Of Place and Crime

John Brandon Gives Us Arkansas

By John Hood

If you read one debut novel this year, read John Brandon’s Arkansas. Part of McSweeney’s exquisite series of Rectangulars, Brandon’s take on the state, whose book is the Bible, beverage is milk and dance is the square, is as twisted as legend — and twice as telling. Kinda like Cormac McCarthy coming into a backwater trailer park after it became a ghost town then shooting up the place with a dose of its own violent ennui. Situated between the Gulf and Plains states, at the mouth of Tornado Alley, this is not simply where the South butts skulls against the West but where it cracks them.

As does Brandon’s creek-deep crime story, which centers around a drug, uh, kingpin (Frog), his faithful lieutenant (Bright) and two clueless mules (Swin and Kyle), who come up to less than no good and make a bloody mess even of that. It’s a cautionary tale, of sorts, to those who’ve long ago left caution to the flatland wind. It’s about as brooding as a fistfight.

I slipped a few Qs to noir’s new name; here are the As he gave back:

How’d you connect with the McSweeney’s set?

I just looked on their Web site, where it says how to send them submissions, and I mailed them the first 30 pages of the novel. A month later, they asked to look at the rest, and a month after that they said they wanted to publish it. It was easy. Of course, this was after more than a year of getting rejected by agents.

Is Arkansas a state of mind?

Maybe so. I was attracted to Arkansas as a setting because whenever I’m there, I’m not sure how to feel. Most states, you know what you’re getting into about five minutes after you arrive, but Arkansas is hard to figure out. It’s jammed in between the South and the West and the Midwest. It hasn’t been a frontier for a long time, but it still feels like anything could be happening there.

Swin’s all matter-of-fact, Kyle sometimes even more so — do you think matter-of-fact people make the best liars?

I don’t know if there’s a best style for lying. I think lying might be a you-got-it-or-you-don’t deal. I’m a terrible liar, and I’ve tried many styles. Maybe though, at some level, it’s important that the person you’re lying to thinks you don’t care if he believes you. That’s Swin’s “apathy of authority.” If you don’t care if anyone believes you, they will.

Is Swin’s name a cross between Swinburne and swindle?
Swin is named after a former player on the Tennessee Vols womens’ basketball team — Swin Cash.

Arkansas is all noun, verb and preposition: Have you got a problem with adjectives?
I don’t have a problem with them, unless they’ve got a problem with me. I think you can easily overuse them. They slow things down.

If drugs were decriminalized, do you think America would lose a lot of its drama?
It would lose a portion, some of the best drama it has, but there will always be people who want more money than what they’ve got and don’t want to get it in the honest, incremental way.

 

If you could live in any city in the world, which would it be?
I think I’d do well in a Scandinavian capital. Oslo or Stockholm. An intense, clean, cold, practical place would suit me.

If you were allowed only one book, which one would you choose?
I have about nine favorite books, but let’s see. The one book for my regular life would be The Collected Stories of Joy Williams, which doesn’t exist as of yet. On a deserted island, I would take Geronimo Rex by Barry Hannah.

John Brandon reads from Arkansas Saturday, April 5, 5 p.m. at Books & Books, 933 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach. For more information call 305-532-3222.