Sean McCammon talks to Debbie Bateman about his debut novel.
1. Your novel, Outside, alternates between two locations. Within each chapter, we move between things happening in Kyoto in the present moment, and things that happened in small-town Ontario in the past. What were the benefits and challenges of this narrative structure?
Because both narratives follow the same protagonist, the scenes set in the past (Ontario) carry extra weight. They have meaning for David in the immediate context of the situation, but because you know how things have turned out for him (poorly), innocent words spoken in the past can feel predictive, naïve, or ironic. And that helps to create tension. I thought it might work the opposite way, that letting readers know early on that something bad had happened, there would not be as much suspense in the unfolding of events. But there’s actually more!
The main trouble I had flip-flopping between locales was figuring out how much I needed to remind readers of where they had left off previously. I didn’t know if I had to recap everything for them, or could pick up the story from five pages back.
2. The present moment moves along more quickly than the past which creeps at the slowest pace possible without losing tension. The affect of these contrasting timelines renders the traumatic moment in the past all the more ominous. How did you come up with this powerful narrative strategy?
Titanic is one of the most successful movies of all time and unfolds slowly over three hours. But it’s our knowledge of how it will end, with all the characters in the Atlantic Ocean, that adds that layer of tension to every scene.
In Outside, because we are riding along with David in the present, and we know that a tragedy has derailed his life, the scenes in the past seem more consequential. I didn’t know in advance how powerful that structure could be, but it worked. It’s like when a person is given six months to live. Every day is infused with greater meaning.
3. The interwoven timelines mirror and contrast one another in unexpected ways, deepening the story and offering thought-provoking cultural comparisons on many matters including spirituality and dealing with loss. Would you like to share any discoveries that you encountered as you were exploring the two cultures?
In the novel, David is a reluctant Anglican churchgoer, dragged along by his girlfriend. In Japan, he ends up on a trail that takes him to Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, where he is introduced to rituals and customs that could potentially contribute to his well-being, if only he understood what they meant.
One of my editors worried as she was reading, that I was taking her down a road where Western religion would be denigrated, and the virtues of Eastern religion would be extolled. But given David’s simple country upbringing, and limited capacity for introspection, most spiritual ideas bounce off him. At one point in the story, David realizes that his experiences should hold more meaning for him, but wonders, “Maybe I’m just too dumb.”
Luckily, I’ve never had to deal with that kind of loss, but I felt that when faced with a senseless tragedy, no words, whether spoken by a Christian reverend or a Shinto priest, would offer much solace.
4. The idea of following pathways and walking into the unknown plays large both in Kyoto and the fictional Ontario town called Dumford Mills. Pathways serve as a powerful metaphor, as does the idea of going outside into nature. Can you reflect on the role of nature in your novel?
People relate to each other better outdoors. They’re more authentic. They’re healthier. They have more fun. Outside is the place to be! And as an outdoor education teacher, I know that students are more engaged when learning outside. The best way to understand how the world works is by being out in the world.
But nature is a powerful unsympathetic entity that can upend human lives in unforeseen ways, and, unfortunately for David, that plays out in the novel. And precisely because nature is unsympathetic, it can also be a place of healing. A forest doesn’t judge you. A lake doesn’t care what mistakes you made. Every plant and animal in nature is just trying to get through the day without being eaten, and your daily human dramas don’t matter. During times of loss or times of stress, I think that lack of compassion can be comforting.
5. Except when David is walking the trails in Kyoto, most of the scenes in the novel involve groups of people. In Dumford Mills, David is with his students or the outdoor club. In Kyoto, he is with the other temporary occupants of the guest house. What are your thoughts on the importance of connection versus contemplation in the novel?
The mental trauma that put David in Kyoto, that left him untethered from his family, his job, and his country, wasn’t something that David could think his way out of. Time is a healer. Nature is a healer. But it takes relationships with people to make you feel whole.
In the boarding house in Kyoto, a foul-mouthed karate student tells David that everyone is going out to dinner and that he needs to join them. That is the first rope that David grasps onto, the first safety line that pulls him back into a world where there are things and people to care about. Unexpectedly, the routine of eating dinner with his new companions becomes the most important thing in his life.
6. A work like this is about many things. How would you describe the most important questions this book deals with?
I think a central question in this novel is how we make sense of events in our lives that are random and unforeseen. David is a moral character. He is hard-working, honest, and a man of his word. He is leading a good life and making good decisions, and yet everything gets derailed by a series of chance events.
People have to deal with chance events all the time. They get cancer. They get in car accidents. Towns get flooded in storms. The nightly news is full of stories of people struggling to process events that were out of their control.
In the novel, I give David many potential avenues out of the darkness—religion, drugs, nature, and friendships. Because there is no meaning behind the tragedy he experiences, there is no easy fix. We want life to make sense, and when it doesn’t, it feels like the rug has been pulled out from under us.
7. How long did it take you to write the first draft? What was the core of the developmental process between drafts? As you moved through drafts, were you working mostly on the structure, the story world, aspects of style and language, or something else?
I took six months off work to muddle through some musical projects I had on the go. I knew I wanted to start a novel while I was off, so with about six weeks left in the sabbatical, I started writing. I wrote 25,0000 words, and then I went back to work. I didn’t have the energy or the discipline to write during the evening or on weekends, so I let the novel sit. For three years! But that was helpful, because even though I wasn’t writing, I was thinking about my characters, and getting to know them better in my head.
Later, I took six months off again and focused on the novel. I wrote better during the second stint. I was more concise and I knew where I wanted everything to go. It was simply a matter of putting in the time. A lot of my pre-writing took place in bed, falling asleep imagining what would happen, or what the characters might say to each other.
So, I wrote the novel in four years, with a critical three-year gap in the middle.
8. What kind of research did you have to engage in order to create the story world?
I’m an outdoor education teacher, so I knew that part of David’s world pretty well. I could describe the forest adventures of the students and the outdoor club without too much research.
I also taught English in Tokyo in the early nineties. However, I’d visited Kyoto for only a week, but I thought it would make a better contemplative setting for someone trying to make sense of a tragedy. Not being too familiar with Kyoto, I had to keep maps and subway routes on the floor while I was writing.
The internet is a fabulous research tool. In five seconds, I could be browsing through people’s travel photos of any Japanese mountain shrine I chose to include in the story. Apparently, Ken Follett has a team of researchers to help him keep his facts straight. That would have been helpful.
9. What was the most satisfying aspect about writing this book (other than perhaps the satisfaction of finishing it)?
The most satisfying aspect of reading a good novel is feeling like there is another person out there who sees the world the same way as you or finds the same things funny. A good book makes us feel less lonely in the world.
As a writer, you are hoping that you find an audience who will connect with your words, and with whom you can create a fellowship of people who get what you get. I’ve gotten emails from strangers who have read the book, and I’ve dropped in on a couple of book clubs who chose Outside for their book-of-the-month. It seems like Outside has created a little fellowship. That feels good.
10. How would you like this book to be taught: as a historical document, socio-political document, or a document about a certain kind of taste in writing, aesthetic, genre, or literary style… or something else?
A friend of mine teaches a Canadian literature class at a local university, and last semester, she chose to teach my novel! Did she think Outside broke new ground in contemporary literature? No. Did the novel confront the social issues of our times? Nope. She just wanted a book that students could relate to, that was accessible and could open up avenues of discussion on various topics.
When I think about my favourite authors—Kurt Vonnegut and John Irving being at the top of the list—their novels don’t fit into any particular genre. Their subject matter is all over the map. They put likable characters in difficult situations and use hardship to explore the human condition, usually with a sense of humour. I don’t know what literary genre those guys fall into, but I want to be in that club.
Sean McCammon grew up rambling the forests and marshes of the Rideau River near Ottawa. He graduated with a BA in English and philosophy from Queen’s University and taught English in Japan in the early nineties. After getting his teaching degree, Sean moved to Kitchener-Waterloo where he has delivered outdoor education programs for the school board for the last twenty years. Through his job, he has become a beekeeper, a maple syrup producer, and a cross-country skier. He is also a singer-songwriter whose next musical project about beekeeping is tentatively titled A Bee CD.