I'm going to go hit the bars early.
Hey, Billy.
Hey, man.
This guy--
It's great to see you.
--is one of the greatest songwriters.
I'm so honored that you came.
So thank you very much.
I'm honored to meet you, man.
So how many books do you have altogether?
Well, I published four, and I wrote
two failed ones between Northline and Lean on Pete.
And then I wrote a Harlequin romance.
I was kind of hard up for a lady,
and I wrote a Harlequin romance.
And then I wrote--
I always wanted to live in a wrecking yard with an uncle
that all we did is--
we'd just drink beer and he'd barbecue.
And then he'd go, hey, go get the alternator off that, or, go
get the front end off that.
And that's been my big life dream
is to have an uncle like that.
And I can't figure out how to do it,
so I wrote two novels about that--
[LAUGHTER]
--that weren't any good.
And then I wrote a novel about a psychotic, alcoholic used car
salesman who hates the guy across the street,
kind of inspired by Used Cars, the great Kurt Russell,
epic, Oscar-defying movie.
So I did that.
And I've written I guess three feet of short stories,
if you stacked them up.
And I maybe have one or two that are decent out of that.
So a lot of mediocre stuff, but--
Yeah.
--yeah.
But a lot of good stuff, too.
It depends what day of the week it is.
Some of the stuff I like.
A lot of it is best-- you know, the Harlequin romance?
I actually destroyed all the disks, and I burned it.
But it was the most fun.
If you're ever hard up, I had a girl
that loved everything I said.
And we had a speedboat.
And we had a ton of money, and we
were going to buy an airplane.
But that was in volume two, and then I quit.
[LAUGHTER]
I can't wait to read your stuff, now.
Oh.
Jake's dad has been a fan of yours.
And it was before I heard your stuff, he was telling me,
you got to get hip to this guy, Richmond Fontaine.
He has this band, and he has these books.
And he showed me all-- he has got all your books, man.
So anyways, it's a thrill.
And I don't know if any of you have heard,
he's got the greatest Tucson song ever
called "Tuscon Kills," so I'm very honored to have him here.
Any other questions?
What's next?
[INAUDIBLE] Sorry.
What's your next book?
I'm working on-- because The Free was so hard on me,
I mean it's such a political book for me,
and the subjects were so draining that I wanted
to write a novel for fun.
So I'm writing about two unemployed--
I grew up in Nevada, and there's an area in Nevada
that I've always wanted to live in.
So I'm writing about two unemployed cowboys kind
of guys-- modern-day cowboys who just
drift into a series of mediocre and bad situations.
And it's really fun.
And they even end up--
I wanted to have it set here, so I could live in my mind here.
So one of the guys stays here for a while.
But then I made the mistake of driving to Douglas, Arizona,
and I went to the Gadsden Hotel.
And I was so blown away by it and all the clothing stores
down there that I set it mostly down that part of it,
down there, just because I wanted to live in my mind
there.
But really it's about two unemployed cowboys
who fall into some serious bad luck, kind of thing.
It's really fun, but it could be a train wreck.
And I'll know in a year or two if I
have to start over and burn that one, too.
We'll see.
I don't know.
[LAUGHTER]
I was just curious, how long did it take to write The Free?
The Free, I wrote the first draft really fast,
in like six months.
And then I spent three years editing it.
I worked on this one, I think I wrote it 13 or 14 times
from start to finish where I would just--
I always felt I was getting closer.
I never liked books that change point of views
because it always makes me think of the writer.
And whenever I think of the writer then I'm lost.
You don't ever want to think about who's
writing the story and the tricks they're using
or why they did this and that.
You just want to disappear into it.
And so, I think part of it took me so long because of that,
because every chapter was a different character.
And also, two of the characters are
handcuffed to their situation.
There's no beer drinking and rambling and drifting off
in this story.
Everybody's handcuffed to their situation pretty hard,
especially Pauline the nurse and the working class guy, Freddie.
So it took me a long time.
It's an easy way to live, no matter what kind of jackass
says writing books is hard.
It's so much easier than most anybody else's life,
but mentally it can wreck your head a little bit.
And it wrecked my head quite a bit.
So that's why I'm in the desert hanging out with cowboys now.
I know that you wrote about Spokane, Washington.
And I'm familiar with that area because of, off the top
of my head, Sherman Alexie's--
Sure.
--right?
So I know there's a reservation there,
and I was wondering if your experiences in that area
have to do with the fact that you
write about marginalized, underprivileged people?
Like, um--
It's really neat that you keep it so grounded.
I mean, I always liked working class stories.
I always wanted to read stories where I could be the hero
or the secretary could be the hero.
I guess that's why I liked Steinbeck as a kid
so much because he made normal people seem
gigantic and amazing.
And they are.
So I've always been attracted that.
You know, to be honest, why I like
Spokane is it's got the coolest name and their architecture--.
The buildings up there are amazing,
and I've just always wanted to live there...
part-time.
[LAUGHTER]
And I just think it's really cool,
so I always set stuff up there.
I like Sherman Alexie.
I was a huge fan-- one of my favorite writers
of all times, James Welch, the Montana writer.
And I think Sherman Alexie wrote a book called Flight.
And in Flight, the kid has a backpack,
and in his backpack is Winter in the Blood by James Welch.
And so Sherman Alexie is always going
to be a hero of mine for having that book in that kid's
backpack.
I think James Welch is probably one
of my all-time favorite writers, and he's got
a book called The Death of Jim Loney.
And it's the best book about alienation
and just being alone in the world.
And it's another book that I collect it,
and I give it away all the time.
And I read it every couple years.
It's a really interesting book.
Long-winded answer on Spokane.
Hi.
Oh, hey.
Hi.
Let me see if I can articulate this.
I wanted to ask you, when you opened
you were talking about what inspired you to write
The Free-- seeing the soldiers on TV
and thinking about health care.
And in one of our classes recently,
I'm in the MFA program, we were talking
about artist manifestos, and we read something by Oscar Wilde
that "all art is useless," one of his openings of Dorian Gray.
And I'm really curious to hear you talk maybe
about the opposite of that?
You said something about art maybe trying
to achieve something good.
Looking at these people's lives that are really hard
and not maybe escaping into something prettier
like a Harlequin romance.
Well, I think a lot of times the novels,
that one of its greatest gifts is
you can get inside somebody else's shoes
and not feel so alone in the world.
And also, the novel is so personal.
It's yours.
It's not like you're in a movie theater.
That's why I love paperbacks because you
can put them in your coat.
They're yours.
They're your pal, nobody else's in the world.
And then when you disappear into the world,
it's your world, too.
And you kind of shade it with what you want
and what you don't want.
So I've always believed in the novel.
It's the greatest art form that way, I think.
As far as working class issues and stuff like that,
if you read Steinbeck at 13 and 14,
you become obsessed with the work, like I did.
My mom worked at a place which was really sexist,
and she always got passed over for raises.
And she would always tell you about it all fucking night long
about it.
[LAUGHTER]
But so I got obsessed with that and guys
that work jobs that never got raises.
Then you read The Jungle when you're
a kid, and Grapes of Wrath, and In Dubious Battle,
and all these, like the Steinbeck stuff.
And Studs Terkel, Working.
I read all that stuff by the time I was 15,
and so I was a union guy at 15.
And I didn't really even know what it was.
I lived in Reno.
There was no such thing at that time as unemployment in Reno
because the casinos are doing good.
And my mom was always like, if you're sober
and you have a clean shirt, you can get a job in Reno.
But I was really obsessed with that stuff
because I knew there's nothing worse than working
for minimum wage and having some guy belittle you.
And I spent half my life working jobs
where guys would just fuck with you,
and you're making no money.
And then you realize you're just trying to please this guy.
And it makes me think, I was in Wendy's once
and this guy was yelling at the clerk.
This girl, she's 16, 17, real cute, nice,
and she was trying to figure out the system.
And any time you're figuring something
like that, that's hard.
You take a Harvard professor and you stick them
in that situation with somebody yelling at him,
he might screw it up, too.
And I remembered, this poor girl--
she's getting screwed with by this guy.
He's trying to define what kind of person she is.
And he's belittling her and making her feel small.
And for Wendy's.
And that shit happens every day, all day long.
And I just would think about just
because I think my mom was in that situation.
And like I said, my mom would like to talk a lot about it.
So those issues always stuck with me.
And I like reading about it.
I like reading about when the guy that's the janitor
is the hero, and he gets the girl, you know?
Why not?
Why can't the janitor get the girl once in a while?
I just started hating reading about guys in turtlenecks
and CEOs and shit like that.
I don't want to read about stuff like that.
That's why I like Larry Brown.
Larry Brown is the great southern working class writer.
You read guys like that and you just want to move in with them.
You want to call them up and move in.
[LAUGHTER]
Speaking of moving in, Willy, we'd
be really fortunate to have you and your family
down here in Tucson.
Yeah, we'll move in.
If you got--
I think we can find a place to put the horses though.
They actually might like it down here.
Yeah, in the winter I'm sure they would.
We got a radio station, KXCI, that'll
actually play your music.
And you got that AM station that plays oldies,
like the old, old peoples, which is what
I do lately to ease my mind.
I just listen to hits from the 40s and 50s.
So I like the movie version of The Motel Life.
I was wondering what you thought about it.
I wondered, did you participate in the screenplay
and do you have any other movie projects from your books coming
out?
Yeah, all my books, except for The Free,
are in some kind of process, I guess, of being made.
But what I learned about that is that they're
world-class bullshitters, and I think
they have to convince themselves that it's getting made.
So they try to convince you that it's getting made.
It's a pyramid scheme where you just hope that, finally, it all
works out.
So you never know.
And I don't really pay attention to it.
At first I did.
You're like, oh my god, maybe I'll
buy this and that if they make it.
And then you realize that they all say the same spiel.
The Motel Life-- you know how I found out
they made the movie was I was trying to buy a Ford truck,
and I met this guy-- this really interesting guy
who's a massive hunter, but he's also a naturopath.
I've never met a naturopath who chews and drinks
whiskey and hunts all the time.
But he's a naturopath.
But he knew everything about Ford trucks.
And so I got his number, and I go, so hey,
which year should I buy?
Because supposedly there's years that you shouldn't buy
and years you should buy.
And so I called him, and we talked about it.
And then he calls me like three days later and goes,
congratulations on-- they're making your movie.
I hear they're starting in two weeks.
And I go, what are you talking about?
He goes, my buddy's working on it.
He just headed down there.
[LAUGHTER]
And so I didn't know.
I had no idea.
So I called those guys up, and I'm like, hey,
they say you guys are making the movie.
And they're like, oh, yeah, we forgot to tell you.
[LAUGHTER]
But I made them feel guilty.
I just kept going, you would do that?
And then they flew me down, and I
got to meet Kris Kristofferson because of it, which
was a nice guilt trip.
They took my guilt trip and actually paid me back with it.
I like it.
I think they tried really hard on it.
They shot it in Reno.
All the places in the book, all the places I grew up going to--
some of which are closed now--
are forever documented for me.
I like that.
You can't fault guys for trying really hard.
And they tried really hard, and so I like it.
And I probably would have made a much worse movie, myself.
But I'm a fan of movies, I really am.
But I have no interest in that life at all,
or writing screenplays or anything like that.
I'd rather just live under my little rock
and write novels and go see the movies.
OK.
I hope you take this the right way--
No, you can--
--because, to me, it's a very positive thing.
OK.
Holy shit.
I'm having a feeling--
[LAUGHTER]
--when I listen to you talking.
I haven't read any of your books,
but I loved your reading.
It was amazing.
And I'm having a very similar feeling to when
I listen to "The River" or--
Oh, yeah.
"--Darkness on the Edge of Town."
Sure.
So I'm wondering, what is your most Bruce Springsteen book
that I can read?
[LAUGHTER]
What's like the most Bruce book?
I love Springsteen.
Yeah.
And you sound like him--
Thanks.
Well, every morning I think I'm him.
[LAUGHTER]
--this is him?
Yeah.
No, I grew up loving Springsteen.
My brother, when he left home, he had a bunch of records,
and when he was loading them into his car,
I started stealing them because he
was leaving three states away and I figured that that'd
be the best time to steal them.
Yeah.
And I stole the Greetings from Asbury Park.
I love that record.
I was like 13, and I went down to our local record store
and I said, there's this guy, Bruce Springsteen,
does he have any other records?
And it was your typical long-haired hippie record
store--
the genius record store guy.
And he came and he actually got from behind the counter,
and he hugged me, like not close, but grabbed me and go,
you're so lucky.
[LAUGHTER]
And he sent me on my Springsteen journey.
So I love Springsteen.
So I would say The Motel Life--
OK.
--probably is that, or Lean on Pete
are the two most Springsteenish.
Nice question.
And I think that's probably about as good
as it's going to get.
Probably.
Let's wrap it up there.
Willy, thank you so much.
Sure.
Thanks.
Thank you all for being here.
[APPLAUSE]