The Way They Talked the Night Away As part of my previous job with John Smith & Son, it was my responsibility to order the new fiction for the shop in which I worked, and as a carry-over from those days, earlier this year the Fourth Estate rep passed me an advance proof copy of Michael Kimball’s The Way the Family Got Away because in his words “you like Faulkner, don’t you?” Since I drew a blank trying to locate some biographical detail for my review of the book located elsewhere in The Gray Room, I decided upon contacting Michael Kimball directly, and after a brief flurry of e-mails between his publisher and then Kimball himself, shortly after midnight in the first few minutes of Thursday 17th August 2000, I called him at his home in Lubbock, Texas. This is pretty much a direct transcript of that telephone conversation, albeit edited by us both for brevity, continuity, and because we neither of us liked everything we said. Michael Kimball: Hello? Marcus Gray: Hi. Is that Michael? Kimball: This is Michael. Gray: This is Marcus. Kimball: Where do you want to start? Gray: Well, you said in an e-mail about this book proving to be a bit of a problem with people? Tell me why. (pause) I’m sort of wary about some of the stuff I’m curious about with this book. How much personal stuff is necessary to know about any particular artwork? Kimball: Well, to answer one part of it, in the most basic way, I don’t think there needs to be anything known of a particular artist to understand a particular artwork. Gray: Right. Kimball: But in terms of this particular book, it has caused different issues with different sorts of people. For instance, an obvious one might be my family trying to read themselves into the book, and while there are certain details from my own childhood, the only real family resemblance has to do with the first sentence of the book, which comes from a story my grandfather used to tell me. It was actually a story that his mother told him; she was the little girl and it was her little brother who died of yellow fever in Mineola, Texas. And so there is real family history, but there isn’t anything else for the family to object to, I don’t think. I think the real obstacle that a book like this creates happens simply because it is different. When you finally put yourself out there in the published form of a book, and people look at it, then you get everything from resentment to dismissal to envy and in some very few cases actual admiration and congratulations for having written something that really is different. Gray: Uh-huh. Kimball: The thing every artist is trying to do, and only a few actually do it, is be original and different and significant. I guess it’s presumptuous on my part to say that I’ve done it, but I feel that I have, and so that’s what I was thinking of in the e-mail. I guess in even another way there are people who look at me a little strangely, because of certain things in the book. Gray: Yeah? Kimball: (laughs) Gray: (laughs) Kimball: There are certain scenes, the embalming scene, or when they pack the baby up in the trunk, the boot, or playing with the dead baby, those sorts of things seem to make people think that, if you write about something like that, well, there’s something wrong with this guy. Gray: (laughs) Kimball: So, I’ve gotten a little bit of that. Gray: Is that on a personal level, or is that in review coverage? Have you had review coverage which says, this guy must be crazy? Kimball: It’s mostly on a personal level. On a review level, reviewers respond pretty well to those scenes. Gray: Yeah. Kimball: These people are reading all of these books all of the time, the same stuff over and over, so, to actually have an embalming scene, or the scene where they get the baby out of the trunk and play with it, things like that are new to the reviewer. Gray: I have (sighs) some notes written down here but I’m loathe to stick to them. But this scene with them getting their brother out of the trunk, there seems to be a split somewhere in the book, between what the boy is telling us, and what the girl is telling us. Is this intentional, or is this something I’m reading into it? Kimball: How do you mean split? Gray: Well, there are two key scenes. There’s that one and then one later when the little girl mentions that they steal another baby. Neither of these scenes are mentioned by the little boy. Kimball: (long pause) Gray: Is that right? Kimball: That’s right. I never intended for plot to be read merely as plot. (laughs) Gray: (laughs) Kimball: Or the things that happen to be read merely as the things that happen. I really am trying to answer this question. (laughs) The way the narrative moves depends on the specific trope of each of the children, and the book reaches a point where, for the girl, her trope takes her out of what recognizes recognize as the real world. She goes further and further away into fantasy. Gray: Are you saying that things don’t happen but she imagines them? I mean, my take on it was that the boy, being slightly older, he’s aware that there are some things that you don’t talk about, and stealing another family’s child is something that you just don’t... It’s not something that you put in your book. (laughs) Kimball: (laughs) I’m not saying things don’t happen. I’m trying to say that her understanding of what is happening goes to extremes. Gray: Right. Kimball: Does that make sense? (laughs) Gray: Right. So, I looked at the map tonight, as part of my preparation for this. (laughs) Kimball: (laughs) How many places did you find? Gray: Oh, I found a fair number of them. Kimball: (laughs) You must have a good map. | 
