The Plucky Reader

A boy, his books, and a blog

Interview with Fred Waitzkin

I had the incredible opportunity to interview Fred Waitzkin, author of Deep Water Blues, which I reviewed last week. When I started The Plucky Reader, I never expected it to go anywhere. Never in my wildest imaginings did I believe people would read the words I wrote or send me books to review. And I definitely did not expect to have the opportunity to interview authors.

Real talk, between you and me, I didn’t even know what to ask in an author interview. I’m both ashamed and not ashamed to admit that if you look at search history, you will absolutely see multiple searches of “how to interview an author” and “interview questions for authors.” Let’s just call it resourcefulness? Please?

In any case, I’m excited to share my interview with you all, today. He offered valuable insight into the world of writing, and a peek into his own life as a writer. I am very grateful for this opportunity.

INTERVIEW FOR THE PLUCKY READER BY FRED WAITZKIN

Mr. Waitzkin, thank you for taking time to answer some questions about yourself, the writing process, and, specifically, Deep Water Blues.

First off, could you tell us a little about yourself? What drew you to writing? Was it something you always dreamed of pursuing, or was it something you just fell into?

My mother, Stella Waitzkin, was a great painter-sculptress and also she was an artist with words.  She read stories to me throughout my childhood and sometimes she made them up. When I was thirteen she gave me a copy of Life Magazine with Ernest Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea. While witnessing the death struggle between a larger-than-life blue marlin and an old man, I became intoxicated by the rhythm of Hemingway’s short sentences, and some strange fusion took place deep inside me –– great writing and fishing became bonded. I knew then that I wanted to fish and write stories. But also, I was interested in Afro-Cuban drumming and selling lighting fixtures, which was my dad’s field. It took me a while to sort it out.

Where did you get the idea to write Deep Water Blues? What inspired you to tell this particular story?

I visited Rum Cay numerous times over many years. I knew first hand the beauty, pain and violence of the story I wanted to write. Deep Water Blues describes a gruesome disaster that takes place to a little island civilization—an island once gorgeous, and peaceful, almost Eden like, and in the aftermath, the island becomes decimated by greed, out-of-control ambition, violence and murder. The challenge was how to best approach this material. In my early drafts the momentum and power of the story was impeded by longish carefully wrought paragraphs. At one point I put the novel aside to work on a screenplay and that gave me the key to this book. I needed to tell the story fast and violent — particularly the scenes on the island — with no flashbacks, mostly taut bold scenes moving forward as in a riveting film.

Deep Water Blues has this wonderful alternating perspective throughout; when you set out to write this book, was this how you envisioned it, or did it evolve along the way?

No, it was something I just fell into. I liked the juxtaposition of the cruise south, at times lazy and reflective, with the violence of the tale I was pointing toward; although, to be sure, there is portent of the danger ahead on the boat trip.

Did you work with an outline, or did you just write? Is this your usual process?

I have a general idea of the story I want to tell, but I never write an outline per se. Usually, I jot notes on a three by five card or on a page in a little notebook I keep in my shirt pocket and let my paragraphs grow from these ideas. For me, too much planning impedes the flow that I’m looking for. When I get stuck I pace around or ride my bike looking for the next idea that will push me ahead into more pages.

What was your favorite chapter to write in Deep Water Blues?

The first chapter was so dark, excruciating and bloody. It sounds almost sick to say that it was my favorite but it was a great challenge to get it right, and when I finished I thought it’d caught the true spirit of that terrible event.

Which work from your career are you most proud of? Why that work?

When I finish, each of them feels like my favorite — it’s terrible for me, to send a book off. I cannot let them go. That’s at least in part why it takes me such a long time to go from one book to the next. If I try to write something new right after I finish, I find myself writing the last book all over again.

What is the toughest criticism you’ve ever received as a writer? How did that impact your writing, if at all?

Many years ago I was friends with the great American poet, Mark Strand. I showed him one of my early stories, quite short as I remember, and he said, “I don’t know if it works.” I was a young unpublished author and I found that remark from Strand crushing…. I didn’t think he was right, but for sure he rattled me. But also I think Mark’s criticism hardened my resolution to keep at it.

What is the best compliment you’ve received as a writer?

I’ve been lucky enough to have had wonderful readings from authors and critics, although remarks from friends I love have had a greater impact. When my wife Bonnie and my boy Josh relate powerfully to my work, that’s the best, not even close.

What part of the writing and publishing process would most surprise somebody pursuing writing?

Most young writers are crazy with concerns about getting published. I hear this all the time. How do I get published? What if I can’t get published? I understand – when I was young the rejection slips piled into my mailbox. It was so bad that my wife would open the box so I didn’t have to feel the pain … but now, looking at the process across a sea of many years, I know that what makes me come alive as a writer is paragraphs flowing out of me, almost without thought as if I am an instrument guiding a vision. Just writing sentences on this page makes me feel alive.  

But a life as a novelist means being comfortable spending thousands of hours alone in a room trying to get the pages right, along with other days when pages won’t come at all. Can you deal with long stretches of silence? Years of it. Can you learn to relish the process entirely apart from any ideas of glory or treasure down the road? You need to feel the endeavor as a calling; or probably you should choose another path.

Have you written a book that you love that you have not been able to get published?

Thankfully, no, although when I finish a manuscript I might think, what if no one likes it? What if all these paragraphs that I’ve labored over and loved have no appeal beyond their appeal to me? Curiously, I never think this way when I’m actually working on a book.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

You need to discover the magic of carrying a small writing pad, something that can fit into a shirt pocket. When you’re stuck and the pages won’t come, forget about them. Go to a ball game, ride your bike. Go hear some music. You will be amazed how the ideas will come when you are not looking directly at them. Give ideas room to gestate and grow. Sometimes they are shy. When they come, jot them onto the pad, quickly before they disappear. Just having the pad seems to engender ideas. At least it does for me.

Thank you for taking time to talk with me today; I have enjoyed your work and am excited at the upcoming release of Deep Water Blues. It is a wonderful book.

Fred fishing

Review – Deep Water Blues by Fred Waitzkin

Does anybody remember that 90s movie, Searching for Bobby Fischer? I remember watching it—I was probably in the fifth grade—and I was struck by a revelation at the end. The credits rolled and an important thought crossed my mind: chess was definitely not a game for me. I didn’t have the patience for it. I didn’t have the problem-solving skills for it. I didn’t have the mind or the desire for it. But good for you, Bobby Fischer and Josh Waitzkin for having that kind of sticktoitiveness. Good on you.

It wasn’t until much later that I found out that Searching for Bobby Fischer was a book, written by Fred Waitzkin, about true events in his own son’s life. It was a book rooted in fact, telling the true story of a prodigious boy who made waves in the world of chess. (To be fair, at that time I didn’t even know there was a world of chess. I thought it was just a game you played on your Windows 98 PC when you were tired of Minesweeper and Solitaire.)

Recently, I came into possession of a copy of Fred Waitzkin’s newest book, Deep Water Blues. The jacket copy drew me in immediately and I was more than happy to accept a review copy based on what I read. (Not to mention it’s a beautiful book; look at that cover!)

Charismatic expat Bobby Little built his own funky version of paradise on the remote island of Rum Cay, a place where ambitions sport fishermen docked their yachts for fine French cuisine and crowded the bar to boast of big blue marlin batches while Bobby refilled their cognac on the house. Larger than life, Bobby was really the main attraction: a visionary entrepreneur, master chef, skateboard champ, surfer, even former undercover DEA agent.

But after tragedy shatters the tranquility of Bobby’s marina, tourists stop visiting and simmering jealousies flare among island residents. When a cruel, different kind of self-made entrepreneur challenges Bobby for control of the docks, all hell breaks loose. As the cobalt blue Bahamian waters run red with blood, the man who man Rum Cay his him will be lucky if he gets off the island alive.

When the Ebb Tide cruises four hundred miles southeast from Fort Lauderdale to Rum Cay, its captain finds the Bahamian island he so fondly remembers drastically altered. Shoal covers the marine entrance, the beaches are deserted, and on shore there is a small cemetery with headstones overturned and bones sticking up through the sand. What happened to Bobby’s paradise?”

Something about this copy drew me in. Something about this copy also led me to believe that pirates were going to play a key role in this story (spoiler alert: they don’t.) I read this whole book with eyes peeled, looking for signs of pirates. There were no signs. Nothing pointed to pirates. But I was convinced it was pirates. I’m laughing in the coffee shop as I’m typing this ridiculous confession.

What I did find in this book, however, was this interesting blend of memoir and fact-based storytelling. This book isn’t totally nonfiction, because much of it is Waitzkin’s interpretation of real life events that he was able to glean from interviews with key players. There’s an interesting third-person omniscience to this narrative that is unique for a book rooter so in my fact and memoir. Throughout Waitzkin’s writing, he interjects the motivations and thoughts of the characters in the story, even though they are real people. If I had not read the acknowledgments in the back, I might have thought the story of Rum Cay was completely fabricated; a very good story written by a skilled writer. I would have thought this a work of fiction.

Knowing that this story is a true story, however, gives it a completely different dimension. It tells an exciting story of adventure and deception. It nips at the travel bug in me, the part of me that wants to be board a boat and explore the blue sea. I’ve always loved the idea of being on the water. I’ve never had much of an adventurer’s spirit until it came to the sea. Standing on the deck of a boat, wind and salt water whipping my face. That’s the kind of adventure I’ve always wanted. And this book fed into that perfectly.

I was captivated by both the stories told in this book. Waitzkin alternated between his own story, riding aboard his boat, the Ebb Tide, and the story of Rum Cay, the Bahamian paradise I longed to visit as I read it.

Deep Water Blues is one of those lovely books that has its own ensemble cast of characters, all of whom are intertwined in some way or another. I love when a story can artfully and inexorably link characters. The fact that these were true stories made it all the more artful.

Waitzkin has a gentle poetry to his writing. I was transported to the ocean by his writing. I could see the world; I could smell the ocean water. I could feel the wind on my face. It was transformative. I cannot sing the praises enough for his writing.

As good as this book was, it should come with some serious trigger warnings. There are two big issues that need to be pointed out before jumping into this book. The first is a portrayal of rape. There is nothing graphic, it is more suggestive than anything else, but it still happens and it’s still unsettling. It happens quickly and is over and never discussed again. But it happens and needs to be mentioned

The other is the death of dogs because of poisoning. This was not only rough because of the death of animals, but because it was done brutally by a human being. I was disgusted at the scene; it was more graphic than the aforementioned rape scene.

All in all, I loved my time with Deep Water Blues. Waitzkin transported into shark-infested waters and took me on an adventure. It’s a short read and can easily be enjoyed in an afternoon (if you’re not fighting ADHD like I am today.) I highly recommend it to anybody who loves a good adventure, like memoirs, or loves stories of closely intertwined characters.

Plucky’s Rating?

4 stars.

New Discoveries

Nothing makes me as excited as discovering a new Broadway musical that I love. Seriously. I cannot describe the feeling of pure joy I get the first time I listen to the cast recording of a musical that resonates with my soul.

I can remember the magic of listening to Wicked for the first time. I was 17, I was sitting in the passenger seat of my friend Natasha’s bright red Ford Mustang. We were on the way to lunch after choir and she stuck the album in her CD player. From the opening number, I was hooked. The instruments, the singing, the entire experience. I was quickly swept away by the world that Wicked pulled me into.

After that, I went out and bought the book, and then the sequel, and continued reading the entire series. I loved everything about it. It was the first step I really took in widening my world view and making me reconsider the very, very conservative view I had on things. It was a turning point in my life.

That year, I also discovered Rent, and, again, I fell in love with everything about it. I loved the story. I loved the characters. My heart broke for Roger and Mimi and I cried legitimate tears for Angel and Tom. I learned how to truly be a humanist from Rent; I learned how to love everybody, because everybody is important.

Since then, I have fallen in love with musical after musical. I discovered my love of Bonnie and Clyde. I hum “Dyin’ Ain’t So Bad” to myself regularly. I found myself enraptured by Pippin and Waitress and Hamilton. I’ve even loved the lesser-known musicals, like Bright Star and Tuck Everlasting.

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“Keeping Quiet”

April is National Poetry Month, and though I didn’t post about it on here, I observed it as I always do. I love poetry. I truly think poetry is the only voice that many people have in this world. I know my students connect to poetry, and I know when I was their age, I connected to it as well. And as I’ve grown, I still connect to it, but in a very different way. Instead of writing poetry about my complex feelings, I’ve read the poetry of others. I’ve enveloped myself in the musings of others as they deal with their own complex emotions.

If I had to name my favorite poet of all time, I think it’d be Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, better known by his pen name (and later his legal name) Pablo Neruda. Neruda’s poetry has always touched me. Last year I wrote about my favorite love poem of his, “Tu Risa.” This year, however, I’m sharing a different poem.

This poem, “Keeping Quiet” is one that resonates with me in today’s atmosphere. I don’t just mean the political atmosphere, though to talk about Neruda’s poetry is to talk about the political atmosphere. I mean in this world that is full of hate and greed and envy. This atmosphere in which we spend more time tearing each other down than building each other up. Sometimes I am truly overcome with grief at the way people behave toward one another. I’ve caught myself crying at interactions on Facebook and at the grocery store. I just want to shout a refrain of, “why can’t we all get along?”

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My Own Slughorn and Snape

This weekend, I was featured on the Facebook page of a group that recognizes local teachers who go above and beyond for their students. It was a huge honor and a lovely surprise, and I’ll admit that I teared up more than once at the kind things my principal, my co-workers, and the parents of my former students said about me. What really got me, though, was the wonderful things my former teachers said about me.

I love that we live in a world that keeps me connected to the people who had the greatest impact on the person I am today.

As I read the comments, I couldn’t help but think about two particular teachers in my past. These two teachers stand out in my memory for every wrong reason. They are everything I hope to never be.

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Foul Ball

Last night I sat in the stands at a baseball game. The air smelled of cut grass, dirt, and french fries. The air rang with the tinny tings of baseballs meeting bats, parents cheering for their kids, and children laughing. A chilly breeze blew around us as the sun set and lights buzzed overhead as they turned on over the fields. I chatted excitedly with my friends who were at the field and watched the game in front of me.

It was like being in middle school all over again, except this time I wasn’t being publicly embarrassed by my lack of athletic ability.

I don’t have a child who plays little league; I don’t even have a current student who plays little league, but I was at the ball field cheering loudly anyway for a kid who needed his own cheering section. You see, last night I had to be a baseball parent for a student I taught last year. This particular student mentioned to a colleague of mine that his parents never get to come to his baseball games and he was so excited to have seen her at his first game of the season. Since then, we’ve made it our mission to make sure he has somebody there specifically to support him.

When you’re a teacher, you’re a teacher for life. Your obligations and duties to your students don’t stop after they’ve moved to the next grade level. At least for me, they don’t. Part of my goal as a teacher is to make sure my students know they can call on me for anything, for any reason, for as long as they need to.

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Review – Gris

Today I’m stepping a bit out of my comfort zone to talk about one of my favorite forms of art. I don’t fancy myself a pro at video games the way that I feel I’m qualified to review books. (Because, I mean, how hard is it to pretend to know everything about books, right?)

Cinematic screencap from Gris on Nintendo Switch

But recently I played through a video game that was so beautiful, I still can’t get over how beautiful this game is. It wasn’t very long. It wasn’t difficult. But it was beautiful. It brought tears to my eyes. It opened up a well within me that I couldn’t stop for a solid minute.

Gris is an indie game developed by Spanish developer Nomada Studio. It is rife with hand-drawn art elements and beautifully mesmerizing music. Honestly, I went into the game blindly; the only information I had going in were a few thumbs-up from gamers I trust and promotional artwork. I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into.

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Review – What Could Go Wrong? by Brett Grayson

Friday night I came home from school, immediately changed into my pajamas, poured a mug of tea (I’ve been trying to consume less coffee these days) and curled up in my bed with a book. I’ve had very few Friday evenings lately that I could just curl up with a book and ignore the world, so I jumped at the opportunity. I curled up with my puppies, snuggled deep under my covers, and fell into the pages of What Could Go Wrong?: My Mostly Comedic Journey Through Marriage, Parenting and Depression by Brett Grayson.

I’ve had this book sitting on my nightstand for months. It’s been begging to be read. It was sent to me by some lovely folks and I was really pumped about it, I was just dealing with my own struggle through depression, exhaustion, and frazzled. When I get in my own low points, like I was suffering through, I find it difficult to read about somebody else’s journey through depression. I’ve never been much of a “misery loves company” type. Reading about other people’s depression just compounds my own.

But by Friday, I was in a clear headspace. Which was good, because this book definitely required me to be in a clear headspace.

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Memory 2 – First Days of School

I wasn’t sure what I was going to say to them once I’d gotten past the “Hi, my name is…” portion of the day. I wasn’t sure how I was going to tell them that I was going to be their teacher, that I had been chosen to replace their beloved strings teacher. I didn’t know how I was going to convince them that I was qualified to guide them and lead them—especially because I was having trouble convincing myself of that. They were all so, well, they were scary. They were angry. They were apathetic. They were disconnected. And they were all so old.

This isn’t what I thought I’d be signing up for when I was in college. I had spent countless hours preparing myself to teach elementary school; to sing songs and play games and teach the foundations of music. I wasn’t supposed to be teaching middle school. And I definitely wasn’t supposed to be teaching high school, with their weird smells and their bad attitudes and their disregard for authority. I was supposed to be teaching kids who were 7, not 17.

So I mustered my courage. I stood up tall. I drew on the wisdom I’d gained from every strings teacher I’d ever had. I channeled Lisa Roberts and the way she commanded a room. I channeled Barbara Woodring and her passion for music. I channeled Kelly Ginther and her excitement. And I channeled Carole Makowski and her unfaltering love for her students. And I stood up. And I breathed in deep. And I said: “Hi,mynameisMr.AdamsandI’msoexcitedtobeyourstringsteacherthisyear.” I word-vomited, all one word, no breaks, no breaths, nothing that resembled actual human communication.

They all blinked in slow motion at me trying to make sense of the ridiculous thing I’d said. It was their first day back after summer break and, unlike me, they had not yet reacclimated to the world of academia. They were still trying to figure out who they were; they weren’t ready to find out who I was. But I told them anyway. I told them why I was qualified to tell them how to play violin. I told them about how once, when I was their age, I had played in Honor Orchestra of America. I told them about how I had a brother their age, so I wasn’t out of touch with them. I told them about how I had never been so excited for anything in my entire life.

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Memory – 1000 Paper Cranes

Two years ago today, I edited the last sentence of the first book I wrote, 1000 Paper Cranes. As I shut the cover of my manuscript, a tear rolled down my cheek. It was like saying goodbye to an old friend, shutting that cover for the last time.

I had spent two years writing about Jordan Johnson, his best friends—Jon and Joanna—and his beloved girlfriend, Robin. Every day for two years they had lived in my mind. Interacting, evolving, loving, being. Every day I saw their lives playing out for me. I grew to know them more intimately than I even knew myself. I knew their hopes and their desires and their dreams. I knew their fears. I knew their favorite foods and their favorite books and their favorite songs. I could hear their voices; I knew their laughs.

And maybe this all sounds crazy; I’m not denying that. Writers are all a little crazy, aren’t they? You have to be to be able to spend so much time in your own world creating and recreating a land that nobody will ever experience the way you do. And I did experience this world, this every day life of the teenagers who had taken root in my imagining.

I can remember the day Jordan and his story popped into my head very clearly. I was driving home from work, listening to an audiobook. I used to have an hour commute to work. I know it sounds miserable, but I listened to so many audiobooks then; I consumed so many books during those drives. The book this time was Linger by Maggie Stiefvater, and what a beautiful book it was. I was drawn into her world so easily; the audiobook narrator was spectacular and Maggie Stiefvater’s writing was wonderful (as it always is.) The wolves of Mercy Falls held me captivated. Grace and Sam were complicated and wonderful and full of emotion and complication.

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