Author Patrick Dacey’s superb debut, “We’ve Already Gone This Far” (Henry Holt & Co., 2016), introduces readers to ordinary men and women living against the worst of circumstances in the fictional town of Wequaquet, Massachusetts. American writer George Saunders said that Mr. Dacey is “channeling both a terrifyingly dark view of America, as well as a movingly optimistic one.” RealClearBooks spoke with the author about his stories, his life and a few of his favorite books.
Q: We’ve Already Gone This Far has been compared to Winesburg, Ohio—Sherwood Anderson’s novel of short stories centered on the life of one man. What literature, poetry or other media inspired the characters and stories in this collection?
This collection is more about a time and place. Each story is about a different character in the same town, but all of them feel the effects of the recent recession, the endless wars and a general anxiety of being alone in a technologically advanced world that keeps telling them they’re connected. My influences are writers whose sentences are short, swift and honest. Writers like George Saunders, Jamaica Kincaid, Kurt Vonnegut, Denis Johnson, Virginia Woolf. The collection was influenced by my own relation to the onslaught of invisible threats, heightened terror alerts, 24-hour cable news, meanwhile in a failing marriage, raising a newborn, and trying to scrape together enough money to give them, and myself, a decent level of comfort. That’s the real conflict. How do we live when everything is on fire?
Q: The 13 stories in We’ve Already Gone This Far explore themes such as alienation, dreams unrealized and emotional trauma through the lives of people in the fictional town of Wequaquet, Massachusetts. The aftershocks of a foreign war and persistent economic depression touch the lives of your characters in profound and often distressing ways. Why choose such dark material as the backdrop for your stories? Do you believe your characters’ emotions or experiences are representative of a current generation of Americans?
Not current, necessarily, probably all generations. It’s a mistake to believe whole generations are apathetic towards anything outside of their lives. Really, it’s mass panic, masked as confusion, which lends itself to depression, the sense that they or we have no real power to change anything. Hope is not a strong word; it doesn’t instill any confidence in people. It’s a soft, careless, uncertain word. So I feel like all of the characters in this book are hoping for something to get better in the future, while incapable to do anything in the present to make that so-called better something a reality in the future. Of course, what is better is usually in the mind anyhow. People can be content in the worst of circumstances.
Q: Why did you choose to write short stories rather than a full-length novel? What is uniquely appealing to you about this form?
I’m not sure I chose the form over a novel. I think the book is novelistic in its own way. When I finished the first story, “Patriots,” I saw that there was a host of characters from the town that deserved their own story. I do think the short story is unique and should be read by a wider audience, though. The short story is more common in every day life than any other form of narrative. We still live for stories, but our time is limited, and a big, thick novel these days is rarely comprised of anything but dozens of short stories. Still, readers won’t follow a short story like a novel, unless they are grabbed from the onset. The reader usually gives the novel twenty pages or so to get going, but the story only gets a sentence, sometimes just the title.
Q: What period of your life, personal experience or occupation has served as the greatest source of inspiration for your writing?
All of it, really. I had a strange upbringing. My parents separated when I was young, and my father lived in Las Vegas for a while, and I went out there and stayed in the hotels and sat in the sports books. My mother was always in search of a spiritual path. She was an artist. She wanted to be loved the way she gave love. I miss her.
Maybe the two most important experiences happened in the last ten years. First, when I was living in Sonora, Mexico, teaching at a college. I started to have these chest pains. I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t speak Spanish. I went to every doctor in town, and a few in Tucson. Then I was holed up in my bedroom, unable to really do anything. I was losing my mind. At that time I had been sober five years, but I hadn’t really dealt with my past, my family, relationships. It all caught up to me. I finally got back to Massachusetts and found I was having panic attacks. I turned out a lot of writing after that, and still, because it forced me to be myself, in a way, in order to understand what was happening to me. The most trying thing, though, was when my son was born. He was premature, three pounds, and I wasn’t sure he would survive. The doctors at the hospital saved his life. He was there about a month. He’s the greatest kid ever. He’s three now, and smart as hell, perfectly healthy, a gift. My marriage didn’t survive after that, though. Not because of what had happened, necessarily, but that we weren’t focused on each other as much anymore. I’ve had great times, though, too. I’m never bored and keep myself open to the source from where my stories come.
Q: What are some of your favorite books?
Under the Volcano, The Sheltering Sky, Autobiography of My Mother, A Fan’s Notes, In Persuasion Nation, Soul Mountain, Revolutionary Road, The Crossing, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, To the Lighthouse, The White Album, Jazz, Blow-Up and Other Stories, Jesus’ Son, Nine Stories, Dog Soldiers, Taking Care, Stories in an Almost Classical Mode, Rock Springs, Close Range…and probably many more. It’s like asking someone with a sweet tooth what his favorite dessert is. I mean, asking me. I tend to overindulge.
