Burning and Dodging received a 4+ star review, making it an IndieReader Approved title.
Following find an interview with author Julie Wittes Schlack.
What is the name of the book and when was it published?
The book is called Burning and Dodging, and it was published on December 23, 2021.
What’s the book’s first line?
“The house was one of those enormous, faux English manors that dotted to many Thousand Islands shorelines.”
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
On the cusp of sixty, after a lifetime of supporting the aspirations of others, would-be artist Tina Gabler is feeling a sense of urgency to take her own ambitions seriously and put her creative talents to the test. Temporarily unattached, Tina takes a position with former prime-time news anchor, Peter Bright, at his home in the Thousand Islands. Aging and frail, Peter is trying to finish a book about the decline of objectivity in photojournalism, a meticulously documented exposé of iconic but staged photographs that defined “reality” for an increasingly lazy and credulous public that, Peter believes, demands stories more than facts. As Peter’s research assistant, Tina tracks down not just the provenance of his photos, but also the unidentified child in a Roman Vishniac photograph and Peter’s estranged daughter, a Cree girl he adopted during the notorious “Sixties Scoop” in Canada. But in trying to create happy endings for other people’s children, she must reexamine her relationship with her own father, and the quest for collective versus personal achievement that has brought her to this unsettled moment. Fundamentally, “Burning and Dodging” reveals how the stories we construct about others support the stories we tell about ourselves.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
This book had multiple inspirations – the landscape of the Alberta badlands, a 1967 satellite-enabled television broadcast called “Our World” (which I wrote about a lot in my first book, “This All-at-Onceness”), the fate of counter-cultural pioneers after they grew up, and primarily, a few photographs that have haunted me ever since I first saw them. Since high school – a very, very long time ago – I’ve been intrigued by photojournalism. I’ve always been struck by the fact that photos are essentially a dialogue between the photographer and the viewer, an exercise in interpretation, with the internal life of the subjects often unknown and unknowable. When I finally read an interview with Florence Thompson, the subject of Dorothea Lange’s iconic photo, Migrant Mother, I knew I wanted to write about that dynamic. But really, the process of writing it was analogous to looking in the refrigerator, seeing what ingredients you’ve got, and then figuring out what you can cook with them. These varied inspirations were my ingredients.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
Besides its sparkling wit, deep thoughts, and relatable characters? Seriously, though, given how much territory it covers – the 1960s, dark matter, photojournalism, the Sixties Scoop, and life in multiple American and Canadian cities – I think there’s something for readers with a variety of interests. And given that the indifference to facts – and willingness to make them up – is an ever more dangerous aspect of American culture, I think it’s important to look at both the origins and consequences of that trend.
What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character? Who-real or fictional-would you say the character reminds you of?
I think Tina’s defined by her restlessness and collaborative impulses. But she is also a product of her family and her times, and in that sense she reminds me of many women in their late middle-life, of people who have grown up in New York City, and/or in loving (if quirky) middle-class Jewish families. I’m sure I was influenced by some Grace Paley’s and Jennifer Eagan’s and Margaret Atwood’s protagonists as well, but I couldn’t tell you exactly how.
When did you first decide to become an author?
Pretty much as soon as I learned to read something more provocative than Fun with Dick and Jane. It was a choice between being a writer, astronaut, archeologist, or world-famous actor, and writer seemed most achievable and least dependent on the “kindness of strangers.”
Is this the first book you’ve written?
Burning and Dodging is the first novel I’ve written, but the second book. My cultural memoir in essays called This All-at-Onceness was published in 2019. I’ve also got a novella or two lying around waiting – probably in vain – for resuscitation.
Would you go traditional if a publisher came calling? If so, why?
Both of my books were published by small or mid-sized indie presses, but traditional ones in the sense that they are not vanity presses. I’m enormously grateful to and admiring of them both. They seem to be motivated as much, if not more, by artistic considerations as by commercial ones. That being said, sure, I’d welcome a big publisher to pick up my work, simply because they’ve got marketing budgets, publicity directors, and distribution channels. While I don’t expect to achieve fame or fortune as a writer, I do write to have my work read, so if a big publisher can make that more likely, count me in.
Is there something in particular that motivates you (fame? fortune?)
I’m motivated to write for a few reasons. First and foremost, I love and appreciate the consciousness-changing power of good books, and my greatest aspiration is still to be able to write a really, really great one; to create the kind of engagement and insight in someone else that I’ve experienced over the years when reading something compelling. But my other motivation is that when it’s going well, it feels good. I like problem-solving, and the beauty and paradox of writing is that you’re essentially creating problems – implausibilities, conflicting motivations, challenges around voice and perspective – that you then have to solve.
Which writer, living or dead, do you most admire?
I can’t answer that question in the singular. But the writers I most admire include, in no particular order, Jessamyn West, Tillie Olsen, Grace Paley, Margaret Atwood, James Baldwin, E.L. Doctorow, Elizabeth Strout, George Eliot, Eula Biss, and Russell Banks.
Which book do you wish you could have written?
Oh man, another impossible one. Top of mind, here are a few: Ragtime, Tell me a Riddle, Olive Kitteredge, All my Puny Sorrows, The Poisonwood Bible, Cat’s Eye, Sing, Unburied, Sing, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and Swamplandia.