337: The Intersection of Voice and Point of View in Literary Fiction— Interview with Brad Fox

Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Brad Fox.

Brad is a novelist, journalist, translator, and former relief worker currently quarantined in rural Peru. His novel To Remain Nameless was a Paris Review staff pick, an SPD recommended new fiction title, has been a small press bestseller since its release. It was named by Dennis Cooper as a Best Book of 2020.

Brad’s stories, essays, and articles have appeared in The New Yorker, Guernica, and the Whitney Biennial and some of his upcoming work will be featured in “From the Deep,” a major exhibition at the Smithsonian Museum of African Art in 2021.

Brad left the US in the late 1990s and began working as a feature writer and television producer in the former Yugoslavia. Since that time, he has worked in various countries around the globe, doing different forms of humanitarian and arts-related work.

In March earlier this year, he left New York for what was meant to be a twelve-day trip to northeastern Peru, with the goal of studying with a traditional medicine practitioner and completing a book on the bathysphere dives — the first eyewitness account of the deep ocean. That twelve-day trip has extended much longer than those original twelve days, and he’s been doing virtual book launch events from a little table on the edge of the jungle, surrounded by monkeys, hummingbirds and poisonous ants.

 

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In this episode Brad and I discuss: How his partner’s experiences as a doula inspired many of the characters and the structure of his book To Remain Nameless. What voice and POV techniques Brad used to transition between past and present to give his language “energy”. Why “writing for no reason” and experimenting in the moment is a large part of Brad’s writing process.

 

Plus, their #1 tip for writers.

For more info and show notes: diymfa.com/337