Tony Rauch was born in St. Cloud and went to St. Cloud State as an undergrad. He did a graduate degree in architecture at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, and now works as an architect in Minneapolis. Rauch began writing as a student, and his first book of stories, i'm right here, was appeared in 1999. A new collection, laredo, has just been published by Eraserhead Press. Whistling Shade editor Joel Van Valin had a few questions for Rauch, a frequent contributor to this magazine.
Whistling Shade. Many of your stories involve bizarre transformations-your dad turning into a fish, an alien disguised as grandpa, an ex-girlfriend shrunken to miniature size wearing an ant suit. What fascinates you about this motif?
Tony Rauch. I use magical realism and science fiction/fantasy as a metaphor for unwanted change. So something unusual and unexpected happens, and the characters must react and roll with those changes. You or something around you changes into something else unforeseeable, and now you are in a different place.
Some of it has to do with growing older and things changing around me.
Some of it has to do with transforming your own outlook or point of view. So if you bend and skew things enough, hopefully it will get you to look at something in a different perspective.
Mostly my interest in this motif is in the interest in the impermanence of life-the fragility, the documenting life's constant strangeness, challenges, changes, uncertainties. And that if you go through a weird or challenging time, it will make you a stronger person, readily adaptable to change, and more prepared for the future.
WS. Why did you pick the name "laredo" for the title story of your new collection? Does it have some mystical connection with Laredo, Texas? Laredo, Spain?
TR. At one time the theme was to have the entire collection be set in one neighborhood. So all the pieces were to be focused on the adventures of the people on a single street. Hence the story "Laredo" and some of the others that describe the conditions of the characters in a way of comparison. In the end though, I got away from that and the stories were not as linked as my first collection because they just didn't need to be.
Also, I just liked the sound of the word Laredo. Rolls off the tongue. Thought it sounded poetic.
Also, Laredo, TX is a border town. And lots of interesting things seem to happen in border towns because of the mixing of cross traffic. Same with port towns. Lots of mixing of cultures, perspectives, and characters. And I thought of some of the pieces as being border pieces-that is being on the border of two points of reference, and that will hopefully make you think-the comparing and contrasting, the skewing, the grotesqueness, the changing and revealing. You were at one place a moment ago, and now you are at another place. So you have two different perspectives to compare. And the friction between the two can ignite sparks. You are on the border of two places.
WS. You work as an architect. Has architecture contributed to the way you design and structure your fiction?
TR. Em, not really. Other than describing the physical environment and spaces. I haven't really thought of a story in those terms as that is what I do all day long. After hours I want to think in the opposite manner than when I'm on the clock. Architecture and painting to me have a tendency to be static-merely a snap-shot frozen in time. Where to me literature is more free-flowing, more fluid and full of movement. I would say my pieces are more akin to collage or sculpture, but not formally structured like architecture or a painting.
WS. A lot of your stories seem to involve supernatural or unexplained phenomena (goblins, six-foot penguins, UFOs, strange men in suits tossing things up into thin air). Has anything truly bizarre happened to you in actual life?
TR. Oh, all the time. Way too much. I've seen some weird shit, man. And I don't even get out much now that I'm older. I crave stability. Life to me has been full of rapid change, the unexpected and unexplainable. So I guess some of that uncertainty, fragility, and instability is channeled into the writing. The constant waiting for the other shoe to drop.
But I try to use that bizarre element as more of an escape. I think a lot of the pieces have elements of escape in them-of breaking free or breaking out, of being challenged, of being abandoned, or left behind. A lot of what I write is just to escape a routine and to illustrate that life can be full of adventure, new things, and surprise-to instill a sense of wonder and awe about the world, to point out hidden possibilities, to reclaim a sense of the fantastic, to entertain. So hopefully the stories take people on mini-adventures to unexpected places and events. Part of that, again, has to do with change, escape, transformation, juxtapositions, collage. Theoretically, a UFO could land on your front yard. So I'm trying to reveal a sense of discovery about the world-that the world is an unstable place, constantly vibrating with hidden possibilities and paths yet to be uncovered.
WS. Do your relationships ever play out in your fiction? Do we have an ex-girlfriend to thank for all the relationship jargon you love to make fun of?
TR. To a degree. I think it's good to channel your experiences into your fiction to try to ground them in experience. But I see the characters as trying to either seek out a relationship, or trying to hold on or get back a relationship. They seem to have to endure some weird happenings and hopefully come out stronger for it in the end. So again, the unintended or unwanted change. Their dreams are to have a good relationship to structure their activities and lives around, to build a psychological home, to ground themselves, but to them it is an elusive thing, like trying to catch a handful of fog. But they are fully aware that they are missing out on things, and thus those challenges cause the conflicts and friction.
WS. A cliché job interview question is: "Where do you see yourself in five years?" My question for you is: Where do you see the short story going in the next ten or twenty years?
TR. Writing is an art, and thus subject to various trends within the art form. I don't know where the short form is headed as I am not an editor who sees a ton of short stories every year, and thus can track some themes or trajectories (looking at journal guidelines is another good way to track what trends are going on out there). I can only relay what I would like to see in them.
I would like to see more writers explore the ideas that they are interested in. So writing as an investigative tool, rather than writing to impress an editor, reader, or other writers. So I would like to see stories and the language of them go more internal, and use fiction as a way to learn more about yourself or examine the world around you.
I would like to see fiction get more weird, with a mixing of genres. I would like to see more innovative and hybrid fiction. I'd like to see more confessional stories. More personal stories. More internal rather than external pieces.
Also, I would like to see more genres invented or fleshed out and developed-as a way of adding to and expanding the art form. So broadening and deepening the genres. Particularly more adventurous ones like surrealism, bizarro, and the experimental. Hopefully we'll see an increase in stories that challenge or question reality and your thinking, stories that are unpredictable and not all spelled out for you, where you have to fill in some of the blanks for yourself-stories that make you think.
Mostly I would like to see people reading more, especially the short forms of fiction.