Shop Talk

Louis Rastelli's first published work was in the form of music reviews and interviews written for local alternative magazines when he was sixteen. He began publishing Fish Piss Magazine in 1996, and his writing has also appeared in Vice, Clamor, Saturday Night, the Montreal Mirror, and numerous other publications, as well as in a series of self-published miniature books of short stories and historical essays. Stephen Clare recently spoke with him about his first full length novel, A Fine Ending.

SC: What inspired you to write A Fine Ending?
LR: Insomniac Press asked me if I could write a novel for them. They remembered a series of miniature short story books I had self-published in the 90s, and wondered if I’d like to do a short story collection or novel along the same lines, so I did. It also felt like it wasn’t too soon to look back at the 90s as a distinct era and an “ending” on many levels: 20th century, locally and (for the narrator) personally.
SC: Did the writing come quickly or did you really need to work at it?
LR: It was a bit of both. I started with an outline of characters, events and key episodes for the novel. The first draft was written within a couple of months, but editing down and re-arranging all the parts so that they fit the original outline took another two months. I tend to write far more scenes and episodes than I need, and then edit together the best ones much as a filmmaker might do with their footage.
SC: What was the most challenging aspect of putting the book together?
LR: The smooth, flowing voice that reviewers have referred to was very laboriously constructed. It was very important for the narrator to sound like an authentic twenty-something living in the 90s, rather than some old dude nostalgically looking back at his youth. To do this, I spent several weeks before writing the novel just reading over old writing of mine from my own twenties, so as to “get into character”. I worked a few short stories I wrote in the 90s into the novel, which helped to set the tone I was looking for. I thought that might also save me some work, but those stories had to be re-written almost entirely in order to be woven smoothly into the larger novel.
Another challenge I had was to create the sense of the 90s passing as the book progresses. The narrative tone had to become more serious and contemplative as the story moved towards Y2K, which took a lot of re-writing to achieve.
SC: What was the most rewarding part of the experience?
LR: After seemingly endless re-writes, getting to the phase where my editor and I were hardly changing anything anymore was very satisfying. It was also nice to end up having followed my outline almost perfectly and feel like I managed to include all the themes I wanted to touch upon.
SC: What did you learn during the process?
LR: I appreciate more than ever the work of line-by-line editing, of eliminating as many redundancies or unnecessary words or lines as possible. The brisk pace that resulted made some of the chapters that some readers found less interesting go by fast enough for them not to lose interest entirely. This being my first novel-length work, I learned that pace and rhythm are extremely important if you want to hold a reader’s attention over a few hundred pages.
SC: Looking back, what would you change about the book if you could?
LR: Given how some people are taking it as a chronicle of that time in Montreal, there are some important local places and events that I would have liked to include in the book. However, it was more important for it to work as a novel that non-Montrealers could relate to, so I don’t regret not overburdening the text with more period detail than there already is.There have been comments about the book taking a few chapters before it begins to flow, so perhaps I could have worked on the beginning some more. But given that this was my first novel and I was unsure how one goes about setting a context and introducing characters, I think I did as well with the opening as I could have hoped for.
SC: What has the response to the work been like so far and do these opinions matter to you?
LR: The opinions matter quite a lot because I really had no idea whether strangers or non-Montrealers would enjoy the novel. I could hardly be happier with the many comments and reviews about how the book practically reads itself. It’s great to hear people say that they can’t put it down once they start it, or that they are reading it a second time. I am especially happy about the very positive reception from readers who are in their 20s now, just as the book’s narrator is; they’ve told me the book is a lot like their lives today. People who’ve never set foot in Montreal also really enjoy it, as do people who know and love the city. Ultimately, it feels like I succeeded in writing something that is both entertaining as well as insightful for the wide audience I was writing for.
SC: What happens now? Are you working on something new?
LR: I hope to have A Fine Ending translated into French this year, and will continue promoting the book through various appearances and festivals through 2008. I intend to self-publish some short stories in advance of starting another book. I’m as yet unsure whether I will write fiction or non-fiction for the next book, since I have ideas for both.
SC: What made you want to be a writer?
LR; My eighth-grade English teacher once told me that I wasn’t going to become a writer, because I already was one. I’ve been writing stories ever since I can remember. I used to submit stories to science fiction magazines in my early teens, and wrote for high school newspapers and later on, all sorts of zines and publications my whole life, so I’ve always felt like I just was a writer.
SC: What books or authors have most influenced your life?
LR: I’ve always been a voracious reader, but can’t say that any one book or author influenced my writing, or my life. After having my book be compared to various authors I’ve never read, I am now curious to read some of their work, though.
SC: How do your family and/or friends feel about your ventures?
LR: My family might have mixed feelings about my novel, given how much crazy partying there is in it, but they’re generally impressed with all the attention my various projects receive in the media every year. My friends mostly wonder how I manage to do all the things that I do (and often, so do I.)
SC: What makes a good book?
LR: I am personally a fan of substance over style, and enjoy fiction that has a casual narrative tone, rather than an overly experimental or obtuse one. I appreciate good writing craft and interesting new styles, but find that some authors I’ve read lately write more to exercise their craft and display their unique style rather than to illustrate or communicate something they feel is important.
SC: Do you have any advice for other writers?
LR: Be prepared to write all sorts of material – fiction and non-fiction – if you want to ever make any money out of it. Some writers seem to think they need to stick with their unique style of fiction or poetry or else risk losing their voice, but in reality, any writer should be able to communicate important things with words, whether in a novel or a magazine article.
SC: How has the internet helped / hurt the industry and the nature of literature?
LR: From my perspective, it has helped a lot by making people read and write more than they used to. Before the Web began taking off and email became a part of daily life in the mid-90s, there were serious worries about the general literacy of young people, i.e. they were reading and writing less than ever. Some feared that the Internet would somehow replace books, magazines and most traditional media, but all these years later, one still has to purchase a book or go to the library to access more than promotional excerpts or short works. As with much else, instead of replacing books, the Internet is a great tool for promoting, selling and discussing them. Beyond the Internet, the mere fact that most households now have printers in the home has made it easier than ever for writers to self-publish their work.
SC: What are your thoughts on the state of Canadian literature?
LR: Creatively, there are a great many good books and authors working in Canada right now. Economically, the book industry is in a state of crisis for many reasons: years and years of stagnating or shrinking funding of the arts, the high dollar, consolidation in book retailing and distribution – all these problems we have at home make it especially difficult for Canadian authors to even think of competing for recognition abroad, unless you are with one of the handful of internationally distributed large Canadian publishers. Margaret Atwood has been very vocal about what the current government has done to reduce essential support for our authors. I agree with her observation that since a fraction of one percent of our annual $15 billion surpluses could easily rectify the arts funding situation, it is hard to interpret the governments’ position as anything other than a dismissal of the importance of the creative class in the country.
SC: What are your thoughts on the state of literature in Montreal/Quebec?
LR: There are a lot of excellent writers coming out of the province, in both English and French, but there is also an increasing sense of crisis among writers and publishers for many of the same reasons I’ve outlined above. The booming economy and its accompanying inflation, combined with stagnant or reduced funding, and more writers on the market competing to write for less publications (which themselves have barely increased their word rates in years) makes for a very tough financial situation.
SC: Who are your favourite Canadian/Quebec authors?
LR: I hesitate to name any, since most of my favourites are friends of mine and I don’t want to list some and not others! I’ve always admired Alice Munro, though, and think she is the most important Canadian writer of the past few generations.