15 minute read
Keeping It Real with George Singleton
Award-winning author, George Singleton, has published nine collections of short stories, two novels, and one book on writing advice. He short stories have been published over 250 times and have appeared in reviews and magazines such as the Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Playboy, the Georgia Review, Story, One Story, the Southern Review, Agni, Zoetrope, Epoch, Oxford American, Subtropics, and elsewhere. He's received a Guggenheim, the Corrington Award, and a Pushcart Prize. He's a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and lives in Spartanburg, SC. The Curious Lives of Nonprofit Martyrs, published by Dzanc Books—recently awarded the 2023 AWP Small Press Publisher Award—is his tenth collection of short stories.
I met George Singleton in the last week of my low-residency MFA program before I graduated. He was the keynote speaker at our commencement, which sounds all very posh and highbrow, and can be. The instructors wore velvet robes and funny looking velvet hats with tassels, and walked to the stage as though they were sorcerers marching out to perform some ritual. George kept it real in a ballcap that looked like it had taken its last breath two years prior. If you’re wondering why I’m commenting on Singleton’s fashion choices, it is because it says something about him. I can’t recall the exact statement he made that night, but he said something to the effect that most of us in the room would never make a penny from writing. He also stayed in the moldy dorms with the graduate students and brought over a case of PBR and shared some incredible stories. Like I said…keeping it real.
I’ve since reviewed George’s work and interviewed him a couple of times. He was on a William Gay panel in the spring with me. When Dzanc’s editor, Michelle Dotter, asked if I would be interested in running (no, not ruining) his campaign for The Curious Lives of Nonprofit Martyrs, I was thrilled and I admit I was a tad scared. George doesn’t really hold back, i.e., the commencement speech. I learned a lot from him over the months of setting up author events, interviews and reviews, and the promotion of this book to bookstores all over the South. This also put more pressure on me about the review and interview. I kept thinking, it’s gotta be perfect. I needed to dissect the hell out of this collection.
Within a few pages of reading The Curious Lives of Nonprofit Martyrs, I realized my approach was off. I put the sticky notes aside, the pen down, and I gave into these stories. What should you expect? Naturally, you’re guaranteed seventeen off-the-chain stories full of Singleton’s archetypal, oddball characters placed into absolutely absurd situations. There are the classic Singletonian lines you find throughout like the one from the story, “What a Dime Costs:” “…I might’ve mentioned how Velcro-strapped shoes held back children from growing into people who could appreciate the blues, chicken livers, a good thunderstorm, a crying mother, a boy with a makeshift scraper unhinging latex paint from a cement driveway, a hand-dug swimming pool six feet deep.” You are guaranteed laughs. But keep in mind that while you may feel like you’re in the presence of old friends and do pull up a lawn chair, there is way more written between the lines at work here. In “Dispensers,” when the main character’s wife finds a new cause in a nonprofit group called VAGINA (Veterans Against Guns in North America), it’s what he doesn’t say to her that says it all:
“I didn’t say, “Oh, you’ll change your mind when the next shiny cause comes along,” even though I’d seen Mazie—and me, for that matter—get caught up in pro-choice, anti-Big Pharma protests, pro-alternative energy investments, anti-plastic bag rants, pro-coyote sponsorship…We’d driven to the state capital so we could dispense pamphlets about education reform, marijuana legalization, something about clean water, something about minimum wage, something about insecticides vis-à-vis fireflies and honeybees. So, I just said, “I agree.”
Singleton comments on the border crisis, education inequality, gun control, mass shootings, the pandemic, pollution, poverty, pro-choice, wage disparity, and war, and of course, sets these modern societal topics around stories that all include nonprofits. Collectively, I think these stories express Singleton’s frustration with both those who dance around causes and the need to form an organization for every single damn issue, but ultimately, that in this time in history, we have so much to fix and cannot see our way through it. So though what Singleton’s character didn’t say in the above quote may go unheard by the character’s wife, it isn’t lost on the reader. With all those “somethings” or all the latest causes becoming blurred in the mix, Singleton touches on something fundamentally Western here. We can turn the war off in Ukraine. We can turn off the border crisis between Mexico and the U.S., and we can do this by literally turning off the news. Singleton’s world of nonprofits and do-gooders jumping causes may be comedic and hyperbolic in its presentation, but it’s not that far removed from our very own world. And it is Singleton’s craftsmanship—the ability to give his readers a laugh as well as make observations on a failed society—that places him as one of best satirical writers in the Western Canon.
In a recent Kirkus review of The Curious Lives of Nonprofit Martyrs, the reviewer commented on the collection: “A Southern original adds to his gallery of Southern originals…The stories don’t always have destinations, but one of the fundamental laws of Singleton’s invented world is that destinations are way overrated. Nobody complains that a carnival isn’t tautly plotted; you just plunk down your dime and wait for wonders.”
The reviewer stated that in Singleton’s world “destinations are way overrated. Nobody complains that a carnival isn’t tautly plotted; you plunk down your dime and wait for wonders.” I get the “no destination” comment up to a point. That’s what makes his stories fun reads, and I’ve already alluded to the letting go part. But I’m not sure his stories would work if they were “tautly plotted.” It may overhit the mark, assuming you think a mark is there, which I do.
For me, the destination is that pure moment of comedic irony. If you live in the South, you know the characters in his stories. The humor is putting these characters at the same bar or BBQ joint where all their political, religious, socio-economic differences along with their flawed thinking and belief systems are put on a stage to be lampooned. It never comes off as mean-spirited, though. It’s simply brimming with the richest parody. But let’s see what the author thinks about his new collection.
DM: Do you think your satirical stores have a “destination?” What would you like for your readers to “get” at the end of the story, or is it enough to make a reader laugh?
GS: In all these years I’ve never thought of a “destination.” At the end of the stories, I hope that the reader learned something about humans—that he or she laughed a couple times along the way and thought something at the end. If there’s some kind of “types of writing” continuum, one would have “Receive Knowledge” at one end and “Pure Entertainment” on the other. How to Fix a VW engine on one end, and encyclopedias, et cetera, and maybe comic strips at the other end. I’d want my stories to be in the middle of that continuum.
At the same residency, I took a workshop with George, and in addition to his superpower skills in telling a great short story, he has an uncanny ability to remember names. Let me say that his workshop was packed full, but if he didn’t commit the student’s name to memory on the first round, he had it by the second one. And if by chance it did slip his mind, he’d ask me (not a great source) or ask someone else what their names were. Some I couldn’t recall! I feel bad about that. The students had been together all week. Now you do tend to get grouped with the students you started with. I remember faces but am terrible with names, which means I’ll talk you up and down but may not know your first name. Sorry.
To me, this said something fundamental about Singleton and the value of at least learning a person’s name. But the act of naming seems to be especially important in his writing. Perhaps, he remembers names because he will eventually use some offbeat, twisted version of it in a later story. It’s easy to imagine Singleton snickering to himself when Cock Walker’s name from the short story “What A Dime Costs” popped into his headspace. There’s a quintessentially southern scene at Halfway Barbeque in the story, “Standard Hole,” where the author toys with the names Barack Obama and Jesus Christ:
“A man at the cash register spoke into a wax cup with the bottom punched out, like a makeshift megaphone. He yelled out, “Barack Obama? Order up.” The diners at Halfway went quiet, then most of them booed…“The counterman yelled out, “Jesus? Order up for Jesus,” and a couple of people got up and left the restaurant, as if they feared a Second Coming.”
Yeah sure, everyone is going to laugh, but should we be gnashing our teeth a little bit, too? Let’s break this down more. What if President Obama and the Lord were eating BBQ in a hometown, Southern BBQ joint where all the locals gather? What would that look like? Maybe, the townspeople would finish thier last meal befor exiting, but I could easily imagine a few boos, or at least some mumbling. Singleton’s treatment of names is designed to produce a reaction like the one that occurred in his setting, Halfway BBQ. In “Wild Me,” the character ponders on the naming on nonprofits and thinks to himself: “I thought about how I’d made a mistake in my nonprofit ways, that I should’ve been working for the Humane Society, or PBR—Pit Bull Rescue—or one of those more inclusive and far-reaching places like Vulnerable Animals Give Incessant Nurturing Affection. I’m not making up these acronyms. Nonprofit people need to think about what they’re doing.” Mmm…good point there. Think about what they’re doing, the acronyms, or both? If you hit a space between the last sentence that “thinking about what they’re doing” comment takes on a whole new meaning. So, what is in a name?
DM: Why is the act of naming characters, and by proxy the nonprofits in this collection, so important to you? And here is a chicken and egg question. Does the story come first? For instance, did the acronyms of the nonprofits, like SPARTAN (Support Patches Against Regular Tar and Nicotine) come before the story, “Wild Me,” or did you work the names into the narrative?
GS: Thank you so much for the compliment about remembering names, Rebecca. And the story came first. Sometimes it took forever to come up with a doable acronym.
As for the importance of naming, well, really, no, I can’t say. I get names out of obituaries and old phone books or flat-out make them up. Normally I don’t want to pick common names just because they’re, I guess, common. I’d be willing to bet that a reader is going to have a better picture in his or her head of a character named Melvin or Velvey than they do of John and Mary. It probably helps me “see” the characters, too.
As for the nonprofits—I just used acronyms for whatever the characters supported. I mean, if I had a group that worried about climate change, why would I name it SCCN for Stop Climate Change Now, unless I wanted to be boring and uncreative?
DM: I don’t know if I should thank you for the story, “Cock Rescue,” or lament that you most likely gave yet another author predator out there a great business plan. If pre-literary agents don’t already exist, they are right around the corner! Yes, you’re poking fun. But on a serious note, what is up with the writing world that you can conceive of such an industry making money off the backs of writers? Let’s get real. What are your pet peeves? What would you change right here and now in this industry?
GS: I think there are indeed some hucksters out there, charging way too much money for editing services, or promises of a literary agent. I wish that the big publishers wouldn’t produce so many of the same-type books “written by” politicians. I wish that publishers would go back to the days of reasonable advances for “literary works,” and that royalties would go up from whatever they are now: 6-8%? I wish more people—with the rapid growth of ADHD and flat-out short attention spans—would begin love affairs with short stories and poetry. What happened to PR people in the publishing industry? Good god, a writer is now expected to self-promote. I find it whorish, embarrassing, belittling. Am I supposed to spend 50% of my time working on stories, then 50% becoming a carnival barker? When carnival barking, it’s impossible to get on to the next project. I’ve had great, great editors over the years—Shannon Ravenel at Algonquin Books, André Bernard at Harcourt, Guy Intoci at Dzanc Books, Michael Griffith at LSU Press, Meg Reid at Hub City Press, Michelle Dotter at Dzanc Books. Also, there have been great editors at all the magazines and journals I’ve published with. I would almost bet that they’d agree with me on everything mentioned above.
The cover art is the image from the painting titled, “Camargue” by the Italian-born, classically trained, contemporary artist, Cristina Vergano. A partial image of her painting “In the Nature of Things (Sinus Pelagi)” is also on the cover for another Singleton short story collection, The Half-Mammals of Dixie. Her surreal hybrid portrait depicting a half mermaid, half monkey is reminiscent of Dali (obviously), Goya (though not as dark), and Botticelli (in reference to some of the angelic faces of females she paints).
DM: Did you choose the artwork for your covers? What attracts you to Vergano’s artwork? How does her artwork convey something more about your writing?
GS: I didn’t choose that cover. I’ve never chosen a cover. Now, Michelle at Dzanc Books had a few options and asked what I thought. It just so happened that we agreed. Same thing happened with The Half-Mammals of Dixie—Shannon Ravenel from Algonquin Books asked what I thought, and we agreed. Cristina Vergano, out of the blue a couple years ago, contacted me and said she’d love to have her work on a future book. What an honor, I thought. I love Cristina’s bizarre, surreal works, and I think that my characters often find themselves in surreal situations.
DM: You’ve been called the Cheever of the South and this collection is being marketed to fans of Tom Franklin and George Saunders. What are five short story collections that should be on every short story writer’s bookshelf?
GS: The Collected Works of John Cheever and Flannery O’Connor, My People’s Waltz by Dale Ray Phillips, Music of the Swamp by Lewis Nordan, and Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories by Ron Rash.
DM: I hear your collection of essays is coming out this year. Will you please share a little about that? Also, what’s on the agenda for George Singleton now?
GS: My book of essays titled Asides comes out in mid-November. I’m just writing stories these days. Slowly. Way too slowly. Maybe I’ve said everything I needed to say…
DM: Nope, there is way more to say. Keep saying it please! And thanks a ton for your responses. I really enjoyed this collection, and I am sure our WELL READ Magazine readers will jump all over your new book. We at WELL READ Magazine look forward to whatever comes next and wish you much success with The Curious Lives of Nonprofit Martyrs! And isn’t there a book tour on the agenda?
George Singleton Book Tour Schedule:
8/15/2023 Release Date: The Curious Lives of Nonprofit Martyrs (Dzanc Books)
8/17/2023 6:00 PM CST.: Reading/Discussion/Signing at Pass Christian Books in Pass Christian, MS
8/19/2023 Time TBD: Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson, MS
8/31/2023 6:00-7:00 PM EDT.: Book Launch at Hub City Press in Spartanburg, SC
9/6/2023 7:30-9:00 PM EDT.: Books Over Drinks at M. Judson Booksellers in Greenville, SC
9/7/2023 7:00-8:00 PM EST. via Zoom: Broadleaf Writers Association Presents “Write Now”
9/17/2023 3:00-5:00 PM EDT.: Author Event at All Good Books Columbia, SC
9/19/2023 at 6:00-7:00 PM EDT.: Author Reading/Signing at Malaprop’s Bookstore in Asheville, NC
10/12/2023 6:00-7:00 PM EDT.: Author Event at Pendleton Bookshop in Pendleton, SC
10/20/2023-10/22/2023 Time and Date TBD: Southern Festival for the Books in Nashville, TN
