trying to pry out all along because I was already allowing a few new stories to take root in my head the second it was done. It was definitely the story that I was obsessed with the longest and the one that took the longest to write (about 18 months). It’s the longest, most difficult thing I’ve written and the one I’m loving the feedback the most. For the first time, I want readers to care about the themes being discussed on top of caring about the book itself. It’s weird and I’m probably doing a fucking horrible job of explaining myself, but whatever. Give me a call if you still have doubts.
When a story is taking place in my head, it’s ridiculously good. Then I put it to paper, look at it, and wonder where the hell that useless piece of shit came from. I think there’s a deep, shadowy, painfully treacherous chasm full of monsters between our heads and the paper, and words have to travel through that space unprotected. I sometimes imagine a scene and smile, nod my head. Then I write it down and feel like punching the world in the face because it’s nothing like what I’d envisioned. I strive for the right words, the right pace, the right dialogue, but always feel like I fall short. Zero Saints was the worst because I had almost half of it done when I read a good chunk of the first chapter in Noir at Bar in Oklahoma. J. David Osborne had invited me. He liked it and asked to see it once it was done. That made me really happy for about ten seconds. Then it felt like someone had injected my fears with steroids. I think JDO is one of the most talented, unique, and fucking weirdest authors in contemporary crime fiction, along with being one of the best editors in the game, and he was going to look at the finished, unedited novel. More than half of the novel was written with my own insecurities and his ghost hanging over my shoulder. I had to turn to Spanish in order to survive, to feel like at least some parts were good. If I didn’t love David so much, I’d probably have murdered him in his sleep after he accepted it. Ad for rewriting, there was some. There was a lot of cutting, slashing, trimming. We also had a Skype meeting about a few structural issues and some stuff that needed to be better. You know, trying to get the book to Broken River Books standards.
Ben: One of the eternal debate subjects among writers is whether or not we should take moral responsibility for their writing. I'm having issues with that. I mean, I don't think it's OK to write a 200 pages book about the tribulations of misunderstood rapists, but I believe that fiction is a way to explore moral boundaries and ask challenging questions without making casualties because the people in a novel are fucking fictional. It's why people get off on rooting for psychopaths like Dexter Morgan or, to a certain degree, Mads Mikkelsen's Hannibal Lecter: there are no real moral consequences to it. It doesn't make you an asshole to like those guys. Saving children from perverts or saving women from abusive spouses aren't exactly ideas in fiction. Whoever doesn't want to do that is clearly a fucking asshole. I don't need to read a novel to understand that pedophilia or domestic violence is bad and I don't think all that many readers do? They are fascinating, deep subjects by nature, but when approached with a moral angle, they often are oversimplify and turn into bullshit white knight romance.
Of course though, I'm a white guy so you have to take my opinion with a grain of salt as I'm one of the bad guys by default. As a minority, do you feel a moral responsibility to stand by your community and portray them in a particular light? To discuss racism? What is your take on moral responsibility in fiction?
Gabino: Look at you bringing up the easy fucking questions. Let’s tackle this. The first thing is hell yeah, I feel responsible about representing minorities, but more in the context of their sociopolitical realities than on a character-by-character basis. We can write about how much rapists suffer, but I choose not to because rapists are scum. As for anyone messing with kids, send them my way and I will happily stab them in the kidneys and watch them bleed out with a smile on my face. Anyway, we pick our discourses and work accordingly. At least that’s how I think shit should work. If you claim to be a feminist and then write a few novels in which women are thin secondary characters who are always victims, I will start doubting your commitment to feminism. If you say you’re not a racist (and 99% of people who feel the need to make that statement are racist assholes) and then write six celebratory novels about the KKK, then your honesty is as worthless as a dick-flavored lollipop. I don’t think we should keep folks from writing pro-rapists/pro-racists novels. Let them do it and then deal with the consequences. Being able to write stuff like that is what’s freedom is all about it.
Knowing that we can write and try to publish/sell whatever we want is a beautiful thing. That being said, don’t publish a pro-rape novel and then shy away from it or complain about the backlash. Take responsibility for your words even if they don't represent your personal views. In the words of Taj Mahal “Man, I don’t care what in the world you do, as long as you do what you say you going to do.” Writing doesn’t have to shy away from heavy discourse no matter how much it belongs to the realm of fiction. Gutmouth is about a guy with a huge mouth in his gut and how his girlfriend, a three-breasted, one-legged cyberprostitute, cheats on him with the tongue inside that mouth. However, the world is run by a Wal-Martesque company. Yeah, even bizarro can touch on serious stuff/concerns. I have no problem writing about a POC character that’s an asshole because I’ve learned that there are assholes of every race, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic background. That being said, ladies don’t run away when some Zack Morris lookalike jumps off the bus right behind them. They do when I step out behind them. That’s a problem. That’s just one symptom of a fucked system. Black folks getting shot by cops. Trump supporters. Anti-gay marches. It’s an ugly world, and I’ve decided that my work will always address some of that ugliness. That’s how I roll. Your mileage may vary.
Ben: Hah! The response I was hoping to get. What you said makes total sense to me and I would probably say the same thing if I was in the same position. I hope this doesn't come off as patronizing as "oh well, of course minorities have to stick up for each other" kind of way because it's not what I'm trying to say. What I want to understand is how you would expose a social issue you deem relevant in fiction because as a white guy who find his own whiteness overwhelming in the age of social media where it's pretty clear to everyone that we've been the king assholes for the entire history of mankind. I'm deeply afraid of sounding patronizing and all around full of shit on social issues because none of them really applies to me.
Let's take racism for example. You want to write a narrative about racism: what's most important to you? Portraying the injustice of stereotyping, profiling and systematic violence against minorities or understanding the source of these? Do you feel like you need to illustrate both in the same story? I'm sorry, I really feel like I'm asking you to solve my issues here, but your previous answer leads me to believe you have strong, well-defined opinions on this.
Gabino: I think the problem with white dudes is that, right now, the biggest assholes in the US (which, let’s face it, is THE country the world looks at…or at least that’s what everyone believes) tend to be white dudes. They’re not the majority, but they make a lot of noise and have the worst ones of the bunch in the limelight. Some of my best friends/favorite writers/biggest supporters/whatever are heterosexual white men. They hate racism, misogyny, and injustice as much as I do and they’re as far from being rich, racist assholes as I am. However, every time I hear someone say nigger in conversation or saying we should build a wall to keep Mexicans out or trying to take rights away from women, I look over and see a white dude. Usually a white, heterosexual, religious, Republican white dude. I’d like to think that’s because I live in Texas, but reading newspapers is an easy way to realize they’re all over the place. A bunch of Europeans were assholes before them and, if you go back enough, you'll find a group of black men being assholes to others in Mother Africa before our forefathers decided to start walking elsewhere.
The problem now is that bigotry has been injected with righteous (and always idiotic, dead fucking wrong) political discourse, a new level of unjustified, willful ignorance, and an awful dose of religion. It’s cool to be a stupid bigot, so folks are jumping in and embracing the dangerous mixture. No one with three working neurons needs me to tell them that, so I don't. When it comes to fiction, I think the important thing is to make sure that you’re pointing to the awful impact of something like racism while also telling a story and making readers care about both elements. If I focus too much on trying to demonstrate how fucked up racism or homophobia are, I’ll end up writing nonfiction. My reality is that of a brown man in a country that believes in a white, blondish, green-eyed Jesus that hates Muslims, gays, women, blacks, and latinos. I let that reality seep in unfiltered into my fiction. I don’t like cops because cops haven’t liked me since the second I started driving, so that anti-authoritarian feeling is always in there. I grew up in a very violent country where drug money keeps everyone afloat and many of my friends ended up living that life, so drugs are part of my writing. The rest of my experiences, from syncretism to the death of friends, is part of what I do, and I plan on keeping it that way.
Ben: One thing we got in common that transcends the color of our respective mortal coils is that we're both book reviewers who take their job very seriously. Perhaps too much. I think you'll agree with me that there are two zones of appreciation. There are the good books, who are clever, well-written and make a strong point, and the books that make you lose your shit. That make you feel like you have an out of body experience whenever you're reading their pages. I think there is a science to good fiction, but an alchemy to great one and the ingredients depend on the reader's background and experiences. Is there a thing for you that trigger emotional involvement and immersion into a novel? I know my thing is no-win situations. Characters who have the choice between being and asshole and being an asshole. Sacrifice, I suppose. When I read that Jordan Harper story earlier this year where the narrator had to choose between killing his dog and losing his job, it was like a tidal wave sucked me in. What are these trigger things for you that will make a book stand out above the rest?
Gabino: I agree on the two levels thing. I like good books, but love outstanding books. The difference, however, is not always clear to me. I just know that good books make me want to keep reading while outstanding books make me want to keep reading, inject the words into my veins, punch someone in the face, and shake the world by the tail while screaming passages from the book. They also make me think “How the fuck am I gonna review this?” Joaquin Sabina, one of my favorite songwriters and a man who’s partially responsible for me wanting to tell stories (music is a huge part of my life), once described an amazing, enduring song as a mix of great lyrics, great music, and something else that no one can explain. Fiction is like that. I can tell you everything I loved about Todd Robinson’s The Hard Bounce, Cody Goodfellow’s Repo Shark or Andrea Kneeland’s How to Pose for Hustler, to name a few, but I can’t put into words the reasons they stuck to my ribs to this day. I love no-win situations, but I’m also a sucker for revenge stories even if they’re not amazing. I’m the guy watching John Wick and saying “Yeah, you kill those motherfuckers!” If someone was minding their business and some evil fucker/thing messed with them, you have me hooked. Same with character that I don’t read about often. As for things that make a book stand out, I have to go with elements like language and the storytelling itself. Does it feel new? Is this surprising me as I read? Sometimes these things are there and I don’t realize it until I’m sitting at work and keep looking at the clock because I want lunch hour to roll around so I can go read.
Ben: I have a hunch as to why Robinson's writing is so endearing. I've had a similar reaction to The Hard Bounce although I didn't really care about the actual plot as much as I cared about Boo. Robinson has such a stripped honesty to his writing. He writes in a very straight, no bullshit manner and he talks to the reader as if he's got nothing to hide. I've read on some article written by an editor that the main quality he was looking for in writing was that the narrator must feel a burning desire to talk and I think the case with Boo Malone. Boo would write copy for cereal boxes and I would read his adventures. Damsels in distress and social injustices are just the extra calories for me. I really loved Cody Goodfellow's Repo Shark too, but I couldn't exactly tell you why either, except maybe that it's because Goodfellow has a wonderful, carefree sense of humor that is not afraid of anything and reading him puts a smile on my face.
As far as reviewing goes, what do you think are the important variables to communicate to potential readers? Personally, I like to give a good baseline for who I am in every review in order for the reader to decide if he's sharing interests with me enough to judge if I'm a credible source or not. Otherwise I'm just trying to be as honest as I can. Would you agree with that philosophy? Would you think it forgets something crucial?
Gabino: I agree with you about Boo and Repo Shark. As for reviewing, I just want to make sure that my reviews are honest and fair. Repo Shark fucking sucks as a vampire romance because it lacks vampires and romance. On the other hand, if you look at it for what it is, you’ll realize Cody is one of the best writers/entertainers in the game and no one can do what he does. When you give someone who really loves entertaining literature and unique ideas a book like most of what Eraserhead Press, Lazy Fascist Press or Broken River Books publish, to name a few, they either fall in love immediately of feel so lost that they dislike what they read, and that leads to bad reviews. I have published plenty of negative reviews, but always based on flaws that I could point out and, on many occasions, even offer quotes to prove.
I hate reviewers who criticize books for what they're not or because they dislike a genre. Don’t read fast, pulpy, trashy horror or crime expecting some longwinded Jonathan Franzen bullshit. Me? Give me Ed Lee before Franzeezy any day of the week. I think most people who willingly read tedious literary fiction do so obeying some bizarre idea that doing so is somehow coated in intellectualism. I’ve spent over a decade in academia. You want to read “smart” stuff? Read Jean Baudrillard, Michel Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, Stuart Hall, Armand Mattelart, and Gloria Anzaldúa. That’s dense, brilliant writing that I’m not entirely sure is meant for human consumption. Reading Big Five-published literary fiction makes you an intellectual as much as watching Rambo makes you a survival expert and gives you ex-Special Forces credentials. First, I try to read only stuff I think I’m going to like because my main focus is indie lit and no one in this particular boat needs scathing reviews. Shit, I’m rambling. Let me wrap this up: if I absolutely must do a negative review, I’m gonna be honest even if that means never getting a book from that press again. The trick to reviewing, for me, is to ensure that I give the reader enough reasons to spend their hard-earned cash on a book while simultaneously leaving enough surprises to make their reading an adventure.
Ben: I don't like it, I rarely read it when other people do it, but here's your chance to get weepy. I'm sure there are people to thank for your journey to publication and do what you gotta do. In the immortal words of Les Grossman: "Go ahead, skin the fucker. Go to town, man. GO TO TOWN." Thanks to you for doing this, by the way. I can be a chatty Cathy and I always enjoy the company.
Gabino: I don’t get weepy. Books are cause for celebration, especially when they're mine, man! There are two pages of thank yous at the end of Zero Saints. Everyone should buy the book and read that part first. Or last. Whatever. The point is that they should read it. Want some thanks? There are some folks who have been so supportive since the thing came out that there’s not enough gratitude to throw their way. Tobias Carroll. Scott Adlerberg. Jay Slayton-Joslin. Yeah, good people. Also, thank you, Benoît. You’re not as bad as you want people to think you are. Hah. This was fun.
Ben: *blushes*