Interview : Fred Venturini

Order THE HEART DOES NOT GROW BACK here
Order BURNT TONGUES here

(and for the completists and the curious)
Order THE SAMARITAN here

I didn't know who the hell Fred Venturini was before seeing his name in Publisher's Weekly. The curious title of his ''enhanced'' debut novel and its unlikely journey to a major publishing imprint intrigued me, so I contacted Fred for an advance review copy. I gotta say, he was one of the most earnest and professional authors I've ever worked out. He contacted his publisher himself and followed up with me multiple in order to make sure I got his novel.

I'm going to keep my opinions on THE HEART DOES NOW GROW BACK for next Friday (although you hit social media for a sneak peek), but in the meantime Fred was kind enough to drop by for a flash interview (with bonus questions at the end!) I could try and sell his powerful and unique talent to you in 1,000 words or more, but I'll let him do the talking. You'll see for yourself how gifted of a storyteller he is. 

Walk us through your ''I gotta do this'' moment, where you sat down and wrote fiction for the first time. 

I wish I had a flashpoint moment like that, but I was writing stuff so early I can’t remember an “ah ha” event. I used to play old NES games and if the story wasn’t fleshed out, I’d just make stories up in a notepad. I distinctly remember doing Dragon Warrior stories.

I don’t want to sell the question short, so I think there’s a related “ah ha” moment that made me want to be a writer instead of just a guy who writes stuff—in high school, everyone was too shy to read their own English class submissions. We had to turn in poems once, and the teacher, Miss Cleveland, read my poem. It was incredibly dark with a disturbing twist ending. When it was over, everyone looked at me. Total silence. Everyone knew it was me. Then my friend blurts out, “Man, that was messed up.” I affected them, and I wasn’t embarrassed—I liked it. Only when I discovered the impact you can have on an audience did I really think “I gotta do this.”

What piece of your own writing are you the most proud of, why is that so and where can we find it?

I was burned when I was a kid, and always wanted to use that experience in a story, but couldn’t figure out a way to do it. One day I just put the whole “bad kid burns innocent good kid” thing out of mind and wrote the story with the burn victim as another villain in the story. “Gasoline” was then born. Eventually it got included in Chuck Palahniuk’s Burnt Tongues anthology (cheap plug: it’s available now at fine booksellers everywhere, with a ton of other phenomenal stories).

I was proud of that story because of the way I could disconnect my personal experiences for the sake of writing an interesting story. I think for a lot of people, they just think anything that happens to them is interesting (spoiler alert: it’s not). I think it’s a lot more interesting to make shit up, and I distorted a personal experience just enough to make it something new. I also worked really hard on rewrites. Maybe the first story I rewrote over and over and over again. It was hard, and fun, and it paid off. That’s where the pride kicks in.

What was the single best writing advice you were ever given? What was the worst?

I don’t have a blanket piece of “best advice.” I’ve gotten a lot of good advice. Let me give you the best suggestion I’ve ever gotten and what it illustrates—there’s a scene in THE HEART DOES NOT GROW BACK where Dale learns a bit of shocking news near the end, and I originally did it with all dialogue. My agent suggested trying that scene without speaking, letting physical touch create the revelation. I was blown away at how good that suggestion was, and immediately started rewriting the scene, and I think the result was a definitive improvement. So I think this illustrates how writers can’t put themselves in a bubble—take advice from good sources. Try things. And “engage the senses.” How’s that for advice? Great advice that Chuck Palahniuk champions—keep all the senses tingling. Sometimes a character can touch or taste or smell something instead of just having a dialogue about it.

Who are the five authors you would recommend to someone who wants to familiarize himself with what you do?

I mean this is a hard question, because it smacks of me including myself in the ranks of the guys that I name. I think I’ll put it this way—they say you write the story that you want to read, right? So here’s guys that write stories that I want to read, so it’s only logical to think that if I enjoy them, other readers may not only enjoy them, but also my stuff. With that elaborate disclaimer, Stephen King, Chuck Palahniuk, Joe Hill, Donald Ray Pollock, and Jack Ketchum are five guys that I enjoy immensely.

Hardboiled, Crime, Noir, Gun Porn, Fairies, Whatever. Should genre label matter? Yes or no and why is that so?

I get asked a lot about my novel, “What genre is it?” I don’t know, and I don’t really care that it may not fit neatly into one genre. And if something I write is squarely a horror or science-fiction piece, no issues with that, either. I’m not trying to subvert genre, I just don’t consider it while I’m working. I don’t even consider it when reading. Good is good. I think what you’re seeing in pop culture is a lot of genre-mashing anyway, especially with the superhero stuff and the experimentation with the tones in that realm. My job is to have fun writing a story with the hopes that a reader will have fun as well. I’m not in charge of where it gets shelved in the bookstore.

What are going currently working on and what can we expect from you in the next year or so?

If only I could predict the future, but I can tell you I have three novels in the middle drafts. I’m just rotating rewrites. One, all, or none of them may have some market appeal. I guess we’ll see what my agent says on that front. I think it’s possible to have another book deal knocked out within the next year, or all the ideas suck and I have to go back to the drawing board. There’s so many possibilities out there in today’s literary market, and I do write a lot of stuff for a guy with a family and a full time job, so I would definitely predict that you haven’t heard the last of me. 

* BONUS QUESTIONS *

A previous iteration of THE HEART DOES NOW GROW BACK was released in 2011 under the title of THE SAMARITAN. What motivated you to go through the publishing process a second time with that story and how did it evolve in between both releases?

You rarely even consider working on something you consider finished, but in the year or so that THE SAMARITAN was out, ideas for a sequel started percolating, and I had a lot of “maybe if I had done this, or done that” started floating through my head. But I shook those thoughts. I’d never get the chance.

Then, the indie book was doing well and the agents started calling, and one of them was really interested in bringing the same book to a bigger audience, hopefully through one of the big NYC publishers. Of course this appealed to me. The editors at the Big Five were impressed with the actual writing, but the story was too dark down the line. There wasn’t that much ebb and flow to Dale’s story, meaning in the original, he just has bad stuff happen to him, then more bad stuff, then worse stuff, the end. I started that book in my twenties, and I was maybe a little more nihilistic back then. By this time, I was welcoming my first child into the world and was married for a while and just a lot more content, so I was in a good position to inject a little more hope. I always wanted Dale Sampson to have more good stuff happen, or at least have a chance at the good things in life. And I wanted to set up any future stories.

So when they gave me that feedback, I was ready. I pitched them on my new ending, my proposed story changes to make Dale’s life more of a roller coaster instead of a slow descent. They were receptive to the changes, but it was all on me. I was rewriting the manuscript on spec, with no promises. So I rewrote it and got my agent’s feedback. Then I rewrote it again and we got offers. Then we got a deal. Then I worked with a fantastic editor at Picador and rewrote it again. Going through that process for the first time with a big house, when people ask me if my next book is done, I just laugh. It’s not done until it comes off the assembly line, and it evolves along the way. 

A good chunk of your novel is centered around high school and yet it's very different from what is out there in the market. Why did you think it was important to depict teenage life and how did you own experience in high school influenced the story?

You ever have a horrible experience from the past, usually high school, and you just laugh about it later in life over a beer with your friends? Nostalgia really sells the casual horrors of high school short. Time insulates the deep and visceral terror we feel as teenagers doing and experiencing the most innocuous things. As an adult, teens seem so dramatic, but that’s because they are experiencing things for the first time, so that first breakup is the worst breakup in the universe, when that girl won’t talk to you no one loves me or will ever love me. Or your best friend, this will be my best friend for the rest of my life when many high school relationships are circumstantial or strategic. Then, you are about to go to college and they’re all crying, I’m leaving home, I’m leaving my friends, life is over. There’s just so much failure and doubt and rapid change during those years, and we’re just not equipped to deal with it all, and that’s all in service to maturity. It’s a gauntlet. We’re making a big thing about bullying now, and bullying is a really horrible but somewhat natural result of the process. I’m not condoning or justifying the behavior, it’s just that when you can’t handle the gauntlet, you start tripping other people. When you’re scared or you have doubts about yourself, sometimes what feels the best is to knock someone else down a notch or two. At least I’m better than them is how your brain processes and justifies these actions. It’s a weakness, a shortcut to feeling good, a drug that damages others far more than it damages yourself, hence the high, hence the “kids can be so cruel” result. 

So you’ve got this stew with dreams and doubts and your first, fresh failures and big chunks of bullying and some real high ups, the kisses and making the baseball team or getting that A, and the lows that happen when the bully calls you fat or you don’t make the team or you get caught cheating on a test or that girl dumps you in front of everyone, just a big, piping hot, bipolar stew and sometimes the pressure builds and the lid pops off and that’s when we see it on the news. I just wanted to depict the pressure cooker environment of high school, not the “best years of my life” Saved by the Bell stuff that everyone has in their heads, colored by that all-powerful nostalgia lens. Bottom line is, we may yearn to be younger, but those weren’t simpler or easier times. They probably weren’t even the best of times. And for some, when the pressure cooker pops its lid, they’re the worst of times.