Month: September 2015

Virtual Memories Show #133:
Stona Fitch/Rory Flynn – What If We Give It Away?

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“One of my favorite things is to take a character, figure out what’s most important to them, and then take it away and see what they do.”

Stona Fitch joins the show to talk about balancing his careers as a novelist, a publisher, and a freelance writer with family life. We discuss his new novel, the crime thriller Third Rail, why he he wrote it under the nom de plume Rory Flynn, his influences and favorite crime writers, the challenges of writing a sequel, the futility of debating genre categories, and more! Give it a listen!

“My mentor Russell Banks told me, ‘Go to Miami, you’ll see everything.’ He also said I’d be a great plumber.”

We also talk about what possessed him to write Senseless, which is one of the most disturbing novels ever written. But don’t worry; it’s not all crime and horror! There’s also Stona’s role as the founder of the Concord Free Press, an innovative, generosity-based publishing house! Plus, we explore the benefits of doing corporate work by day and learning about fields you’d otherwise never have any experience in.

“My wife said, ‘Stona, I think you’ve found a brand-new way for writers not to make money.'”

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We talk about a bunch of books in this episode. Here’s a list of ’em (Note: if I ever go to a Patreon crowdfunding model for the show, this is the first thing that goes subscriber-only):

• Third Rail: An Eddy Harkness Novel – Rory Flynn
• Dark Horse: An Eddy Harkness Novel – Rory Flynn
• Senseless – Stona Fitch
• Strategies for Success – Stona Fitch
• Give + Take – Stona Fitch
• Printer’s Devil – Stona Fitch
• The Friends of Eddie Coyle: A Novel – George V. Higgins
• The Girl on the Train – Paula Hawkins
• Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
• The Next Queen of Heaven: A Novel – Gregory Maguire
• Beautiful Ruins: A Novel – Jess Walter
• Citizen Vince – Jess Walter
• I Served the King of England – Bohumil Hrabal
• The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories – Bruno Schulz
• Book of Numbers: A Novel – Joshua Cohen
• The Goldfinch: A Novel – Donna Tartt
• Against the Day – Thomas Pynchon

Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes! You might like:

• Ron Slate
• David Berwald
• Liz Hand
• Walter Kirn
• Levi Stahl

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About our Guest

Via Stona’s site:

NOW
Praised by critics and readers, Stona Fitch’s novels are published widely throughout the world and have inspired other works, from graphic novels to films. His latest novel, Third Rail (2014, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), marks the debut of the Eddy Harness series of Boston-based crime novels – published under the pen name Rory Flynn.

Give + Take (2011) crosses genres with a noir-inflected, hilarious road tale. Printer’s Devil (2009) updates A Clockwork Orange to create a post-apocalyptic parable. Critics cite Senseless (2001) as a prescient novel that anticipated violent anti-globalization protests, online hostages, and use of fear as a political tool. It is often described as one of the most disturbing novels ever written. Senseless is now an independent feature film, a graphic novel, and a cult classic.

In 2008, Stona founded the Concord Free Press, a revolutionary publishing house that publishes and distributes original novels throughout the world, asking only that readers make a voluntary donation to a charity or person in need. The first nine CFP books have inspired nearly $500,000 in generosity.

Stona lives with his family in Concord, MA, where he is also a committed community activist. He and his family work with Gaining Ground, a non-profit farm.

THEN
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1961, Stona Fitch grew up in the midwest and south. While an undergraduate at Princeton, he received the Creative Writing Program’s Lannan Award for Fiction. He also served as chairman of The Daily Princetonian, and wrote for The Anchorage Daily News.

After graduation, Stona reported briefly for The Miami Herald before moving to Boston and joining its burgeoning underground music scene. In 1984, he joined the seminal Boston-based pop group Scruffy The Cat, playing electric banjo, mandolin, accordion, and organ–as well as writing songs. He recorded two albums–High-Octane Revival (a New York Times top release of 1986) and the highly regarded (and rare) Tiny Days–before leaving the band in 1987. During this time, he worked as a dishwasher and cook at the Hoodoo Barbeque, a notorious punk-rock hangout/crime scene in Kenmore Square.

Credits: This episode’s music is Nothing’s Gonna Bring Me Down by David Baerwald, which seems to have become our unofficial theme song. The conversation was recorded in the Boston Marriott Burlington on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones feeding into a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a Blue Yeti USB Microphone. Processing was done in Audacity and Logic Pro. Photo of Mr. Fitch by me.