WOW! Big time congrats to my friend Bryant Burnette for getting to interview Owen King. Check it out at thetruthinsidethelie.blogspot.com
Burnette does a really good job discussing Owen King's work, and not bugging him for details about his famous dad! The interview is serious and fun -- and at times over my head since I haven't read a lot of Owen King yet.
Here's an interesting question that I too had wondered about when I read the synopsis of Double Feature:
Burnette: You've mentioned in other interviews that the novel was to some degree sparked by the desire to explore the life of someone who'd become famous for something they didn't want to be famous for (not unlike Internet celebrities like the "Star Wars kid"). The end result is a very empathetic novel, in which we see and experience from Sam's vantage point what it would be like to have that sort of thing happen. Did your ideas about that sort of fame and celebrity change or evolve at all during the writing of the novel, or did you wind up at essentially the place you expected to wind up?
Owen King: In a lot of ways, the reason I wrote the book was to figure out how I felt about that weird, upside down brand of fame. With that in mind, I'm leery of spelling out my conclusions. I don't want to step on anyone's interpretation. I should say, though, that, ultimately, the novel keys on Sam as a character. It's not so much about how I feel about that weird, upside down brand of fame, and more about how he feels about it - and how his feelings change.
I can't, and won't, deny that the impulse was strong to ask Owen some questions about his dad (and about his mom and his brother, for that matter), but the impulse was even stronger to ask him questions about his own work. I had a list of questions that was probably twice as long initially, before I cut them down to something at least approaching an acceptable length; and the only one of them not about Owen's own work was one about his wife, novelist Kelly Braffett.
ReplyDeleteNo, I'm definitely an Owen King fan on the basis of his own work, and not merely on the basis of who he's related to.
Thanks for linking to the interview!
Hey, did you do the interview in writing or by phone?
ReplyDeleteVia email. I am a mediocre writer, but I'm a MUCH better writer than I am a conversationalist; so I seriously doubt my ability to conduct an interview on the fly. Plus, I've got no way to reliably record it!
DeleteI run the King group on goodreads and one time we read a Joe Hill book. I tried to get Joe Hill to come for a Q&A but he didn't. I think it was probably because he thought we would ask him about King!
ReplyDeleteUnderstandable. He and Owen will never be able to fully escape their dad's shadow, and I suspect they are very leery of being interviewed on that basis moreso than on the basis of their own work. I certainly would be if I were them!
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