"It turned out that for years, stuff was just based on wives' tales." — David Grann
David Grann makes reality as interesting, as involving, as fiction. That's no small accomplishment. As I was talking to him about his short story collection collection of non-fiction articles 'The Devil and Sherlock Holmes,' I literally had to keep reminding myself that it was non-fiction; articles, not short stories.
That's because Grann writes about what he knows, in a most particularly inclusive manner — obsession. Grann himself is an obsessive, and that key gets him into the minds and experiences of a wide variety of people. Plus, he just happens to write non-fiction with the grace and beauty, to my mind, the style of a fiction writer. Of course everything is documented, but the result of his "fictional" feel is that his work seem more alive, more there than most non-fiction.
As I read Grann's latest book, I picked it apart as if it were a collection of short stories, with common themes, common tropes and approaches to his material. Grann knows how to write himself into and out of a story, the precise amount of Doctor Watson, shall we say to provide the perspective on the adventures of his actual Sherlock Holmes.
Grann was there in that boat all night, on the verge of puking, hoping to help catch a baby giant squid, and he spent quality time with the human chameleon. He works through the scene of what may have been a crime, and the inconclusive nature of what he finds feels both more realistic than a work of fiction yet has the feel of the best fiction where readers are left to draw their own conclusions.
This time around, I interviewed Grann in his hotel as he swung through San Francisco. It was a relaxed and easy interview. We talked about the themes of his book without spending too much time of the plots of his stories. As I said, Grann brings the skills of a fiction writer to his non-fiction. You can join us in San Francisco by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
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12-21-11: Commentary : Cold Hand in Mine by Robert Aickman : From the Seedy to the Sublime
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Three Books with Alan Cheuse : 'Kill Bin Laden' ; Ryu Mitsuse, '10 Billion Days and 100 Billion Nights' ; Michael Crichton and Richard Preston, 'Micro'
12-20-11: Commentary : David Blackbourn Visits 'Marpingen: Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in a Nineteenth-Century German Village' : Externalizing a Culture Clash
12-15-11: Commentary : Ayize Jama-Everett Reveals 'The Liminal People' : The Powers That Be
Agony Column Podcast News Report : The Agony Column Live with Lisa Goldstein and Ayize Jama-Everett, and music by Fenyang Smith, December 10, 2011 : "... let's look at what happens if people have abilities that other people don't have ..."
11-28-11: Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2011 Interview with Scott Wallace : "Within months of first contact, these groups experience a huge die-off."
11-22-11: Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2011 Interview with Charles Frazier, Part Two : "It's not me telling you, there's this storyteller voice."
11-21-11: Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2011 Interview with Charles Frazier : "If we're going in the wrong direction, we could turn around and go back."
11-17-11: Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2011 Interview with Gianni Mola : "The only way you can learn, I told them, is to watch me cook it."
11-11-11: Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2011 Interview with Karl Marlantes : "...the way I "think" about things, with quotes around think, is I tend to write them down..."
10-31-11: Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2011 Interview with Colson Whitehead : "In the Apocalypse, somebody's gonna have to do the grunt work..."
10-17-11: Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2011 Interview with Russell Banks : "They are in a sense, permanently marked and thrown into this darkness..."
