Dan Vyleta on ski-bum dreams and befriending doubt
Jennifer Warren | CBC | Posted: March 30, 2017 6:43 PM | Last Updated: March 30, 2017
In his latest novel, the spooky historical novel Smoke, Dan Vyleta creates a world where your deepest thoughts rise from you in black, foul-smelling smoke.
Below, Dan Vyleta answers eight questions submitted by eight of his fellow writers in the CBC Books Magic 8 Q&A.
1. Lynn Coady asks, "What are the common themes (or settings, symbols, etc.) you always seem to come back to in your fiction (e.g. bears, wrestling and Vienna in John Irving novels)? Where do those elements come from and what makes them so tenacious?"
Inept kindness; children failed by adults; the slipperiness of truth and of the accounts we give of ourselves. All these themes are borne of moments I have observed, in myself and others, often years ago; moments that have busied me emotionally and intellectually. Beyond that, I feel it is best not to go digging. If I knew where it all came from, perhaps it would stop coming...
2. Patrick deWitt asks, "What is the last thing you read that made you feel actually jealous?"
Ma Jian's Red Dust. The directness of the prose — as rendered from the Chinese by Flora Drew — and, by extension, the directness of emotion underlying it, shot right through me.
3. Jane Urquhart asks, "What would you do if someone offered to adapt your latest book for musical comedy (with an emphasis on the word 'comedy')?"
Comedies are tragedies that end in weddings, right? Go right ahead, I say.
4. Anthony Bidulka asks, "Have there been moments in your career, early or late, when you doubted yourself as a writer?"
To me doubt is part of the process of writing every single day. Doubt lives on the empty page; in every decision you make (about the next sentence, the next chapter, the next book). I have tried to make friends with doubt. It's a swine to live with, but it does keep you honest.
5. Helen Humphreys asks, "If you weren't a writer, what would you be, and why?"
A ski bum. Or a kayaking instructor. Something awash with non-verbal immediacy. Obviously there is a fortune to be made in skiing/kayaking.
6. Bill Richardson asks, "If you were to see someone reading your book in a public place — a plane, a café — would you introduce yourself?"
Probably not. Reading is such a sacred, private activity that I wouldn't want to impose.
7. Shyam Selvadurai asks, "Writers often use their own life as a springboard for fiction. Could you relate a real incident in your life and then tell us how it got changed into fiction?"
It often feels like everything in my books is taken from my own life in some strange way: chopped up and fragmented, run through a meat grinder and injected with steroids. The apartment block in The Quiet Twin is an amalgam of two apartment blocks in Vienna and Berlin I used to live in, courtyard, neighbours and all. The dormitory showers in Smoke are an alienated version of the (rather alienating) gang-showers of a school I attended when I was 16. Pavel & I's smelly, frisky monkey is a reflection on various pets I have owned (no names shall be mentioned!). I don't think I have ever imported an incident wholesale; but all the texture, physical and emotional, is plundered from life.
8. David McGimpsey asks, "If you were to pair your latest book with a signature cocktail, what is that cocktail called and what's it made of?"
Something sinful and potent, involving gin, a peaty Scotch, black olives and lots of dry ice. Ideally it would stain your teeth black.