Interview with Charles Dodd White

–by Denton Loving

Denton Loving:  Congratulations on your new novel, A Shelter of Others.  You’ve previously published the novel, Lambs of Men, and the story collection, Sinners of Sanction County.  Do you have a preference between the short form and the long form?

Charles Dodd White: I believe I’m best suited to compression, but I like what can be done with a longer work, especially something in the amorphous novella/short novel range. I like the idea of extensive brevity, especially the kind of control typically applied to a more developed story.

DL:  I think of you as a fairly prolific writer.  How long did it take to write this novel?

CDW:  The writing itself took about a year. It was accepted about two years before it was actually published. When the work is right, it seems to go quickly enough; however, I have periods where I’m not producing anything I like, too.

DL:  Anyone who’s read any of your other work will know that you won’t ever be accused of writing a happy book.  You have a real knack for creating characters who are deeply sorrowful and broken.  Usually, those are the characters most interesting to read about, but is it ever difficult?  Does it ever seem overwhelming to you?

CDW: Writing sad or dark stories seems to take more of a toll now than it has in the past. Maybe I’m getting soft in my old age.

DL:  A Shelter of Others is set mostly in Sanction County, which is a fictional county you created, set in Western North Carolina.  I know you graduated from Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, and you’ve been living in North Carolina ever since.  So how much of Sanction County is made up, and what parts are borrowed from real places?

CDW: There’s a pronounced relationship to Jackson County, North Carolina, though some of the place names are either invented or borrowed from other nearby counties. The stories themselves are invented, though I believe them to be truthful about that area and the mountain South in general. It’s good to have flexibility in your setting. I would never want to be accused of ethnography in my fiction.

DL:  The natural landscapes of Sanction County are not merely beautiful.  They are also the places where these broken characters of yours come closest to finding any sense of redemption.  Does that come from your own personal love of the outdoors? 

CDW: I’m lucky to live in a mountain cove, and I try to go into the deeper woods to camp, raft, or fish whenever I can find the time. I feel more myself there than in other places. I don’t understand people who don’t love the outdoors, nor care to really. I’m certain that permeates my work.

DL:  One of the most important themes in this novel is how each character searches and finds a sense of home.  Lavada grows to feel that she belongs at her husband Mason’s family’s cabin even though she came there a stranger.  And, likewise, after he’s released from prison, Mason finds his own place somewhere else.  Did you always know that this theme of home was part of the story, or did it happen more organically?

CDW: Sure, the building of homes is a big part of what this book is about. Mason, after all, is the name of a builder. But to say it was all cooked out ahead of time isn’t entirely accurate either. You’ve got to let the book become itself over the course of writing it. Otherwise, you’re just practicing pretty sentence writing. Home is something we all struggle with and likely see differently over the full course of our lives.

DL:  A Shelter of Others is told through multiple points of view.  Did you always plan to tell the story through all these voices?  Was there ever one that attempted to take over?

CDW: Yes, I like multiple POV because that contributes to tension and the messy reality of actual experience. No single person can tell the comprehensive story. Also, it’s fun to try and find the human element in even the most disreputable places.

DL:  Do you have a favorite character in this novel?

CDW: Lavada. She’s more than the mere sum of her parts. She matters in a way that’s different from the others.

DL:  I’m really interested in the character of Cody Gibbs.  You manage to make him both likable and unlikeable.  In that sense, he’s a truly well-rounded character.  Was that difficult to maintain?

CDW: Cody is in many ways a villain, but I wanted him to be a foil to Mason. There are a lot of parallels there. Maybe seeking this equity led to a fuller rendering of who he is.

DL:  When you were writing A Shelter of Others, how did you know it was finished?  Is it easy or difficult for you to let go of a narrative that you’re writing, or do you have a lot of second thoughts?

CDW: It was done when the theme had been followed out to all of its implied ends. I don’t have second thoughts about my work. You leave it as an artifact of the time it occurred in. Trying to revisit a published story is about as useful as wanting your youth back.

DL:  You’re a versatile writer.  In fact, one of my favorite pieces of your work is an essay called “Groupings” that was published last year in The Rumpus.  I admire that essay a lot, which delves into the rights of manhood and deeply explores your own life and your relationship with your son.  Can you tell us how that essay came to be?

CDW: It was an exercise in memory and an attempt to discover some outlines of what fatherhood and its failures have meant in my life. It took a lot out of me emotionally. I like writing essays. I might be better at it than other forms.

DL:  Another label that’s sometimes applied to your writing is “Appalachian.”  In fact, the first time I met you was because you were editing an anthology of contemporary writing from Appalachia.  Do you think of yourself as an Appalachian writer or a writer coming from any particular tradition?

CDW: I definitely write about the mountains, so in terms of setting, I clearly am or have been “Appalachian” up unto this point in my career. Some of my writing reflects the people I read, and many of them are Appalachian and Southern in their background. That being said, I don’t intend to set out and write Appalachia with a capital A. I just write stories I find compelling.

DL:  A lot has happened in your personal life in the last couple of years.  You’ve gotten married, and you’ve finished a PhD.  Have any of these events influenced your writing life that you can tell?

CDW: The PhD work has slowed my creative work down dramatically, and I’m excited that that’s now done and I can be better about a daily writing schedule. Being married has brought contentment and a sense that writing is only a part of my life, not its primary focus. I guess I’m more interested in being happy and a good person than I am being distinguished for my work. The writing will be there either way; however, it isn’t the anxiety it has been in the past.

DL:  What are you writing now, and what will we see from you next?

CDW: I’m working on a new novel about an elderly man who flees a nursing home and lives on the streets of Asheville. It’s called Feasts of the Sun.

 

 

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Charles Dodd White lives in the mountains of western North Carolina. He is author of the novel Lambs of Men (2010), and the story collection Sinners of Sanction County (2011). His new novel, A Shelter of Others, will be published in 2014 by Fiddleblack Press. Visit www.charlesdoddwhite.me.

Denton Loving lives near the historic Cumberland Gap, where Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia converge.  He serves as editor of drafthorse: the literary journal of work and no work and volume 4 of the Motif Anthology Series.  His fiction is forthcoming in River Styx and Flyleaf.  Follow him on twitter @DentonLoving.