Drew Buxton’s debut collection, So Much Heart, is out today from With an X Books. There are a lot of found body parts in these stories, but these aren’t gruesome tales. Bodies — or just the parts — are handled in the same straightforward manner as the arrival of a pizza or Oreos before bedtime. And when things go full-on surreal, all remains quite normal. In fact, everything is just fine here in So Much Heart. I’m not sure what to call this ultra-realistic surrealism, but I love it and I love these stories.
Buxton is a writer and social worker from San Antonio. His work has been featured or is forthcoming in Joyland, Electric Literature, Ninth Letter, The Drift, Vice, and Hobart among others. His script Bassy Gets Loose won Best Short Script at both the Independent Horror Movie Awards and the Peephole Filmfest.
I chatted with Drew over email about his collection, his love of Pat Benatar and writing into the melodrama, wrestling, and the passion that Texans have for themselves.
You contacted me in March via my website, and a few months later, I’m a fan. I want to start by asking how and when you began to think about the stories in So Much Heart as a collection. For me, even if I’m writing lots of stories, it’s hard to think of them as a book or consider how they’ll work together. Also, do you have any advice about ordering? Other than the basics — pay attention to pacing, go in strong and out strong — what was your approach? It feels so arbitrary, which is kind of a downer, but that’s just art, I guess.
I’m so glad I did! I can’t believe I’m being interviewed by Mary goddamn Miller! I remember reading Big World maybe a decade ago and being blown away, feeling lost with my own writing. I honestly haven’t thought much about how the stories work together as a book. I just finally have enough stories that I like. I didn’t go beyond the basics when I did the ordering — just stuff like, I can’t have two surreal school stories in a row. I think sometimes in MFA programs we feel the need to make stuff up to talk about, stuff that’s ultimately arbitrary like you said. I’ve never read a collection and thought, “That was great, but the order was off.”
In my blurb, I called the stories in So Much Heart “ultra-realistic surrealism.” I’ve no idea if I made this up or read it somewhere, but I want to know how you think of your work, what you would call it.
That’s such a cool phrase! I wanna go with that or maybe “grimy surrealism.” I’ve thought consciously that I want to write stuff that’s surreal but maintains the grit of dirty realism, so it’s awesome to hear you call it that. Oliver Zarandi is a writer who does this well. Of course, a lot of David Lynch stuff is great with that too.
You mentioned in your essay for Electric Lit, “I Dare You to Find the Joke in Pat Benatar’s Music,” that after getting your undergraduate degree, you didn’t have much time or energy for writing. I’ve gone through extended periods of not writing myself. How do you feel about being “a writer” when you aren’t writing? I know some people screw themselves up while others trust that the desire will return and go about their non-writing business. (I’m being disingenuous. Every writer I’ve ever known who isn’t writing is a wreck. But perhaps you’re an anomaly? Or you weren’t thinking of yourself as “a writer” at the time?)
Not an anomaly. Yeah, it’s a terrible feeling when you have the drive and ideas but no time or energy for it. But also, when I’m in the middle of something, I can’t wait to finish it and just get back to “living life,” whatever that means. Then when I finish, I try to do self-care stuff and enjoy the present moment, but all I can think about is the next writing thing. I wonder what am I chasing. What are we doing here? I don’t think anyone ever feels satisfied and done. That’s why rich writers keep cranking stuff out. I should probably just accept that I’m a neurotic writer and that’s what I do.
I really loved your Electric Lit essay. There are so many great sentences like, “It was hard to imagine [Benatar] as a kid, almost like she just came into existence fully formed.” Damn. That’s so true. The essay is filled with insights into melodrama and irony as applied to Benatar, but you apply it to other genres as well. You write, “Confrontation and sincerity, for me are the hardest things to write. My professors told me I needed more of it, but it needed to be done with a deft touch. A little bit goes a long way. I think this is great advice, but melodrama offers another option. Instead of dancing around a moment, you can push directly into it.” Where are you with confrontation and sincerity in your work? And how have you been able to “push directly into” the melodrama? Can you teach a class on that?
Thanks for reading that! Yeah, those things sound cool in an essay, but applying them in practice isn’t as clear. I think a lot about how things that happen in real life would sound contrived in fiction. Like how arguments I’ve overheard in real life wouldn’t work on the page. But now I know that if I avoid a necessary confrontation, it’s a guaranteed failure. It’s better to just go all out and maybe scale back later if needed. I’m clearly not ready to teach a class on this, haha.
I love melodrama in general, particularly professional wrestling. There is so much freedom in the storytelling. You can try any gimmick, and if it flops, you can just try a different one the next week. Believability or subtlety aren’t expected or even wanted. I used to dream of being a WWE writer, but you have to travel with the show every week, and I’m just not cut out for that life.
Please say more about being a WWE writer and your interest in wrestling (I know you’ve published poems about wrestling before). Are “wrestling poems” a thing unique to you or are there others out there?
There’s just nothing out there like wrestling. I especially love an elitist heel, typically billed from New York or LA, who trashes the local town and can’t wait to leave. Something about a guy in a suit and sunglasses smugly dismissing an entire city or state as a “dump” is so funny to me. We locals understand how it works and we boo the heel like we’re supposed to. We’re all in on it, and everyone knows their role. The heel puts the babyface through hell then eventually gets his comeuppance. It’s the plot of so many movies, but we never get tired of it.
The best wrestlers are great at two completely unrelated skills — wrestling and extemporaneous speaking. It’s a bit like improv I guess, but it’s adding to a greater storyline. I’ll stop! I can ramble about wrestling all day. W. Todd Koneko wrote a great poetry collection called The Dead Wrestler Elegies where, if I’m remembering correctly, he uses the stories of dead wrestlers (most wrestlers die young) to reflect on his relationship with his father. There’s a lot of good stuff out there talking about how wrestling is deeper than it appears because it reflects aspects of our society, etc., but my poetry is just about the storylines themselves. I think fiction is interesting in its own right!
I want to mention one last thing from your “Benatar” essay because you talk about your love of horror movies and write extensively about John Carpenter’s Christine. I’m also a horror movie fan and was reading Stephen King’s novels when I was way too young. By twelve, I’d read half a dozen of those fat, terrifying paperbacks. But my fiction doesn’t have any horror elements in it unless you include depressed middle-class white girls, alcohol abuse, and bad (straight) relationships. Have you always loved horror movies? Do you read in this genre? And in what way does horror influence your work?
I think alcoholism and bad relationships count! I’ve always loved horror. I read the first fifty or so Goosebumps books as a kid. Though it’s not a horror movie, I have a specific memory of watching the Medusa scene in Clash of the Titans when I was maybe six and being so captivated and terrified. Are You Afraid of the Dark? really got me too.
So far, I’ve used comedy as a crutch to explore horror in my writing. I’d love to write more pure horror in the future. I think it’s such an impressive thing when it’s pulled off. I’m getting more into genre fiction like thrillers and noir. It violates a lot of rules I’ve been taught about craft, but reading it helps me think about whether those rules serve what I’m writing or hold it back.
You’ve piqued my interest! I’m going to have to follow up with you on this… You’re originally from San Antonio, a place you claim is “forever stuck in 1999,” which made me smile in agreement. As a Mississippian, I feel like trends (and everything else) trickle down so slowly, and when a particular thing finally does arrive, we hold onto it for far too long. Since you didn’t elaborate on the how/why of San Antonio’s stasis, I have to ask: in what ways, and do you think this is a Southern thing?
I mostly mean with music and fashion. People still love Korn in San Antonio and wear cargo shorts. I think it’s a Southern thing, but I realized after living in Illinois for a while that it’s a Midwestern thing too. I used to be more pretentious, and I’d put New York on a pedestal, but my thinking about it has changed a lot.
I loved nu metal, boy bands, and Mariah Carey when I was growing up. Then I discovered “real music” and looked down on all that stuff. In my twenties, I started to listen to all that stuff again ironically, but eventually, I realized it wasn’t ironic. I actually just enjoy 3 Doors Down and Evanescence. What’s refreshing about places that still embrace this music is the lack of pretension. San Antonio doesn’t care what the rest of the world thinks of 311. They’re gonna fill the AT&T Center and have a good time.
I love that. You’ve mentioned that you may be moving back to your home state of Texas. What’s the latest? And what would you say are the pros and cons? For me, nearly everyone I love lives in Mississippi. No matter its problems, and there are many — my parents and younger brother still live in my hometown of Jackson where the water isn’t safe to drink, trash collection isn’t guaranteed, and the roads are a nightmare — I can’t imagine leaving them behind, at least not forever.
When I first left Texas, I thought maybe I’d never move back, but I always miss it when I’m gone. I’m moving to the panhandle which is going to be interesting. My dad grew up in a little panhandle town called Memphis, but I haven’t spent much time in West Texas. Texas is like a country. I’ve lived in different parts, but there are still places I haven’t seen. I’m really happy to leave the cold weather behind and to have Texas food again. I’ll be closer to family and friends. My grandma isn’t too far away in San Angelo. I don’t go out a lot anymore though, so I don’t think it really matters where I live. I’m getting older and just don’t want to be in the cold. I don’t want to deal with traffic. I just want quiet and good takeout food, haha.
There’s a chance I’m talking out of my ass here. I’m from suburban San Antonio, so I won’t pretend to fully understand life in the Deep South. Texas is the South, but at the same time, it’s its own region. Texas has a lot of problems like terrible leadership and huge economic disparity. The power grid problems, for example, are infuriating and embarrassing. At the same time, Texas has tremendous resources, namely oil and natural gas, that separate it from other places. People will say that bordering states like Arkansas and Oklahoma are Texas without the money. It’s frustrating because we could do so much better. I remember crossing the border into Louisiana and the immediate difference in the quality of the roads. Texas is an incredibly diverse and culturally rich state, but it’s led by comic book villains. That’s the fault of a big chunk of the population, I suppose. I love Texas in a way that isn’t based on logic. The nationalistic fervor is everywhere. In school, we would pledge allegiance to the Texas flag every morning. Ridiculous, but that shit seeps into your bones.
I was in Texas for three and a half years and there were many things I loved, but mostly I loved how much Texans love Texas. I can see the problems inherent in that (like wanting to secede) but it was cool to live in a place where the people were proud. It’s been great talking with you, Drew. Best of luck with your move.
So Much Heart
By Drew Buxton
With an X Books
July 25, 2023
Southern Review of Books 