Patrick Blackburn, author of
Cupid Missed, was nice enough to agree to do a little blog interview. This is my first interview and his response was so interesting that I'm not going to edit it and splice it in with my questions. I'll just give you the whole chunk.
My questions:
OK, So I promise not to do the annoying thing where I ask which things in
the book are fiction and which are from your actual life (ie: did you
really have sex with a french girl on a train?) Nope, don't give me
specifics. That's part of the beauty of it- not knowing.
But can you ballpark the percent? 50/50, 80/20? Is that an annoying question too? Are you fielding this kind of question a lot?
Can
you speak to negotiating your relationship with the woman who serves as
inspiration for Kate? How did she react? And what are your thoughts
generally about the ethics of using real people in fiction?
Did
you wrestle with the idea of becoming vulnerable by revealing so much of
yourself in the book? Yes, it's fiction, but I imagine the people who
know you really well can recognize you in it. And readers may make
assumptions about you as if they know you. Does this make you uncomfortable?
His answers:
Your
questions are funny. You sound like, “Tell me. Wait! Don’t tell me! No Tell Me.
No…” I’m often asked about what’s true, and my basic rule is that if you want to
know, I’ll tell you. I’ve had a ton of people ask me about the sex scene on the
train. It’s the second most asked-about scene (#1 is far and away the oxycontin
scene). Since you have expressed an interest in not knowing, I will refrain from
going further on this subject.
Having
said that, it’s kind of difficult to ballpark the percent without some
explanation, but that very explanation may tell you more than you want to hear.
I’ll answer it this way: About 80% of “Cupid Missed” is true and happened to me.
However, a portion of that 80% is a little misleading—some things happened to me
at another time in my life and they were injected into the book to fit the
timeline. I’ll give you an example that I don’t think violates your request of
not knowing. The scene in Amsterdam when Matthew wanders into the sex show
absolutely happened exactly as written—only ten years ago when I traveled to
Holland with a friend of mine. And the friend was with me—I wasn’t
alone.
I
struggled with how to categorize “Cupid Missed” for a long time. I really wanted
it to be a memoir, but I knew I wouldn’t be truthful if I did that. We all saw
what happened to James Frey when he got caught, uh, stretching the truth. He
taught every non-fiction writer a valuable lesson—either it is ALL true, or it’s
fiction. Judges tell jurors that if a witness is caught in a lie, then it is
acceptable (even expected) to consider all the testimony a lie. I feel the same
way with a memoir. I thought about calling it a “fictionalized memoir,” but
found myself explaining the term more than I wanted. Finally, I came to grips
with the fact that I had a novel on my hands, It just had a lot of true stuff in
it.
The
question about vulnerability is a good one. I really struggled with that—both
for me and for the “ex” in question. First, me: I’ve always been pretty open,
but still had to give it some serious thought. Do I want the “true” events
really known by everyone? Do I want the fictional scenes to be attributed to me?
The latter is actually what I struggled with the most (Hmm…is that revealing too
much?).
Readers
are going to make assumptions about every writer who publishes a book. I’ll give
you an example: Gillian Flynn’s new #1 bestseller, “Gone Girl,” is an extremely
harsh and unsettling story of a marriage gone bad. The sex is graphic and
brutal, the language biting and raw. I found myself looking at the author pic
several times while reading and thinking, “This cute, innocent-looking,
professional woman is writing this?”
My first book (unpublished) is a mystery about someone who preys on children. I
did a lot of research and uncovered a lot of dark stuff (some stuff I wish I
hadn’t found). I worried a ton more about what people thought about me with that
book than with “Cupid Missed,” which is kind of funny considering how much truth
is my current book. I’m not sure what that says about me, but I think any time
an author puts his or her work out there, they have to deal with the knowledge
that people are going to make some assumptions about you that they may not have
made had they not read your book.
About the
ex: Three years ago, she read an early draft and really hated it. I mean, she
was pissed. She claimed she stopped reading after Chapter 10 (which to this day
I find hard to believe. Come on, if someone wrote a story about you, could you
stop reading?) Granted, it was a different book three years ago. I didn’t have
the benefit of time, so some of the scenes were raw and, well, pretty mean. Only
a handful of people know who the real Kate is, and they aren’t going to “out”
her.
About a
month before “Cupid Missed” was published, I contacted her and let her know it
was coming out. She was fine with it and offered her congratulations. Time heals
all. And I really think readers will see a little of themselves in both the main
characters. We aren’t all victim, and we aren’t all antagonist, either. My goal
was for the reader to understand what happened and why it impacted me the way
that it did, but not to totally hate Kate. Sure, she made some mistakes in the
relationships, but come on, who hasn’t?
The real
“Kate” even joked that she would come to one of the book signings, which would
make for a really interesting Q&A. I’m sure she won’t be there, but I think
the comment shows that time has given her the space she needs to be okay with
our story being out there.
