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| Joseph Grammer, Author COCOON KIDS |
Author
Joseph Grammer brings us COCOON KIDS, “an intriguing collection of short stories that are
exceptionally creative and some are even quite odd/quirky in a really new and
entertaining way,” according to a reviewer. Grammer explains that his short stories are diverse but
connected in their actions to “find love and understanding.”
Grammer
originally studied to be a psychologist, but gave it up when he realized what
he really wanted to do was to write. He uses what he learned in his mental
health experience to create his characters. He values humor, research, and
character development and is currently working on a book set in Okinawa.
For
a taste of Grammer’s uniqueness, don’t miss the excerpt following the
interview.
Q: A reviewer
said of COCOON KIDS that it is an “incredible re-imagining of what short stories can be!” What’s
different about the short stories in your book?
Joseph Grammer: They’re diverse. I
wrote about samurai, circus performers, the first female POTUS, New York poets,
and thoracic surgeons. I tried to bind these disparate people together with
their similar efforts to find love and understanding.
This search for connection takes many forms. In “A Squid for Mr. Calaway”,
the narrator claims he loves nothing but squid. He hangs out with an ex-convict,
looking for connection, but he’s blocked inside, emotionally. In “Comfort”,
two dying samurai try to make sense of their last moments on Earth by insulting
the hell out of each other.
From a visual perspective, Anna Tulchinskaya created illustrations for each story,
which added a unifying life and depth to the collection. Her videogame-style designs
complemented Cocoon Kids’ themes of
growing and pushing beyond one’s boundaries.
Q: You studied to be a psychologist. Why
did you decide to focus on writing and become an author?
Joseph Grammer: I realized I prefer
writing. It took me years to accept this because I assumed I needed a stable career
to be happy. Psychology isn’t a well-paid field, and it has loads of its own
stressors, but for most of my life the concept of being a writer seemed
frivolous in comparison. I thought, “Who am I to think I can sit down and make
a story and sell it?” Then I realized that was an unhelpful way to think. I’m
still open to getting a Masters or Ph.D. in psychology—just not yet.
I use what I learned in my mental health experience to develop my
characters. For example, in “Grandpa Farron”,
a kid struggles to see the good in his dying alcoholic grandfather. The topic
sounds rough, but it was a lot of fun to build a comical, dysfunctional family
and stick them in a hospital room together.
Q: “There is so much life in each
character” – How do you instill “life” into your characters? What do you do to
engage readers?
Joseph Grammer: Values and details. I
write down what makes a character cry and laugh and refuse to budge; I figure
out her weak points and strengths, then see how she reacts in a crisis. I point
out what’s different about her and focus on that stubbornness, or that helpless
generosity, and pivot the story around it. It’s difficult to find the right
details (I don’t want to bog the reader down with every color of every piece of
clothing a person is wearing), but choosing one or two unique ones helps to
flesh out the character. One test is to see if a reader can tell who’s speaking
without providing any names.
Q: Do you write your stories to entertain?
Or do you write to reach or teach your readers in some way?
Joseph Grammer: To me, directly
attempting to teach the reader is heavy-handed. It’s too close to moralizing,
and I think one of my criticisms about myself is that I unconsciously do this
from time to time. At best, I hope to show readers a glimmer of what is possible
through the lens of another person—often someone who appears different from them.
Entertainment is a huge reason I write. People don’t want uninteresting fiction.
It’s a huge privilege to occupy someone’s time with my stories, so I do my best
to write engagingly. I’d rather someone hated my words than found them dull. I also expect a moderate amount of work
from the reader. Convincing her to participate in the story and use her own
imagination to fill in details is the best response I can hope for.
Q: How important
is humor to telling your stories?
Joseph Grammer: I love being funny;
unfortunately, it’s hard to make people laugh. The inherent gamble of humor is
exciting, so it’s one of my favorite ways to communicate. It’s also one of the
most difficult, so if you can somehow pull off making a serious topic seem
humorous, you earn major points in my (proverbial) book.
In “The Perfect Surgeon”,
I satirize fundamentalist Christianity by having a surgeon perform outrageous
tasks for God. To me, this is funny, but I’ve met some readers who were
horrified by it. This teaches me a useful lesson in humor: different people
have different thresholds of acceptance.
Q: How much of
your stories is fiction? Do you base your characters on real people?
Joseph Grammer: I don’t like
including people from my life in my stories. I’ve read about literary fiction
authors (e.g., Saul Bellow) including obvious traits or personalities from
their friends, and the consequences that can follow. Having said that, I have
no doubt that elements from my life creep into my stories, including aspects of
people I know. I just try to minimize this effect in my writing.
Q: What’s
different about writing short stories over a full novel?
Joseph Grammer: They’re easier. I’m
sure Raymond Carver would have a different take on the question, but for me a
short story is much more manageable in terms of cognitive and emotional effort.
I might agonize over every word in a story for weeks or months, but it’s still
easier. I read that it took Ezra Pound a year to write a fourteen-line poem,
which must have involved levels of internal anxiety I don’t even want to
imagine.
Q: How relevant is
the concept around heroes and villains to your writing? How would you define a
villain? Do you need a villain to produce a hero?
Joseph Grammer: I just finished
reading Chuck Klosterman’s I Wear the
Black Hat, which is a collection of essays about villainy. He defines a
villain as “someone who knows the most, but cares the least” (even though later
he pokes a hole in his own definition). I’d define a villain as “someone who
injures others out of desire or neglect, without repentance.” This way,
Eichmann is still a villain.
I explore villainy in “High-Wire”,
in which a sexist magician harasses the narrator, Leah, and all of her female
friends. At first glance he is a villain, because he torments other people, but
he is kind of pathetic as well. He doesn’t know how to be happy. Normally
people aren’t totally villainous or totally heroic, which is great because their
shifting point on the spectrum gives them the capacity to change and learn.
Q: What’s next?
Joseph Grammer: I’m writing a book
set in Okinawa, Japan. A typhoon throws together a ninety-one-year old peace
activist, a hitman, a US Army private, and a psychologist to make sense of
their personal crimes while fighting to survive.
I traveled to Okinawa for two weeks in 2012 as part of a research
project. Both my grandfather and father were stationed there, so I felt a
strange familial element floating around as I walked, even though I’d never
been there before. I dug into Okinawa’s history and was fascinated by its great
turbulence and suffering, but also by its tight-knit culture. Despite having
been a vassal to China, a prefecture of Japan, and a (secret) nuclear storage
facility for America, Okinawa retains a life that is wholly unique. I read
Miyume Tanji’s Myth, Protest and Struggle
in Okinawa and combed dozens of articles concerning the U.S. bases that
occupy a fifth of Okinawa’s landmass. To say the least, a thorny political
situation reigns in that area of the world, and this provides a tense backdrop
to my story.
Q: Tell us about
Joseph Grammer. What do you like to do when you are not writing?
Joseph Grammer: I read obsessively,
although I’ve learned I’m a slow reader. I like to savor passages, reread chapters,
and take notes on books. Outside of book-related activities, I play guitar and
mess around with Fruity Loops, which is a digital music production software. My
ear for music isn’t professional by any standard, but I enjoy it a lot. I like
to cook, walk around for hours at a clip, and travel. Languages also fascinate
me; I studied Russian in college and am currently trying to learn Japanese
(although I am very slow with this, too).
About
Joseph Grammer
Joseph Grammer is a writer who lives in
Alexandria, VA. He attended the University of Maryland, College Park and
studied to be a psychologist until he realized he’d rather stick stories on
paper. He enjoys music from every decade, strangely paced movies, and journeys
around Washington, D.C. with his girlfriend Anna. COCOON KIDS is his first book of short stories.
About COCOON KIDS
Your rowdy, boozy Grandpa. Two samurai hurling
insults at each other on a battlefield. A guy who commits a crime because of
pancakes. The stories inside COCOON KIDS explore the strange ways that love and
peace make themselves known in our lives. From the streets of New York to the
traveling circus, struggles for a good life are waged with the usual human
tricks: humor, anger, work, and chronic delusion. Like all earthly occupants,
some win, some fail, and some hang in the goopy middle. One or two go to jail.
COCOON KIDS may help you along if you want to sing
and kick your inner shell; if you like poems or beer or basketball; or if you’re
wondering what a thoracic surgeon, a squid, and a truck-stop bathroom can teach
you about companionship.
Excerpt
From
“A Squid for Mr. Calaway,” a short story in COCOON KIDS:
My therapist says love goes beyond mere
sensual pleasure, but she doesn’t eat baby squid from Vogliano’s with butter
and garlic every Wednesday. If she did she’d drop her doctorate in the trash.
“So this food is the only thing you feel you
love?”
“Is that weird? I mean, it makes me happy.”
“It’s natural to love what, or who, makes you
happy.”
“No who for me, please.”
She nods without moving any part of her face.
“You prefer to be alone.”
“Prefer? I don’t know what I prefer. A fried
cephalopod with crunchy tentacles.”
She leans back in her chair, steeples her
fingers. Her eyes are a tenth the size of a giant squid’s.
“Other people—family, friends. How do you
feel about them?”
I test Dr. Lane’s comfort with silence. When
I’ve run out the clock she says, “Enjoy your dinner, Mr. Calaway.”
I want to explain that it’s more than a meal—it’s
a marine bonanza. But instead I hustle my way to 2nd Ave, avoiding
the blight of Bellevue Hospital, and choose my companions for the evening.
“Prego, un chilo di calamari.”
Nailed the accent. The old woman wraps
two-point-two comforting pounds in a plastic sack.
“Grazie a Dio!”
“Eh?”
“Non, non importa.”
Into the dusk with my mollusks.
I’m not ashamed in the slightest to say squid
completes me. I’d marry one if I could. Get a satin dress, walk it down the
aisle. So what if it taps some Freudian desire—what the hell doesn’t?
Freud took cocaine with his patients and
sexualized everything with a pulse. He also smoked cigars until his jaw rotted
away, which highlights a distinct advantage of the squid: its beak is immune to
disease.
I walk down 23rd street by that
Shake Shack in Gramercy. Slush coats the tedious Midtown grandeur.
Barry Donoghey is standing on the corner of
Broadway smoking a Sweet Afton and clapping his pink, slashed-up hands
together. He has killed a man and served twenty-three years for it in Sing
Sing. Cradling my bag, I stiff-arm the man like Tiki Barber plowing through a
defender.
“You damn caffler—Christ, and to think I’m a
pacifist now—” he says.
“If I didn’t have a pressing engagement with
my friends, I’d steal your credit card and ruin your FICO scores. All three of
them.”
“I don’t own a credit card, and I believe a
ficus is a plant, but I’ve known blind amputee whores who balance more
gracefully than you.”
“There’s human feces on your shirt, Barry.”
Barry peeks down at his gray flannel
pullover, which is indeed marred by something strange, brown, and wet. He wipes
a hand along the silver scruff under his chin and pulls on his cigarette and
makes no effort to remove the incriminating stain.
“Oh well–where there’s a will, there’s a
relative.”
I stand in the wind that howls down Broadway,
scratching my head. “I don’t…I don’t get it Barry.”
“What’s
to get? It might be shite, it might not.”
Author and
Purchase Links
Twitter
address: @joe_grammer
Amazon link for Cocoon
Kids
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