My genius agent, Gail Hochman, took a big chance on me, for which I’ll always be grateful. When we put the collection together, we left out most of the shorter stories and anything that smacked of magic realism. The logic here was that it’s hard enough selling a story collection these days. Why frustrate potential editors with a collection that can’t seem to make up its mind what it is?
But, after my genius editor, Millicent Bennett, acquired the collection for Simon & Schuster, she asked to see everything I had. I sent her another twenty stories, and, from those, we picked six to replace weaker stories from the original manuscript. In the end, we settled on sixteen stories that we both agreed were my best, regardless of length or style, the familiar rubbing elbows with the fantastical. “I didn’t know this was allowed!” I said excitedly, to which Millicent just laughed, though, later, I’d realize that some of my favorite story collections do the very same thing. (Ron Carlson’s At the Jim Bridger and Stuart Dybek’s The Coast of Chicago come to mind.) Hopefully, if nothing else, the story selection represents my versatility.
The collection is bookended by Dan and Jack’s story, beginning in “Lizard Man” and ending in the collection’s titular story, “The Heaven of Animals.” Why did you make this choice?
I’d always conceived of the collection beginning and ending with those two stories. And, no matter which stories got put in or pulled out, and no matter how they were reordered as my editor and I sought to find harmony and balance in the collection, the one thing that never changed, one thing that Gail, Millicent, and I always agreed on, was that the collection should begin with “Lizard Man” and end with “The Heaven of Animals.” There are at least two reasons for this.
First, for the rare reader who reads the stories in order, the last story will come as a surprise. Personally, I love when writers do this, when a collection, overall, is unlinked, but, then, there’s this gift of an unannounced story that features a character or storyline in which you already have a vested interest.
Second, much of the collection is set in the South, but the final story leads the reader out of the South. Dan’s journey takes him through parts of the country where stories like “Amputee” and “Nudists” are set. Rather than bring the collection full circle by starting in Florida and ending in Florida, I hope this choice gives the collection a different kind of cohesiveness.
Which short story authors would you say have most inspired your own writing?
Lorrie Moore and Ron Carlson for their ability to temper life’s terrors with humor and wit. Charles D’Ambrosio for the pacing of his stories, that patient, narrative unravelling. Amy Hempel for her gleaming prose and her ability, with a single sentence, to put an icepick in your heart. Rick Bass, for his breathtaking imagery and celebration of the natural world. Frederick Barthelme, who writes about the South I know more honestly than anyone I know, and whose novels Tracer and Bob the Gambler are two of the finest books I’ve ever read. And George Saunders for his humanity, the grace he extends to his characters, and the empathy he demands of his readers.
Those are the writers that I hope have, in some small way, rubbed off on me. If they haven’t yet, I hope they will.
You are currently working on your first novel. How is the experience of writing a novel different from writing a short story, or from creating a short story collection? Do you find one to be more difficult than the other?
On the one hand, writing a novel is difficult in that it’s just so much book to write. On the other hand, writing and revising a story can take months, even years. It took me nine years to write and revise enough stories decent enough to fill a collection. The novel will have been written—knock on wood—in under four years. Something about sticking to the same characters and a single storyline seemed to make the process of finishing the novel go much faster than writing and assembling so many disparate stories.
That being said, the story form will always be my first love. I read far more stories than novels. A limitation of the novel form (and I’m not even close to the first person to say this) is that it can never be perfect, whereas a story can get there, or at least come pretty close. I think that Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” is a perfect story. I think that Melanie Rae Thon’s “Xmas, Jamaica Plain” is a perfect story. I’m pretty sure I’ve never read a perfect novel.
If you could offer one piece of advice to aspiring short story writers, what would it be?
Read. Write every day, or as often as you can, yes. Seek likeminded peers to give you feedback on your work, yes. But, most of all, read. Read lots, and read widely. Find a writer you like and read everything she’s written. Read a story anthology, then get the books by the authors of every story you loved. The more you read, the more you’ll begin reading like a writer. You’ll read a sentence that makes your pulse race and you’ll pause and ask, “How did the writer do that?” Once you start asking those questions, you’re bound to go looking for answers and to bring those answers home to your own work. We call this “finding your voice.” But, finding your voice is just a matter of discovering the grab bag of stylistic tricks and tics from which you’ll forever be borrowing—sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly—from those who have come before you.
Ultimately, what do you hope readers will take away from The Heaven of Animals?
Honestly, I’m flattered at the thought of anyone reading my book, and readers are welcome to take whatever they like from it. But, if pressed, I’d say that, for me, empathy is the magic word. I want readers to empathize with these characters, to extend compassion to even the cruelest of them. Some of these stories are very dark, but I hope that, out of each, some hope shines through. To the extent that it does, I feel like I’ve done my job.
About the Author
Photograph by Ashley Inguanta
David James Poissant’s stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Playboy, One Story, The Southern Review, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, and in the New Stories from the South and Best New American Voices anthologies. His writing has been awarded the Matt Clark Prize, the George Garrett Fiction Award, the RopeWalk Fiction Chapbook Prize, and the Alice White Reeves Memorial Award from the National Society of Arts & Letters, as well as awards from The Chicago Tribune and The Atlantic and Playboy magazines. He teaches in the MFA program at the University of Central Florida and lives in Orlando with his wife and daughters. Visit him online at: www.davidjamespoissant.com.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Compilation copyright © 2014 by David James Poissant
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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition March 2014
Information about previous publication of the stories is on page 260.
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Designed by Paul Dippolito
Jacket design by Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Poissant, David James.
[Short stories. Selections]
Heaven of Animals : Stories / David James Poissant.—First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.
pages cm
I. Title.
PS3616.O5467A6 2014
811'.6—dc23
2013037118
ISBN 978-1-4767-2996-1
ISBN 978-1-4767-2998-5 (ebook)
The Heaven of Animals Page 28