Wednesday, July 8, 2020

Allison Burnett’s The Escape of Malcolm Poe is #174 in the never-ending series called INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION


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****Allison Burnett’s The Escape of Malcolm Poe is #174 in the never-ending series called INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION where the Chris Rice Cooper Blog (CRC) focuses on one specific excerpt from a fiction genre and how that fiction writer wrote that specific excerpt.  All INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION links are at the end of this piece



What is the date you began writing this piece of fiction and the date when you completely finished the piece of fiction? I began writing it in the summer of 2012 and finished in February of 2013.

Where did you do most of your writing for this fiction work?  And please describe in detail.  And can you please include a photo? I wrote all of the novel in my house office in the Westwood section of Los Angeles.  As you can see from the photo, my office is filled with old things: mostly Depression-era paintings and furniture and a huge collection of ephemera.
What were your writing habits while writing this work- did you drink something as you wrote, listen to music, write in pen and paper, directly on laptop; specific time of day? I wake every morning at around six, drink coffee and eat fruit, and then get to work.  While I work, I drink more coffee, writing only on a Mac desktop, and I never listen to music.  I wish I could, but music interferes with my ability to hear the dialogue of the characters.  I write until lunch time.  I do this seven days a week and have for the last three decades.  

Please include just one excerpt and include page numbers as reference.  This one excerpt can be as short or as long as you prefer. Here is page one, the opening of the book.
       Walking up the Craters’ driveway, I hugged Louise close, and she grinned.  I used to love that grin.  Taking our coats, Earl Crater said that we were the only couple who hadn’t missed a single one of their New Year's Eve bashes since the tradition began two decades ago.  He waited for me to beam with pride.  I felt sick to the soul.  How had it come to this?  Year after year, celebrating hope and renewal with a pair of pitiful, old drunks.
     What a pair they make.  Earl staggering to the grave, trying not to spill his gimlet.  Estelle worse—trembling hands, yellow teeth, hacking cough.  If it were up to me, we’d have stayed home and stared at the wall, but seeing as how the Craters’ daughter killed our son, God forbid we should refuse them anything.  That’s actually how Louise sees the world.  She worries incessantly about the feelings of others, and yet for all she knows the Craters drowned their guilt long ago and invite us only out of obligation.
     I made a beeline for the bar, where I summoned small talk with three old gents in blue blazers.  What is it about elderly WASPs and dandruff?  Is it genetic or learned?  With the help of much champagne and a postcard view of the sound, I feigned an interest in golf and college football while they pretended to care where my youngest had applied to college.
       When the topic switched, as it inevitably does, to the evil of the Democrats, I began to count boats and buoys and blinking lights.  Soon I was tipsy and envious of every sailor who had ever died at sea.
     During the countdown to midnight, Louise sidled over, ready for her big kiss.  I smiled down at her with damp eyes, as though another year together were all the happiness I could ever wish for.  Thank God there were no mirrors around.  Sometimes I catch my reflection at moments like these, and I'm speechless with shame.  I shudder at how unconvincing I am.  Why doesn't she see it and slap me across the face? The party dispersed quickly—everyone eager to return to his comfy bed, one year closer to the worms.


Why is this excerpt so emotional for you as a writer to write?  And can you describe your own emotional experience of writing this specific excerpt? For me the act of writing is rarely emotional.  (Rather it is the memory of emotions.)  When it is emotional, it is usually when I have reached the last few pages of a work--the emotional or poetical crescendo. 
     This excerpt I have included here is the opening of the book.  The reason it is near and dear to me is that it was so difficult to write.  Every detail of both the content and tone had to be just right in order to set the stage for everything that follows.  I spend an inordinate amount of time on my openings as most writers do, and getting it right, as I think I did here, is profoundly satisfying.

Were there any deletions from this excerpt that you can share with us? And can you please include a photo of your marked-up rough drafts of this excerpt. As I did not write by hand, there are no rough drafts or marked up sheets.  I do all of my writing on my Mac.

Allison Burnett is a novelist and screenwriter living in Los Angeles. He grew up in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and Evanston, Illinois, where he attended Northwestern University, majoring in the Oral Interpretation of Literature.
His debut novel, Christopher, was a finalist for the 2004 PEN Center USA Literary Award in Fiction. The first installment of the B.K. Troop Trilogy, it was followed up by The House Beautiful in 2006 and Death By Sunshine in 2011.
His third novel, Undiscovered Gyrl, was published by Vintage Books in 2009.
The film version, Ask Me Anything, written and directed by Allison, was released in December 2014.
His novel The Escape of Malcolm Poe was published in 2014 by Writers Tribe Books. Allison's latest work is a novella, the sequel to Undiscovered Gyrl, entitled Another Girl.


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