Armed with a copy of "God Lives in St. Petersburg," his recently published collection of short stories, Tom Bissell sits down to talk about pre-Sept. 11 Central Asia -- the font of inspiration for his compelling fiction and the geographical link between all of his stories
Culture shock a main feature in jarring tales
By Jennifer Modenessi
STAFF WRITER
IT'S A TYPICAL overcast San Francisco morning, but the Prescott Hotel cafe is warm and subtly lit. Tom Bissell is on the second to last day of a book tour before heading back home to Manhattan.
The bespectacled author's casual demeanor makes him seem much younger than his 29 years. Armed with a copy of "God Lives in St. Petersburg," his recently published collection of short stories, Bissell sits down to talk about pre-Sept. 11 Central Asia -- the font of inspiration for his compelling fiction and the geographical link between all of his stories.
So what drew the Escanaba, Mich., native to a remote Soviet Central Asian republic?
Chance.
After graduating from Michigan State University in 1996 with a degree in English, Bissell applied to the Peace Corps, hoping for a stint in Eastern Europe. What he got was an assignment to Uzbekistan.
"I think they thought it was close enough," he said.
All did not go well. Ill, homesick and heartsick for the fiancee he left behind, Bissell cut his service short and decided to return to the United States. On the plane back home, he began to write.
Bissell's resulting short stories were published earlier this year by Pantheon Books. "God Lives in St. Petersburg" is a deceptively slim volume that contains six dense, often jarring stories.
Believable characters
Whether writing about a hapless American couple on a self-indulgent thrill-seeking trip or an environmental biologist stranded on the barren floor of a dead sea, Bissell creates characters that are compelling and touchingly flawed. In a few instances, they even come off as vaguely unlikable, but Bissell makes no apologies for his renderings.
"I think we, as a reading culture, seem to be getting less able to cope with ambivalence," Bissell said in response to critics who question the often harrowing ways his characters meet their fates. These aren't easy stories to read, and Bissell's skill at creating completely believable protagonists makes their struggles gut-wrenching.
It's no simple task to breathe life into fictional people. "What's the trinity of writing? Character, plot and language," Bissell mused. "Most great writers are good at all three. To me, to be a real writer, you have to be good at at least one of those things. I personally find the most important and hardest one to do is character."
From a photojournalist challenging his own mortality with a camera lens to a broken, embittered Soviet tour guide whose mental and emotional wounds mirror the ravaged terrain, Bissell plumbs the psychological depths of his characters and shows sides people would rather keep hidden. Given their geographical location and Bissell's travels in Central Asia, the inevitable question of how much of these stories is autobiography arises.
The author's groan is audible.
"I'm not the first one to say this," Bissell explained, "but everything a writer writes ... is autobiographical in some very profound sense. I consciously set out to create people who aren't like me. I wanted to write about people in that part of the world, and there was a fairly thick layer of dislocation and identification between me and the main characters."
Author's influences
It's Bissell's experience as a young college graduate joining the Peace Corps and leaving his rural hometown that most clearly informs the way his American characters struggle to cope with radically different cultures.
"That sense of emotional desperation came from my own experience of being this 22-year-old kid who went from the forests of upper Michigan to Soviet Central Asia and just wasn't able to handle that transfer," Bissell explained. "I may as well have teleported there -- that's how sudden and instantaneous a mind cleavage it was."
The fact that Bissell was able to translate his experiences into such a compelling collection of short stories isn't much of a surprise, given his literary pedigree. The son of a Vietnam veteran, Bissell spent his childhood in constant awe of his father's friends and fellow ex-servicemen -- people such as authors Philip Caputo and Jim Harrison.
"Every fall, Phil and Jim Harrison would turn up at my house, and they'd go pheasant hunting with my father." Bissell recalled. "I remember from a very young age being beguiled by these two wild guys and looking at their books and seeing their faces on the back of their books, thinking, 'Really, that must be a pretty cool life.' That was the first impetus to think about writing."
Bissell began showing Caputo his work, but laughingly recalled the author seemed less than impressed. However, Bissell kept at the craft and dedicated his first book, the nonfiction "Chasing the Sea," to Caputo.
Determination and serendipity have helped propel Bissell. He credits chance with allowing him to snag an internship at Harper's Magazine on his return to Michigan from Uzbekistan. That internship led to an editing gig with Henry Holt. Those experiences in New York's publishing world served to humble the young author.
"It taught me that getting published and stuff like that is just chaos," Bissell said. "The first editorial meeting I ever sat in and watched, I saw a Joyce Carol Oates short story get rejected and I remember thinking, 'Wow. Holy cow!' It teaches you that every writer, no matter how famous, gets kicked in the face a lot, too. Those are both hugely useful and very maturing things to know."
Current projects
Bissell isn't editing at the moment -- he's teaching in the master of fine arts writing program at Bennington College in Vermont -- but he sees the possibility of more behind-the-scenes work in the future. As for writing, he's currently working on a book about the children of Vietnam veterans, both American and Vietnamese, inspired by a trip he took with his father to Southeast Asia.
"I think people are going to be writing about it a lot soon," Bissell said about his topic. "We talk about collateral damage in war, but what we don't talk about is how war just sends this horrible spiral through lives and families that just keeps spinning for decades."
With that insight, his daring writing and direct style, how could Bissell not tackle such a difficult and timely topic?
Reach Jennifer Modenessi at jmodenessi@cctimes.com or 925-977-8483.
