"...A CRIME HAS MUCH TO DO WITH IT'S SETTING..": AN INTERVIEW WITH HOLY CITY'S HENRY WISE

Holy City is one of this summer's attention getting debuts. It's story of a sheriff's deputy and and private detective, both with broken pasts, thrown together to clear a black man falsely accused of murder in the deputy's small town is sharply written and rich in character, mood, and setting. Mr. Wise was kind enough to talk about the book, influences, and process.

SCOTT MONTGOMERY: How did you choose the story of Holy City as your first novel?

HENRY WISE: I’m not sure it was really so much a choice on my part as it was the experience that unfolded as I wrote. I had written one novel previously, and I was unable to find an agent for it, so I set out to write something on the rebound of that failure. I’d spent about ten years, total, working on that previous book, and I felt I needed to find out if I had more material in me, or if I only had the one story. After that decade-long obsession with the first book, which was about surfing in Taiwan, where I lived for several years, I doubted if I could give the same kind of intense devotion to subsequent projects. With a chip on my shoulder, I began HOLY CITY with a single image in mind, and I went from there. A great deal evolved and changed throughout the writing process, but I didn’t ever feel I was in full control of what would happen. I didn’t know what HOLY CITY would be, and I sort of just trusted, blindly, that if I continued to push myself and if the characters and setting and narrative surprised and interested me, that I would be able to complete the book.

S.M.: I found the setting believable and lived in. What did you want to explore in the small town south?

H.W.: As I wrote, I found that place was central to the book. Bennico, a washed-up detective from Richmond who comes to Euphoria County to look into a murder, posits that a crime has as much to do with the setting as with the crime itself, and this emerged as a conceit throughout the book. I’ve always had ties to rural Virginia, and have connections to Southside, where the book is set, and so I’ve spent time in places that seem to have been forgotten by the outside world, and this abandonment and neglect seems to impress itself on the residents there, almost as if they were abandoned children. In the novel, Will Seems, our protagonist, reflects on several people who seem to bear the scars—the defeat—that is inevitable if one stays in Southside. I’m not trying to say that it’s so negative for everyone who really lives there, but I did want to explore that idea of a home being like a prison, that one must escape or suffer in. We always talk of the Southern home as idyllic—a place of hospitality and family—but what if that family is broken, and what if home is more a relapse than an elixir? That’s sort of how I feel it functions for Will, who has moved against the emigratory flow out of Euphoria and forced himself to return. 

I also, personally, have always felt something of an inner division about what I consider my home to be. As I said, I’ve always had strong ties to rural Virginia. But I also primarily grew up in Richmond, Virginia, a setting that seems juxtaposed against places like Euphoria. Through Will, in particular, I wanted to examine how such a divide, like a fault line, can move and grow and evolve in a person, and this underscores his inability to find peace within.

S.M.: The relationship between Will and Bennico fills a lot of the story. How did you go about building it?

H.W.: You’ve probably realized already that I don’t do a ton of planning. I certainly try to be intentional, but, when I build characters, I feel as though I’m really getting to know someone. Bennico and Will surprised me. They’re each dynamic individuals, and, together, they seem to become even more dynamic, as if there’s a chemical reaction caused by their relationship. I found this relationship both natural in its development and surprising. Both characters have strong motives, and these motives clash, even if they’re both trying to solve the same murder. Because of this, the presence of one threatens the agenda of the other, and this puts a plausible pressure on their relationship. As I got to know the characters, I was able to understand what they would do, and why they would do it. In any kind of fiction, I think knowing your characters is so important. These two characters evolved for me throughout the novel. In a way, they seemed to write the novel.

S.M.: You are mainly known for your poetry. What did you enjoy most about writing the novel?

H.W.: I’ve actually always wanted to write a novel. I got into poetry in part because I met poet and editor of SHENANDOAH RT Smith, who became an important figure in my life, especially because he saw my poetry and arranged for my first publication. Before that, I wrote all the time, but I didn’t know how good it was. I still had a lot to learn—and still do of course—but Mr. Smith’s acknowledgment of my abilities and willingness to publish my poems in the same volume as James Lee Burke and Aimee Nezhukumatathil gave me the confidence in myself that I would need to pursue a life of serious writing and publication. 

So, that was why I got into poetry, but I also wrote poems because I couldn’t seem to figure out how to sustain focus for an entire book. I used to read novels in utter amazement that any single person could write a book. Ultimately, I just wanted to do it badly enough, and I kept trying. That’s really what I’ve learned through writing. If you have something you just have to express, and you don’t care about all the particulars or the rules, but you just have to grapple with something on the page as if your life depends on it, then you’ll find a way. If it’s just a nice idea—if the notion of being an artist or a writer is the primary idea that drives you to write—that means when the writing process sucks—and it certainly will—you’re likely to quit.

S.M.: This being a first novel, did you draw from any influences?

H.W.: The short answer is yes; I drew on a lifetime of reading, experience, and observation. As I mentioned before, RT Smith was a great personal influence, as well as literary. I learned a lot about the control of the line from his poetry. He put me onto poets like Seamus Heaney, and I began to explore so many others. In recent years, I’ve loved the poetry of James Wright, Gary Snyder, Ikkyu, Sharon Olds, and Jim Harrison, to name a few. But there’s so much poetry out there that I’ve read and absorbed that it’s hard to put my finger on just a few influences.

Other personal influences have been storytellers in my family. One thing I have really learned, as a Southerner, is the importance of story, and I’ve been very aware of several ancestors as characters, not just names or facts. I credit a colorful assortment of cousins and extended family with giving me tons of material right there, and I could go on.

William Faulkner’s SANCTUARY, in particular, has served as a model of what I believe to be poetic, unsentimental, and yet quite devastating. Willa Cather’s novels have influenced me in their beautiful restraint as well. Her books are often darker and more complex than people realize at first (including myself). In recent years, Eli Cranor, SA Cosby, and Jordan Harper have kept me interested. Charles Portis, Mark Twain, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Hemingway. Flannery O’Connor. And, perhaps surprisingly, the nautical novels of Joseph Conrad and Patrick O’Brian (author of the Aubrey / Maturin series). The latter, in particular, writes what I consider to be about the most perfect series I can think of, dominated by an unconventional friendship and plenty of excitement. I am influenced by any writer who can immerse me in their world.

S.M.: Did your poetry chops come in handy?

H.W.: Definitely. Anyone who becomes a serious poet learns to pay attention to detail, not just in observation, but in all aspects of a creation. Every word, punctuation mark, capitalization, matters. That may be what makes a novel so daunting at first for a poet. To take that microscopic attention and invert it so that you create a world does require a different set of skills. But the ability to breathe that kind of concentration into the prose of a novel I think can elevate the prose. I’ll say this, I think the poets who become novelists probably have an easier time than the novelists who attempt to write poetry. Poetry is intense, and it can function as a kind of preparation for something bigger like a novel. I found my ambition centered on a challenge: could I write a novel that maintained its poetry without sacrificing momentum? I’ll let the reader decide if I succeeded.