A Conversation with Robert Garner McBrearty

While employed as a dishwasher in the early 1980s, Robert Garner McBrearty achieved a remarkable literary breakthrough when his first short story was chosen for the renowned Pushcart Prize anthology, setting the stage for subsequent accolades that included publishing several highly regarded works and having his stories featured in prestigious journals such as New England Review, The Missouri Review, North American Review, and Narrative. Recently, the University of New Mexico Press released The Problem You Have, which the California Review of Books described as “a stunning collection of literary realism” filled with humor, emotional depth, and edginess.

In a wide-ranging conversation with Lowestoft Chronicle, McBrearty reflects on the themes of conscience and danger that shape his latest collection, discusses the evolution of his writing process, from coffee shop notebooks to live readings by professional actors, and shares insights into the emotional stakes, complex character dynamics, and the enduring challenge of crafting stories that resonate both on the page and in performance.

Lowestoft Chronicle (LC): Your latest collection, The Problem You Have, features a broad array of characters who are facing pivotal moments in their lives. While the tone and themes vary, there’s a coherence to the book and no odd fits. One of the stories, “Episode,” which I read many years ago in The North American Review, has long been one of my favorites. It’s proven to be a pivotal piece; it’s the titular story in your third collection and, in your own words, “was influential in leading to the longer and fuller fictionalized treatment of the family’s frontier days as depicted in The Western Lonesome Society.” In fact, you went on to say, “Without ‘Episode,’ I’m not sure if the novel would have come about, or at least not come about in the way it finally did.” How did “Episode” influence this collection? What specific themes or character arcs from “Episode” do you see reflected or echoed in other stories in The Problem You Have?

Robert Garner McBrearty (RGM): The type of conflict in “Episode” appears in some of these stories, in which the main characters are both pitted against each other and, at the same time, allied. In “Episode,” Kenneth, the younger brother, wants to take his older brother Len to the hospital because Len is having a mental breakdown. Len doesn’t want to go; thus, there’s conflict between them. But at the same time, Kenneth is on Len’s side, trying to help him. I find that kind of allies/antagonists dynamic in some of the stories here. In “Cold Night in Waterloo,” the young man who breaks in and the old man who holds a shotgun on him are pitted against each other. But at the same time, they develop a curious closeness with their concern over the baby. They realize that under different circumstances, they might even be friends. I like creating those kinds of complex conflicts. In “Episode,” I also create an ensemble of characters: Len, Kenneth, their father, Mr. Robinson next door, Mr. Robinson’s wife with dementia, even the Robinson’s dog, Jeeter. So, I think that story helped me look at the way a cast of characters can help create a fuller, multi-dimensional story.

LC: In an interview with Laurel Review, you identified themes of conscience and danger in these stories, describing an “inner voice prodding one to take or not take certain actions,” along with protagonists who are “in danger of losing their lives.” Can you provide an example of a story in this collection that changed significantly from its original draft to the final version? What drove those changes?

RGM: Putting someone in danger raises the stakes. The wrong outcome might result in a tragedy rather than a minor mishap, so this naturally puts characters on edge. But that may not be enough in itself to create a story. Often, I find that what my stories need is an additional element. In “The Morning Swim,” the protagonist escapes from the shark and is sprawled on the beach, grateful to be alive. That’s really all I had; not much more than a vignette and lacking a deeper layer. When I started asking myself what happens when he gets up from the beach and where his life leads from here, the story took on more weight. He goes back and has the incident with his wife, where there’s a misunderstanding and a revelation that is going to change their lives forever. So, just to reiterate the point, what a story often needs is a further complication beyond the initial storyline. So, in a way, I’m asking myself the question: what’s missing? What’s missing to keep this from becoming a better story? If I look back upon other stories in the collection, I think I would find that my rewrites often happened in that way—an initial storyline, but something that needs to be added in, often more than one thing that needs to be added in. On some of my very short pieces, it might work in the opposite direction: what needs to be taken out?

LC: You mentioned that readers need to care about what happens in the story. How do you cultivate that emotional investment in your characters from the very beginning?

RGM: I think you have to feel like you’re seeing the world through the character’s eyes. You’re in the character’s head, and moreover, you’re interested in what’s going on inside the character’s mind. It’s not like you’re asking the reader to become the character, but in some way to understand, perhaps empathize with, what the character is going through. At the same time, it has to be done in a natural way, often an understated way. It seems contrived—I guess it is contrived—if you, as a writer, are pulling too hard on the emotional heartstrings. I think of actors—the way the really good actors can convey so much through a simple gesture, expression, word. It’s something of a mystery to me why that emotional investment sometimes happens, why it sometimes doesn’t, and how it might work with one reader but not another. Coming back to that theme of conscience and danger you mentioned, it may be easier to get that investment if the reader realizes early on that something big is at stake. I think of Jack London’s great story “To Build a Fire.” We know right off that this fellow setting off is going to encounter big-time trouble. We read on with increasing curiosity and, eventually, horror.

LC: There are many enjoyable stories in The Problem You Have, but one really stands out to me as very unique and worthy of closer study: “The Professor’s March,” first published in Green Hills Literary Lantern. It’s a piece with terrific humor and lyrical flair. How did this story come about? It doesn’t unfold in expected ways—did you always plan for the dramatic events involving the Tower? Did you have anyone specific in mind when you created Dr. Robertson’s character?

RGM: I’m glad you mentioned this story. It might be my strangest, most unusual story. It actually began as part of a novel. Originally, in the novel, Dr. Robertson is a minor character, seen through the eyes of his daughter, who is trying to explain why her poet father had a crack-up. The novel was never published, but my favorite piece in it was the part with Dr. Robertson walking around the University of Texas campus on that day of the terrible mass shooting in 1966. I started working on a story that was just about that day, but told through the professor’s perspective rather than his daughter’s. If there is any lesson in that, it might be that if you have a novel that doesn’t quite work, see if there is something you can salvage from it. The key was finding the voice. Once I wrote the first couple of paragraphs, I felt like I had the voice, and as a writer, it was just like I was going along for the ride, racing along line by line. Of course, I did a lot of drafts and sharpened prose, but a lot of the main work was just done in a stampede of prose coming to me, sort of the way the professor’s mind, on LSD, was working.

I always knew that the Tower shooting was central to the story, even though it doesn’t happen until the very end of the story. But it had to happen, or else it’s just a strange day of walking around campus. I was always intrigued by that shooting, partly because I grew up in Texas and went to school at UT and would see the Tower brooding over the city. When there were all the later terrible mass shootings, it always seemed to me that the madness began on that day. I didn’t really think of one professor, but maybe an ensemble, including my own experiences as a college teacher. I have images of white-haired professors crossing campus, carrying briefcases. It seems representative of something, a civilized order, and on that day, the old order was shattered.

LC: Can you walk us through your writing process? Do you have specific rituals or habits when writing a new story? How do you approach writing shorter pieces compared to full-length stories? Do you adopt a different mindset?

RGM: I wish I knew. That is, I wish I knew for myself so that I had a system I could rely on. Really, a lot of times, I’m just staring blankly. Well, let me start with the very short pieces, as those are the ones that have been coming to me more frequently lately. I tend to write those in coffee shops or first thing in the morning, jotting them down in a notebook rather than on the computer. It’s usually a line or two that triggers the story, often just something that pops into my head. There doesn’t have to be much of a story with those, though you do want some movement. Really, I think you have most of the elements of a longer story—character, setting, conflict—but done in a very condensed way, mostly a voice-driven way, often with some element of abstraction or surrealism. In “Heading for Shore,” one of the very short pieces in my collection, the idea of prison occurred to me, an unusual prison without walls. I think I was playing with the notion that we can feel like prisoners even in our daily lives. Concept and triggering line have to come together almost simultaneously. When I wrote the opening line, “Jailer Dan gathered us, the twenty or so newbies, in the dirt in front of the prison buildings,” I knew right away what the story was mainly about and where it was going, and I knew the type of story it would be—a somewhat non-realistic story. But when I use that term, I don’t mean “fantasy” or something along those lines. It’s the type of non-realism that points out the real. The very last paragraph in that story came to me later.

I guess with the longer stories, there’s usually a lot more mulling around, some idea that keeps occurring to me, but I have to find a way to get to it, to get it down in some coherent way. Some of those stories I work on off and on for years.

LC: Are there particular experiences or emotions that you find yourself drawn to repeatedly in your storytelling? You have previously mentioned the importance of feeling and intuition; can you describe a time when you struggled not only to find the right ending but also to determine the best way to tell the story?

RGM: Even though a lot of my stories are humorous, I think I am drawn to writing stories of sadness and loss. I think I often write from a certain place of nostalgia, not that earlier times were necessarily happier times, but a kind of nostalgia for a time that never really was. Stories sometimes take on a slightly mythical quality in the way we mythologize our own lives.

I like your reference to the struggle to find the right ending. That’s often the case. Or sometimes, when you find the right ending, you have to go back and change some of what came before. At least, I find both beginnings and endings intriguing to work on. Sometimes, the middle can be more of a slog unless you can find a way to have what might be thought of as mini-beginnings and mini-endings throughout.

I like what James Joyce referred to as epiphanies, the moment of realization at the end.

LC: Throughout your career, you’ve shifted between writing short stories, micro-fiction, and novellas, covering a range from the serious and poignant to the hilarious and outlandish. Has your writing process changed over time? If so, how?

RGM: The biggest change of late for me, in the last couple of years, let’s say, is that I am working more frequently in the very short range, under 1000 words, often under 500. I don’t know if this is a good thing. It’s just what has been coming to me more. I hope to get back to longer work before too long. I’m also writing some stories that might be labeled memoirs or creative non-fiction rather than fiction. Sometimes, I don’t know what to label them. Often, I’d rather not label them. When I started as a writer, I wrote in longhand, and then I shifted to a computer—usually a laptop because I could take it to coffee shops. You might be able to tell that I like coffee shops. My laptop broke, and I got another, and I never liked the way it felt, so now I’ve gone back to doing my first drafts in handwriting. Actually, it might be more like printing. The disadvantage is that I can barely read it, and it’s an enormous pain in the ass to type it up. Sometimes, I record my stories and then make a file from that, and that’s a new thing for me. I like hearing the stories. I like what you mention about the range from serious and poignant to hilarious and outlandish. I’m open to the particular piece, to what it’s telling me about which direction it’s going in.

LC: I recently found an article from a long time ago that mentioned several live readings of your work by local actors and presenters. Actor Raphael Parry read “First Day,” while broadcaster and former professional football player Reggie Rivers read “The Comeback,” and actor Steven Cole Hughes read “The Final Conversation” as part of the “Stories on Stage” series. What are your thoughts on those readings and the unique experience of having your work performed? Were these specific stories chosen for the events, or did you actively pitch them?

RGM: Oh wow, I love reflecting on this. Some of my best experiences as a writer have been those live readings by professional actors. There are two main shows that have used my stories—Texas Bound, which is part of the Arts and Letters Live program at the Dallas Museum of Art, and Stories on Stage in Denver. For one thing, the actors tend to do a great job and probably make the stories sound better than they really are (though I welcome counter-arguments!). The shows have large turnouts, a few hundred people, which seems very large if you’re used to reading to thirty or so. It’s a stunning experience, wonderful, frightening too, to hear your work performed.

I kind of lucked into the first performance at Stories on Stage. My wife happened to be friends with someone who was starting up the show in Denver. She passed along “First Day.” The director loved it and wanted to use it. The director here knew the Texas Bound director and passed it along. For some years then, both shows would often use stories of mine. I tried to attend as many of the shows as I could. I guess I really appreciated hearing that live audience response. So many times, I have the sad feeling that my stories have just disappeared, so these performances are a big boost to my writing morale. There are many ways to get down as a writer, so those positive experiences are very helpful.

LC: How do you think live readings influence a reader’s understanding and connection to your stories? And which piece from your latest collection do you believe would be great for a live reading?

RGM: I do think that audiences often get more out of hearing the story than they might if they just read the story. I’ve talked to quite a few people who have said they prefer listening to books on tape rather than reading them.

I’ve had some one-act plays performed of some of my stories, but I haven’t had the chance to see them. I have an independent filmmaker making a short film of one of my stories, and I’m very interested to see how that turns out.

One story from the collection that I think would make for a good reading would be “Smitty’s on the Mound.” I think there’s a blend of humor and poignancy that would go over well. From having attended shows myself, I’d say it usually works better not to read a story that’s too long.

LC: That short film adaptation sounds intriguing, and I’m sure I speak for many in saying we are all interested in seeing the finished product. Are there any other projects you’re working on that you’re able to talk about? Are you working towards another novella, story collection, or maybe even a one-act play?

RGM: Thank you for the question, as it’s something I’ve been thinking about. First off, let me say that I’d be delighted to see more of my work performed either in live readings or as plays or movies. Especially for film, it would probably work better for someone else to adapt the stories, as there are many technical and logistical issues that I’d have a hard time dealing with, but I’d be happy to work in collaboration.

I recently did write a one-act play, and I enjoyed doing that. A long time ago, I was in a theater class where we wrote and performed our own plays, and I thought that was very invigorating, so I’d be happy to do something like that again.

I always have something in progress! I’ve got three things I’m working on. One is a short novel, one is a collection of my very short fiction, and another is a collection of the longer ones. I’ve even been writing some poetry. I’ve had a few of my poems published. I might like to include some of those with a collection of my flash stories, sort of a hybrid book. But whatever I’m working on, I’m always hoping for a breakthrough of some sort, in some way doing better work than I’ve done before. There’s always the haunting feeling that there’s something more to say. But what?