Hot Mess is a monthly interview series with the world’s hottest authors
Blake Middleton is a hot mess. He’s struggling to pronounce Emil Cioran’s last name when we speak over zoom. He hasn’t listened to new music in about two years, which is why he doesn’t get the reference I throw at him about Lana Del Rey’s NFR. In Paris, he went to a dive bar called Stolly’s, where he got “some weird shot” by tipping the bartender. His eyes burned at an Irish pub “‘cos of all the indoor smoking” (Vive La France!). He’s into fragmented narratives and tells me they led him somewhere different from his debut College Novel (Apocalypse Party, 2019). “It was a much more pleasurable way to write,” he assures me of his new book An Actual Person in a Concrete Historical Situation, out from Clash Books, where he joins an impressive roster including Sam Pink, Big Bruiser Dope Boy and Tea Hacic-Vlahovic.
Middleton wears his influences on his sleeve. He used to watch Scott McClanahan videos for inspiration: “I love his shit. The Sarah Book was killer.” He’s excited for Graham Irvin’s Liver Mush (Back Patio) and speaks highly of both T.J. Larkey’s Venice (also Back Patio) and Zac Smith’s Everything Is Totally Fine (Muumuu House), praising small presses for publishing “killer books.” When I ask him why his narrator’s ambition is “zapped”, why he’s so void of urgency, he’s somewhat guarded for the first and last time during our interview: “I just went on a little hiatus for a minute.” His Chihuahuas are barking, so I guess they’re hot messes too. I point out that his new book feels very much like a natural continuation of College Novel. He agrees. “The people are definitely the same. I just look at my life and write about it.” It is meant to be read out loud, he tells me. It’s great then that he’s got two readings in NYC next week. When the question of creative licence comes up, he says that nothing in the book is “untrue” but a few lines are older than the rest. “That was from when I worked in another restaurant.” His current gig is a different story. “It’s the best job I’ve ever had,” he says. I’d tell you where it is, but this isn’t gossip girl.
Blake Middleton is a hot mess. He kept his camera off throughout our entire conversation. If his author photo is any indication he’s also hot.
You can follow him on @dough_mahoney. His DMs are open.
What propelled the departure in style from your debut?
What I was interested in changed a lot in between the two books. When I was writing College Novel, I didn't know how to write a novel at all. I would take a lot of notes about my daily life at the end of every day, constantly writing down everything that was going on. It was a lot of fun and helped me learn how to write. But that way of doing it is exhausting. You're paying so much attention to your life that you're distracted from living it. I didn't want to do that ever again. I was also struggling to write for a long time. But then I read a few things that jolted me towards this new way of writing. I read an excerpt of $50,000 by Andrew Weatherhead [New York Tyrant, 2017] that was immediately appealing to me - the spaces between the lines and the way it all juxtaposed. Shortly after that, I read an essay called The Rejection of Closure by Lyn Hejinian [Poetry Foundation, 2009]. [In it] she talks about the beginning of writing, starting from this position that the world is fast and overwhelming and that writers will never be able to mirror it with language. This impossibility is what makes everyone’s different perspectives interesting. I kept looking for more fragmented books and I started reading David Markson’s The Notecard Quartet [Reader's Block, This Is Not a Novel, Vanishing Point and The Last Novel] and I was taken by all those juxtapositions and fragments.
Why do you think this fragmented narrative mode is gaining traction?
Everyone is distracted, often by the internet or whatever. With writing like this, it’s just easy to focus and take it line by line. People who don’t read avidly, don’t finish books all that often, but when you’re writing like this, it’s something more people can finish. I just want to write something that people will read.
Are you taking a position against long books?
I don't think so. I love long books, autobiography and non-fiction books mostly, but I found myself interested in this style of writing and I don't know if I really questioned the why too much. It took me a long time to write this book ‘cos I was originally trying to write another novel and I just wasn’t having any fun with it. So after reading all these other books that I picked up, without really thinking about it, I just started writing like this and didn't really want to question it. But I really love long books too, so I wouldn't want to shit talk them.
Your narrator says that “words create problems they cannot solve.” What prompted this line of thinking?
Another aspect of this book is that it's collage-like. That is actually from The Rejection of Closure. So, that's a stolen one. I was prompted to think that by just reading Hejinian’s essay. What I always think about when I'm writing is what I want to reveal about the world. If that happens to be a line that someone else has written, and I want to share it, I'll just put it in my own book too.
Are there any writers that you think have really delivered with collage writing?
Yeah, definitely. Andrew Weatherhead with $50,000. One of my favourite lines in that book is “The night is cold and our passion for living is not well understood.” I ended up googling it and it turned out to be a Don DeLillo line. My favourite would probably be the four books that David Markson wrote right before he died, especially The Last Novel. He would spend a lot of time writing down these little snippets, maybe quotes about an author’s life or how they died, on notecards. He would just collect these and they would fill up a shoebox, then he’d spend time arranging all the lines into a book. Also, Edouard Leve’s Autoportrait [which I’ve been saying I’d read since I was 21, lol] for its consecutive declarative sentences about his life. I really love that one.
In another line, the narrator sees a condom ad that “tells me that I live in a big, sexy world.” Is this not the case (for the narrator, or for you)?
I think it depends on where you're standing. Blake Butler shared this Bolano quote, it must have been years ago now, on Twitter, but it's stuck with me. “Every hundred feet, the world changes” [2666]. So yeah, the world can be sexy. It depends on where you're at, I think.
What about where you are now?
It's definitely good. I don't know how sexy it is though. It could feel sexy at times.
When did you finish the first draft?
I stopped writing as soon as the pandemic began. The change overnight was abrupt and I was in a totally different headspace. I think the flow would have been thrown off had I continued writing. The idea of the book is that every day was basically more or less the same. Then everything changed instantaneously, so I decided to stop [writing]. I did try to continue for two weeks, but it just felt really natural to end it at that point.
Would you have carried on writing had the pandemic never happened?
I think this was a project that could have potentially gone on forever. I don't know how long I would have kept doing it. But I definitely would have written more if it weren’t for the pandemic. Now I'm picking up where this one leaves off.
As a separate book?
Yes, but also as a continuation too. I really liked the length of it because I wanted to have a little book that I could just read all at once at readings and then sell afterwards. Something that doesn't take a lot of concentration, or really any concentration, to follow. I've been to readings before where people would read stories that you’d have to try to follow the entire time, but I would always tune out and feel lost. So, I wrote a book with what I thought were the best lines. It’s what Andrew Weatherhead talks about too. I don’t want to seem like I’m stealing his idea, but I really liked that idea.
Do you think you're unable to step out of the shadow of authors who have influenced you?
I think at the beginning everyone has trouble doing that, but I'm getting away from that finally. I'm still really new to writing but I feel that I am doing my own thing now and it feels good. For this one, the format is similar to David Markson and $50,000. But I don't think it's the same ideas. College Novel was pretty close to the style of writing of my influences at the time.
What were your influences back then?
Tao [Lin] was probably the biggest one. Sam Pink, Noah Cicero and Scott McClanahan too. Those were the main four who got me thinking that I wanted to be a writer.
One line that stood out to me was “i read biographies looking for ways to live.” Is there anyone who’s life you would consider modelling your own life after?
The last two autobiographies I read were Hart Crane and this book called Dylan Thomas in America where this writer dude just follows Dylan Thomas around while he's doing readings across the country. Both would be horrible examples of ways to live, but they’re books that I really enjoyed. I don't know if there is a right way to live. I admire some people greatly. But I don't know if I would ever want to emulate their life. I think you have to figure it out for yourself. I think that's what I'm trying to do now.
Has that always been the case?
No. I did use to read biographies looking for ways to live. I always felt confused and that I was just missing something. I had a paranoid style of reading, always feeling like I was missing just a few illuminations that would help me figure life out. I was reading The Trouble with Being Born and A Short History of Decay [by Rob Doyle’s fav Emil Cioran] and there was a line which I’ll probably misquote, “You cannot elude existence with explanations. You can only endure it. You can either adore or dread it, hate or love it,” [He wasn’t that far off: “We cannot elude existence by explanations, we can only endure it, love or hate it, adore or dread it…”]. You just have to figure out how to navigate life and maybe your own way.
How did you end up naked in a rooftop pool?
I was in Tulum for a week and we managed to book a $150/night Airbnb with a private rooftop pool. There were no other people around. I just ended up naked naturally, because I was excited to have a rooftop pool and I was drunk. It seemed like the natural progression, the normal thing to do in that situation.
Give me the scene report of the reading you did at your own house when Sam Pink moved to the area.
I saw on Twitter that he was looking for a place to read in Florida, saying he’d read at a bus stop or under a bridge or whatever. I selfishly set up the reading at my house because I wanted to see him read. He was promoting White Ibis, which wasn’t out yet, so it was cool to see him read that before anyone else had a copy. The sleeping arrangements were fun. We had brought couches out back and we were reading around the fire. I had forgotten that’s where he’d be crashing. We ended up having to log this half-burnt couch back in for Sam to sleep in.
Have you done any more events since?
After College Novel came out, I went to New York to read with Ben [DeVos], my editor at Apocalypse Party. We did a reading at KGB bar with Bud Smith and Rachel Bell and another one on a rooftop in Bushwick. Bud Smith was so fucking cool. I knew he lived in Jersey City, so I asked for his help and he brought me in contact with people. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that trip ‘cause I didn’t know anyone in New York City other than a few friends. I’m up in NYC again for the NYC Poetry Fest by Clash Books on July 25th and I’m also trying to set up another reading at KGB [since conducting this interview, Middleton has arranged this for July 22nd. He will be joined by Theo Thimo, Shy Watson and Graham Irvin among others].
Why do you think Walt Whitman would have loved adderall?
I used to take adderall. I used to read Leaves of Grass on adderall and I guess that thought came into my head. I don't know what it was. He’s elated a lot of the time and adderall helps with feeling elated. Maybe that was it.
I only took it for about a year. My buddy gave me one and I wrote a 600 word short story. I spent two weeks on it. I ended up submitting it to one of the competitions we were having at school and I won $1000. I thought I should keep taking it. That was when I was 22 or 23 [he’s 27 now]. To this day, that’s the most money I’ve ever made from writing.
An Actual Person in a Concrete Historical Situation is out now from Clash Books.
Blake Middleton will be reading at KGB Bar on July 22nd @ 7 pm. Go rip his shirt off ladies.
Next up on Hot Mess: Gavin James Bower