Brandon Hobson, THE REMOVED
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[3:21]author Joe Piazza's new podcast under the influence. Under the influence is a deep dive into the
[3:28]mom internet, a place haunted by aspirational marketing where it feels like every other moms is
[3:33]social media influencer trying to sell you something all while posed in white kitchens that
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[4:25]Hi everybody. Today is day three of the February book blast. And it is literary fiction Wednesday.
[4:32]So I hope you enjoy all of these authors and interviews. Sometimes so many collect that I have
[4:38]to just blast out a bunch all at once. And that's what this week is all about. So if you missed
[4:42]memoir Monday or nonfiction Tuesday, you can go back and listen to those. And coming up
[4:47]is new novels Thursday and family theme memoirs Friday. So listen as much as you can.
[4:52]Dr. Brandon Hobson is the author of the novel, The Removed, as well as Where the Dead
[4:57]Sit Talking, which was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award and winner of the Reading
[5:02]the West Award. His other books include Desolation of Avenues Untold and Deep Ellum.
[5:07]He received his PhD in English slash creative writing from Oklahoma State University. His
[5:11]fiction has won a pushcard prize and has appeared in such places as McSweeney's Conjunctions
[5:16]Noon and Elsewhere. He is an assistant professor of creative writing at New Mexico State University
[5:21]and also teaches at the Institute of American Indian Arts. He is an enrolled citizen of the
[5:26]Cherokee Nation Tribe of Oklahoma. Welcome Brandon. Thank you so much for coming on momstone.
[5:30]Have time to read books. Thanks for having me. So your latest novel The Removed is a beautiful
[5:37]story so well written about all different characters as they relate to the loss of a 15-year-old boy
[5:43]Ray Ray. Tell me a little more about what inspired you to write this novel. Where did it come from?
[5:49]Well it came out of a question. You know Chekov says that fiction should begin with questions
[5:55]and so the question is always what I begin with in my work and the big question here was how do we
[6:03]grieve and how do we heal but I'm also really interested in the question of what is home and I think
[6:11]that applies to this book as well as some of my other work. But those are really that you know
[6:18]that's the sort of starting place for me or examining those questions and then sort of taking it
[6:24]from there. Well I feel like you tapped into so many different things. It's like if somebody had
[6:31]an issue going on it's probably in this book and someone with Alzheimer's, someone with an opioid
[6:36]addiction, someone with loss, someone like all of these things are so relevant to everyone and yet
[6:43]somehow you even weave them in and you know through in a foster care child-to-boot. Do you
[6:49]know what I mean? Like there's every, you packed so much in and yet it all sort of interwell seamlessly
[6:54]by how you divided the different points of view and sort of the different chapters. What made you
[6:59]want to, how did you decide to sort of take this view by all the different people in the family
[7:04]and sort of shifting the the camera lens if you will like around to different places and perspectives?
[7:10]Well for one thing I like, one of the things I like about fiction writing is getting inside
[7:15]character's heads and so here was an opportunity to take theichota family and get inside their heads
[7:23]and you know the different points of view are all first person so that means you know trying to
[7:32]have very distinct voices. I don't know you know whether I pulled that off as well as I could have.
[7:39]I don't know but I you know that's part of the find it's sort of like acting and I think
[7:44]I heard Otessa Moshvegg say this a few years ago. I went to her reading and and then afterwards
[7:51]we went out to dinner and talked a little bit but one of the things that she said and I think it's
[7:54]certainly true of me is that it's sort of like acting and that you know you're getting inside a
[8:01]character and really seeing how they respond to certain situations and you know that that's a big
[8:06]part of the pleasure of writing is doing that and playing with voice and circumstance and so
[8:14]you know this family I had the mother Maria which you know she was maybe the most challenging because
[8:21]she's an older woman who's lost a child and I didn't you know I wanted to try to get that voice
[8:27]somewhat distinct and specific so I actually talked to a friend of my moms and my moms in her
[8:35]70s and a friend of hers who many years ago had lost her teenage son and so I you know
[8:42]talked to her a little bit about that experience which was hard but it needed to be done you know
[8:49]so that's true I should have added this to the many themes that you touched on the book which is
[8:53]also like police brutality in a way or really racism and targeting people on first glance based on
[8:59]how they look which is what happened with Ray Ray in the story I mean so many powerful powerful
[9:05]issues to be explored really it's really amazing so when you sit down to write this book and okay
[9:11]fine we have check-off's question right this is the question you're doing how did you
[9:16]decide how to craft all of these characters and have and what you are going to tackle in their
[9:23]passages like what did you did you did you start it off and do I mean obviously you did research
[9:29]by talking to your mom's friend did you research all the characters did you outline the whole thing
[9:34]did you do they just appear in your head yeah you know that's that's a very difficult question it's
[9:40]you know where the characters sort of come from and and you know I don't I don't necessarily
[9:45]outline but I start more with an image so sometimes images will come you know that I'll see
[9:52]and I'm not sure what what the scene is or when it takes place but I'll see a character doing
[9:57]something right you know
[10:00]And I think for Edgar's part,
[10:01]which is probably the strangest of all of them,
[10:05]because he does have some addiction problems.
[10:07]And I wanted those sections to do the most surreal,
[10:11]the most strange, not only because of his drug use,
[10:14]but also because he finds himself
[10:17]in this sort of mythical place called the Darking Land,
[10:20]which has taken out of the Darking Land
[10:22]as out of old Cherokee stories.
[10:25]That's a specific place.
[10:26]But in this place, I kind of had free rain
[10:28]to create it however I wanted to.
[10:30]And I really wanted to hone in on the strangeness
[10:34]of this place, and kind of hopefully parallel it
[10:37]to the strangeness of the country we're living in right now
[10:41]in terms of look at the way that racism is so prevalent today.
[10:48]And the way that video games are used in virtual reality,
[10:52]and that Edgar becomes a target of a game
[10:57]that he fears for his life, a shooting game,
[11:00]a real shooting game that he becomes.
[11:02]And but I was able to, that was really exciting,
[11:05]because that was again crafting out of an alternate universe,
[11:09]a very dreamlike surreal place.
[11:13]So his sections were really fun.
[11:15]I knew that I wanted Sonia to be very obsessive
[11:20]and obsessed with romantic,
[11:25]she's a very strong woman, and she's very confident.
[11:29]But she finds herself involved with a guy
[11:33]who is not native, who becomes very dangerous.
[11:37]And I knew that I wanted Sonia's character
[11:40]to be in a situation with someone who is dangerous.
[11:43]Again, so she's placed in danger,
[11:45]Edgar's placed in danger in the Darking Land.
[11:48]And the Mother Maria is really the one that
[11:53]was trying to pull everything together.
[11:57]She's dealing with her husband's Alzheimer's.
[12:00]And her husband, Ernest, is just really suffering
[12:04]from his Alzheimer's.
[12:06]But then they take in this wonderful little boy named Wyatt,
[12:09]who almost feels like he begins to heal Ernest
[12:14]because of look at how closely he resembles Ray Ray
[12:18]from 15, 20 years ago.
[12:21]It was just sort of at the beginning.
[12:23]It just was taking off.
[12:25]And I was doing each character separately.
[12:28]I was writing.
[12:29]And here's the way I knew that I was writing Sonia's
[12:33]her thread.
[12:34]And I was writing Edgar's thread.
[12:36]And I knew with Maria and Ernest,
[12:39]the threads just sort of just started taking off.
[12:41]And I think that's often what happens when you start writing.
[12:45]And you really get to know your character's very intimately
[12:49]very well.
[12:50]They sort of start doing things on their own.
[12:52]And you just kind of follow along.
[12:54]So I don't really outline much.
[12:57]All that sort of stuff comes with editing afterwards
[13:01]is to help with the structure and shape after the draft.
[13:05]But I think the most fun part is the very first draft,
[13:08]because you're just Charles Johnson said
[13:11]that if you, Charles Johnson, you wrote this fantastic
[13:14]craft book, he was a student of John Gardner's.
[13:17]But Charles Johnson and his craft book
[13:20]talked about the pleasure, the fun of writing
[13:24]and that craft that finding that pleasure really is where
[13:28]I feel, for me, it's my feel very strongly about that.
[13:32]And it's important to my work.
[13:34]How many times do you think you started novels at this point?
[13:39]Like have there been others that you've started that haven't
[13:42]been finished?
[13:43]Oh yeah, yeah.
[13:45]My 20s, back in the 90s, I had several novels that I
[13:49]took me a really long time.
[13:51]I've been writing for, since I started college for 30 years.
[13:57]And so at some point, I wasn't writing as a kid.
[14:02]But I started writing fiction in college.
[14:04]And so it's been a long time.
[14:06]It's taken a long time to develop, I think,
[14:09]an understanding of how to do it, right?
[14:12]Well, anything else.
[14:13]I mean, writing novels takes so long
[14:15]relative to like a round of tennis.
[14:18]Like if you only played five rounds of tennis,
[14:22]he wouldn't be that good.
[14:23]But especially your first round, right?
[14:25]But people, when they, because novels
[14:28]take so long, sometimes, then they think, well,
[14:31]because of all the amount of work and time invested,
[14:33]it should speed up for something.
[14:35]But it doesn't.
[14:36]You don't need the practice.
[14:37]Another author I was talking to said, well, it
[14:39]took me 28 novels to get to number one on the bestseller list.
[14:43]I'm like, well, that makes sense to me.
[14:45]If you do something over and over, and get better
[14:48]and better at it, then, yeah, it stands to reason.
[14:51]You might have your most success at your 28th
[14:53]versus your first, not to say that there aren't, you know,
[14:57]anyway.
[14:58]Well, they're, yeah, they're a great, amazing young writers.
[15:01]You know, and that's, that just is amazing to me.
[15:04]You know, when you have someone in their 20s,
[15:07]which is really young, I think, to be so good.
[15:10]But, you know, they're out there.
[15:11]And I think that's great.
[15:13]You know, but it is a lot of work.
[15:15]I don't have a whole lot of other hobbies, really.
[15:17]I mean, I have two kids here.
[15:19]And so my hobbies are usually spending time with them.
[15:22]And shooting baskets, you know, with my 13-year-old,
[15:27]or my seven-year-old, you know.
[15:28]So there's an obsession about it, I think.
[15:31]And that's probably true of anything.
[15:32]Like you say, tennis, I think one has to have an obsession,
[15:36]right, in order to really, it seems like to me.
[15:40]I don't know.
[15:41]There's probably a lot of natural ability in sports, you know,
[15:44]but I don't know if that's true with writing
[15:48]this natural ability, right?
[15:50]I mean, I think people have natural,
[15:52]I think there are, if people have natural ability,
[15:55]but I think that some people who don't
[15:57]can get really great at it.
[15:59]And I think some people who do can squander it.
[16:02]Yeah, yeah, that's true.
[16:03]I don't know.
[16:04]I have two 13-year-olds and a seven-year-olds,
[16:06]and I also have a six-year-olds.
[16:07]And I find that that makes my ability to ever write
[16:12]be productive, a little bit impaired.
[16:14]How has that been for you, especially with the pandemic?
[16:17]And how has that affected your writing to be, you know,
[16:20]apparently?
[16:20]Yeah, it's really strange because my 13,
[16:23]well, yes, you know, they're pretty self-sufficient.
[16:25]They can kind of do, you know, he can do stuff on it.
[16:28]Like the map, you know, my wife has to help him.
[16:31]I don't remember a seventh-grade mapping that looks cool,
[16:33]you know, but I like helping my seven-year-olds, you know,
[16:38]he does, especially with the art projects.
[16:40]Like, you know, we went out and found leaves,
[16:42]which when I live in the desert, there are not a lot of leaves
[16:44]out, but we went over to a tree and found some leaves
[16:47]a few months ago and were able to make birds.
[16:49]And, you know, for, so I mean, those have been fun.
[16:52]My writing, because especially during the pandemic,
[16:56]I haven't been able to write during the day.
[16:58]So it's been between the hours of 10 p.m. and two or 3 a.m.,
[17:02]usually, and during those, you know, four hours
[17:06]that I sit down to really think, okay,
[17:08]this is my writing time.
[17:10]And I'll get as much, I'll try to get as much done as I can.
[17:13]And I tell myself, it's a success, even if I just go through
[17:18]and edit, you know, or write half a page or a page.
[17:22]I mean, that's a success, because, you know,
[17:25]you can go days and days without writing.
[17:28]But I'm always trying to, I'm always,
[17:30]during the day, I'm always trying to think about it, right?
[17:33]And I'm kind of a night owl, anyway.
[17:36]So I will sleep, you know, a little bit later
[17:41]and stay up late, right?
[17:42]But I've always been like that.
[17:43]Just think.
[17:44]Did you feel like after your book got nominated
[17:48]for the National Book Award that you had like,
[17:50]anxiety about starting another book?
[17:52]Like, did you, or did that fuel your resolve
[17:55]to sort of write something else amazing?
[17:57]I don't know that it really gave me anxiety.
[18:01]I mean, there's so much out there, you know,
[18:04]there's so many books.
[18:05]Part of, I think this is part of for me was, you know,
[18:09]I published a couple of books with small presses, you know,
[18:12]and I'm used to really not, people not
[18:15]paying that much attention.
[18:16]I think that, I don't know, it just sort of,
[18:19]I don't think so much about it when I work.
[18:23]I think had that been a debut novel,
[18:25]like the first thing I ever published,
[18:27]it might have created some more anxiety.
[18:30]You know, most of, I guess most of my anxiety,
[18:32]and I do have anxiety comes more along the lines of,
[18:38]when I'm having to be in a social situation with people,
[18:41]you know, and talk about it.
[18:42]I mean, with you, this, you know, one on one,
[18:44]and I'm at my house, but, you know,
[18:47]talking about the book in front of large groups of people
[18:50]is, you know, gives me significant anxiety.
[18:53]And then I find myself, you know,
[18:55]having one too many classes of wine or too many beers.
[19:00]To try to overcompensate, you know,
[19:02]and then I may embarrass myself,
[19:04]but I don't know, it's gotten better.
[19:06]I feel bad even, I mean, I said the thing about anxiety
[19:09]because I was literally just like putting myself in your shoes
[19:12]and like I worry about everything all the time.
[19:14]So then as I was saying the question,
[19:16]I was like, okay, this is my own issue
[19:18]that I am now asking.
[19:20]So it just happened that you also like have that same thing
[19:23]so anyway.
[19:24]No, I, you know, I do, I have severe anxiety,
[19:29]but when I was a kid, I had such social anxiety so bad.
[19:32]It was, it was beyond, you know,
[19:34]I just wouldn't talk for long periods of time,
[19:36]but it's gotten, it's gotten way better now.
[19:39]But yeah, I talk to a therapist my whole life.
[19:42]So that helps, you know.
[19:43]I had a lot of social anxiety as a kid as well.
[19:46]And I went this one entire summer on like a summer program
[19:50]to France where I just like didn't talk.
[19:52]I was supposed to go learn the language
[19:53]and live with the family and I spoke a little in French,
[19:56]which now of course I don't remember a word of,
[19:57]but with my peers.
[20:00]I was so shy, I didn't open my mouth the whole summer,
[20:04]but what I found during that time,
[20:05]which I think of a lot,
[20:06]and I don't know if you do the same thing,
[20:07]is I spent so much time analyzing language
[20:10]because it seemed so natural for other people
[20:14]to just talk, right?
[20:17]And I was so struggling with the ability just to talk
[20:20]and like figure out what would come next.
[20:22]And I just listened all summer.
[20:24]And I don't know, I think about that sometimes now
[20:26]as I ramble or write my heart out or whatever,
[20:31]how at times it's so hard to even form a sentence
[20:34]and how that ease of conversation.
[20:37]I don't know, it's sort of stayed with me.
[20:39]Yeah, I, you know, I went to Paris
[20:42]for the first time the summer before last,
[20:44]and I taught for a week long writing workshop.
[20:48]And that was the best, most amazing trip I've ever been on.
[20:54]It was so great that, I mean, I love the language,
[20:57]I love the city, I love everything about it.
[21:01]I'd never been out of the country.
[21:02]I'd been to Mexico once in my entire life.
[21:05]That's, you know, I'd never been anywhere else.
[21:07]And so yeah, it was, I didn't feel like I had any kind
[21:12]of, I walked around a lot, you know,
[21:14]and just, it was just amazing,
[21:17]and it makes amazing experience.
[21:19]So yeah.
[21:20]Interesting.
[21:21]Well, are you working on anything else now?
[21:23]Like what is it you're doing in the middle of the night?
[21:25]Yeah.
[21:26]So I am, there are a couple of things I'm working on.
[21:30]One is, it's too early to really know
[21:34]what it's going to sort of form into yet,
[21:37]but I have, you know, I'm working through,
[21:39]I'm going through this first draft,
[21:41]and you know, and it's not much yet, you know,
[21:44]it's not much at all.
[21:46]But, and then I'm working also on kind of a children's book.
[21:51]So not as in real young, but as in, you know, middle grade,
[21:55]right? Like my son's a seventh grader.
[21:58]And so I've started that and hope that that,
[22:01]I, you know, I just like to do different stuff.
[22:04]You know, I'm in terms of writing.
[22:06]Stuff is a weird word, I know, but I mean, you know,
[22:09]different, I always like a different project.
[22:12]So we'll see.
[22:14]Yeah, I've got to keep mixing it up.
[22:15]Yeah, there's always something I'm working on, always.
[22:20]Wow, that's great.
[22:21]What advice would you have to aspiring authors?
[22:24]Well, you know, I think that one of the most important things
[22:28]is just, you know, this is what everybody says,
[22:30]but to read a lot and read widely
[22:34]with a very open mind, right?
[22:36]And then, you know, I think writing,
[22:39]the more you do it, it's almost like the more you do it,
[22:43]the more fun it becomes.
[22:44]And, you know, if aspiring writers are not in a program,
[22:50]you know, or have taken a workshop or a class,
[22:53]now that sometimes this get really bad,
[22:55]I don't have an MFA, you know, I didn't go for an MFA.
[22:58]I haven't, I have an MA in English,
[23:01]but then I went on and got a PhD.
[23:03]But there's something to be said about, you know,
[23:07]a community, being around a community of other writers
[23:10]and people who are in the same space with you.
[23:13]And you're all, you know, looking at each other's work
[23:16]and helping each other, there's really a lot,
[23:18]there was a time in my life where I didn't have that at all.
[23:22]And so, you know, when I did, I became very grateful.
[23:26]And I think that that was largely what helped me become
[23:29]a better writer on a level, on a, you know,
[23:32]on a craft level is, you know,
[23:34]having that community of people.
[23:36]So I would just say, you know, other than reading widely,
[23:38]just, you know, get your work
[23:40]and among a community of readers,
[23:43]you know, that you can just share each other's work
[23:45]and talk about, you know, what's working
[23:48]and what's not working.
[23:49]So, that's great advice.
[23:51]I feel like especially now with the whole world on Zoom
[23:55]and sort of your local habitat, sort of opening up
[23:59]to everybody else, it's easier to find those like-minded souls
[24:04]than it was before when you were sort of confined
[24:06]by the people around you, right?
[24:08]Who might, who may or may not share your interests at all.
[24:12]But now, you know, you're in the desert somewhere
[24:14]talking about writing.
[24:15]I'm in New York City.
[24:16]It's just like, I don't know, so neat.
[24:19]Yeah.
[24:20]One thing I didn't talk about in the,
[24:21]in terms of the new book was,
[24:23]there's an ancestral voice named Challa.
[24:26]And one thing I did want to mention, if it's okay,
[24:29]was that Challa in the book is based on a real man,
[24:33]named Chali.
[24:35]And so, what happened was, he was killed
[24:39]for refusing to leave the land, right,
[24:42]when Andrew Jackson ordered removal.
[24:45]And, you know, before the migration,
[24:48]what ended up being the trail,
[24:50]what's known as the Trail of Tears,
[24:52]some people refuse to go.
[24:54]And there was one man who, with his son, died.
[24:58]And so, this ancestral voice is based on him.
[25:02]And he's speaking to the Chota family in the book.
[25:05]I'll, you know, trying to weave in,
[25:07]here's, again, that question of how do we grieve
[25:10]and how do we, how do we heal, right?
[25:14]And so, he incorporates, you know,
[25:17]the traditional Cherokee stories.
[25:20]But it was also fun because I also had a couple
[25:23]of my own that I just sort of, right?
[25:25]Was one of yours, who had the one about the deer,
[25:29]the dog talking to the guy who had to,
[25:33]in the woods and he had to run.
[25:34]And then he like stood where the,
[25:36]I'm nice playing the bone and the leeches would get him.
[25:38]And-
[25:39]Well, yeah, the leeches that's based on a,
[25:41]that's based off traditional story.
[25:43]But, you know, the him rescuing the wolf
[25:45]and the wolf speaking through his eyes,
[25:48]you know, that's, that was me,
[25:49]that's not necessarily from a traditional story.
[25:52]So, but I guess, you know, that,
[25:54]to return to the pleasure of, of riding,
[25:57]to go back to the aspiring, for aspiring riders,
[26:01]you know, it should,
[26:02]I really think there should be a lot of enjoyment,
[26:04]a lot of pleasure, right?
[26:06]I like the sort of strangeness of everything is courage, right?
[26:09]Who said, great art should incorporate
[26:12]some type of strange.
[26:13]I don't, you know, that was courage who said that's,
[26:17]I don't know, you know, take what you will.
[26:19]But I do, I do feel very strongly
[26:21]about the pleasure of, of riding.
[26:23]And if it starts to feel like it's not pleasurable,
[26:27]it's just work, then it's maybe time to just put it aside
[26:31]and start something else, you know.
[26:33]Excellent, excellent advice.
[26:35]Yeah.
[26:36]Well, this is great.
[26:36]We started with Check-Off.
[26:37]We ended with colorage.
[26:39]This is fantastic.
[26:40]I feel like I just had like a little,
[26:42]little English throwback class here today, go.
[26:45]Yeah.
[26:46]We're dusting off the volumes in my mind.
[26:48]Oh, that's what I guess getting a PhD does to you.
[26:51]It's sort of, yeah, right?
[26:53]Makes you throw these, these names out there.
[26:55]Yeah, might as well sort of get your money
[26:57]worth out of that PhD, if not, if not now, when.
[27:00]Right, right, yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah.
[27:04]Well, Brandon, thank you so much.
[27:05]It was really a pleasure talking to you.
[27:07]And I hope this wasn't, you know, this anxiety
[27:10]invoking for either of us as perhaps some other settings.
[27:13]And it's been a good talk when I'm on with you here today.
[27:17]Yeah, thank you.
[27:17]I really appreciate it.
[27:19]It was fun.
[27:20]Good.
[27:21]Okay.
[27:22]Have a great day.
[27:22]Okay.
[27:23]Thanks, okay.
[27:24]All right, bye-bye.
[27:26]Today's podcast has been sponsored by Under the Influence,
[27:30]a new podcast by author Joe Piazza.
[27:33]And just a reminder, again, please pre-order a copy
[27:36]of my book, Moms Don't Have Time to A Quarantine Anthology
[27:39]and go to my website under the anthology tab
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[27:52]So please join me for the fundraiser.
[27:55]Thanks so much.
[27:55]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[27:58]to Read Books.
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[28:01]at Zebioans and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
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[28:11]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound
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