Interview with Author Charlie Geer

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M ore than a year has passed since author Charlie Geer sent us his first installment of Noted Abroad. The column, which appears every Tuesday in our humble pages, chronicles Geer’s experiences as a writer and teacher in Puente Genil, the small town in southern Spain where he currently lives. Geer is a former professor at the College of Charleston and author of Outbound: The Curious Secession of Latter-Day Charleston. DSM caught up with him this week. He is back in the U.S. for a spell, visiting his hometown and driving up and down the east coast. He carved out the time to answer our questions.

Part 2

DSM: Surely it’s by the dozen, but between the southeastern U.S. — where you lived previously — and southern Spain, what cultural differences stand out to you?

Charlie Geer: What’s just as interesting to me is how much the two regions have in common, but that’s another interview. As far as differences, in Andalusia you find evidence of things we have lost or are quickly losing in the American South. In the smaller towns, people still walk everywhere. Regional dialects are alive and well. Except in extreme cases, elders aren’t shipped off to nursing homes, and the disabled are cared for at home. The community looks after its own. You don’t find “community-building workshops” and such in Andalusia. The idea that such a thing would have to be officially organized is kind of absurd there. Families are strong, and by extension, communities are strong. A “sense of community” is not the kind of thing that has to be codified and enforced.

Also I like the fact that the weather is still relevant in Andalusia. Seasons still matter. A lot of people now have air conditioning, but outside of the bigger stores in the bigger cities, it’s not overused. Meanwhile, back in the American South…years ago I had a summer office job in Columbia, SC. The temp routinely pushed 100 degrees outside, but I had to wear a light jacket inside, to protect myself from Extreme Air Conditioning. 100 degrees outside, 65 degrees inside–something is wrong with that picture. I decided that if the weather people really wanted to keep me abreast of relevant meteorological conditions, they would report office temperatures.

DSM: How about literary tastes? Does Spanish culture look at writers and books through a similar lens?

CG: I don’t think it’s all that different than in the States. Publishers still publish books, reviewers still review them, readers still read them. There are numerous literary awards, and when an important Spanish writer passes on, you hear about it. But as in the U.S., the audience for literature can in no way compete with the audience for television or the audience for, ahem, the Internet. One thing that has been pleasantly surprising is that tiny Puente Genil will occasionally get a big-name Spanish writer in town for a reading, and the turn-out is usually impressive. It’s probably safe to say that although the audience for literature in Spain is limited, it is loyal.

DSM: Your column uses humor to consider curiosities of language. Why?

CG: Noted Abroad mostly deals with misunderstandings, and misunderstandings that don’t end in bodily harm are frequently funny, or at the very least curious. In a recent article The Economist cited this quote from The Bible: “Then said they unto him, ‘Say now Shibboleth’: and he said ‘Sibboleth’: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him and slew him.” Killed over a consonant? I prefer a less extreme approach. Seems healthier for all concerned. The Spanish-speaking rooster is said to say quiquiriqui, the English-speaking rooster is said to say cock-a-doodle-doo, and the French-speaking rooster is said to say cocorico… but whatever they are said to be saying, they are all saying the same damn thing. We might get a chuckle out of a Spaniard saying “wee-fee” for “wi-fi,” but seeing as “wi-fi” is short for “wireless fidelity,” our “why-fye” isn’t exactly accurate either. For me the humor lies not in the unfamiliar pronunciation but in the fact that people automatically consider their own pronunciation superior, by virtue of its being their own.

DSM: You’re Stateside for a brief stay with your fiancee — her maiden trip here. What are your plans? Where do you most want to visit together?

CG: Concha has said she wants to experience all things American, so we’ve got plans to buy a few assault rifles, consume massive amounts of mayonnaise, and eat breakfast on the road. The latter has her a little worried. She says drinking coffee while driving seems dangerous. I told her not to worry: If we have a spill and get burned we can sue the vendor for an obscene amount of money.

But seriously. We’re road tripping through Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia to visit friends and relations. Sticking mostly to the back roads. It’s refreshing to see it through Concha’s eyes. I feel like a visitor in my own land. Just by pulling out her camera, she opens my eyes to wonders I had come to take for granted. Andalusia can get a little redundant — olive orchard after olive orchard after olive orchard. The geography of the American South is incredibly rich by comparison. Verdant and lush. We’ve got a lot to be thankful for here.

DSM: Any curious experiences on your trip thus far?

CG: Getting carded at a Hank Williams III show a couple weeks ago — that was new for Concha. The DRINKING AGE VERIFIED wristband matched her blouse, at least. She thought it odd that people did more drinking than dancing during the show. She noted that while the powers that be strictly prohibited smoking in the bar, patrons were completely free to drink gallons upon gallons of booze — to drink themselves blind. In Spain it’s just the reverse. Smoking is still socially acceptable, but overindulging in liquor is not. In Spain you are given tapas with your drinks, to balance out the effects of the liquor, keep things civilized. Here, if we are given anything at all, we’re given salted peanuts, to make us thirstier.

DSM: Do you plan to weave these experiences into future NA columns?

CG: Definitely. After two years living in Spain, I kind of feel like I’m abroad now, in the States.  As homogeneous as we may think the Western world is, there are differences. I wonder, To what extent will going back to Puente Genil feel like going home? It will be interesting to see. In any case, when I do get back I’ll see this summer’s forays, what I’m up to now, from a distinct angle. When the angle changes, I start taking notes.

DSM: Anything you’d like to add?

CG: It’s funny the things you miss. My flat in Puente Genil has a bidet, and I have to say, I miss it. I don’t know why the bidet never caught on here. The bidet is useful in a variety of situations, especially during the summer.

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Part 1

DSM: You’ve been living in Spain since ’07. What keeps you there?

Charlie Geer: Work, for one thing. With the financial crisis, a lot of Spaniards are looking for ways to beef up their CVs, and learning English is one way to do that. So there is a demand for English instructors—a lot more demand than in the U.S. The college in South Carolina where I used to teach Comp and Lit recently fired all its adjunct and visiting faculty, and did away with core-curriculum Comp and Lit courses altogether. Evidently all the incoming freshmen already speak English good. Meanwhile an upper-level student can still spend a semester studying whether or not Herman Melville was a closet homosexual and/or whether or not Harper Lee was a closet racist, because the tenured “specialists” are there to stay. From afar, your average university English department in America would seem to be fighting for its own irrelevance these days. I don’t miss it. In Spain my love for language and books is appreciated. I have to say, it’s nice to be appreciated. As a visiting instructor in the American university system, I had forgotten what that felt like.

Oh, and the jamón keeps me in Spain, too. It’s damn good.

DSM: How has living in a Spanish speaking country influenced your writing?

CG: I don’t know that it’s done much for or against my English writing, but it has led me to work on a few projects in Spanish, which is something new. Even after two years, I still have a long way to go with the language, which means that what I’m writing in Spanish probably has little to no chance of ever being published. It’s oddly liberating to work on projects that have little to no chance of ever being published. If submitting the piece for publication is not an issue, then I’m free to go wherever I want with it, to write for the same reason I started writing in the first place—because I enjoy it. Thankfully I enjoy teaching, too. That means I get to eat.

DSM: Has your writing routine — where you write, how, and when — changed since moving abroad?

CG: My first month in Puente Genil I was a perfect stranger, and I was able to write the way I like best—outdoors, with a pen and a notebook—without much interruption. But once my job started up and I got to know people, it was no longer possible to write at a sidewalk bar or a park bench without being joined for drinks or asked to dinner. Andalusian culture is highly social. Space is public, not private. This makes fantastic material for a visiting writer, but it’s not so conducive to actually sitting down and writing outside. So now it’s back to the laptop, indoors, for the longer projects. I do keep a little notepad and pen with me for things that jump out during the course of the day, notes and obs. The great thing about the Noted Abroad column is that now my notes and obs have a place to go.

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Want to read more about Charlie Geer and his Spanish travails adventure? Check out Noted Abroad.

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Charlie Geer is the author of the novel “Outbound: The Curious Secession of Latter-Day Charleston.” His work has appeared in Tin House, The Sun, Bloomsbury Magazine, and The Southern Review.