“We are always telling two stories about ourselves: the one about who we want to believe we are and the one about who we know ourselves to be,” writes Steve Almond in his new book “Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow: A DIY Manual for the Construction of Stories” that comes out from Zando on April 9.
Who you know Almond to be is likely as the co-host of the New York Times Dear Sugars podcast with “Wild” author Cheryl Strayed, which ran for four years. He’s also authored a dozen books including the New York Times bestsellers “Candyfreak” and “Against Football.” His novel “All the Secrets of the World” has been optioned for television by 20th Century Fox.
When he’s not winning a NEA grant in fiction like he did in 2022, or having his short stories anthologized in places like the Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, Best American Erotica and Best American Mysteries series, he also self-publishes comedic wonders like “Letters from People Who Hate Me.”
Who I know Steve Almond to be is, full disclosure, a dear family friend, the kind where our kids played together when they were little. We also taught writing together at Esalen Institute in Big Sur. He first came on my radar, though, decades ago when we were young reporters at competing newspapers in the Southwest. His writing was fantastic, he beat me to stories…and therefore I, well, kind of couldn’t stand him.
More on that below, in our conversation that has only barely been edited for clarity. He joins Bookish, the Southern California News Group’s virtual program, as a guest along with novelist Rene Denfeld on Friday, April 19 at 5 pm. Register for Bookish here, it’s free.
Q. All those years ago when we were working at competing newspapers, could you feel my envy of you?
SA: A little context would probably help here. Ahem. When you and I were in our early 20s, we worked as rock critics at competing newspapers, you at the Las Cruces Sun-News, and me at the El Paso Times. It is important to acknowledge that I was completely unqualified to be a rock critic and that the reviews I wrote reflected this. I knew nothing about heavy metal or country music, which was 90% of what came through. The highlight of my reviews was generally a description of the lead singer’s hair.
I was unaware that you felt envy towards me, but even if I had known that, I wouldn’t have believed you, Sam, because I did not consider myself an enviable person. I was a self-involved twerp with a deeply regrettable mullet and a closet full of thrift-store wannabe hipster shirts. Two decades later, I wrote about my stint as a rock critic in the pornographic short story “My Life in Heavy Metal.” This was my way of processing the shame. If we had met back then — and I’m sure we never did — I’m absolutely certain I would have made a pass at you, and that it would have been roundly (and soundly) rejected.
Q. Yes, probably. OK, serious question: You’ve been teaching writing for years. At what point did you look around at all the other craft books and say, “I need to write my own”?
SA: I will tell you a secret: I don’t read craft books. Not because I’m some hotshot who doesn’t need them, but because I find them largely futile. Because no matter how eloquently they set out the mechanics of storytelling, they can’t solve the basic crisis of writing, which is that – spoiler alert! – writing is a lonely and doubt-choked pursuit. You sit there trying to make decisions, while simultaneously second-guessing, revising, mistrusting your decisions.
Having said that, I don’t consider “Truth Is the Arrow” to be a craft book. As you note below, it’s really about storytelling as a means of understanding what you’ve lived through. And it’s written not from the perspective of a crafty, know-it-all teacher, but more a writer who has mostly failed and is trying to understand why.
Q. I think each book we write teaches us something. What did this book teach you?
SA: That I am a lot better on the page than in real life. By which I mean: I found myself writing things (about being patient, about being forgiving, etc.) and then thinking about how I behave with my family and being, like: Dude, you are so not living into this noble rap of yours.
Q. When I think of you, I always think of how funny you are, and how much you have made me laugh, both in person and on the page. You write in “Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow” about humor being an evolutionary adaptation. Can you talk a little bit about what you mean by that?
SA: I mean that it’s hard to be a human being, because we have these big brains that make us aware of how fragile our lives are, and how much we stand to lose, and that also constantly make us feel guilty for our impulses. We’re just, like, worried and ashamed and angry and sad all the time. And the way we deal with this, without actually killing ourselves, is to make jokes. It’s like this mechanism that allows us to get over ourselves and all our bloated existential woe. Pain becomes the punchline.
Q. I love that you provide a whole section on the standard, cliché questions writing students ask published authors, like “How do I get an agent” and “What’s your writing process like.” Why was that important to include?
SA: Because so many of these questions are really just about unexamined anxieties. “How do I get an agent?” is really just, “Will I ever be good enough?” “What’s your writing process like?” is really just, “Do you have the magic fairy dust that will make me good enough?” It’s important to accept doubt as part of the creative process. But you can’t let that idiot drive.
Q. This book has one of the best titles ever. Yeah so that’s really not a question.
SA: This means so much to me. Because it’s not an easy title to say or understand. You have to work at it. But it’s the phrase I found myself blabbing at students over and over again, because it’s the simplest, most direct way of articulating how storytelling works. You have to want to tell the truth. The more you aim for mercy, the deeper you travel into truth.
Q. What I love about this book so much is that at its heart, it’s really about being a more conscious human. Sorry, didn’t mean to give away the ending! Also, not a question. Gosh I guess I’m really bad at this.
SA: Not at all. The whole point of the book is to be in conversation with the reader. I’d frankly prefer to hear your own reactions and insights, because you’re a born teacher, as well, Sam. Our natural impulse, when we read stuff, is to look for lessons we can share with our students. That’s our muscle memory. And (by the way) I can still remember teaching with you at Esalen, and listening to one of your lectures while I was watching one of my obstreperous children making pottery in that neighboring art studio. And what I remember is how much all the students were laughing, how relaxed they were, and how much wisdom you were slipping them in that unguarded state. That’s something we have in common—a desire to take writing seriously without taking ourselves too seriously.
Q. OK, here’s a question: You admittedly struggled to write a novel for years even though you had successful nonfiction books and collections. And then you finally did with “All the Secrets of the World.” Did that book bring you a different sense of accomplishment from all your others?
SA: Oh, hell yes. I had written four unpublishable novels to that point and that monkey on my back felt like King Kong. Then, at a certain point, I just gave up on writing a novel. I was like, “Sam Dunn’s still writing novels. I don’t need to mess with all that.” [Fact check: Sam Dunn is not!] And the moment I stopped putting pressure on myself to “perform” as a novelist, the muse was kind enough to walk Lorena Saenz (the protagonist of “Secrets”) into my head. I never said to myself, “Hey, you’re writing a novel again!” I just chased Lorena into one crisis after another and tried to figure out if and how she might rescue herself.
Q. Final question: What are you writing now?
SA: Mostly, emails to teachers and administrators and the kindly readers of my political column who take time out of their busy schedules to send me hate mail.
