Conversations with Tim Gautreaux

Novel Approach: Tim Gautreaux Takes “The Next Step”

17 Novel Approach: Tim Gautreaux Takes “The Next Step” Christina Masciere/1998 From New Orleans Magazine 32.6 (March 1998). © MC Media. Reprinted courtesy of New Orleans Magazine. Hot off the success of his Same Place, Same Things collection of short stories , Morgan City native Tim Gautreaux debuts his first novel this month. The Next Step in the Dance (Picador) explores the rich and timeless Cajun culture of South Louisiana in a seriocomic tale that explores marriage, family , and sense of place. A recent Southern Writer-in-Residence at Ole Miss, Gautreaux has won a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and the National Magazine Award. His lyrical short stories have appeared in magazines including Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, and GQ as well as in the recent anthologies New Stories from the South (Algonquin) and A Few Thousand Words about Love (St. Martin’s Press). Gautreaux, a professor of English at Southeastern Louisiana University for twenty-six years, recently took time out to talk about his writing. Look for him at this month’s Tennessee Williams Festival, where he’ll teach a master class and speak on two panels. Masciere: Besides length, what’s different about writing a novel? Gautreaux: The short story is something you have to work over in a microcosmic way. You can’t really make a bad sentence in a short story. Everything has to be right. With a novel, of course, you’ve got to get it as right as you can, but a publisher will be more understanding if there is a bad page or something that is not quite logical or is underdeveloped. If he sees that you’ve created characters that a reader will be sorry to have finished read- 18 CONVERSATIONS WITH TIM GAUTREAUX ing about at the end of the book, he will work with you on all of the other problems. Masciere: There are many religious motifs in your work, and you’ve said that you switched from poetry to stories after taking a seminar with Walker Percy. Do you consider yourself a Catholic writer, like Percy? Gautreaux: Yes, I would say so. First, it’s impossible to write about South Louisiana culture without writing about the Catholic Church, because it permeates everything—from wedding ceremonies to industrial fishing to the sugarcane industry to the way people think about eating on Friday. A lot of my stories have priests in them, or references to going to Mass or confession , and that’s because of what I’m writing about. [Themes of moral dilemmas and redemption] come out more or less subconsciously . Each of us has a type of ingrained, almost instinctual interest in a theme, whether it’s pollution or child abuse or alienation or depression. No matter what story you write, no matter what plot you choose, that theme is going to be in there. It’s almost inevitable that a writer can’t escape the themes that are in his soul. Masciere: What about the recurring motif of machinery? I see it as a parallel to Catholicism—the possibility of fixing things. Gautreaux: I collect antique machinery, so I relate to that. Part of it is genetic : My father was a tugboat captain, and my grandfather was a steamboat chief engineer. My great-uncle was a master mechanic. Machinery has a particular metaphorical function, and sometimes I’m working with it a little bit obviously, but most of the time it’s subconscious. My wife says I write fiction as an excuse to write about machinery. Masciere: Many of your characters are pathetic but funny at the same time. Gautreaux: This is what a writer is always looking for, that situation that blends humor and pathos evenly. And you’ve got to hit it just right, because if you miss it, it’s hokey or sentimental—both of which are just awful things to do to a reader. That’s what Flannery O’Connor does so well. She has these characters that you laugh at, but that you can feel sorry for at the same time, or at least you’re amazed at what a terrible experience they’re going through while you’re laughing at them. Masciere: Do you consider yourself a Southern writer? Gautreaux: I don’t know if the term has much meaning. The more I think CHRISTINA MASCIERE / 1998 19 about it, the less I understand it. After The Shipping...