Randy Ham talks to Kristopher Jansma about his new book “The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards”.
1. This book is written as a series of vignettes. In fact, it could read as standalone short stories. Was this always planned this way, or did you toy with a straight ahead narrative?
True to its message, The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards never went straight in one direction. I stumbled across it while working on a longer project to write 40 short stories in one year. I had been working on a novel that had totally fallen apart, and I wanted to get back to basics. So I decided I’d spend a year writing a story every week… and I’d go three weeks on and take a week off to revise. At first they started out very short, but after a few weeks they began to get longer and longer. Finally, on week 13, I wrote a story called “The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards” which is now chapter 3 in the novel. And I just couldn’t stop thinking about the characters, so the next week I wrote “Anton & I”, and the next week I wrote a story about a gilder in the NYC Draft Riots, and then on and off for the rest of the year I’d come back to those characters again and write more. But I didn’t know at first how they’d eventually fit together.
2. The unnamed protagonist embraces his amorality without question and this is the focus of the novel, but his two compatriots are just as amoral. Were they drawn together because of this, or was the development of their amorality due to their proximity to each other?
They really do all deserve one another. Julian and Evelyn both share a sort of amorality of privilege; they treat others badly because they can’t see far past themselves and their ambitions. The narrator really wants to earn Julian’s respect as a writer, but as with Evelyn, I think he also wants to be significant to them, and indisposable. When he comes across a moment of opportunity to earn their respect, he takes it, even though it means becoming as amoral as they are. Ironically, his amoral choice is to tell the truth: to read a story that is honest, but which will hurt someone who might genuinely love him. Once he makes that leap for Julian and Evelyn, the three of them are really bound together.
3. I have to ask the obligatory: What was the genesis of this novel?
I wrote that first chapter shortly after seeing Waiting for Godot for the first time on stage. I’d known the whole “Godot never comes” thing, but I’d never actually read it before or seen it. I couldn’t believe how moved I was by it. I’d always thought it would be unbelievably boring, since I knew they never actually go anywhere…but I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. What really got me was how dependent Vladimir and Estragon are on each other, and yet how much they each really care for the other, and I think Julian and the narrator came along in my mind pretty soon after that.
4. The format of the novel also lends itself to the opportunity to revisit the characters at almost any time and place in the narrative. Any plans for a short story or section to pop up in other works?
Not currently! I certainly could find more to say about them, but I really like how the reader gets to fill-in the gaps between the stories. The narrator isn’t totally reliable, of course, and there are subjects he doesn’t always address or explain, like what happens to his mother or what his relationships with Timothy Wallace, or Tina, are really like. Those parts aren’t missing because I didn’t get around to writing about them yet, but rather because I think the narrator wouldn’t have been able to write about them yet.
5. None of the main characters are really likeable. What do you think makes them (and the book) so enjoyable to read?
Well, I hope that their un-likability will be exactly what makes people like them. I think we’re all drawn, somewhat, towards people who we know aren’t totally noble. Julian and Evelyn are, at times, selfish and self-absorbed and even cruel. But they’re also lively and ambitious and passionate. They live their lives with nothing holding them back, or almost nothing, and that appeals to the narrator who is held back by just about everything in the beginning of the story. As the story goes on, he winds up discovering the prices that are paid when you live so nakedly, and by the end of the book both he and the reader see the results. Can these leopards change their spots? That’s what I think people are always secretly curious to see.
6. Chekov and The Cherry Orchard are referenced throughout the novel. Do you have a soft spot for the play?
I love Chekov, and I’ve read many many many of his short stories, but I have to confess (truth!) I haven’t read The Cherry Orchard. I used that one because the narrator needs another Chekov play for “Rose” to be in, for his story “Anton & I”. I wanted the reader to wonder if that’s why he chooses the name “Anton” for Julian as well. The Cherry Orchard is one of those plays I really want to see before I read, like Godot. I’m never gone to see Chekov staged, in fact. A few years ago, Peter Sarsgaard kept reviving them here in NYC but life conspired against me and I wound up missing the production each time. But I’m very stubborn that way, about plays. I love the experience of sitting down to see something I’ve never read, and don’t know anything about, and just really having my Earth shattered. The last time it prompted this book… so who knows what the next will bring?
7. This is your debut novel. Can you talk a bit about the differences between your previous work and writing a novel?
I like writing short stories, but I always get carried away. If I like the characters I always want to stick with them longer.Sometimes I’ll sit down to write a short story and it’ll come out 60 pages long. I guess there are worse problems. Actually, like the narrator, I had attempted to write three novels before this one. I finished each of them, but for one reason or another they each wound up being unsalvageable, no matter how hard I tried to hammer them together. What I saw eventually was that I was learning a lot through all those failures, and that the next thing was always better for it. I’m positive now that I couldn’t have written Leopards without having written those others before.
I’m deep into a new novel now, about a very different group of young friends living in New York City. I can’t say too much about it yet, other than it is a bit more personal, and that I’m happy to report that it is coming along very well. People who’ve enjoyed Leopards will enjoy the next one, for sure.
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photo: phalinn / flickr
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