Q&A With Nickolas Butler

Author of “Shotgun Lovesongs” and “Beneath The Bonfire : Stories”

Shotgun Lovesongs, Nickolas Butler’s first novel, became an overnight sensation. The New York Times reviewed it not just once, but twice, and it immediately found a place in the hearts of many. It has been hailed as relatable, honest and a realistic portrait of rural Wisconsin. Imagine our excitement when his second book came out just over a year later. Beneath The Bonfire is a book of short stories with characters that grip you in the same Butler style. He took some time to answer a few of our questions.

Q: You wrote “Shotgun Lovesongs” and “Beneath The Bonfire” concurrently while you were attending the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Why did you decide to share your short stories with the Workshop instead of chapters from “Shotgun Lovesongs”?

A: I actually shared two portions of “Shotgun Lovesongs” at Iowa, the first chapter, and a large 75 page excerpt that would later (after heavy editing and a more clear picture of what the narrative arc and characters looked like) become something like the final five chapters, or so. Workshop has the potential to stymie a novel, though, and I didn’t have the time to get knocked off track. I wanted to finish a novel by the fall of 2012, so I protected Shotgun Lovesongs because I was fairly confident that I was doing what I wanted to do, that the novel was working. I also wanted to finish a collection of stories, so I basically used my Workshop deadlines to produce what would eventually become about 700 pages of published material (two books). For me, Workshop can be incredibly useful this way — a structure for meeting deadlines, moving forward, producing new material. Of course some of the peer review is very helpful. But sometimes not.

Q: In a Q&A with Brooklyn Magazine you said that your short stories are darker because you like that you are able to submerge a reader into more difficult content for a shorter period of time. How do you treat difficult material differently when writing a novel?

A: A writer can never, should never shy away from darker material — I don’t think they’d be articulating reality truthfully, and frankly, I think darker material gains complexity for working in concert with so-called lighter material. Here I’m thinking of how great comedy works, the balance between tragedy and comedy. But look, Moby-Dick and Blood Meridian are two American classics, both dealing with very dark subject matter: violence, revenge, hatred, etc. But Moby-Dick is actually funny, at times, and I think this is one of the novel’s enduring strengths. If Blood Meridian has a weakness, honestly, I think it’s that the book is unrelentingly brutal and dark, like staring at cloudy night sky, or a canvas painted simply black — there is no contrast, no light. I think an artist has to think about the light too. All just to say, if I’m going to plunge a reader into dark, dark territory, I would prefer to sustain that trip for 30–40 pages, not 300–400 pages. Also, I’m the one writing this darkness; I have to live in that darkness. I have two small children, I don’t want to dwell in despair and ugliness for years on end.

Q: In both “Shotgun Lovesongs” and “Beneath The Bonfire” a lot of your characters struggle with relationships, especially when it comes to marriage and children. Having two kids of your own, where do you find inspiration for the very honest struggles many partners in your books have?

A: Well, I’m very fortunate. I have a great marriage and two amazing children. But kids definitely change the metrics of marriage: the amount of energy, time, money, and space… I just returned to Wisconsin after, frankly, a very fun family trip to Florida. It was great — the kids were great, always well-behaved. We drove a little less than 4,000 miles round-trip without any electronic devices, just car-games and books and music and conversation. But my wife and I still mourned (a little) the early days of our marriage when we would visit more exotic destinations, take back-roads, move lighter, camp in more challenging terrain, etc… I’m just trying to write characters that interest me, honest characters. One thing about my characters, I think, is that they face a lot of challenges, but they don’t give up on each other, or themselves. They fight. They fight for their families and their land and their friends.

Q: You wrote movie reviews in your teens and poetry in your twenties. How did that foundation shape your now published works and what made you make the jump to writing fiction?

A: I wrote a poem awhile back (published in The Lumberyard and nominated for a Pushcart) called “Poems Don’t Pay for Meat”. That about sums up why I started to explore writing fiction; I just wasn’t making much progress as a poet, I wasn’t gaining enough traction. I applied to MFA programs first as a poet and was pretty much roundly rejected. So I started writing short stories, started to work on getting better at that form. From there, I began writing novellas, and then sort of tricked myself into writing a novel. But that early writing was mostly about confidence building, trying to find my own voice, and meeting deadlines. I give a lot of credit to my high school (Eau Claire Memorial) and my teachers for helping me believe in myself, and in art. By the way, I’m returning to poetry these days, trying to always become better — whatever that means, exactly. Last night I re-read Jim Harrison’s Songs of Unreason for further inspiration.

Q: Each of the chapters in “Shotgun Lovesongs” is narrated by a different character (who are each as different as the next). Did you concoct a character first and then shape the plot around him or her or vice versa?

A: What happened is that the first chapter just poured out of me one night without much thought or planning, and then, for the next two years, I explored the characters that inhabited that first chapter. The plot came naturally, their ruminations came to me fairly easily — I always tell people each character is some permutation of me, anyway. Over time, and through Workshop or discussions with my agent, what became clear was that this novel was about a place, it was about friendship, it was about music and art, jealousy, success, and that there was a bit of a love-triangle central to the plot. The truth is, I’m not much of a planner, or mapper-of-plots. I just try to write and explore my feelings, my intellectual interests, and the kind of moral considerations we’re struggling with today, as Americans.

Q: You have said that one of the short stories in “Beneath The Bonfire”, ‘In Western Counties’ was written after the Michael Vick dogfighting scandal. ‘Sweet Light Crude’ shares commonalities with the BP Oil Spill as well. What are some of the other real life happenings you pulled from and which one touched you the most?

A: For almost ten years now, I’ve been trying to find the courage to write a book about my father-in-law, Jim. (The short story ‘Apples’ — first published in Ploughshares — is very loosely based on Jim.) Jim is simply put, one of the kindest, most decent, generous people I have ever met. Many, many people rely on Jim in their everyday lives; he’s very handy and capable, and he always seems available to help friends, relatives, or neighbors with their household maintenance problems. He can fix anything. His spirit is very importatnt to me, and I’d like to write a character that is inspired by him. Think Tony Earley’s masterful novel, Jim the Boy. That kind of tone.

Q: When can we expect your next book?

A: My next novel, The Hearts of Men, will be published by Ecco in early 2017 (I don’t know which month, yet). If you can read French, however, it will be published in France in August of 2016.

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