Conversations with the Bookless: Keith Rawson

A couple of years ago Jeff Vandermeer ran a series of blog posts called Conversations With the Bookless. The Conversations with the Bookless series was designed to showcase those writers who are up and coming, who don’t yet have a collection or a novel out, who are making their names known writing short stories. With Jeff’s blessing I will be continuing the series here at BSC over the next couple of weeks, but with a focus mostly on mystery/crime fiction.

From the first generation successes of Anthony Neil Smith, Victor Gischler and Sean Doolittle that came out of Plots With Guns to the later success of zine author/founders Sandra Ruttan and Russel McLean to a lot of others the online zines have, over the years, proved to be a fairly successful and fertile ground for emerging talents to launch a career, highlight their own work and showcase the work of others.

These writers are the next generation and it will be interesting in the next couple of years to see which of them will make it and which will stand out.

Nothing else to say really except to end with a quote from the original series.

The fact is, if you don’t have a book out, it’s harder to get attention and it’s harder for reader attention to crystallize around you. I hope these interviews introduce readers to some of the great talent that, in the coming years, will be amazingly and bountifully bookful. — Jeff Vandermeer

    
Here is a conclusion that I came to about Keith Rawson. The guys acts like a pro. Even if I sometimes disagree with him I’m confident he will make it for that simple fact alone. Keith’s fiction contains scenes of, sometimes, shocking brutality and when he is firing on all cylinders it is confrontational fiction at it’s best.

    
I freely admit that I don’t often get the label “transgressivefiction”. It feels to me like an excuse. Set me straight, what is itabout transgressive fiction (as a reader and writer) that does it for you?

Most people don’t get transgressive fiction, it’s one of those weird sub-genre’s that gets batted around all the time and for the most part no one–at least in my opinion–has really gotten around to adequately describing what it is. For me, transgressive fiction is a style that straddles genre. The best examples of it tend to mix a little of everything into the pot. For instance, is American Psycho a satire or a serial killer novel? Is Last Exit to Brooklyn a hard-boiled crime novel or a character piece detailing the lives of the New York working class?

The one thing that sets transgressive apart for me is the extremes. With most so-called genre fiction, there seems to be a pre-set limit with how far you can go with certain subjects. (Violence, sex, drug use. et al.,) However, with transgressive fiction the gloves typically come off and, what would typically be considered going too far is no longer an issue.

Now would I consider myself an exclusively transgressive writer? No, not at all. I do consider myself a crime writer, but there have been times I’ve written stories that lack definition that get lumped into the transgressive category.

    
Where are you, right now, as you’re writing these answers?

My living room, on the laptop

    
What’s your favorite story written by someone else?

I’d have to say The Box by Jack Ketchum. That story is just plain creepy and told so plainly, and even though I read it close to year ago it still sticks with me.

    
Who are your influences and what is your most unlikeliest influence?

The big guys for me are James Ellroy, Ken Bruen, Charlie Stella, and Kurt Vonnegut. All four of them are pretty uncompromising when it comes to their writing, which is a real rarity. Most writer’s (at least in my opinion.) seem to be a little too preoccupied with what their agent wants, what their editor wants, what the readers and critics want instead of just writing what they want to write. I have a lot of admiration for the folks who stick with personal vision as opposed to following along with trends. Plus the stories they write actually make you want to turn the next page and the next. . .

And yeah, here’s cheesy suburban Dad answer to the second half of the question: My Daughter, Sadie. After she was born, I really started hitting it hard and haven’t let up since.

    
What do you most value in the fiction you love?

Honestly, the reason I love crime fiction is that out of all the styles of fiction out there, I think crime/mystery fiction possesses the most talented, innovative writer’s working right now.

    
Why do you write?

Simple answer: I love it.

Long drawn out answer: I’ve dealt with depression most of my life and writing for me works extremely well as a means of self medication, same thing goes for reading.

    
What do you like most about short fiction?

Other than I can finish telling a story in one or two sittings?

Seriously though, I’m kind of an old school type writer who uses short fiction as a training ground. With short stories I can make mistakes, I can play around with different themes and ideas and I only have to dedicate 10 or 12 pages to it as opposed to two or three hundred. Personally, I think there are a lot of novelists out there who probably would’ve benefited greatly from churning out 10 or 15 short stories first before tackling something book length.

    
When did you start writing short fiction and what prompted you to do so?

I started writing short stories when I was a teenager. I wrote mostly because I was bored, lonely teenager from a middle of no where town where there really wasn’t all that much to do. (but isn’t that the way all teenager’s feel no matter where they’re from?) I kept writing into my twenties until a few years after I met my wife when I stopped writing entirely and I was more or less content with working full time and going to school. But a few years after quiting, I started getting bored with just having a job and spending my very abundant free time doing nothing but reading, watching movies and playing video games.
By this time, I’d gotten very into reading hard-boiled and noir novels and started farting around with the genre. By the time my daughter showed up, I was very into churning out crime stories and I just kept rolling from there.

Although, I really just started sending out my stuff a little over a year ago and even though I still feel I have a lot left to learn, I’ve been really enjoying seeing my stories in print.

    
Of your stories, which is your favorite; the one that showcases best your abilities?

I don’t think I’ve written it yet. Yeah, there are some stories I’m very proud of (Clinical Trial in Plots with Guns#5 [which I know you hated, but I really enjoyed writing it], Memory Lane in Pulp Pusher, A Quiet Minute of Reflection in DBTD/CrimeWaV, and Performance Anxiety in Bad Things.) but I don’t think there is any one story out there now that I would say entirely encapsulate me. There are some stories that I’m getting ready to send out that I’m very proud of and demonstrate a lot more range in story telling. But right now those are in the unattached to any publication phase except for one of them.

    
Do you have any short story publications forthcoming?

I’m pretty sure I have a flash piece coming out in the next Bad Things in April. Also, I have a longer story coming out in the June issue of Yellow Mama. And, like I said, I have another wad of stories I’m getting ready to send out, so we’ll see if they find homes?

    
I understand you have a completed manuscript, tentatively titled Retirement. What’s it about and would you like to share a paragraph or two?

Certainly:

Retirement focuses on a DPS (Department of Public Safety, Arizona’s state wide police force) Lieutenant named Tyler Donahue. Donahue works for the Special Investigation branch of DPS, specifically in the narcotics division. He is a decorated twelve year veteran of the department, he’s also the dirtiest cop in Arizona, who secretly works for one of the most dangerous Speed Kingpins in the state, Clyde Raines. Raines uses Donahue as a bagman, a fixer, a hitter and sometimes as muscle, and in return Raines hands over tips of where and when his competitors deals will be going down and cash and drugs.

Recently Raines has been cleaning house within his organization and he orders Donahue to participate in a hit on an old school bagman named Setton, who Raines wants killed because he wasn’t paying close enough attention to a story he was telling. The hit goes down like a product exchange gone wrong, the only problem is that Setton lives and drives to his daughter Danni’s apartment and tries to tell his daughter what happened. As Setton dies in his daughter’s apartment, one of Danni’s regular clients (Danni works as a prostitute.) Mike Sandoval, walks in.

Sandoval is an accountant who has convinced himself he is a mob hitman, and he agrees to help Danni take revenge on her father’s killers.

Well, that’s the first time I’ve had to summarize the book, it’s a little slop, but here’s a couple of paragraphs:

Danni Setton stood staring at her reflection in the single dirty window of her trick flop gently tugging at the sterling silver barbell in her left nipple. It was her worst feature, her nipples. The rest of her body was taunt and athletic, as well tuned and supple as a 21-year-old despite the fact she was closer to 31. But her nipples, they were like something out of National Geographic; large and brown, the circumference of an old fashion silver dollar. They were the type of nipples you’d expect to see on a married mother of four; sucked on, dried out, the difference being that she’d never had a baby’s mouth attached to her tits. Sure, there had been plenty of clients nipping and tugging on them, but for as long as she could remember they’d looked the same. Thus, the piercing, the heavy barbells and rings she wore through them; the glimmering, flashing steel off setting their overall ugliness. Of course, the hardware fit in fairly well with her latest look: Lost Goth/street girl. In the 12 years since she’d left home, she’d gone through lots of different looks, but the jet black hair, thick black eye makeup—the raccoon look—tattered black clothes, it complemented her milky dead girl skin perfectly, plus the whole outfit made her look 10 years younger and attracted a breed of client that preferred street hard 12-year-olds to whorehouse softened 26-year-olds.

“Oh God, what have I become?” Tony, the dumb fucker was still here. Tony was one of the clients who would prefer screwing a 12 year-old, but still maintained enough guilt and disgust about his desires to only pursue youthful looking adults.

“Oh Lord, help your servant!” Tony’s biggest problem was that he was a holy roller and spent fifteen or twenty minutes after they were finished to beg God for forgiveness. Tony’s second biggest problem was that he was a father of three, all three of them girls. Danni knew that he would never touch his girls, but their friends, that was another story. Danni knew that if Tony ever stopped coming to see her, chances were that he was in jail for touching one of his little girls’ friends; it made her shutter anytime she thought about it.

“Jesus, make your servant whole!”

Tony’s third biggest problem was that he liked getting shit on. Literally, and the wetter the better; so typically Danni would eat a couple of Taco Bell burritos a few hours before she knew he was coming over.

“I know my sins are grievous!” Normally Tony’s little ritual wasn’t a problem. Twenty minutes of praying, a quick shower and the asshole was out the door. A $1000 in her pocket and all she had to do was cop a squat on Tony’s shallow chest. But tonight she needed him out of here, Mike was coming over tonight.

“Tony,” She said her voice barely above a whisper, “get your clothes on and get the fuck out of here.”

“What. . . I can’t, it’s still all over me. . . “

“I don’t care, times up. Get the fuck up.”

“But . . .”

“Tony, I’ve got someone coming in 5 minutes, and he doesn’t like it when someone else is here when he gets here, and if he finds you in the shower when he comes through the door he’s going to cut you from your belly to your dick.”

“Can’t I even wipe the shit off me? I mean, you really smelled tonight. . .”

“Tony. Go, Now.”

Her holy roller gathered his things and hustled out the door quietly griping about the smell, intermingled with prayers.

Chances were Mike wouldn’t give two shits whether Tony was here or not. Mike knew what she was and they were by no means exclusive; he paid for her time just like every man in her life. But there was something different about Mike. He’d been a regular for the past 2 years and he’d hinted at connections with Clyde Raines, the same asshole thug her Dad worked for. Danni never delved too deeply into what it was that he did for Raines, or whoever, but with how gentle he was, she imagined that he spent most nights waiting on his bosses to pick up the phone and order him to deal with minor annoyances permanently. Most killers were gentle in their private life, and typically wanted their sex as far removed from their professions as possible; quiet, gentle and slow. What Danni most liked about Mike nights—other than the fact that he wasn’t a complete freak like most of her clients—was that sex was very much a secondary interest for both of them. Mike liked to talk, and more than anything, liked to listen. With Mike, Danni was a walking cliché, a whore with heart a gold.

    
_{Keith Rawson blogs at Bloody Knuckles Callused Fingertips}