Interview with Nicholas Rall
September 5, 2024
Manuel Marrero) We first met at Expat’s Chicago is Better than New York event last summer, organized by Gwen Hilton and hosted by Joe Swanberg, where you handed me a handmade copy of this manuscript I still have and treasure. You aren’t the first writer to do this, and I’m sentimental about all handmade gifts, but it left a lasting impression on me. Before I create the misleading impression that the path to my heart and publication through Expat is personal gifts, I want to pivot to asking you about one of the core themes and values reflected in AFx8ccd, that being an appreciation of the physical artifact, the analog, the public works. Our Chicago event was open to the public albeit via personal message request for location. It was, tragically and fatefully, both the biggest event at Swanberg’s unforgettable venue, where cell phones weren’t allowed, and the last. The city of Chicago closed it down soon after. This book exudes a love of public transportation, specifically cross-country bus travel. The US Postal Service supplies its most central plot point. Do you think there is a growing effort to atomize our population and stymie the physical shared space, the “third places” of America, to make mail cost-prohibitive and public transportation inconvenient and unsafe? Or is the simpler explanation more likely, that it’s negligence rather than wantonness, and the prioritizing of more elite, private and expensive modes of transportation and community reflects a growing selfishness in the culture? Do you see AFx as an ode to a more innocent, interconnected time, so to speak?
Nicholas Rall) Wow…ya i had heard about expat 3 or 4 years ago when i was living in a house in florida with this man , near a swamp…he never turned on the a.c and had 2-3 years worth of lint in the dryer
But uuuh ya…that was a very important weekend for me…Gwen is great..to this day ..i am so HAPPY that event happened..but when i read the part of the question that mentioned Joe Swanberg i was kind of shocked because i did not know of his involvement until now…
6 years ago i got my first computer and I think we loved each other..computer… I was washing my clothes at the laundromat…I was watching um that show i think called Hotel Room (edit: Room 104) produced by the duplass brothers …in my mind they were on man..one unit of flesh even though they are “brothers” …and while it’s clear joe is not one of their brother based off of name…I had associated all of them together all 3…the funny thing is so ya i’m at the laundromat with my beautiful computer..we are deep in the honeymoon phase and every moment is so special…
So ya needless to say your first question has really shocked me…and i’ll tell you this..i;m hoping that everything works out and it works out WELL medically for them…the duplass brothers and Joe are in post op right now and in my prayers. They must be …resting, they are really resting because the three of them are humanity’s newest medical miracle…that team of doctors..they are so special..I can’t wait to see the pictures when they are finally released to the public. I heard they are keeping him in a special facility for up to one year so he can train and adapt to it..i don’t mean this as a diss to any of the men but I really hope that their fusion has created a body so new i can’t even picture it..so yeah i mean i would be a bit disappointed if he just looked like a combination of all three of them.. I’m hoping the publicity of the operation translates to big money for him so he can reopen the space…finger crossed…
I don’t know if time was ever like it is in the book and I hope that it is happening somewhere..I get lonely thinking about all the places that i have been.. At my grocery store…called Giant Eagle..they used to have a room called the eagle’s nest where parents dropped their kids off while they shopped and a staff would keep an eye on us. It had a bunch of toys and video games. That is where I saw my first ever video game.
MM) The book is set in a kind of postindustrial sprawl, with speculative almost science fiction elements, and the time period it’s set in is left ambiguous. The characters’ ages and genders are somewhat ambiguous, enabling their more primary qualities to be foregrounded. We intuit their general ages as young or old and what makes them unique. The characters are revealed through expository vignettes. Could you tell us about your process, both in initially conceiving of the idea, and the things which came up while you were writing?
NR) I initially wanted to make it into a super low key movie with the title camera…I would have probably played Vitt and Lyle…Salem who is the VHS queen would have shot it and i even had the funding lined up…i’m friends with one of the biggest local dairy farms.…everything was in place..we were about idk like a week from shooting when the dairy farm called me over to her office. I walk in and on the desk were two shot glasses filled with milk. She asked which one i thought was hers…well ..i fucked up and did not identify the milk correctly so she pulled out but it is what it is…I don’t care that the movie fell through .i’ve know her since I was a small baby…..i fucked up and lost a friend….Moving on.
MM) AFx feels very of-a-place though, the metal buildings and steel bridges grounding us, at least at first, in Pittsburgh, the Iron City, where you reside, even though the book takes place in various states. There’s an unabashed love of rivers. Tell us about the features of the USA which inspire you and drove the novella’s creation.
NR) I like highways bc they are one of the only places you see in constant motion..planes don’t count right now…(they don’t want us in the air.) you gotta go go go go go go on the highway and then when you get off you can chill..you can slow down but ur pumped through a long stretch and then you get popped out to somewhere …to relax. On a river you have much less control…they have whole codes around that idea that people live by…we all know where “Go with the flow” comes from…
MM) There’s a surrender to limitless possibility here, symbolized in part by your love of highways and the magic of snail mail and video’s ability to connect us to our spiritual families. There’s not so much a sense of beginning, middle, and end as there is a sense of all middle. There’s a vague semblance of romance, but it’s kind of misdirection, or oblique, incidental, and not the engine that drives the characters’ motivations and interactions? Did you deliberately attempt to defy common expectations in narrative, like say how Wes Anderson eliminates the concept of audience, or is it more an organic expression of your preoccupations?
NR) I think it’s pretty organic…i don’t think of the details until they are out of me but i do like playing…sometimes i play toooo much ..waaay too much and i’ve been scolded for it..i’ve been punished for it….and the punishment just lifted.
MM) In the book, harsh subjects like violence and trauma are juxtaposed with an almost tweeness. Tell us about Heart Shaped Whisper.
NR) Evil and love are hiding around every corner..and sometimes they are working together…i hope love wins in the end. I’ve acted evil before…and you know that is not good. Heart shaped whisper is free of guilt, shame …
The point of heart shaped whisper..it’s all over us you know? It’s everywhere, it’s protection and passion…
“Anyway, I think I met him in the sky
When I was a geisha, he was a samurai
Somehow I understood him when he spoke Thai”
MM) A trance-like ambience is a consistent tone. Emotional constancy pervades, and a more vain, self-interested character gets left behind. Would you say you are more of a communal than rugged individualist type person? Elbo and Munt complement each others’ personalities in a way that seems characteristically sweet and unassuming. Do you have any loner qualities?
NR) I like the idea of being alone…i can go away and try to fake being alone… sometimes i really like being alone and a lot of the times i want to be around someone who is pinned in my imessage but then I sometimes get distracted looking online, these different websitesso i can buy a better answer to this question..
certain websites offer instant answerss but … ..next week I have an appointment but i’m not sure i’ll even make it in time.
MM) You are not only a fiction writer. You make poetry and films, music, and have quite a body of work on the internet under the moniker vividsmile, in collaboration with E_DEATH. I know you have pretty broad tastes, hipping me to a lot of new music I would otherwise have never heard, and even things like obscure R&B. It’s similar to AFx in that music is chiefly textured and about the sensations. Tell us about your influences in music and film.
NR) I used to be really sentimental about my influences and care for him and feed him and buy him sweet little hats and full outfits but really i just want something to wake me up and have me excited and sometimes i don;t even need the influence i just like the idea of the influence and i can get high off that …i’ve gotten drunk as fuck off that..my skull cracked from THAT.
…my favorite album ..is Pink Friday (Complete Edition) really untouchable…almost too powerful…sadly it can’t be made again.
Movies..you know … .i was addicted to movies as a child…before i could read i knew all the names of vhs tapes because i was just tapped in like that. I had a portable DVD player..I took it to school and on the bus and fell asleep with it playing next to me every night…Salem did the same thing as a kid…far away…my sister through the PDVDP..
My favorite Movies were Rob Zombie’s Halloween and The Devils Rejects…i watched Devils Rejects everyday for about a year in 3rd or 4th grade…despite their flaws..that family stuck together..and that meant alot to me.
MM) Do you consider yourself a rock star, at least do you move with the spirit of it? I think I called one of your songs glammed out.
NR) I am leasing a lot of different sizes of clothing right now…stuff like shirts..pants ..jackets and to be honest i’m loving it..they keep me warm and protect my body.
MM) You recently mailed me your well-worn copy of Lonesome Dove. You’ve told me you like westerns. What is it about westerns that speaks to you? And, since I hear your next book is a western, and I notice some qualities of the western in AFx (the picaresque nature of it, the hungry travel to a home, which is defined by people more than place), now’s as good a time as any to ask the compulsory, what are you working on next?
NR) Larry Mcmurtry …his books have a big heart and i like them because they open my heart for weeks.
Me and my friend Miss Alice saw Kevin Costner’s new movie HORIZON in the theater..,and normally i think movie theaters should be burned down ..really BURNED up and forgotten forever…
No haha i’m kidding..i don’t advocate for burning..in fact it was a beautiful experience…..right around now part 2 was supposed to be playing in theaters but they shelved it because part 1 did not make much money…
but idk westerns..they are dramatic af and a lot of the tropes are ppl being super repressed & lonely but also very emotional.. .it almost does not matter what happens…i feel like they capture some of the last time you were BORN WITH a respect for earth…they did not really have a choice… I was not born with it …
I had to get in PUMPED into me…i have to get a lot of things pumped into me …but i’m repressed..i get lonely…i’m dramatic which are natural traits…can they be pumped OUT? maybe ..
The same guy who showed me movies, who I watched most of them with..he showed me Devil’s rejects. He would explain to me in great detail every night three movies he wanted to make.. I don’t think i can say more about them but um ya when i’m much older I plan to set aside a chunk of time and write them all in one go..you know..not leave the area type shit…hire someone to hold a gun to the back of my head at all times to keep going and if i stop..? “May god murder my children”
I am working on some more writing stuff now. Salem and I are finishing up an album called Living In a Hateful World that has our whole hearts in it. I think it’s something special.
MM) What do you consider to be your home?
NR) This is been the hardest question to answer I keep coming back to it …it’s like when a store will do a price match… not something they want to do but it keeps them alive
MM) Who inspires you in literature?
NR) Werewolf book that she read to me and added cuss words that were not there.
MM) The book, overall, feels deconstructed, like a dream you had. Is your writing process more one of revelation or agency?
NR) It’s hard to wake up in the morning…i curl into a ball when i sleep…no i do i seriously do …? Oh? Okay then…moving on…yes i stay in the ball form the whole time? And I can put my legs behind my head in real life….moving on….in real life ….
MM) What do you do when you’re not creating art, usually? Tell us a little about yourself and your life journey, both material and spiritual.
NR) I am lucky enough to live close to one section of my family that i love but all my siblings live in a different location but I talk to all of them pretty much daily and if I didn’t? Once again “May god murder my children”…but you know the summer is winding down..I rented a pool pass on june 1st and pretty soon they are going to send out a warrant for me if i do not return it….i know i should…but goddamn i just love the noise it makes.