Words with Richard Burgin

In his latest novel, Rivers Last Longer, Richard Burgin works suspense to a steady scald. With language trimmed and clear, Burgin blasts through a dark and deadly look at compulsion and insecurity. Focusing on the reconciliatory phase of an estranged friendship reconvening, Rivers Last Longer follows two long-lost pals, each with his own complications. On the one hand Burgin gives us a kind of Pollyanna tale — Elliot, the level-headed protagonist of the book, looks to re-establish an old friendship, strengthen his career prospects, cultivate a budding romance, and see a childhood dream materialize. On the other hand a Cassandra scenario — Barry, our psychotic antagonist, points out the faults of society, targets and attacks promiscuous women, and works to control the lives of those around him. The opposing frameworks blend beautifully, and allow Burgin to riff from multiple vantage points, and in various styles, as he re-imagines the thriller using the most literary of voices. Burgin’s true gift is control. He spins the filthiest of webs in the most steady of rhythms. Then, without missing a beat, he backs away from the grotesque, from the roughest of human endeavors, and gazes honestly at the sweetest things mortals encounter. Rivers Last Longer functions in the thriller format, much as Bleak House functioned on the foundation of mystery. It is a quick, strong, and engrossing novel. The booklover’s slasher story, backed up by so much more. Rivers Last Longer is that unique kind of book that stuns you with both language and story. We were lucky enough to discuss the book with Richard Burgin, and we are kind enough to share the conversation with you.

Dark Sky Magazine: Rivers Last Longer is one of the darker novels I’ve read in recent memory, and the language is some of the most precise I’ve seen. It’s quite remarkable how you are able to keep so level-headed when dealing with such coarse material — murders, sexual aggression, assault — and your ability to stay so grounded while pushing your characters to their edges establishes a great effect. It makes the novel downright spooky. There is a wicked and eerie atmosphere at play. Do you find it at all difficult to remain level-headed when dealing with such dark material?

Richard Burgin: While in my own life I’ve tended to be anxiety prone and have rarely been known for showing much grace under pressure, I do try to keep my narrative voice in my fiction controlled regardless of the horrific events it may be describing. (I guess that’s one of the perks of being a writer — you get to have a kind of second chance to “behave” in ways you never could in your own life.) As a reader, I also admire those writers who keep an even keel and don’t give into the hysteria their characters are or should be feeling. One such writer who exemplifies that trait would be Kafka. He may be writing about a man who wakes up transformed into a giant cockroach, or the terrifying deaths described in “In the Penal Colony” but his narrative voice is never infected by the events it’s reporting. If it were, we’d lose the aesthetic illusion or the suspension of disbelief that every writer, whether they’re a realist or not, aspires to attain. Your question is an interesting one that I’ve never been asked before or ever asked myself so if what you say is true of my work, I guess it must have come naturally to me to write in this way.

DSM: In many ways this novel feels Dickensian. Plot is crucial, suspense abounds, and you have given many of your characters twists of physical and emotional grotesques — Cheri wears hearing aids; the psychiatrist, Dr. Hodge, brags about his accomplishments to his patients. Yet at the same time there is a Proustian flavor, especially when we see Barry off on his sadistic misadventures. I was wondering if you could speak to your craft in attacking both of these modes. The novel is seamless, yet there are large-bodied differences in the techniques implemented throughout. Was it tricky to change hats?

RB: One of the “advantages” a novel has over the short story is the range of moods or modes it can accommodate. The same is true in music. Think of the range of moods in a symphony by Beethoven or Mahler compared to those that exist in a song. (Mahler, I believe, once said he wanted to express “everything in life” in his music.) You are right, there is suspense and darkness in Rivers Last Longer but there is also a Proustian flavor and there are also, especially in the love story of Elliot and Cheri, moments of tenderness and exultation meant as a kind of counterpoint to Barry’s dealings with women. Finally, there is a lot of humor in the book with its satirical look at the art, literary, therapy, and film worlds and of a certain kind of artsy New York high society, in general.

DSM: Let’s talk a bit about the humorous and satirical side for a moment, and then I’d like to address the love story of the book. At the center of the friendship between Barry and Elliot there is this notion that the two will start a literary magazine and take the literary world by storm. Neither of the two have been particularly successful with their own writing endeavors, and they feel that starting the magazine will jumpstart them in this regard. There is a great scene where Barry scribbles up a kind of business plan and they write down some potential names, and they feel they’re well on their way. Then they rub elbows with some celebrities, and we get the sense that their potential publication is eminent. Along the way they run into Darren Datz, a sort of self-promoting conceptual artist, who the two see as their antithesis. The juxtaposition and that relationship in general, prove to be quite humorous. How realistic is this characterization of the literary world? Is it all based on whims and pretensions?

RB: In literary fiction, as opposed to politics, one is writing about particular cases not necessarily trying to make statements that are universally true. The important thing for me is that Barry and Elliot’s perception of the literary world is true to their characters — that is, to their psychologies and life experiences — and that it’s convincing to the reader. In attempting that I tried to be as truthful as I could be. The character of Darren Datz is based on someone I knew during the years I lived in New York. He may seem a bit over the top with his monumental self-love and compulsive bragging but New York is full of “over the top” personalities and behaviors and Darren is very much (unlike Barry and Elliot) New York grown.

DSM: In chapter 17 Elliot walks the streets thinking about the state of literature and he comes to the conclusion that 19th century descriptions of sex, convoluted as they might have been, are more honest then 20th century retellings of similar sexual entanglements, despite 20th century writers’ willingness to describe these interactions in graphic detail. I was wondering if you could speak to the notion of writing about romance, perhaps specifically physical romance, and how a writer should go about approaching it. Definitely in this book we get two distinctly different looks at sexual encounters. How did you work to stay honest while delivering both styles?

RB: There is no single “right way” to write about love and sex. It’s all a matter of what the author’s vision is and what suits the particular characters and the situations they’re in. As I said earlier, the novel is a form that rewards suppleness and variety of both language and action. Because of the kind of person Barry is, with his particular obsessive needs and manic behaviors, he relates to women in unpredictable ways — including, at times, acts of domination, rage, and sadism. I needed to describe certain destructive sexual behaviors of his to illuminate his character and the themes of the book. Elliot, on the other hand, is far more healthy, tender, giving and also conventional. This is but one of the ways I try to counterpoint the two protagonists throughout the novel. As for Elliot’s observation that 19th century depictions of physical romance in fiction are more honest than those of the 20th century, I think there’s some truth in that, but more importantly I think it’s true to Elliot’s character to give him that thought.

DSM: In that same chapter Elliot discusses a further lack of dishonesty in contemporary writing, and he see this as the reason why folks are so caught up in the consumption of “reality” television and memoirs. He argues “people were starved for truth, even if they couldn’t articulate it, and they knew on some level they weren’t getting it in their fiction.” Is this your stance? Is there too little truth in fiction these days, and, if so, what do you feel is the cause of it?

RB: I do feel that speaking generally, there is too little truth in contemporary fiction. I suspect there are a number of reasons for this. First, as so called literary fiction has become more and more of a highly competitive business there is increasing pressure on the “serious writer” to write commercially successful books. Too often that means creating a protagonist the reader can “root for” or “relate to” so that it will sell and so that a movie might eventually be made. The emphasis in literature too often is on heroes and villains whereas in real life people are more contradictory, ambivalent, complicated and ambiguous. Another force that works against truth in fiction is political correctness, perhaps the most noxious literary disease of our time. Too often it overtly or unconsciously censors or unduly influences the artist by making him or her fearful of writing honestly about any minority who must always be pictured in a noble light. Every era has its own truth inhibitors and ours is certainly no exception.

DSM: Aside from being something of a thriller, Rivers Last Longer is also a novel about friendship, and about the diffidence that often emerges between old friends long estranged. I was wondering which element you started with first? What was the germ? Did you approach Rivers Last Longer knowing the plot, or was this instead a meditation on the theme of a bungled friendship that yielded the suspenseful results?

RB: I suppose the genesis of the novel is in a story I wrote called “The Victims” (which was fortunate enough to win a Pushcart Prize) that I wrote back in the 1980′s and that was published in my first collection of stories Man Without Memory in 1989. Two years later, I published a story that was a kind of sequel to it called “Barry and Eliot” which was published in my second story collection Private Fame. In fact, for a long time the working title of Rivers Last Longer was Barry and Eliot. I became fascinated by the idea of two sensitive, talented, idealistic young men, best friends since childhood, one of whom becomes a good, productive person and the other, perhaps because of his broken home, his needy, spoiling mother, or just some genetic twist veers into a kind of madness that even years later when they reunite his best friend can’t detect.

DSM: What else do you have in the works?

RB: As far as publishing goes, I have a Richard Burgin Reader coming out in France, in French in February 2011 that roughly translates to In Flames: The Writings of Richard Burgin. I’m very excited about that especially since the publisher at 13e Note Editions has invited me to go to Paris for a week to help publicize the book. Working with my brilliant editors there, Eric Vieljeux and Patrice Carrer, has been extremely gratifying. Although I have never met them I feel a close connection to them. I also have another collection of stories coming out in Fall 2011 form Johns Hopkins University called Shadow Traffic.

As far as writing goes, I just finished a new story and am waiting to see what feels right to work on next. For better or worse, I’ve always relied on my instincts more than any conscious plan in terms of what I should write and always feel my subject somehow selects me or comes to me often when I’m just walking down the street or hearing a line of music or catching an unguarded expression on someone’s face. In a word, it comes when I least expect it.