|
 Interview
with Brian
Wiprud
by Jon Jordan
Brian's Web Site
JON: Well, the first thing on my mind is the need to know
how much of Brian Wiprud is in Garth Carson? Or is it the other way around?
BRIAN: There's a little bit of me in all my protagonists,
which I think is unavoidable. I was almost named Garth, and perhaps a little more of me in Garth
than in either Sid Bifulco or Russ Smonig from Sleep with the Fishes. The idea for the book stemmed
from wanting to write a Nick and Nora Charles-type novel, and Angie and Garth are loosely - very
loosely -- based on Maggie and me. We collect taxidermy and thus frequent sundry antique stores
hither and yon.
JON: When you go to antique stores or thrift stores, do
you sometimes find things that are just so cool you have to have it, and then wonder why no one else
has picked it up?? I know I've done this, and then I wonder if it's because my taste is just so
weird.
BRIAN: Absolutely. But not just cool: hideous. Some things
are so appallingly bad...the other week I saw a pair of brown paper mache elf statues, one playing a
lyre, the other a flute, about two feet high, mounted in front of cheesy guilt mirrors. Elf
taxidermy! And it was cheap at $48 for the pair! No, I didn't buy them, they belong in a different,
scary collection, but I loved them.
JON: In addition to just publishing your second novel,
you’ve also written quite a few articles on a variety of subjects. Where have they been published,
and what are they about?
BRIAN: I have two specialties other than writing: fly
fishing and underground New York City. My publishing credits include articles on fly fishing for
"American Angler", "Fly Fish America", "Mid Atlantic Fly Fishing
Guide" and a host of others. My specialty within fly fishing are for some "off
species" such as shad and pickerel, as opposed to more mainstream fish like trout and bass.
Pretty esoteric stuff, to be honest. Articles on underground New York have appeared in "Mercators
World" (a magazine for map enthusiasts,) the anthology "Concrete Jungle" and "Tribeca
Trib."
JON: Is there some where people could go to read these? (
he asked knowingly)
BRIAN: Most of these are available for browsing on my web
site.
JON: You actually work in the New York City sewers??????
There has got to be some interesting stories you can tell about that.
BRIAN: My day job is as a utilities specialist, a
consultant, which means I'm sort of a manhole detective. This entails trying to figure out, at a
given location, exactly what utilities and other structures (like lost or abandoned tunnels) under
the city streets. It can be very interesting, but like detective work requires a lot of research and
grunt work, like long hours studying records, opening manholes and descending into sewers. I was
called in post-9/11 to try and find a way into the World Trade Center complex through the
subterranean infrastructure and find a means to search for people who might be trapped.
Unfortunately, I was unable to find any access large enough to be useful.
JON: What other kind of jobs have you had?
BRIAN: In hindsight, I'd say the most interesting would be
projectionist. I used to mess with the audience. While the audience was waiting for the lights to go
down in the theater, I'd turn them down just a little, and everybody slumped down in their seats all
at once. Then I'd turn it back up a little and - whomp - up they all come again. I'd see how many
times I could make them go up and down before someone started up the aisle to see what was going on.
I also used to edit the films a little. There's a shutter on the projector so you can black it out,
and I used to keep the audience in the dark for the opening shot of "Honeysuckle Rose"
(Willie Nelson, Diane Cannon) so that all you could hear were cows mooing in the dark for the first
ten seconds. An vast improvement. And "Herbie Goes Bananas" - alas, the last in a string
of Love Bug movies - was much improved by my rearranging of the last, climactic scene. OK, actually,
the film got a little mangled by accident, and I did some compulsory condensation of the final
chase. But believe me, the sooner the audience was out of that movie the better. By accident, I once
left out the entire second reel (out of three) of "The Main Event" and nobody noticed.
JON: When you started the books, did you plan to have them
be mysteries?
BRIAN: Is there any other kind of story? I once heard
someone characterize literary fiction as a mystery with weak characters and a weaker plot.
JON: Pipsqueak gets into the area of conspiracies. Are
there any conspiracy theories out there that interest you? Are there some that are just good comic
relief?
BRIAN: Conspiracies share certain qualities with cults
that fascinate me. I mean, in order to tow the line in a conspiracy, to keep the operation secret,
you have to buy into the guiding principle above all else, which means surrendering a big part of
yourself. Lot to explore there. Cults and conspiracies both have comic elements for those of us on
the outside because for the non-believers their cause can seem so ludicrous - fertile ground for
misunderstandings, cross purposes and humor.
JON: Garth and Angie have a very healthy relationship.
What do you think is important to keep a relationship between two people going strong?
BRIAN: His and hers mayonnaise. You didn't really want a
serious answer? Well, if you insist. I'd say a robust sense of humor and the ability to compromise.
JON: So who uses what kind of Mayo? And, are there things
about you that would be a compromise?
BRIAN: Mayonnaise is exactly what I won't compromise on. I
use a lemon mayonnaise, made in Maine. Maggie is a
traditionalist, a Hellmann's girl. That said, I should point out we share a jar of japolte mayo.
JON: Garth drives a really cool car in Pipsqueak. We know
this because of one of my favorite lines in the book, “When you drive with the top down, tin top
motorists are Mr. Magoo to your James Bond”. What do you drive?
BRIAN: Mine is a 1963 Mercury Comet convertible, red,
white top, 6cyl three in the tree. You can see pictures of it on my website www.wiprud.com.
Bought it about six years ago and never looked back. After years of driving heaps, I concluded
life's too short to drive a boring car, much less something that isn't a convertible. The car Garth
drives is a 1966 Lincoln convertible, the one with the suicide doors. I always wanted one of them,
too. One day.
JON: What gave you the inspiration for your first book,
Sleep With The Fishes?
BRIAN: I was working with a contractor here in New York
who was doing some exploratory digging for me in the street. Like a lot of contractors, he had an
erstwhile wise guy demeanor. He had a boat, and on weekends would go fishing out in the bay. One
Monday, I asked him how the fishing was over the weekend, and he said, "Me and Vinny whacked
some doormats [flounder.]" That got me to thinking "What if..." there was a mobster
who gave up whacking people for whacking fish?
JON: You have a lot of references to things nostalgic, are
you a nostalgic person?
BRIAN: Hardly. I'm not the kind of person who likes to
chat about old times or to wish I lived back when. But I am what some would call old school, meaning
I have an appreciation for the 40's, 50's and 60' styles. Take cars. Contemporary cars? I can't tell
them apart, they virtually look all the same to me. Rounded, bean shaped, aerodynamic, hyper
functional. Cars in the 50's and 60's had much more whimsical designs that appeal to me. I also have
a large collection of thin ties, the only kind I wear.
JON: I like that answer. So it's safe to say that you
don't miss the times, but you miss the stuff?
BRIAN: I wouldn't say miss the stuff because I acquire
what fits my style, where feasible, and can appreciate it even without owning it or having it be the
style of my time. And I think I appreciate the stuff more because it's now rare.
JON: Who are some of the authors you like to read?
BRIAN: I'm absolutely insane for Fraser's "Flashman"
novels, which I only discovered a couple years back. In mysteries, in the humor sub-genre? Westlake,
Evanovich, Coben, Fitzhugh. Outside of that it's Lee Child and Steve Hamilton.
JON: I’m guessing from your web site that you are a bit
of an outdoorsman. Is that how you spend a lot of your free time?
BRIAN: Inordinate amounts of time April to October
tromping around in rubber waders through rivers, creeks and marshes, chasing fish with a fly rod. Or
rowing miles and miles to far flung spots, hauling the boat over beaver dams and rowing some more. I
also do a fair amount of outdoor photography, especially of birds and fish. You want to find a
cuckoo or a pileated woodpecker nest, you have to get way back in that swamp. People always think
about fishing as being relaxing, but for me it's akin to an "Xtreme" sport.
JON: And let’s see if I read this correctly, You have
“ Brooklyn's largest collection of taxidermy “ in your home?
BRIAN: That's a fact. Everything from a curassow to a
kangaroo rug. If you include skulls, we probably have over a hundred pieces in an apartment that's
about 750 square feet. It's cozy.
JON: I'll bet you get some interesting reactions when
people come over for the first time. Has anyone every freaked out and had to leave?
BRIAN: Our contention is that taxidermy is art, and a
collection is a sum of it's parts. An art collector can collect velvet paintings of clowns even as a
taxidermy collector could collect amphibians playing guitars. Some art can be creepy, whether made
of paint, clowns, or frogs. People have been apprehensive and then found that our collection but
almost universally find it quite stunning. We've never had anybody freak out, but then again we
don't know any PETA enthusiasts.
JON: If a movie were made of your life, who would play
you, and who could you see as Maggie?
BRIAN: A film of my life? Pretty lousy screenplay with no
villains. So let's start with a villain for my life, say Larry Block. And let's throw in a sidekick
for me - Paul Rubens. Bruce Campbell can play me, and Maggie says Lucy Lawless would be good for
her.
JON: Is it difficult living with a 23 pound cat?
BRIAN: You mean that black and white ottoman in the living
room is a cat?
JON: What will we see from you next, A sequel to Sleep
With The Fishes, or Pipsqueak, or something new? And could you write a little faster please?
BRIAN: Dirt Nap is next, and is the sequel to Sleep with
the Fishes. A private hunting and fishing club hires Sid to solve their poaching problem, and the
cure may be worse than the disease. The sequel is considerably longer than the first, and thus the
complexity level goes up, making it more difficult to finish. I have the rough draft, but have a lot
of tweaking to do. Unlike PIPSQUEAK, writing in third person is a lot more difficult for me because
I have to jump in and out of a bunch of people's heads, and the timeline has to be kept straight of
who is doing what when, and exactly what their motivation is. Like Sleep with the Fishes, Dirt Nap
is full of mix-ups that require no small amount of fine-tuning the characters to make hit on all
cylinders. Any publisher out there that wants me to work at this full-time and make it all happen
faster, you know where to reach me.
JON: What would you consider a must for a complete music
collection?
BRIAN: My jukebox includes surf music, mambo, soundtracks,
swing, rockabilly, some lounge and alternative country. For brevity's sake, I'm going to whittle it
down to ten albums, which is still a woefully deficient collection:
"Havana 3 AM" Perez Prado
"Night Beat" Tito Puente
"Viva Los Straitjackets" Los Straitjackets
"Ramonesmania" Ramones
"Beethoven's Nine Symphonies" Cleveland Philharmonic
"The Good, The Bad and the Ugly Soundtrack" Ennio Morricone
"Full Western Dress" Derailers
"Dance All Night" Room Full Of Blues
"In Like Flint Soundtrack" Jerry Goldsmith
"Dirty Boogie" Brian Setzer Orchestra
JON: When are you at your happiest?
BRIAN: Maggie keeps the happy meter pretty high, but the
needle swings into the red zone when I find the really clever conclusion to the book I'm writing, or
when I'm having a really special and exhausting day of fly fishing.
JON: What’s the toughest thing about the writing
process?
BRIAN: Not procrastinating.
JON: What is the one thing always in your refrigerator?
BRIAN: The refrigerator: Martini glasses. The freezer:
Little Smokies.
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