Matthew Roberson, 1998.6, Fiction Collective 2, 2002.
Fetishists, dreamers, voyeurs, internet porn addicts, granola-heads, drug dealers, dorks, liars, layabouts, workaholics, sex maniacs, TV junkies, compulsives, neurotics, intellectuals, idealists: graduate students, all. In this book about the complicated experience of pursuing a Ph.D., Matthew Roberson details the curious world of a group stuck between childhood and adulthood, idealism and surrealism, representation and reality.
What he wants he thinks is to screw things up. If you screw things up they fall apart. If things fall apart then you're under the skin of the world. And when you reemerge when things come together again they come together differently. Different than before. So what does this mean it means he wants to fail. Believe it or not. He aspires to failure. It's possible however he realizes to fail at failing. Or to make of it a howling success.
In this, his first novel, Roberson rewrites Ronald Sukenick's classic fiction of the sixties, 98.6, simultaneously parodying earlier experimental life and art, while exposing present day vacuousness and alienation. It's a hilarious send-up of American narcissism, wherein Roberson brilliantly reveals video culture and the web-cam as nineties embodiments of metafictional self-fascination.
"I wouldn't have thought it could be done." - Ronald Sukenick
"Trying to successfully bring off a novel-length homage to a work as formally audacious, influential, and truly peculiar as Ronald Sukenick's mid-seventies avant-pop masterpiece, 98.6, would seem to be a task best undertaken by writers who are either fools or fearless major talents. Fortunately Matthew Roberson clearly belongs to the second category. " - Larry McCaffery
"Matt Roberson's 1998.6 is a funny and intelligent avant-pop appropriation and recapitulation of Ronald Sukenick's landmark innovation from the seventies. The result is an extraordinary exploration about how everything and nothing has changed." - Lance Olsen
Matthew Roberson's novel 1998.6 takes what must be the dullest subject on earth--the lives of graduate students--and turns it into a fascinating exploration of modern life. Stylistically, the novel is very challenging, pushing the borders of what even the most committed readers can deal with in a novel. The names of the characters change so that it is often difficult to follow who is doing what. But the prose style and the psychology of the characters are what really make this novel hang together.
1998.6 is loosely based on Ronald Sukenick's mid-70s experimental novel 98.6 and offers much the same challenge to the reader. Roberson's novel creates a mini-world contained within an old house where a group of graduate students live their lives while trying to finish school, maintain their relationships with the others, and somehow find meaning in a rather meaningless existence. The novel is both philosophical and psychological in its exploration of their lives.
This is a novel that every educated person should read once, but reading it a second time will require a level of commitment that is hard to find, except perhaps from someone (like the character in the book) who is writing a graduate school thesis. This book is a challenge, but ultimately a rewarding one. - Charles Willett
1998.6 is loosely based on Ronald Sukenick's mid-70s experimental novel 98.6 and offers much the same challenge to the reader. Roberson's novel creates a mini-world contained within an old house where a group of graduate students live their lives while trying to finish school, maintain their relationships with the others, and somehow find meaning in a rather meaningless existence. The novel is both philosophical and psychological in its exploration of their lives.
This is a novel that every educated person should read once, but reading it a second time will require a level of commitment that is hard to find, except perhaps from someone (like the character in the book) who is writing a graduate school thesis. This book is a challenge, but ultimately a rewarding one. - Charles Willett
1998.6 (2002) by Matthew Roberson—published by Fiction Collective Two—is a parody of 98.6 (1975) by Ronald Sukenick, as a young novelist obsessed with the works of Ronald Sukenick rewrites his innovative novel using the same structure, and even the same poetic diary format in the first section of the novel entitled: Frankenstein. Matthew Roberson has written an innovative novel that at moments verges on insanity in a humorous way, and is inspired by the writings of Felix Guatarri on schizophrenia. 1998.6 (2002) by Matthew Roberson is an example of the new trend in fiction where one author takes on another in an overzealous approach to follow in the footsteps of his model: a form of unresolved Oedipal complex where the young man is contending with the writings of the authoritative father figure. Young writers may go through this stage of development when they are seeking their own literary voice, and in 1998.6 (2002) Matthew Roberson has written a work of innovative fiction which he calls "A rewriting of Ronald Sukenick's 98.6," exemplifying the new trend in humorous interaction that verges on the exact replication of a favorite book.
In the first section called Frankenstein the youthful narrator sets out to write like Ronald Sukenick, even structuring his novel exactly like 98.6 (1975) by Ronald Sukenick, and it seems he has given in to the temptation to rewrite. Is this a form of scholarly devotion which has become an obsessive theme for the impressionable young mind of the narrator? Or is this a challenge to the domination of the father figure? A challenge which verges on plagiarism?
9/12 a shadow solidifies in the mist. The beach perfect in size and shape a half moon with white white sand. The sloop tacks struggling into the harbormouth wallowing in the swell a jagged open wound on its front port side.
1998.6
Matthew Roberson
This is an exact replication of the poetic style of 98.6 (1975) by Ronald Sukenick, and is it worth emulating for a young writer who is setting out to write an innovative novel? This is the procreative desire to create a novel just like your father, and may also be a subtle way of becoming a son: thus the resemblance in style reveals an unconscious desire to follow the model work. The generation of the Children of Frankenstein have had their own children making this novel the grandchild of the larger narrative tree.
Although 1998.6 (2002) by Matthew Roberson is a re-writing of 98.6 (1975) by Ronald Sukenick, it is still a sincere novel with a good hearted narrator who has a sense of responsibility, and while he lives in the Mansion in a communal living situation he is focusing his attention on novel writing and grad school. The character Cloud is trying to be productive, one of the main themes of 1998.6.
First things first Cloud's got work to do he's got a chapter due he's got books to read he's got email to write he's got to keep his focus. Cloud's got a thing about focus he thinks that if he keeps his mind at all times one way or another turned towards one end his project his ideas then he's focused he's devoting his every available energy to a specific goal.
1998.6
Matthew Roberson
The narrator's strategy is to become established in his career as a novelist, a teacher, or a property manager. Goose feels a sense of intellectual responsibility, so that his desire to finish the novel properly is not defeated by the idea of grad school. As a metafictional novel the narrator shows a sense of self-reflexivity in this passage:
...Goose can't have the Children of Frankenstein end this way. It's not finished and if it's not finished then there is no chance that he can finish. Graduate school that is he'll have to pack it all in and start a whole new chapter no pun intended. Really thinks Goose this is not funny this is very serious. There's a lot at stake here so. Fine. No more livecam he'll go back to writing the kind of novel he was writing in the first place. So. This is it. This is the novel.
1998.6
Matthew Roberson
The sentence structures show the charm of the narrator, who is like a father guiding his family members towards success: a quality similar to Dada, yet with the individuality of style that has become the informal prose of the innovative American novel. According to Jerome Klinkowitz this is a way of "testing" reality with the use of acquired stylistic structure, and perhaps even a way of expressing an unconscious desire.
This testing prompts Roberson to use fomal elements from Sukenick's subsequent work, including the propulsively run-on sentences of Out (1973) and other momentum-building devices from The Death of the Novel and Other Stories (1969). Revolutionary back then these methods are commonly accepted now, and Roberson can use them quite naturally.
The Resettling of Sukenickland
Jerome Klinkowitz
Each sentence in 1998.6 (2002) by Matthew Roberson is a development of Ronald Sukenick's style with the lovable "run-on" sentence structures, and the use of a "live cam" to record events at the Mansion: a technique similar to the tape recorder in Roast Beef: A Slice of Life from The Death of the Novel and Other Stories (1969) by Ronald Sukenick. As a re-writing of 98.6 (1975) by Ronald Sukenick, 1998.6 (2002) by Matthew Roberson is a lesson in creative writing in which the young novelist has developed stylistic techniques as a humorous approach to re-writing. Why re-write a novel in the first place the reader may ask? If this novel is a narralogue, defined as a narrative with a concept, then what is the esthetic theory that guides each sentence of 1998.6 (2002) by Matthew Roberson?
Part memoir, part novel (you see the parallels building), this earlier novel is like much of Sukenick’s writing, an experiment in free expression: a text that proclaims writing, as Sukenick did himself, to be a liberating impulse where spontaneity was the only rule.
The Modern Word - 1998.6
Steve Tomasula
The sense of freedom to write a novel with creative names like: Goose, Cloud, Branch and others, is a form of literary abstraction similar to Abstract Expressionism in painting, where the characters are simplified abstractions of concrete nouns. This is a way of giving an exact concept to each character, so that to imagine the novel is to create a visual canvas of abstract characterizations.
1998.6 (2002) by Matthew Roberson also seems to be a form of Pop Art where a brand name object like the novel 98.6 (1975) by Ronald Sukenick becomes the subject of the novel: like the painting Campbell's Soup Can (Tomato) (1962) by Andy Warhol: an object like any other to be admired, re-written, emulated in the context of innovative fiction.
Is there also a challenge to the authorial rights of Ronald Sukenick that is inherent in the re-writing of his novel? We find the trend of appropriation—originating in the philosophy of Jacques Derrida—which is defined as the idea of developing themes from other novelists, a concept that Lance Olsen has followed in his recent work.
My novels were atypical, in that they both started with clear forms. The first book rewrites a brilliantly weird period novel by Ronald Sukenick, so I knew already what my book would look like: formally, at least, it would look a hell of a lot like his.
The Collagist
Matthew Roberson
Reading 1998.6 (2002) by Matthew Roberson I am reminded of my own novel-in-progress The Convergence of Two Narrative Lines Ascending which was inspired by Ronald Sukenick's Long Talking Bad Conditions Blues (1979), and there is a moment where the paranoid critical perspective of Salvador Dali occurs, as the events of contemporary history interact with the novel writing experience.
There are moments when 1998.6 (2002) by Matthew Roberson seems to be a parody of my own efforts at Ronald Sukenick scholarship, and with the use of long composite words which reveal the characters of 1998.6 (2002) possibly looking in on my novel-in-progress: the novel has become a happening of intertextuality where everyone is hanging out.
1998.6 (2002) by Matthew Roberson is a new genre of novel based on the idea of re-writing, and I read it with appreciation for the sense of humor of the narrator, and there is an original novel being narrated here which I enjoy for its cool characterizations, and stylistic phrasing. I think Matthew Roberson has written a modern American classic of innovative fiction that shows the potential of a novel to become a work of abstract characterization, with the desire to replicate not only a place and time, but another novel in exact likeness.
David Detrich lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where he has just completed The Convergence of Two Narrative Lines Ascending, an ultramodern Surrealist novel written in minimal squares. This year he is working on Dream the Presence of the Circular Breast Starfish Topography, a monumental Surrealist novel written with innovative typographical design. His first novel Big Sur Marvels & Wondrous Delights (2001) is available from Amazon. He is the editor of Innovative Fiction Magazine and Surrealist Star Clustered Illuminations.
David Detrich lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where he has just completed The Convergence of Two Narrative Lines Ascending, an ultramodern Surrealist novel written in minimal squares. This year he is working on Dream the Presence of the Circular Breast Starfish Topography, a monumental Surrealist novel written with innovative typographical design. His first novel Big Sur Marvels & Wondrous Delights (2001) is available from Amazon. He is the editor of Innovative Fiction Magazine and Surrealist Star Clustered Illuminations.
- David Detrich
Matthew Roberson, Impotent: A Novel, Fiction Collective 2, 2015.
read it at Google Books
excerpt
Impotent is a collection of moving stories about a time when "it is easier to get a refill on a prescription than approval for therapy" and individuals are reduced to letters on a medical chart. In revealing vignettes, Matthew Roberson clinically catalogs the hopes, dreams, and failures of people identified only through form-like abbreviations (C— for co-dependent, I— for Insured). In these "case studies," Roberson captures his subjects' lives poignantly by supplementing their diagnoses with unconventional footnotes, lists, and medicinal warnings. Each vignette exposes a different facet of our medicated society, humanizing a multitude of conditions: depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, impotence, and dementia. In a world of domestic ennui, deadpan voices struggle to transcend numbness while simultaneously trying to manage the pain of living. Impotent is both important social commentary and engrossing fiction.
"Matthew Roberson’s Impotent contains sharp, energetic writing, as well as cleverly structured narratives that keep a strong hold on the reader’s interest. The book reaches, too, for a larger message: We’ve become a society that relies on pharmaceuticals, and our culture has become so commercial that we look to products to solve our problems, instead of ourselves."—Hannah Tinti
"As the fictions in Impotent accumulate, the book graphically decays, morphs, becomes ruined in front of your eyes. Matthew Roberson’s work is, in a way, a rewriting of Frankenstein but Impotent is the monster itself—-patched up, stitched, sewn together. A hybrid. A mash-up. The book reanimated. Sublime. And ‘it’s alive!’ ”—Michael Martone
On the cover, a handful of pills piled into the crevice made by the cupping of two gloved hands. Inside, a novel of individuals and families, of their different medications, both prescribed and over-the-counter, and the myriad problems these “typical” Americans use as crutches. The novel is also an attempt to capture and reveal the banality of American life.
The first chapter of Impotent is more or less an introduction to a slew of different drugs and medications used by L.— L. stands for “Last Name, First Name, Middle Initial.” Each of the novel’s central characters, instead of being attributed a name like John or Bobby, is labeled like this. This labeling creates a distance between the reader and the character, but it also serves to illustrate how an individual may come to be dehumanized by medical or insurance companies. Roberson’s choice in naming his characters this way is a means of ridiculing that tendency. These are case studies. Names on a medical file. Though it is hard to keep track of the characters with this method, each chapter goes on long enough and reiterates the name often enough that eventually the reader settles into the idea.
Unlike the multi-paragraph standard form of most novels, every page of Impotent is engaging and exciting by its very format. At the bottom of almost every page is a short description (sometimes long) to which the reader is directed by a footnote. However, unlike a traditional annotated work of nonfiction, Roberson uses these notes, sometimes themselves footnoted, to expand the text, to simply keep the story going or to provide a quick flashback. Often, the annotations at the bottom of the page are nothing more than a continuation of the sentence or paragraph from which they began. For instance, on page 92:
Roberson’s chapters are essentially separate stories. None of them ease into each other or are related to any other story besides their connection to his apparent point and aim of the novel. Each chapter serves to exemplify another aspect of what the novel portrays as a very dreary American lifestyle. One of sex, drugs, and… the depressing drone of family life. The page directly following the one above says it all:
While the content showcases the mundane, the writing style, the format, and the pacing all keep the reading drive in third gear. Impotent is a fun, quick novel with a lot to say about the dependency Americans have on pills and problems, the system therein, and the countless frustrations and dissatisfactions of family life. - C. J. Opperthauser
The first chapter of Impotent is more or less an introduction to a slew of different drugs and medications used by L.— L. stands for “Last Name, First Name, Middle Initial.” Each of the novel’s central characters, instead of being attributed a name like John or Bobby, is labeled like this. This labeling creates a distance between the reader and the character, but it also serves to illustrate how an individual may come to be dehumanized by medical or insurance companies. Roberson’s choice in naming his characters this way is a means of ridiculing that tendency. These are case studies. Names on a medical file. Though it is hard to keep track of the characters with this method, each chapter goes on long enough and reiterates the name often enough that eventually the reader settles into the idea.
Unlike the multi-paragraph standard form of most novels, every page of Impotent is engaging and exciting by its very format. At the bottom of almost every page is a short description (sometimes long) to which the reader is directed by a footnote. However, unlike a traditional annotated work of nonfiction, Roberson uses these notes, sometimes themselves footnoted, to expand the text, to simply keep the story going or to provide a quick flashback. Often, the annotations at the bottom of the page are nothing more than a continuation of the sentence or paragraph from which they began. For instance, on page 92:
E. didn’t want to forget she liked the newspaper, and that she liked chili with jalapeños and talking to her sister on the phone at night.42 She enjoyed sex once.43
It changes you, she said.
42 After only a little of the Times on Sunday, E. lost focus and started thinking of mowing the lawn, and she didn’t like kidney beans anymore. She couldn’t ever, ever stay up past ten.¹
¹Continue to take parozetine and talk to your doctor if you experience:
• impaired concentration;
• changes in appetite or weight;
• sleepiness or insomnia; or
• decreased sex drive, impotence, or difficulty having an orgasm. Side effects other than those listed here may also occur.
43 but lately her clitoris had less feeling than a pinky toe.The entire novel is constructed in this experimental format. One section even forces the reader to turn the book sideways in order to read it. In this fashion, Roberson engages his readers playfully, even aggressively. He pushes the reader into a discontinuous reading experience, which some may find off-putting. This, it seems, is the point. Reading pill bottle label after pill bottle label is much like this process. This is just one element of Roberson’s satirical take on the entire world of medical procedures, and it fits well with the content of the book.
Roberson’s chapters are essentially separate stories. None of them ease into each other or are related to any other story besides their connection to his apparent point and aim of the novel. Each chapter serves to exemplify another aspect of what the novel portrays as a very dreary American lifestyle. One of sex, drugs, and… the depressing drone of family life. The page directly following the one above says it all:
I wasn’t always fat as a house, L. said.This true-to-life, conversational tone of these characters’ speech is present throughout the novel, and Roberson does an excellent job of making each character both mundane and believable. The same tone is also employed by the narrator, which is always in third person. That tone is important. It not only helps to tie the different chapters and corresponding families together, but it creates a continuous echo of the novel’s theme. It is a constant hum, a weary but recognizable mood that American families know very intimately.
You’re not, said E.
Kids change us, L. said. Age changes us. Jobs. Friends.
I know, E. said.
While the content showcases the mundane, the writing style, the format, and the pacing all keep the reading drive in third gear. Impotent is a fun, quick novel with a lot to say about the dependency Americans have on pills and problems, the system therein, and the countless frustrations and dissatisfactions of family life. - C. J. Opperthauser
If you’ve ever been on a mind-melting prescription drug binge, Matthew Roberson’s new novel Impotent might be nostalgic for you. But for the rest of us in docile society, this new work from Fiction Collective 2 lives up to the bizarre, psychedelic, experimental, and well-crafted reputation of the press’s many outer-rim publications. For example, Impotent opens with the recurring characters L and I, in which L stands for “Last Name, First Name, Middle Initial” and I stands for “Insured.” No character throughout the entire work has a clear name, mirroring the dehumanization that comes with the prescription drug industry.
I must be clear: there are no absolute characters in this book. However, do not fear; Roberson’s skill makes innovation much less difficult to navigate than a reader might imagine. And the lack of names or coherent individuals (and thus an excellent commentary) is only the tip of the experimental iceberg. Much like any prescription drug advertisement or commercial, a large amount of the novel’s content is found in the fine print of footnotes. Don’t let the relatively short length of this novel fool you: some pages are nearly filled with intermittently anecdotal or vastly important footnotes that either explain or seek to dilute further what is truly occurring in the patient/character’s mind.
Not only is Roberson in the brain of characters with chemically-induced insanity, he’s also in the mind of physicians, pharmacists, and drug company executives. Every bizarre aspect of this novel’s execution is meant to make the reader stop and think, “Why would he do this? It’s purposefully confusing.” Impotent is not at all a story to get lost in. You will not forget you’re reading an experimental work about prescription drugs. However, that’s the true aim of Roberson: to wake the sleeping masses to the elusive and manipulative tactics of the prescription drug industry.
Beyond the social commentary of the piece, there are real consequences present for the individuals within the novel. More drugs than I ever imagined are introduced, tried, and perhaps explained. Horrendous side effects or withdrawal symptoms such as weight loss/gain, irritability, depression, suicide, ulcers, cancer, and a disgusting array of birth defects are discussed or experienced in the novel, often hidden in the footnotes. A reader will learn much more than he or she ever desired about pills.
Finding a short passage is difficult for such a stream-of-consciousness work, but here are a few short lines to demonstrate how some of the chapters are structured:
For C [child] a nurse climbed on the table and pushed S’s [spouse] stomach.
The doctor used forceps.
S screamed.
M [male] hid in a corner.
It went no better with C.While the actual events or plot of the novel might be difficult to summarize or even grasp, the message is not. Rather than lulling a reader into a story’s thrilling narrative, Roberson is attempting to open eyes to the narratives American society has already been lulled into. This work of fiction seeks to destroy the false safeties readers imagine in their healthcare system. I’d think twice before downing that Percocet. But don’t think twice about picking up this book. - Caleb Tankersley
https://www.newpages.com/book-reviews/book-reviews-index/item/3902-impotent
Post Modern Medicine: A Talk with Matt Roberson
Matthew Roberson, List: A Novel, Fiction Collective 2, 2014.
read it at Google Books
Vignettes of a middle-class American family told through lists, each reflecting their obsessions, their complaints, their desires, and their humanity.
A suburban family of four—a man, woman, boy, and girl—struggle through claustrophobic days crowded with home improvement projects, conflicts at work and school, a job loss, illnesses, separation, and the wearying confrontation with aging. The accoutrements of modern life—electronic devices and vehicles—have ceased to be tools that support them and have become instead the central fulcrums around which their lives wheel as they chase “cleanliness” and other high virtues of middle American life.
In Matthew Roberson’s hands, the family’s list-making transcends the simple goal of planning. Their lists reveal the aspirations and anxieties that lie beneath the superficial clatter of everyday activities. Fearing the aimless chaos of unplanned days, the family compulsively compiles lists as maps to steer them away from uncertainty and failure, and yet at what point does a list stop being a map and become the final destination? The family creates an illusory cloud of meaningful activity but cannot stave off the mortal entropies that mark the suburban middle class.
A suburban family of four—a man, woman, boy, and girl—struggle through claustrophobic days crowded with home improvement projects, conflicts at work and school, a job loss, illnesses, separation, and the wearying confrontation with aging. The accoutrements of modern life—electronic devices and vehicles—have ceased to be tools that support them and have become instead the central fulcrums around which their lives wheel as they chase “cleanliness” and other high virtues of middle American life.
In Matthew Roberson’s hands, the family’s list-making transcends the simple goal of planning. Their lists reveal the aspirations and anxieties that lie beneath the superficial clatter of everyday activities. Fearing the aimless chaos of unplanned days, the family compulsively compiles lists as maps to steer them away from uncertainty and failure, and yet at what point does a list stop being a map and become the final destination? The family creates an illusory cloud of meaningful activity but cannot stave off the mortal entropies that mark the suburban middle class.
“The stories in List succeed by mixing the sting of satire with its antidote, a healthy dose of sympathy. While the stories skewer the ambitions and materialistic desires of readers, they also create an emotional landscape replete with the hilarity and humility of human vulnerability. This collection has a heart as big as the great Midwest.”―Lynne Kilpatrick
“Matthew Roberson's precise and melancholy List anatomizes the thing- and desire-cluttered world of the middle American suburbanite, a Garden of Earthly Delights perpetually overshadowed by precariously balanced piles of tools, diapers, bills, humiliation, toys, death, Xanax, kids, pets, half-finished home improvement projects, Viagra, LPs, nostalgia, and the vague sense that maybe things could still work out. Roberson demonstrates once again that he is a master of contemporary sadness.” ―Michael Mejia
“The fictions comprising Matt Roberson's List―spare, comic, haunting, addictively readable―revolve around the gadgets, mad cleanliness, and bland vans unable to hold off the deadly everydaynesses called the suburban middle class. The characters find themselves shell-shocked by the vacant lists their worlds have become. They try to convince themselves something can always change, but the narratives they inhabit prove it can't, it doesn't, things will just keep on keeping on.” ―Lance Olsen
Synopsis—Vignettes of a middle-class American family told through lists, each reflecting their obsessions, their complaints, their desires, and their humanity.
A suburban family of four—a man, woman, boy, and girl—struggle through claustrophobic days crowded with home improvement projects, conflicts at work and school, a job loss, illnesses, separation, and the wearying confrontation with aging. The accoutrements of modern life—electronic devices and vehicles—have ceased to be tools that support them and have become instead the central fulcrums around which their lives wheel as they chase “cleanliness” and other high virtues of middle American life.
Melanie Page: Could you tell me a little about the origins of List? How did you begin this work?
Matthew Roberson: The book started as a series of stories. I originally figured all the stories would revolve around “middles”–being middle class, in the Midwest, and middle-aged, stuck in the middle between children and aging parents. As the book went on, the male character was between jobs. The parents eventually in the middle of a divorce. I was really taken with the title, Lucky Middle. But then I noticed that the real unifying element of all the stories were the lists. Every story was built around a list. So, I kept on with that.
MP: What are some ways List is different than your previous novels?
MR: List is more straightforward, both in the prose and the overall construction. My previous books really toyed with sentence and form. One used very few periods. One was chock-full of footnotes. List is much more direct, though I did work very hard in it to make every sentence count. Some part of me wants to believe the book is as much poetry as fiction.
MP: In his blurb on the back of List, Michael Mejia writes, “Roberson demonstrates once again that he is a master of contemporary sadness.” So, sadness is a theme you’ve worked with before? What is it that draws you to write about sadness?
MR: As a person, I’m pretty chipper. And lucky. I’ve got a wonderful family, a career I love. I think, though, that in between our more upbeat moments, if we’re watching carefully, the world reveals itself to be awfully unfair, disappointing, heartbreaking, in small ways. And I like to capture those small frustrations, because they’re the ones we all share and can recognize—and they can also be funny, in a lot of cases, because they’re not world-ending catastrophes. For example, you’re middle-aged and will never now be able to learn to play a musical instrument the way you could have if you’d applied yourself earlier. And you really want to learn. And you won’t. Heartbreaking. And ridiculous. And, no, that’s not something I’ve yet written about.
MP: The houses in List almost becomes characters themselves; they are ever-present as things that need care. Could you talk a bit about the relationship between owners and houses?
MR: Damn houses. They’re the neediest goddamn things. I work like a dog all week so that I can get all my work work done, so that I can spend the weekend fixing my fence or putting heating coils on the low pitch of the roof, so that we won’t get more ice dams that will bust through and leak into the downstairs bathroom. You know what I mean? Constant maintenance. And that’s not even getting into the various improvements, which you want to do to make quality of life okay. A new backsplash in the kitchen. Floors that are refinished and don’t splinter into your socked feet. And you know what? Some people enjoy doing that maintenance. Not me.
MP: The story of fathers glued to couches, mothers who feel underappreciated, and kids who fight over what to watch on TV is pretty familiar. How do you go about “making it new” and appealing to readers?
MR: Right?! Sometimes I wonder if I’m just rewriting the Cosby Show for the contemporary world. But then I think about two important sides to what I hope I’m doing. On one side, I’m showing the frustrations of domestic life in a relatively stark, honest ways, and the showing is all about digging into complicated characters. I hope there’s a level of frankness in my work that’s new. And on the flip side, I try to show all this in a constant humor that’s not unkind but about absurdity, and I really believe my humor is my own–true to my voice.
MP: Domestic fiction is largely written by women (Lynn K. Kilpatrick, Kelcey Parker, Jane Shapiro). Very few men get into domesticity as a main setting or theme. Could you talk about your choice to explore this territory?
MR: On one level, it’s “write what you know.” For the last fifteen years or so the most important part of my life has been my family and raising our kids and walking the dogs, so I necessarily want to focus on what that experience is like—especially for a man who’s much more involved in that world than men typically used to be. I don’t, of course, write about my own experiences, but I do draw from them to tell a larger story. And, also, as I try to show that world to readers, maybe I can start to figure it out better for myself. There’s that selfish component.
MP: Who do you imagine as your audience for this book? Would List make a good book club pick?
MR: A couple of local book clubs have read it, and they’ve let me know in a couple ways that a) they liked it! and b) it made for good conversation. Where b is concerned, I think List really does dig into a lot of familiar frustrations we all face and will certainly allow readers to relate and share their own experiences. Both clubs were women’s reading groups, by the way. I don’t know if that’s relevant. You don’t run across a lot of men’s reading groups. That’s kind of a shame. One of the women from one of those groups talked to me at a separate event, and she said the book really gave her perspective on the male domestic experience. I’d hope it would do the same, flipped, for male readers. The woman I spoke to also said that List made her feel a terrific sympathy for her husband. Alternately, it also made her feel like she really needed some time away from him. I think she was kidding! - Melanie Page
https://pankmagazine.com/2014/10/15/virtual-book-tour-list-matthew-roberson/
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