David Vann |
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David Vann was born in Alaska and comes from a family of sinkers. His father sank a new cabin cruiser in Alaska, right in the marina, by forgetting to put in the drain plug when he launched. Vann’s grandfather sank an old converted Navy cruiser on a lake in California. His uncle sank the same boat twice in Idaho. Vann himself sank in the Caribbean on his honeymoon, as chronicled in his best-selling memoir, A Mile Down: The True Story of a Disastrous Career at Sea. Every family has to be good at something, and Vann is hard at work continuing the tradition. Last year, he built a 52-foot aluminum trimaran for a nonstop solo circumnavigation for Esquire magazine and had to turn back because the boat was about to fold in half. He’s also had run-ins with pirates in Mexico, which he wrote about for Outside magazine, and he’s sailed by land from Florida to California for Men’s Journal on a “Blokart,” a tricycle with a sail (made in New Zealand, where Vann has residency). He also loves to sail the Mediterranean, and once lost a rudder off Morocco.
In Legend of a Suicide, though, Vann turns to fiction to write about the defining disaster of his life, the suicide of his father when Vann was 13. The book is the winner of the Grace Paley Prize and was named a Notable Book of 2008 by the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Kansas City Star, and the Story Prize.
Vann has worked on documentaries in 2009 with the BBC, NOVA, and CNN, and he’s been a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow and a Wallace Stegner Fellow, taught at Stanford and Cornell, where he received his degrees, and is currently a professor at the University of San Francisco.
His website is www.davidvann.com.
1.Will the printed word endure?
Absolutely. And printed on a screen is still printed. Reading hasn’t somehow become a different act online or on a Kindle.
2. Which newspaper do you read?
New York Times and yahoo.com.
3. Who/What is your biggest influence?
John L’Heureux was my mentor at Stanford, so he’s shaped my writing and life most.
4. What books are you reading at the moment?
I’m working through Beowulf in Old English, also shorter works from The Cambridge Old English Reader. I’m also reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
5. What books did you read as a child?
Louis L’Amour westerns, which were my father’s favorites.
6. Which literary character would you most like to meet?
Thanks to Woody Allen, I know not to say Madame Bovary. So I guess Beowulf, as long as we could hang out somewhere warm.
7. Which authors do you most admire?
For living authors, Annie Proulx, Marilynne Robinson, Cormac McCarthy, and Tobias Wolff.
8. Where/When do you do most of your writing?
I travel a lot, but I always write in the morning.
9. What’s your favourite word/book?
Hard to pick just one. Maybe hronrade, whale-road, a great name for the sea.
10. What’s your day job?
Professor at University of San Francisco.
11. Who or what always puts a smile on your face?
My wife Nancy. I miss her after a day. She’s almost always in a good mood.
12. What’s your earliest memory?
Trying to tie my shoes in Ketchikan, Alaska. An early sign that things come undone easily.
13. What is your greatest fear?
Painful death, I suppose. I’m probably not alone on that one.
14. How would you like to be remembered?
For this book. Seriously. Everything else can be forgotten.
15. Have you ever done something you’ve really regretted?
I’m a champion second-guesser, and I’ve had some big regrets, but I’ve always had these miraculous second chances, so none of the regrets have really endured.
16. How do you spoil yourself?
I don’t, but if I did, it would be with hot tubs and massages.
17. Who do you turn to in a crisis?
In real crisis, it’s hard not to feel alone, even when you’re being helped.
18. What makes you angry?
Trying to take a jacket off while driving and getting caught in it, one arm pinned back. Or trying to untangle cords. Or the sound of human chewing or swallowing. The sound of chewing makes me want to kill, and that’s not really an overstatement. I just haven’t acted on it.
19. What’s the most dangerous thing you’ve ever done?
There have been a few near death moments, such as sinking a boat, a 60-100 foot rogue wave in a freak storm at sea, thrown onto rocks by a sleeper wave once in high school, stuck in a bad spot rock climbing without a rope, ice climbing on a waterfall without a rope, chased by a bull, Glock put in my face in Mexico, bound and beaten by the Mexican Navy, a visit by Mexican pirates, car accident, near misses cycling, river rafting in Alaska on the wrong river, landsailing past a rattlesnake, etc.
20. Are you in love?
Yes. Been with my wife now for 11 years.
21. What’s your worst vice?
I guess all writers have to say envy. It’s a literary engine.
22. What are you proudest of?
Hm. It won’t sound genuine if I say this book. But it’s true. I worked on Legend of a Suicide for more than ten years.
23. Where’s your favourite city?
Rome.
24. When was the last time you cried?
Writing about my father for a recent newspaper interview about Legend of a Suicide. Still gets me, almost 30 years later. You’d think that would fade.
25. One wish; what would it be?
World peace.
26. Did you enjoy school?
Eighth grade was the worst year of my life, but high school was good, and college was better. Third grade was perfect, mostly because of Paige Cummings and singing Silver Bells together.
27. What's your worst habit?
Making mental lists of all I have to do. I need to relax.
28. What makes you mad?
Unfairness, especially related to money or class.
29. Have you ever broken the law?
Only with uncharitable thoughts toward meter maids, of course.
30. What quality would you most like to have?
Patience.
31. If you could swap a physical attribute with someone else, what would it be and who would you swap it with?
Jason Statham, maybe chest and arms and back and I guess the rest. Or I’d be willing to swap with Shu Qi. Can’t be bad being her.
32. Have you got a party trick?
Giving up my wife on some recent embarrassment.
33. Do you have any nicknames?
Never had. If I’d been a cool kid, I could have been called DJ, since my middle name is James, but that didn’t come even close to happening.
34. Do you have any unfulfilled ambitions?
Where do I start?
