TheHaHa_PBtextF1.qxd 1/6/06 1:56 PM Page RGG1 R EADING G ROUP G UIDE the Ha-Ha a ovel dave kig
TheHaHa_PBtextF1.qxd 1/6/06 1:56 PM Page RGG2 A coversatio with Dave Kig The author of The Ha-Ha talks with Daielle DeFrai of FictioAddictio.NET about the origis of his first ovel Dave Kig has doe it all. He s bee a artist, a florist, a New York City cabdriver, a barteder, a small busiess ower, ad eve a editor. Now he s take a successful leap ito writig fictio with his debut ovel, The Ha-Ha, ad Warer Brothers Pictures will tur his book ito a movie. FictioAddictio.NET talks with Kig about his creative past, his ovel, ad his take o the writig craft. You ve had such a successful paitig career ad ow it appears your writig is goig to be equally flourishig. What made you fially decide to delve ito the world of ovel writig? To be hoest, my paitig career was a mixed bag. My udergraduate degree was i paitig ad film, ad I was a serious paiter for almost te years without too much success. Durig the ed of that time a parter ad I fouded Dyaflow Studios, Ic. (ow called Frakli Tartaglioe, LLC) to create decorative paitig ad murals for high-ed resideces. I ejoyed the decor world very much, ad it s true we did well, but it s a differet kid of creativity whe you re pursuig a
TheHaHa_PBtextF1.qxd 1/6/06 1:56 PM Page RGG3 craft ad deliverig a commissioed product; I missed the freedom I d ejoyed i the studio. Sice I was already paitig all day, I erolled i a writig class as a creative outlet, ad oe of my first teachers, the woderful ovelist Melvi Jules Bukiet, ecouraged me to cosider graduate school. After several years of writig o ights ad weekeds, I reliquished my portio of the decorative paitig busiess ad etered the MFA program at Columbia. The Ha-Ha (i quite a differet form) was my master s thesis. The character of Howard Kapostash i The Ha-Ha is three-dimesioal i his role as protagoist. He has such a covicig mixture of flaws ad feeligs, ad you did a amazig job brigig him to life. What ispired you to choose him as the basis of your ovel? My iterest i disability is a cosequece of havig a profoudly autistic brother, but it s importat to ote that while my brother Hak (who died i 1993) certaily helped spark the character of Howard Kapostash, Howard is ot a attempt to give voice to Hak s experiece. The two lives are substatively quite differet, ad oe of the book s primary dyamics is the exploratio of Howard s loss; sice Howard, ulike Hak, has kow the full rage of a ormally abled life, his rebirth as a disabled perso ecompasses the arrowig of every expectatio for what we loosely term the America dream. With this kowledge of what might have bee, Howard bears a extra burde of sadess I hope my brother ever experieced. Child rearig is oe of life s greatest challeges. With the difficulties that Howie already faced, why toss that ito the mix? There are a umber of reasos I icluded Rya i the story, the first beig that I ejoy writig about kids. Though we do t have childre ourselves, The Ha-Ha was writte durig a happy period whe readig group guide 3
TheHaHa_PBtextF1.qxd 1/6/06 1:56 PM Page RGG4 4 readig group guide my life was rich with childre, especially my youg ieces ad ephew. They ad may childre of frieds cotributed immeasurably to the portrait of Rya. A secod reaso to build the story aroud Howard s time with Rya was to raise the level of challege for myself. The story of a damaged child ad damaged adult who bod ad fid recociliatio is pretty classic ad has already bee told i a variety of ways (the foremost example i our America literature probably beig Huckleberry Fi). I wated to see if I could add somethig to this literature without allowig my book to become cheesy, predictable, or clichéd. Treadig this lie was oe of the harder tasks I addressed i writig The Ha-Ha, ad i fact the book follows fairly foreseeable lies for its first half before ultimately veerig off i a directio that I hope will surprise most readers. Howard has bee compared to some impressive characters of literature. How does it feel to have crafted someoe who has touched the hearts ad souls of so may? It s woderful, ad I ever tire of hearig from readers. Amog the most satisfyig resposes I ve received have bee may otes ad e-mails from Vietam vets ad from those i the health care professios: employees of log-term care facilities, urses, surgeos, eve shriks. A uexpected umber of readers have had some experiece of traumatic brai ijury or post-traumatic stress disorder, ad it s bee thrillig to ear the validatio of those who have goe through challeges like the oes Howard faces i the ovel. The Ha-Ha has received such high accolades ad is already slated for film productio. Did you ever imagie it would gai popularity so quickly? Frakly, I did ot. Durig my graduate school days some professors ad fellow studets were itrigued by what I was up to, but there
TheHaHa_PBtextF1.qxd 1/6/06 1:56 PM Page RGG5 was certaily o cosesus that this was a special project. That s primarily because it took me a log time to get it right. Over the six years it took me to complete the ovel, I wrote approximately five full drafts ad rewrote problem scees perhaps as may as twety times, ad while I was strugglig with Howard s voice or the book s pacig or some other difficult aspects of The Ha- Ha, it was t at all clear I d ever get it right. Oly whe the book bega to be read by publishig professioals did I have a iklig of its wider appeal. Is there ay oe author who motivated your writig more tha ay other? E. M. Forster s ifluece is all over this book: so much of The Ha- Ha is about makig the huma coectio, ad Forster s ow visio of writig as a moral activity is eormously importat to me. But i workig out how to capture Howard s cosciousess, I also cosidered some of the twetieth-cetury moderists, particularly Faulker ad Woolf. Despite the fact that The Ha-Ha is a mostly covetioal arrative comprised of covetioal seteces, the formal iovatio of the voice the sheer cotradictio implied by the fact that the story is told by a mute evertheless owes a debt to others who have writte from iside the huma head. Amog may other writers whose impact may be less evidet i this ovel but who matter greatly to me are Wharto, Cather, Beckett, Chekhov, ad Whitma. You have such a diverse backgroud i both your educatio ad your career. Where do you see yourself goig from here? I m cotiuig to write. My ovel-i-progress is toally differet from The Ha-Ha (amog other shifts, the ew book s arrative voice is more worldly ad skeptical tha Howard s), but the story will cotiue my ivestigatio of themes that are importat to me, readig group guide 5
TheHaHa_PBtextF1.qxd 1/6/06 1:56 PM Page RGG6 6 readig group guide icludig friedship ad family, loyalty ad betrayal, ad the duties of the idividual withi a commuity. I m also cotiuig to write ad publish my poetry. Oe of the more popular pieces of advice for aspirig authors is write what you kow. Do you agree with the importace placed o that? Write what you kow is especially useful for ew writers, who may feel that eve begiig to write is a pretty big step. It s good for oe s cofidece to be sure of a subject, eve if how to capture that subject i words remais elusive. Ultimately, though, my method is to rely o my imagiatio, so the dictum write what you kow becomes more elastic, more abstract. I feel I write what I kow about life, about love, about huma relatioships ad emotios ad joy ad sorrow, but i The Ha-Ha I made up the details of the tow, the characters, ad the plot. It was i the attempt to brig those two worlds together that my book took flight. What words of wisdom would you like to share with fledglig writers? Try takig a good cop/bad cop approach to your mauscript. I the first draft, be edlessly lovig ad supportive of yourself. Toss i aythig you ca thik of; be optimistic, positive, ad forgivig, ad embrace digressio. I the secod draft, brig out your harsh ad puitive side: look for flaws i the logic ad force yourself to do plety of heavy pruig. Take the log view: thik fiercely about structure, pacig, story arc, theme, ad other big issues. Your fial draft, of course, will be some combiatio of the two. The complete text of Daielle DeFrai s iterview with Dave Kig origially appeared at FictioAddictio.NET. Reprited with permissio.
TheHaHa_PBtextF1.qxd 1/6/06 1:56 PM Page RGG7 Questios ad topics for discussio 1. Why do you thik the ovel is called The Ha-Ha? Give the defiitio of a ha-ha a kid of trick of the eye that coceals a break i the ladscape how do you thik this relates to Howard s coditio, or to the story as a whole? 2. How is the reader s experiece of Howard Kapostash differet from the way the other characters experiece him? Is the first-perso voice used differetly i this ovel from how it s used i other books? 3. Cosider other ovels that attempt to capture huma cosciousess for example, William Faulker s The Soud ad the Fury. How do you thik the problem is hadled differetly i The Ha-Ha? 4. What s your impressio of Sylvia? If the ovel has a villai, she s probably it, but how would the story be differet if it were told from her perspective? Do you thik Dave Kig has bee fair i his portrayal of the female characters? 5. As readers, we lear about Howard s rehabilitatio oly toward the ed of the book (at the begiig of Part III). How does this affect the way you uderstad Howard s character? Would you have liked to kow his history right up frot? What is gaied by the author s withholdig of this iformatio?
TheHaHa_PBtextF1.qxd 1/6/06 1:56 PM Page RGG8 8 readig group guide 6. How is the idea of family importat to The Ha-Ha? What kids of families appear i the course of the ovel? Do you thik the ovel gives a accurate portrayal of the state of the America family today? 7. The Chicago Tribue described The Ha-Ha as a ovel that fits the defiitio of a true war story, despite the brevity of the passages that actually describe war. Do you agree? What do you thik is the defiitio of a true war story? 8. Do you see Timothy as a symbolic character or simply a plot elemet? If he s a symbol, what does he represet? With regard to the plot, how do you recocile Howard s role i Timothy s fate? 9. What do you thik happes after the book eds? Discuss the various characters chaces for happiess. Have they improved sice the begiig of the ovel?
TheHaHa_PBtextF1.qxd 1/6/06 1:56 PM Page RGG9 Suggestios for further readig Dave Kig recommeds some of his favorite books A Room with a View by E. M. Forster As may readers have observed, Forster s ifluece is all over The Ha-Ha: i the primacy of the huma coectio; i the preferece for sicerity over iroy; ad i the attempt to examie large truths through the les of the domestic. I retur agai ad agai to Forster. I read A Passage to Idia for its magificet moral scope, the ufairly eglected The Logest Jourey for its ragged passio, ad Howards Ed simply for the famous icatatio Oly coect! But for the purpose of this list I recommed A Room with a View because it is most like The Ha-Ha i terms of scale. Those who share my iterest i Forster might also check out P. N. Furbak s woderful E. M. Forster: A Life. The City of Your Fial Destiatio by Peter Camero I recommed Peter Camero s ovel i the same breath as A Room with a View because Camero has maaged a almost miraculous chaelig of the Forster voice ad cosciece. Withi this tale of a cotemporary PhD cadidate s search for a lost mauscript lies a profoud examiatio of how easily we udervalue ad risk losig love. Watch for the movie versio, to be directed by James Ivory.
TheHaHa_PBtextF1.qxd 1/6/06 1:56 PM Page RGG10 10 readig group guide The Golde Gate by Vikram Seth Some people kow that I cosidered writig The Ha-Ha as a ovel i verse. I cotemplatig the ature of Howard s iterior voice, it struck me that oe of us ca really kow the iside of aother perso s mid, ad that writig Howard s arratio as poetry might set off the differece betwee his ier ad outer experiece. I got about sevety pages ito a iambic petameter versio of The Ha-Ha before returig to prose, but the experimet left its mark o Howard s arratio. Vikram Seth actually did write a ovel i verse, ad The Golde Gate is playful, origial, ad eve heartbreakig. Told etirely i soets, this book is compulsively readable, ad the rhymes are delightful. 5 Degrees ad Other Poems by Nicholas Christopher Oe task I set myself whe I etered graduate school was to grow more comfortable i the world of poetry. At Columbia, I read ad wrote a lot of poems, ad this collectio, by the author of the ovels Veroica ad A Trip to the Stars, was oe of the first poetry books I read straight through. The title series is a thirty-fivepoem sequece o, of all thigs, extreme cold, with topics ragig from alchemy to the Arctic, va Gogh to Houdii. It s filled with beautiful observatios, fasciatig iformatio, ad elegatly tured lies. The Book of Ebeezer Le Page by G. B. Edwards Here s a ovel absolutely ulike aythig else you ll read. Reasos for recommedig it, i o particular order: the miracle of its sustaied voice; the remarkable Frech-Eglish veracular of a Chael Islads arrator; the visio of twetieth-cetury history see through a small ad particular les; ad the delicate emotioal balace, a cococtio of loeliess, exaltatio, pragmatism, wistfuless, ad woder that ever quite overflows i ay of the above directios.
TheHaHa_PBtextF1.qxd 1/6/06 1:56 PM Page RGG11 Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather Why is t Willa Cather more regularly raked amog our foremost America writers? Is it because she s a woma? Is it because she s regioal? Is it because her low-key storytellig ad local dialect mask the grace ad depth of her ambitio? Cather is uderappreciated, but this compellig book may offer a corrective to those readers familiar oly with My Atoia. Death Comes for the Archbishop is sweepig ad expasive but also absolutely itimate. Great Plais by Ia Frazier Durig a period of creative ucertaity, Ia Frazier steadied himself by drivig aroud the Plais states, pursuig history, ucoverig arcaa, ad talkig with apparetly every perso he met. This heartfelt, ituitive travelogue was both the result of his drivig ad the solutio to his ucertaity, ad though there are may reasos to love Great Plais, I particularly appreciate the ivestigatio of joy. Ad yes, it s the same Frazier who sometimes publishes humor i The New Yorker. The Quiet America by Graham Greee Log before I bega work o The Ha-Ha I was a avid reader of Vietam War literature. Tim O Brie s The Thigs They Carried, Thom Joes s The Pugilist at Rest, Susa Fromberg Schaeffer s Buffalo Afteroo, ad may other books costitute some of our most oble resposes to the catastrophe that was Vietam. Graham Greee s remarkable The Quiet America, published i 1955, aticipates that moral ad political quagmire with a clairvoyace that was criticized at the time but ow seems othig short of ucay. The Dog of the Marriage by Amy Hempel Amy Hempel is aother writer I reread regularly, ad her 2005 collectio is stuig. No oe crafts extremely short fictio more elegatly tha Hempel, but The Dog of the Marriage cotais several pieces that exted her customarily brief arratives i uexpected readig group guide 11
TheHaHa_PBtextF1.qxd 1/6/06 1:56 PM Page RGG12 12 readig group guide ad gratifyig ways. This book is more frakly physical tha her previous work, ad the possibility of eros sits well with her remarkable wit, isight, ad sudde pathos. Read this book, the go back ad read her other three, too. A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami Of all the authors o this list, Murakami is hardest to pi dow. Why is he so thoroughly, depedably satisfyig? His heroes are likeable but ofte affectless, ad his works regularly strai credulity i fact, they delight i straiig credulity. Murakami is iterested i cats ad pop culture ad history ad drikig ad paradox ad lost love. Maybe those are the igrediets of great storytellig, or maybe Murakami s maaged somethig so thoroughly origial that you have to read it to uderstad its charm.