Walks toward whatever feels exciting: An interview with Michael Davidson.

Michael Davidson’s book, Austin Nights, is about two people that go to Austin, Texas to try to live. Michael, the lead character, seems to be relatively lost throughout the novel and his girlfriend Bridget is going to grad school. A common scene. One lost and one in grad school, of course you could interpret grad school nowadays as “lost but with direction.” The relationship between Michael and Bridget was very cool, the love in it is very realistic and without sentimentality. There is a cat in the story. The cat is a main character, as it is in most of our lives. The novel has a strange epic feel about it. Like something huge is happening, I’m not sure how he does it, but you get the emotion that someone is really trying to live.

Noah Cicero: Who are your favorite writers and at the same time what writers influenced Austin Nights?

Michael Davidson: It seems like only 2 writers consistently manage to erase time for me: Thomas Bernhard and W. G. Sebald. 2 writers have made the pink of my eyes tear: João Guimarães Rosa (The Devil to Pay in the Backlands) and Thomas Merton (The Seven Storey Mountain). 1 writer unexpectedly aroused me sexually: Bohumil Hrabal (Closely Watched Trains). 1 writer made me laugh the most in a papasan chair: John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces). 2 writers wrote nice ‘bookstore’ reads: Horace McCoy (They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?) and Guillermo Rosales (The Halfway House).

While I wrote Austin Nights I read these writers in this order: Hermann Hesse (Magister Ludi),
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Notes From Underground), Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen (Larry McMurtry), In a Narrow Grave (Larry McMurtry), Gourmet Rhapsody (Muriel Barbery), The Quiet American (Graham Greene), Giants in the Earth (O. E. Rölvaag), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Mark Haddon), and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith).

I think every one of these writers probably influenced Austin Nights in their own way. But I also think that no writer significantly influenced Austin Nights. If there were any influences on the way it’s written, I’d have to say the things happening around me and inside me.

I wrote Austin Nights in public places in tiny bursts of speed. Sometimes the mixture of things around me and inside me allowed for longer periods of writing, and the sprint would become more of a 3.5-mile run. But the things around me never let me test my stamina long enough to have to slow down into a jog or walk.

I’m trying to say that Austin Nights isn’t a bore to read. It’s bouncy and under the influence.

NC: In the novel Bridget’s cat keeps waking her boyfriend up. My girlfriend’s cat keeps waking me up at night too because it knocks things over around 3:30 in the morning. Can you say a little bit about cats and your feelings on cats.

MD: Cats always find the sweetest spot in a room. Cats always look regal in sunbeams. Cats keep you company in the strangest, most aloof ways. But cats also know how to destroy things slowly and definitively. There are times when I feel like cats are clean and peaceful. Then there are times when I smell the litter box or see a tape worm hanging on by an anal hair and the cat is no longer clean. Or there are times when I’m playing with the cat and she draws blood with the swiftest of swipes and the cat is no longer peaceful.

Through it all, the cat changes me & grows on me. I catch myself negotiating crowded sidewalks like a predator. Slinking in and out of foot traffic, keeping low, sensitive to higher-pitched sounds. I begin to miss the cat when I’m away. I spontaneously burst into song, singing ‘Honeyed Cat’ (her name) even when she’s not around. It’s strange. I don’t think I love cats, but I love this one.

NC: You have an Economics degree, how did you end up picking Economics and has it helped your writing?

MD: Really I wanted to study something related to creative writing, but at the end of my 1st year in ‘the College’ I got all my university ‘privileges’ taken away. One day I couldn’t go into the gym to play squash. The next day I couldn’t check out a book from the library. At the dining hall, I couldn’t eat their mediocre food. I wasn’t allowed to get my grades.

I called some office to see what was up. They said my tuition hadn’t been paid. My account was delinquent. I didn’t know what to do. The previous quarter I was forced to sign some shitty bank papers for an unexpected unsubsidized loan to cover my tuition, and now my tuition wasn’t paid. For some reason I didn’t consider dropping out. Maybe I should have dropped out. Instead, the money I saved until then (from selling Cutco knives and working in a campus coffee shop) went toward restoring my ‘privileges,’ at least until the next tuition payment was due. By the end of my first year I was broke and without a clue. I felt trapped, maybe even desperate.

I applied to the CIA for a job, so I’d never have money problems again. I was prepared to tell them I would do whatever the fuck they wanted if they gave me a job. I would take the classes they wanted. I would basically hand over my education to them, and they could tailor me to fit their needs.

But they didn’t give me a job because I’m half Colombian and I lived in Colombia for 4 years.

My 2nd year I decided to change my major and apply for a lot of need-based federal funding, which helped me get my degree. The debt isn’t so bad, but it’s still there, like a pile of shit.

As for my major, after losing my ‘privileges’ I figured the smartest thing to do was concentrate in something practical. I figured economics was the most practical major available at the University of Chicago.

I never took any classes related to creative writing. And I don’t think my Economics degree has helped my writing, or anything really since I’ve never done anything related to this BA. Maybe it indirectly helped by keeping me away from creative writing classes. But I don’t know this for sure since I’ve never taken one.

NC: Why did you start The Open End?

MD: The Open End is a joint effort with Bridget, Christopher Sly, and WNU. I can’t take credit for this thing. As for why we started it, well, it all stemmed from the idea that the world is woven together in some loose yet significant manner. We wanted to farm contributions from different people and arrange them into networks of original art. I guess we were fascinated with interconnectedness. We made only 1 stipulation, that each contribution link in some way to a prior piece.

NC: Your book contains a lot of scenes where Michael seems lost and without direction. The novel seems very in tune with the times concerning people in their 20s. One person has a degree but no job and the other is getting their master’s. How do you feel about this new reality? When I think about my parents and their friends, all in their early 60s now, they had the jobs they would have for the rest of their lives by the time they were 25 and retired when they were 55. Do you ever look at your parents or grandparents and think, “You had it easier than me?”

MD: I think because I write about this ‘new reality’ I have faith in it. There are things that frustrate me at the same time. I think these things probably frustrate everyone. War frustrates me, living in a country that has to assert itself as the hegemonic power frustrates me, nuclear reactors melting & polluting our oceans with radiation frustrate me, corporations frustrate me, hierarchy frustrates me, come to think about it, almost everything greater than the individual frustrates me.

But I have faith in this ‘new reality’ because I write about it. If I didn’t have faith in it, I wouldn’t sit down and write about it and neurotically edit whatever I write to ‘get it right,’ to ‘do it justice.’ I’d say NO to this ‘new reality.’ I wouldn’t let it get to me, frustrate me. I wouldn’t let it inside me. I’d probably write fantasy or science fiction, if I wrote anything at all.

Being without direction, being aimless & wandering, these are concepts that, for me, have some of the most promising beauty. The fact that this ‘new reality’ makes people this way is, for me, a very good thing. But I’m not sure it does.

I think people are still very ambitious in this ‘new reality.’ I think people still have a clear plan and follow through with it. I want people to stop trying so hard.

I’m not afraid of direction, I have no problem going where someone points, or where I tell myself to go because it’s the responsible thing to do, the right thing to do in our culture, but I absolutely prefer shiftlessness, I prefer sitting on the beach and just being there. I think this way of being is Culture with a capital C. This is universal culture. It’s what’s inside everyone. Maybe I get up and run barefoot where the waves sough to Government Cut. Maybe I get up and, after relieving my bladder in the water, thrash around like a dolphin learning to swim. Maybe I close my eyes and feel the ocean breeze and smile at the seagulls’ song. Maybe I drink a cortadito, eat a chocolate croissant. Maybe I read. Maybe I write in my notebook. Maybe I fart. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe I get up and go home, to the place where there’s internet. I think when life is reduced to a string of maybes things become very interesting & real.

So I don’t look at my parents or grandparents and think they had it easier than me. If anything I think they had it harder than me, or about the same. Their lives didn’t have so much ‘maybe’ in it. But they still had to invent themselves. They still had to live.

At least this is the way I feel now, with a glass of cold water next to me and rice and lentils on the stove. I may not feel this way ever again, or I may feel this way forever. Whatever the case may be, I’m happy this way for now.

NC: I liked the book because it involved going to a new place and trying to live and adapt. How would you describe what it is like adapting to a new location and trying to find a place in it?

MD: Every time I move to a new place I take lots of walks toward whatever feels exciting. In Ocean Beach I walked toward the Pacific and then I walked along the coastline and then I found this place called Sunset Cliffs and I’d go there every day and sit in the sand or on the shale cliffs. I think I thought about things out there, but I only remember the ocean. In Chicago I walked in any direction and always found something exciting. Every city should have a colorful stoop life. In Miami Beach I walked south, always south toward the tip of the island. In Barranquilla I walked to the park where friends played bola de trapo, or I’d sneak into the country club and play tennis on their red clay courts. In Houston I was forced to drive east on Memorial Dr for excitement. It is a good drive, just like Austin is a good place to walk or ride bikes, but I dislike cars.

Adapting to a new place is, for me, a privilege. It’s something I look forward to. It’s a sure way to feel something very alive and very strong inside me. It has taught me to deal with loss and also renewal.

NC: One could have assumed that a story about Austin nights would have been about doing drugs and two starving artists. But instead it is about two very serious people in their 20s and trying to get their lives together. Was this intentional?

MD: My intention wasn’t to write about 2 very serious people. I didn’t have an intention. I didn’t want to drown the story. I wanted it to always breathe freely and create itself and teach me something new.

I’m not sure whether weed is still considered a drug in Ohio, but these people smoke it where it’s still a drug. While it’s true they aren’t starving, this is only because they know how to boil water and survive off basic ingredients, like rice and pinto beans and avocado.

These people are survivors. They don’t eat at restaurants, drink at bars, go to the movies. They don’t sit or stand at concerts, or buy things, or do anything that costs money. But they do have a goal, a vision in mind, that keeps them focused and intense and good. I guess this makes them very serious people.

Austin Nights, the title, if read aloud, sounds a lot like ‘Austinites,’ which is what people who live in Austin prefer to call themselves. I think I made a pun.