Writers. D he is a friend and im proud to have him here for the why did you decide in what was the point for this particular book . Was it one you always knew you had to write because it involved the ideas of writing and the people, writing, that you care most about. It felt like i would always write this book but it didnt at the beginning. I went through files i had carried with me of 13 different magazines. I found all kinds of stories, photographs of the relationship i had with these various writers and i thought the best way for me to show my own writing would be to write about these writers. I started telling those stories and adding in things about the Media Business from the peak of the new journalism all the way to now, which made it a it about money so it became about that and what you have to do to be a writer but funnily, it turned into a book about writers who became my friends. Charlie does one stand out more than anybody else . George, Hunter Thompson. Those guys. Lso jim salter its a long list for me. Charlie this is a book about writers and their work and working with them. Editing is what i wanted to write about but its also about friends for it is about that also. What follows is not strictly chronological, it bounces a little. So did i. [laughter] terry i did. Charlie you call it an accidental life. Like the guy who made me an editor, his name was bob cheryl in my 20s. Always a said you have got to watch out for the classic career path in journalism. You are stuck on a beat, work your way of. He said the accidental life is where you have to take chances and get fired. That defines me. Ive never had a traditional life at all. Terry that is true. Charlie you chose ezra pound. Terry i wanted to be very specific about these writers because it was in the detail and the specifics you learned when they were really like i think. Charlie is there one common denominator they share beyond curiosity and talent . Terry no. [laughter] i have thought about that. I think the most attractive thing they had was unawareness of their talent and a pride in a which and they all had great work ethic. That would be it. They worked like crazy. Charlie everybody i know who is any good at anything works harder than you ever imagined. Terry they work in different ways. Charlie you said the second best answer and editor can give is no. Terry yes. The worst thing for a writer is when the editor strings you out and doesnt answer you. It is a horrible kind of humiliating hell. That undercuts every bit of confidence you have. Charlie tell me about bob cheryl. Terry we used to call him the other bob cheryl because there was another who was famous for a book called saturday night special. Book, the other bob cheryl, said this book about handguns was so powerful, you should hold it up to your forehead and learn how to report because it was such relentless reporting. To the other bob cheryl, distinguished from that, had come west. A little underground newspaper we said was like the Village Voice for left angeles, which it wasnt. Heorked for him there and was the one who listened to my ideas and would tell me, maybe you should be an editor. We went around and around about that. Charlie why did he say that . Liked my ideas, we used to drive around Southern California a lot and i had this car i used to drive him around in. I had able slagging convertible. Convertible. En i have been reading esquire since high school and he had come from esquire where he had first done some of his genre cracking stories and dubious achievements. He was a real force at esquire in the 1960s and still a contributing editor. Terry was harold hayes there . He was. I never knew him. I never got to work with him. Charlie also a great editor. Terry brilliant editor. Charlie clay was the one who put shopping and politics in the same. No one had thought to do that. He thereby invented the city magazine. That is what we have now. He insisted on detail. Charlie insisted on detail. Terry yes. Charlie and loved the defining profile. Terry he loved that, the highend glamour of it, loved putting up a check, going to that restaurant. He had great style and that drew not only writers to him but celebrities who wanted to be covered by him. He had great access. Charlie can you make an argument southerners have anything special in this world that we are talking about . Terry they seem to have a lot more charm and style in my business. There were many the southern editors are famously successful. Miss. Ent to duke, ole Charlie Hunter thompson. Terry yeah. Charlie tell me about the man you knew. Terry well, he was misunderstood i think because he had a persona that he loved so much that he had trouble taking it all. Veryivate, he could be courtly, sentimental even and a very good friend. Charlie that is what some people say about trump. Corley and private but has a persona he cant take off in public. Terry hunter was never a bully. Learned abouts i hunter was by observing and being drawn in with his friendship with george clumped in very few people recognized this but they were friends for a long, long time. They recognize each other right all. They have broken onto the scene at the same time with their books. Him a couple with months of each other. 63, welloth hunter athletes except was stronger, george was a better athlete. They both hated wine, loved cocaine. George used to call them the chemicals as in do you have the chemicals . Charlie they were both 63 . Terry they were. Charlie they died very differently. One in his sleep, one with a gunshot wound. Terry yes. A story that is difficult for me. It has to do with when i called hunter to tell him george had died. I had a sarah had called me that morning and told me she had woken up and there he was next to her in bed dead. She said to me he just looked so good. So i called under to tell him and i told him what i knew and i heard that grinder of that cocaine to he had begging on the table and more silence and i waited. You. Said screw and i said i know. Charlie defined george for me. Hunter was a frequent guest here. Charlie the lesson of george was that you dont leave anything to chance. Certainly not your work. And equally not what you are going to do when youre not working even if the work and the life are the same thing. By that i mean he orchestrated his going out, going to parties, giving parties, meeting this person, talking to that person. He did it with such a high joy that it was impossible not to be taken in. Madeanners drew you in and you think you were in on some of the secrets though you werent. This was funny sometimes because george could not remember names so when he saw someone that he knew he knew but didnt know their name, he would say there whoever int man and the party was greeted by that was just so proud. Onetimed, i remember george greeting one time, i remember him grading a pizza delivery guy with there is the great man and there he was. Charlie richard ford. Very muchhard ford alive and still working. He has a concentration on his work and his ability to translate things that are becomeked to things that telling in terms of the way you live your life is what i believe. Rought him we are the same age and we have a lot in common and we always try to have an exchange. Terry take a look at this clip from richard fords interview on this program. Charlie this is what you said. Extend this to strategy of extending you, having a character talked you about things that are important and willing to try and reward you. That is what you said about riding in 1945. Charlie extending means what . There were many things known so well that they werent ever seen very well. Extend you to notice things that you think you already know as a way of saying in an almost moral way, pay attention. I want to, for instance, expand your view of certain kinds of characters. If i had characters in a book who are people repair machinery and farm land and you think to yourself these people arent to write a want story in which because of the action of the story, that they are moved to eloquence. And i might extend you to believe you have more in common with someone then you thought you did. It isnt just in art or allrature, this takes place the time. I always compare it to these seven moments when somebody has to move a volkswagen and they find themselves able to do some thing they might not have ever been able to do before. I remember watching that and thinking to myself that is exactly right and i need to talk to richard about that and i called him and i believe we worked together more frequently after that interview so thank you. [laughter] charlie now i want to show you Hunter Thompson on my program talking about hemingway. The previous interview was from 1997. 1997,ith hunter is from june 13. Charlie what writer has taught you the most . Who have you learned the most from . May be the most important lesson i was trying to learn , i was tempting my fate in figuring out if i could get away with it. What i learned from hemingway mainly, the rest lesson from him , what he taught me was that you can be a writer and get away with it. And that was very important at the time. It wasnt like i was playing around. I had to be a writer. And that helps. You find that it isnt really a choice, that you made the commitment a long time ago. Charlie what is the great thing you miss that you didnt do . I always wanted to edit joan didion. I never got to do that. She is my favorite writer. Charlie as a magazine writer . Terry she started in magazine. She started at though. Charlie and made the transition from east to west seamless. And back again. And im from california and i grew up hanging around gas stations like she talks about and her voice and the way that voice developed hit me with a kind of wonder and i try to think about that voice and find other writers with the unique voice and marching through the other writers. Dwayne carter says terry has got it down on paper and has done it better than anyone anywhere. Live up to that. Terry i dont know. That is very kind of him. Charlie this is a story about writing, editing, friendship, about storytelling. Mcdonnell. What a pleasure. Back in a moment. Stay with us. Charlie marlon james is here. He is the author of a brief history of southern killings. The 700 page novel is a feat of storytelling. It was narrated by over a dozen characters. Ethic in was called every sense of the word, sweeping, mythic, over the top, complex. Optioned by hbo for a Television Series adaptation. I am pleased to have marlon james at this table. Marlon thank you for having me. Have youpleasure to and congratulations. You came about seven years ago to the u. S. Looking for a teaching job in minneapolis. Knowing you would do what . Was this in your mind . Marlon no. When i moved to minneapolis, i just wrote my second novel set in the 18th century. I hadnt thought about that before even though i was haunted by that story from way back in 1991 when i was still in college, i read this article. Timothy white wrote a definitive biography of bob marley and wrote this curious postscript when he went back to the assassination attempt and that was the first time i read anybody talk about this man and what happened to them. He still didnt quite know what happened but when of the things i think of as a novelist, im attracted by mysteries. I will never solve them but i like playing around with them. It still took me around over 20 years to get back to it but the spark was from that. Charlie in between, you wrote other novels. Marlon one was set in the 1950s in jamaica. It is about to preachers fighting for this village. One is an alcoholic, the other is possibly demon possessed. Was kind of ael slave narrative about six women who plan a slave rebellion in secret, an allfemale rebellion in secret and then we got to this one. Charlie you wrote you had a hard upbringing and thought about killing your self at 16. That is stunning to me. Marlon growing up in jamaica berger amaicas of acute homophobia, it is not that nothing necessarily had to happen to you for you to have this sort of feeling of dread. Charactersu have gay here. What is interesting about it is you didnt come out until you were 43. Marlon 44. [laughter] charlie but you knew by you were 16. Marlon before that. Im not really sure why. I think a huge part of it was just finding avenues to disappear in like for a long time, that was church. Thats a great place to disappear in if you dont want to be your self. That knocked off 10 years. Before i knew it, i blinked and i was 40. There is always some way to sort of escape it, deal with it. Charlie you connected as a writer, influenced by dickens. Who else influenced you . Charlie certainly toni morrison. Toni morrison is a huge deal. Marlon when i was a deep in church, some of the novel shame i read and i had these big rivals with the leather binding around it and i would slip my book inside it and the preacher is saying we are all going to hell and i am laughing reading the book. When i first read that book, i was so appalled by it. Guy, and am a dickens a net messing with narrative like that never occurred to me. Reading it, it gave me permission to write in a certain way. If similar way with toni morrison. I grew up in a very British Colonial education. The idea that books like those existed never occurred to me. Charlie you eventually left the church. What happened . Just disillusionment . Marlon disillusionment, change of geography. For biggeras looking answers than that. Jamaican church can be very sort , a lot of praise and worship, not a lot of intellectual thirst. Lie is it easier charlie marlon and believing that. Thinking i am sustaining myself that way says not something necessarily that i ever confronted in jamaica. Standards for moving was i just wanted to be somewhere else. Just my country but i that was all. I think years of coming into myself and just wanting more out of life i think made me start to think about what would i want, who am i, and where do i want to go. Coats, what do you think of his work . Marlon i am in awe. I just think he gets it. He doesnt get it. I have been following him for a while and even his article on preparation is the best thing reparation is the best thing said about it. People dont realize the acute nature of jamaica and i was doubly unaware in america. Our racial mess is a different kind of mess. We are far more subtle. Its a more endemic. We had it had a very british racism in jamaica. We didnt have to desegregate the school but you didnt have to have everybody is trying to get theirir skin and families light or and lighter until we are full free. You get up and write . How do you go about writing . Marlon it has been a different thing for each book. With my second novel, i got up at 5 00 in the morning and wrote until 9 00. With this, i wrote more midmorning until midafternoon and then i am done. Charlie you just exhausted yourself. Marlon i would stop regardless of where i was and what this book, i was working on a character a day. It ended up being this kind of book. In the first novel i wrote where i had to let go of my idea of what an novel should be. Beingt novel, despite written in apartheid adheres to the classic idea of an novel, the arc, crisis, resolution. Multiple characters was not the original idea. , the novel doesnt end, it just stops. Of all ofto let go that and at one point, i just ind myself i will leave it until my editor takes it out and that is how i got there. Thaned up taking out more he did. Even after he approved it, i took 10,000 more words out. Charlie because you wanted to make it leaner . That onees, in a sense of the problems of a multiple narrative is you have a lot of characters seeing the same thing. Sometimes they see it in a different way but after the fourth character talks about a killing on orange street, we get the point. That and a lot of it was trimming the fat line by line. Until i ended up with something i think worked. Charlie is it hard to distinguish your writing between history and memory and fiction . Try to i dont think i distinguish them. One of the great things i think about writing novels, even historical fiction, is i still kind of reserve the right for invention as a writer. A right to fantasy, to make things up. This was in many ways my responding to gaps in history. There are things in this story we will just never know, including the names of some of the men who tried to kill marley. When you began, did you say i am a bart about to star writing the great jamaican novel. I did not start to write a novel. I started to write a novella. Macdonald,n and ross really classic short crime novels. When did it change . I got to dead ends with these characters. They came from chicago. About myting it previous novel that i thought this one voice is going to carry the whole narrative and i kept running into dead ends. Mine, rachel is there. What you think it is one persons story . That was the turning point. It does not have to be anybody story. Or it could never be one persons. Charlie or it could be marleys story. Happenedrley thing because i reread Frank Sinatra has a goal. An astonishing essay. Under the circumstances where just by hovering around, circling the literature and the people he bumps into. You can describe him, which is what happened. To the point i didnt even need his name. The bob marley has a cold kind of novel. He was becoming too influential of figure. There are pictures on the wall. That is how much the cult of personality becomes ingrained. There are lots of pictures and africanamerican homes of Martin Luther king. Idea that people in the ghettos and the slums of jamaica could think for themselves and even to the point of forming their own government was unthinkable. The rightwing and leftwing both hated that. Much of a unifier, i think. And he was disrupting that way too much. Reasons, some the side may have wanted him to become a martyr or the races influence. The only person on the level of marley i can think of i cant think of another artist where so many foes forces are working against them at once. Different days of negotiation with some of the dangerous men in the country. , they were smoking weed. Marley is is on because ofas event the sanctuary in kingston. And these killers violating that. You show violence and sex in a rather graphic detail. Was that the reality you felt and wanted to say . Before that it think violence should be violent. Danger of sliding into pornography. I tell my students, risk pornography. Get close to it. Because its not just a matter of being visceral. Violence or real violence, it may stun the reader but it ultimately doesnt turn them off from the narrative. If the response was, that was so bad i stopped reading and never went back. As different from that was really shocking but i finished the book. That is a very fine line that you always have to walk. I think. Charlie writing female characters. Hard . Writing all characters are hard. Charlie no less or no more . You struggle with them early on . Affirming . Affirming you are doing the right thing . Affirming i think this is the loosest novel ive ever written. Two things of never been. I still consider myself a victorian novelist. I still believe