In addition to being one of the best short story writers going today, Jordan Harper also pens scripts for television, including one of my new favorites, Gotham.
Today Jordan sits down with us to talk about his new collection (Love and Other Wounds), Batman, Gutter-fav Brian Panowich, and the new novel.
Today Jordan sits down with us to talk about his new collection (Love and Other Wounds), Batman, Gutter-fav Brian Panowich, and the new novel.
A Seat in the Big ChairJordan Harper
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1.)
Many of these stories in Love and Other Wounds are carried over from (the
excellent but now out of print) American
Death Songs. Kinda like a band making its big label debut from an EP. Did
you feel pressure to go back in and tweak any of these pieces? And I ask this while considering ADS one of the best collections I’ve ever read.
One of the
benefits of going with traditional publishing is exposing your work to an
editor. In my case, it was the great Megan Lynch. While we didn’t change very
much at all, there are changes to some of the stories. The most improved
stories are probably “Always Thirsty,” which is shorter for the better, and “Ad
Hominem Attack,” which is more fully rounded. There were also a couple of trims
to other stories, but not much people will notice, I think.
2.)
One of the new pieces, “Prove It All Night,” was
included in last year’s Gutter anthology Trouble in the Heartland: Crime Stories Inspired by the Songs of Bruce Springsteen.
Now I might be biased, considering I edited the fucking thing, but “Prove It”
was a highlight for me. And part of that is the punch of that final image.
Without spoiling it for those who haven’t read it, I’m wondering where that
motif originated, in terms of the writing. Was it an image you had before you
began writing?
That was one of
those things that occurred during the writing of literally the last line. I
felt pretty clever when I got there, though. The stories I write that have
“twists” to them are rarely planned that way. If you create a story with enough
dramatic tension, I think that the endings tend to resolve themselves on their
own. Of course, sometimes they don’t.
Thanks! We’re
given a lot of leeway, but of course DC gives input when needed. There are,
unsurprisingly, things we cannot do—to
give an absurd example, I don’t think we could kill Bruce Wayne (not that we’d
want to). But without giving away spoilers, my next episode of Gotham
introduces a DC villain who has been thoroughly reimagined. So we’re not just
regurgitating stories the audience already knows, which would get boring, I
think.
4.)
How’s the novel coming?
Just got notes on
the first draft from my agent, the legendary Nat Sobel. I’m just about ready to
dive into the second draft. It’s called If All Roads Were Blind, which is a
quote from a poem by Bonnie Parker. It’s about an eleven-year-old girl and her
armed-robber father, on the run from Aryan gang killers who have marked them
for death. There’s also a teddy bear who is a main character. So there’s a lot
going on. While there’s still a lot of work to be done, I’m starting to look to
the next thing. Maybe another novel, or a TV pilot. I want to write something
long-ish about a pro-level armed robbery crew. I want to write something based
on a murder that occurred in my teenage years, when a biology teacher at my
high school was charged with murdering his whole family. It led to the
revelation of teacher wife-swapping and teachers sleeping with students. I also
want to write something about the Young Brother’s Massacre, a shootout in my
hometown that killed seven cops in 1932. One of them was my great-grand-uncle,
so it’s always been a big part of my family lore.
5.)
What are your plans to support Love and Other Wounds?
If you’ve got any tips, let me know. As I’m sure you know, once a book is out in the wild there’s a certain feeling of helplessness. I am doing a reading this weekend down in Orange County with Brian Panowich, whose great first novel Bull Mountain came out the same day as Love and Other Wounds.
