Soil (33 page)

On the acknowledgments page, I thank my kids for giving me a story, and that's the truth. In that break between conceiving the story and writing it, I became a father and raised children. Suddenly, this book was about more than a dead body in a field. This became a story of redemption and purpose through growing another life. One thing they don't tell you before you become a parent—especially a father, who lacks that immediate, biological imperative that takes over so naturally in the mother—is how difficult it can be to sacrifice all or even some of your driven pursuits in the sudden, diverted interest of raising a child. Men are bound to falter trying to make this adjustment. (And women like Sandy, whose bodies are hijacked and rewired by this other life, so often get short shrift as they quietly endure it all.) This is what happens to Jay, who is so hell-bent on his plan to save the world from hunger that he neglects to save his own family. Tragically, this realization hits him too late. I like to think he would have turned his life around but for that fateful walk back from the river when he meets a stranger who has come to seek revenge for a prior misdeed.

Science, with all its benefits and hazards, is a strong theme in
Soil
. Are you naturally interested in farming technology, compost, and—well—dirt? Or was this a product of lots and lots of research?

Like a lot of people, I really became obsessed with soil and farming and composting after reading Michael Pollan's
The Omnivore's Dilemma
. It arrived at the perfect time in my life. I'd already started experimenting with a garden, but the civic possibilities intensified after I read that book. And that spiritual aspect of nature became very keen to me the more I got my hands dirty. I could understand why someone would see this benevolent manipulation of earth as redemptive and holy. With science, as with anything, I think humans are instinctively trying to do good. What interests me as a writer, though, is that point at which they cross over from positive to destructive.

Soil
has roots in many different literary traditions, and a lot of its power comes from its ability to blend those elements into a coherent whole. Who (or what) do you identify as your primary influences? How do you write your way out from under those influences, to create something new of your own?

I had a teacher in junior high who challenged me by assigning
Crime and Punishment
. Even though I didn't comprehend it fully at the time, that book changed my thinking about literature profoundly. It was the first book that haunted me. I've studied writers like Faulkner for his ambition and structure, and Hemingway for his tone and characters. From Patricia Highsmith, I learned about creating tension, and from Charles Portis, the value of comedy in observation. Another major influence for me was Barry Hannah, my teacher at Ole Miss. This is someone who embodied colorful language and daring thought. He was an enemy of dullness. If I ever feel bland and can't shake anything pertinent loose onto the page, I dip into his work. No other writer's sentences set my mind ablaze like his. He also taught me the value of listening to music as a means of training rhythm into your prose. Tom Waits, whose lyric sets the scene at this book's opening, is a tremendous influence. I'm astounded by his ability to match vivid, artful lyricism with evocative music. Working with all these influences, taking their examples and setting it all to the tempo of life here in Mississippi, that's how I've made a coherent whole.

Do you have plans for another book, or are you working on something now? Are you interested in remaining in the South, or are you looking further afield?

I'm definitely looking further afield. I'm dabbling in several different ideas, some of which take place in the wider world. But the South, Mississippi especially, is such a rich and complex place. I could write forever about this place and never exhaust the material. I only scratched the surface in
Soil
, which is set in the northeast Mississippi hills. It's a different geography and culture from the Delta, where I live now. The book I'm currently working on is set in the modern-day Delta, on a farm, though much larger in scale—180 degrees from Jay. The Delta is Mississippi in its most concentrated, potent form, and I'm taking everything— those themes of nature, society, history, family, violence, comedy—up a notch or two. It's going to be fun. Conceptually, think of a hybrid of
Moby-Dick
,
Jaws
, and
Duck Dynasty
.

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