Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Q & A: Charlie Quimby

From a Q & A with Charlie Quimby, author of Monument Road:
How would you complete this line: "You might well enjoy my book if you like..."?

You might enjoy Monument Road if you've already found books about the New West to your liking—for example, Kent Haruf for the spare writing, Annie Proulx and Brady Udall for the humor and Louise Erdrich for evoking the spirit of a culture. I've also been compared to the non-western John Irving for throwing in some unexpected plot twists.

As I wrote my novel, I held out hope that I could perform a similar balancing act to the one Colum McCann pulled off in Let the Great World Spin. My story has a rancher named Leonard Self heading off to scatter his wife's ashes from a high overlook—and to follow her off to his own end. As he progresses toward his goal, other stories arise, but it's unclear until the end how they all relate to each other. A high-wire act between the World Trade Center towers might not seem to have much to do with Leonard's discoveries about himself and his relationship to his community, but...[read on]
Visit Charlie Quimby's website and learn about Monument Road.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Charlie Quimby & Roxy.

--Marshal Zeringue