Hello and welcome to the 56th 3 Art Questions With Jackson interview! I am very excited to be interviewing author Mckenzie Cassidy. I read his debut novel Here Lies A Father with my Dad and I really loved it, parts of the book really stuck with me and I get into that in the interview. I think that you would love the novel and I believe you will enjoy his answers as much as I did. Thank you for reading! (Website: https://www.mckenziecassidy.com / Author photo courtesy of the author)
Jackson: How did you become an author? Were you a book lover when you were young? Did you feel like you had stories to tell?
Mckenzie: Growing up I never thought of myself as a writer and I wasn't interested in the act of writing. In school I was an average student (mostly Bs) who did enough to get my credit and move on to the next grade. One thing I did love was watching movies. I grew up in a small town in upstate New York in the 90s and in my free time I rode my bike to the video store. Back then it was all VHS tapes, 49 cents for old movies and 99 cents for new releases. I would end up riding home home with a plastic bag full of VHS tapes. I did some reading as a kid but not as much as you would expect. Most of my extensive reading started in my 20s. The truth was I considered myself a storyteller rather than a writer. It wasn't until I went to college to study Political Science, which probably should have been English or Literature, that I started writing a ton and getting positive feedback from my instructors. After that I slid into journalism where I wrote news and features for years, and finally started writing fiction. In my 20s I worked at a newspaper in southwest Florida and started reading memoirs (some of my favorites being This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff, Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt and The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls). These books inspired me and that's when I realized I may have my own interesting life story to tell.
Jackson: The good wolf/bad wolf story from Here Lies A Father really stayed with me and I have repeated it to many people. Does it have personal meaning for you? Is that how it ended up in the book?
Mckenzie: I also love this story. Originally, it was a Cherokee legend demonstrating how no person is all good or all bad. I can't remember where I first heard it but it resonated with me in the context of addiction. We all have internal conflicts, urges that are both good and evil, but unlike wild animals we have the choice on whether to act on those thoughts or feelings. Mental disease makes it difficult for some people to make the right choice and substance abuse is like pouring gasoline on a burning fire. When I used this legend in Here Lies A Father, it was during a scene where the main character Ian was speaking with his mentor, a small-town boxing coach named Bud. It would actually be the last time Ian saw him. He talked about how for decades men had shown up to the gym trying to get control over their own demons. They spent too much time feeding the bad wolf and as a result their lives were a mess. I wanted Ian to have an epiphany about the importance of feeding his good wolf with healthy activities like exercising, education, reading, or the arts. This would be the opposite of what Ian's father Thomas had done for most of his life. For the child of an alcoholic or addict, that meant not following the same path by drinking or using highly addictive substances. I also think it's important we all stop seeing each other in such black and white terms. As a society, we're starting to lose the ability to see shades of gray. I'm not sure if it's our education system, television, or social media, but we tear each other apart and forget that each of us is flawed. We all have the good and bad wolf, everything about life is so nuanced.
Jackson: If you could meet any author living or dead, who would it be and why?
Mckenzie: This may sound like a cliche, but Ernest Hemingway. When I was at Wilkes University working towards my MFA in Creative Writing I remember writing a short piece of fiction about having lunch with Hemingway. For one, I adore his writing style and enjoy most of his books. If I am ever in a writing funk and need some inspiration, I simply read some Hemingway to get the creative juices flowing. Even though I'm a fan of his writing and the legends around his life as "Papa" Hemingway, I also know he was an alcoholic, a womanizer, a bully, and an all around asshole (this could fit into a different conversation about whether we should separate the art from the artist). The most interesting part about meeting Hemingway would be separating the man from the myth. He was brilliant at branding himself in a certain way but who knows if that was really the man behind it all? Over the years, I've read various theories about his childhood, sexuality, and his real war experiences. Hell, his first novel is about a character who is both physically and emotionally impotent! He wouldn't be an easy person to understand or accept. To be honest, I'd probably end up hating his guts but at least I would've showed up. I also think Hemingway is another perfect example of feeding the good wolf and bad wolf.
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