hometown, which is the setting for several of his novels, but resists being single-mindedly associated with the city. “To me, the story is the thing, and so the stories dictate what they should be about, where they should be set,” says Walter. “The books I’m working on now, one of them is partly set in Spokane, but also in New York and Amsterdam, and the other one is set all around the Northwest in the early 1900s. I just follow what interests me.” Walter is always exploring similar themes in a new way, pushing characters and plots to unexpected places. There is a great variety in his works, some of which alternate in the same book, between poetry and prose to more traditional forms. One of Walter’s most oft-cited pieces, “Statistical Abstract for My Home of Spokane, Washington,” is a brilliant essay originally written for McSweeney’s, which lists keen insights that tell a bigger story about a place otherwise hard to describe:
On any given day in Spokane, Washington, there are more adult men per capita riding children’s BMX bikes than in any other city in the world... The piece was republished in Walter’s short stories collection, We Live in Water. It is that dedication to craft – experimenting with form and medium – that drives Walter. He and fellow eastern Washington native Sherman Alexie, also a best-selling author, recently launched an eclectic podcast, “A Tiny Sense of Accomplishment.” So, as Walter looks out to the rest of his story, what does he see ahead for himself? “I hope the story’s not over. When you write characters, you write about weakness and conflict, and so I think my battle is constant with myself and I think Spokane represented myself for a while. I think I was a little bit at war with living here and thinking that the place limited me in some ways because the place is really representative of you. To me, that’s what Statistical Abstract is really about. People think it’s about crime numbers or something. To me, they’re totally missing the point. It’s really about how place is self. My ambiguous feelings about Spokane were really about myself. So, overcoming my own sense that I could or couldn’t do things, realizing that I could succeed, that’s kind of what my story’s been about. But I’m also at the place where some tragic fall happens now, if this were a novel. So, I’m probably about to go to jail for … I don’t even know what,” he said with a wry smile. “The way I would write my story would be so boring that I wouldn’t write my story: Guy gets up, goes out and writes, drinks beer with his brother. That’s my story.” E
Jess Walter - By the Book Story Collection
. We Live in Water (2013) Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award; Long List Story Prize and Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize
Novels
. Beautiful Ruins (2012) New York Times No. 1 best-seller, Esquire Book of the Year; NPR Fresh Air Novel of the Year; New York Times Notable . The Financial Lives of the Poets (2009) Time No. 2 Book of the Year . The Zero (2006) National Book Award Finalist; PEN/USA Literary Fiction Finalist; LA Times Book Prize Finalist; Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award . Citizen Vince (2005) Edgar Allan Poe Award best novel; Finalist ITW Thriller Award
. Land of the Blind (2003) . Over Tumbled Graves (2001)
Nonfiction
. Every Knee Shall Bow (1995, re-released 2002 as Ruby Ridge)
Source: www.jesswalter.com
E ASTERN: Winter 2015
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