A Single Shot

You’ve written six novels to date—1992’s The Cooter Farm, 1994’s The Elements of Hitting, 1997’s Blind Pursuit, 1999’s Deepwater, 2006’s Boot Tracks, and, of course, A Single Shot. Is there a particular novel of the bunch of which you have the fondest memories—either of the writing process; how it was received by friends, family, or more generally; or because of its association with a particular period in your life?

Each one is special to me for a different reason. I’m sure this sounds strange to people, but I feel in many ways as if a different person wrote each novel. I suppose that’s because I was at a different point in my life during the time I was intimate with each one. By that I mean while working on a novel I’m fully consumed with the particular world and people I’m writing about. It’s as if you’re spending a very intense period of time with a group of people you’ve been marooned on an island with and then they’re all rescued and go their separate ways into new lives. So each book, you’re with a new group of people, and even if you’re on the same island (i.e., writing about the same locale, which I often do), it’s through these new people’s eyes and perspectives. Or, looked at in a different way, each book is an exploration of the same world through a different writer’s viewpoint. The Cooter Farm had a unique impact on me not only because it was my first published book (after a long struggle) but because in the weeks leading up to its publication my wife gave birth to our first and only child and shortly after that my father died after a long, excruciating illness. So, I was dealing with all these conflicting emotions. And when it came out it seemed like half the people in the town I grew up in saw themselves (in a good or bad light) in it. In retrospect, I could see why some of them thought so, though no character in it (or in any of my novels) is based on any one particular person.

Have any of your working experiences had an influence in the events depicted in A Single Shot?

Well, I grew up working on dairy and horse farms and did so for many years, so I have a very close understanding of that way of life. And for a few years I practiced law in the rural upstate New York town I grew up in, which is very much the town I modeled the town in a A Single Shot after. A small-town lawyer specializing in criminal and family law can’t but help, to a certain extent, to have their finger on the pulse of the community or be attuned to the intimate details of his or her clients’ lives. And being a criminal defense lawyer—there, and in a larger city for a time—I learned a lot about criminals. And I learned the difference between people who choose, as a way of life, to be criminals (and how they think or look at the world) and people (such as, in my view, John Moon) who are basically good people who for a myriad of reasons end up committing criminal acts.

In giving interviews or answering questions in front of readers, are you surprised by the frequency of any of the topics that come up—both about your work in general and A Single Shot in particular?

Oftentimes a reader will wonder if I intended a specific passage or event in one of my novels to have a particular symbolic meaning they’ve attributed to it. Usually, once it’s pointed out to me, I see exactly why they would think so. But those sorts of thoughts never cross my mind when I’m writing; all I’m thinking about is creating the best story I can. In relation to A Single Shot, I’m probably asked most often about the ending, and why I chose the one I did. And my answer always is, I didn’t choose it, the writing of it did—and sometimes I wish it had come out a different way for John.

What would you have done in Moon’s shoes? Would you have followed the same path as Moon throughout the course of A Single Shot’s events?