Macromere Press

Macromere: Linda Gary….

David: Linda Gary, “sometimes miscredited as Linda Gray.” She died sixteen years ago today, October 5th, of brain cancer.

M: And her ghost is the eighth David encounters in He Who Shall Remain Shameless.

D: “I was in Los Angeles to get her to sign the contract….”

M: Why Linda Gary?

D: For me, Linda Gary took on a mythic quality….Of course I’m going to date myself here, but I grew up watching those early- to mid-’80s cartoons in which Ms. Gary’s voice was prominently featured. Nostalgia can be a killer, and I think that’s a lot of what “Linda”, the eighth episode in HWSRS, is about, but I couldn’t help as I grew older thinking about the people behind the characters….I wondered, Who was Linda Gary? At that time I couldn’t find any pictures of her, anywhere. I had no idea what she looked like. When I was younger I thought she probably looked like Tela, one of the characters she gave voice to in He-Man: Masters of the Universe. Eventually I found out she had died, and that she had died relatively young. I had to find out more.

M: We’re getting some echoes of Christine Chubbuck here.

D: That mythic quality, the fact that early on in the age of the domesticated Internet nothing much was available on Ms. Gary and Ms. Chubbuck….that lack of information contributed to an air of mystery, and gave them greater significance in my young mind.

M: Unlike Christine Chubbuck though, there’s still not much out there on Linda Gary.

D: It’s how it should be. Linda Gary did not commit suicide. She did not die in an airplane accident. She died of a disease, and that persistent lack of detail is what also drives “Linda” in HWSRS.

M: Mind explaining?

D: “Linda” is where the narrative turns in on itself and the nature of David’s missions is questioned. As in: Is what he’s doing right? What is the truth, and what is he making up for his own purposes? With a lack of information, in this age, does he have a right to make things up? Does anyone? Can he tell his story without knowing all the details, all that really happened? 

M: Sounds like you had to tread carefully with this one.

D: I had to tread carefully with all of them, but, yeah, “Linda” especially. I felt it was a good point in the narrative to call into question the book itself. My hope is that what drives “Linda” will go beyond even the book—to us. 

Macromere: Today, July 15th, is the 37th anniversary of the death of Christine Chubbuck, whose ghost happens to be the second the hero and narrator of He Who Shall Remain Shameless encounters. To give us some insight into this story, we talked to the author himself….

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Macromere: This is the one that started it all.

David: That’s right. I wrote “Chris”, the second story in He Who Shall Remain Shameless, back in 2007 before any of the others. For years I had been taken, like many people, with the story of Christine Chubbuck’s on-air suicide, but I hadn’t been able to find much of anything at first. A rendering of her face, a few tidbits here and there, but it wasn’t until late ‘06-early ‘07 that I began to find more information about her. I knew that the footage of the incident had either been lost or destroyed or was well-hidden, never to be revealed, and this footage seemed to be what the majority of people on the Internet were talking about. They all wanted to see it.

M: And that led you to the story….

D: What actually led me to the story was the death of Anna Nicole Smith. I remember it was February 8, 2007, and I was working for a public relations firm in Palo Alto. There was a bar in the offices, a “keginator” as they called it, and also a television above the bar playing CNN that late afternoon. I remember standing at the bar watching the TV when no one else would. They had already seen it, I suppose. But I watched, and I wondered about how much attention Anna Nicole Smith was getting. And I thought also then of Christine Chubbuck, and how she’d died in Florida too, and then I went back to my cubicle, opened my notebook and started writing. I didn’t want to write about Anna Nicole Smith; I wanted to write about Christine Chubbuck. Not just Christine Chubbuck—I wanted to write about the people who wanted to see the footage, I wanted to write about us. And so I went at it…I got some stares from coworkers who walked by, but I had a draft by the time I left work that day. 

M: “Chris” was originally published in The Bend in 2007….

D: It was. The story went through some changes after that, but a lot of it’s stayed the same. David Michael Ewald’s mission in Sarasota, Florida, hasn’t changed from that first draft I wrote in February of ‘07 to what readers will see in He Who Shall Remain Shameless.

M: “I was in Sarasota to find the footage….”

D: I wanted to convey the sadness of what happened that day in July of 1974, but I also wanted to explore the aftermath, the obsession.

M: We believe you have, and we think readers will agree. Thanks for taking the time to talk with us, David.

D: Thank you.

Macromere: Today is July 1st, the 99th anniversary of Harriet Quimby’s death and, not coincidentally, the day He Who Shall Remain Shameless really begins. Any thoughts on Harriet—and “Harriet”?

David: “Harriet” was the second story I wrote for what would eventually become He Who Shall Remain Shameless. At that time I didn’t know I was putting together a novel in stories…I just knew that the first story, “Chris”, had been successful, and I thought I’d run with this idea of a guy going around the United States—and soon the rest of the world—seeking out deceased people who could be found on the Internet but who may not have the staying power they could have. The concept was still in its early stages, but at the time I was reading up a lot on early aviation, and I was fascinated by Harriet Quimby, the first American woman to get her pilot’s license, and I thought, Why not have the same narrator from “Chris” encounter the ghost of Ms. Quimby in Boston? Her face haunted me…especially the one of her in her monoplane, smiling, with the amulets around her neck. She had such dark eyes, I felt I was there with her, in that plane, when I looked at that picture.

M: She was a beautiful woman.

D: Definitely. But what struck me was that she was 37 when she died, and she died, according to everything I read, childless, unmarried, which was surprising to me. A woman at that time, I had thought, would be married and have children by the time she was 37. A stereotype, I know, but I did see a connection between Harriet Quimby and Christine Chubbuck, who had also died childless and unmarried—but at 29.

M: Harriet Quimby was different than the majority of women at the time….

D: She was independent, strong-willed, ambitious. She wrote for Hollywood, she wrote articles for magazines, and she wanted a career in aviation. She was on her way to solidifying that career when she died tragically, under mysterious circumstances.

M: How much research did you do to write “Harriet” in particular?

D: A significant amount. I went to the library and checked out books on early aviation…the one that ended up being the most helpful was a Time Life book…It was helpful mostly because of the pictures, which gave me a better sense of what it was like then, how people dressed, how they might have interacted. Taking in those pictures I got a better sense of being there, and this strong sense of time and place helped me to write “Harriet”.

M: You mentioned you received an e-mail from a stranger shortly after “Harriet” was published in The Harrow….

D: Yes. He wasn’t a descendant of Harriet Quimby but rather of William Willard, Harriet’s passenger on that tragic day of July 1, 1912 and a key figure in the story. I was surprised and touched when this descendant, William Willard’s great-great grandson, wrote me to say how much he liked the story and to ask if I had found any further information on his great-great grandfather through my research. We exchanged e-mails, and I found out more about William Willard. He too has a fascinating—and sad—history.

M: Well, David, we appreciate you taking the time to give us some insight on your process for “Harriet”. Until next time…

D: That would be July 15th.

M: July 15th it will be.

Audio Reborn!

Macromere: Um…We see the Audio page is back up on your website.

http://davidmichaelewald.com/audio.html

David: It’s back all right. My wife, who reminds me often of why she’s my better half, asked me why I’d taken the page down in the first place (she doesn’t go to this site). I explained to her that almost all the stories had undergone significant revision since the recordings, including the one I’ve just made available once more, “Arthur”. But “Arthur” isn’t altered as heavily as many of the other stories, and it really is some of the best work Matt Gunnison did. How can his version of “Sweet Arthur Conley” not win over listeners?

M: “Arthur” is the eleventh story out of fourteen, though….

D: I admit it does come a bit late in the narrative, but it’ll still give listeners a good idea of what the book is about, a good feel for the material, the style, all that. As my wife pointed out, it can’t hurt to put up one recording, and even though the final version of “Arthur” has new material not in the recording, listeners can still enjoy Matt’s narration—not to mention his singing—and then purchase the e-book for the full, unabridged, final version.

M: Speaking of the e-book, the release is close….

D: Very close. A few days away at most, right?

M: That’s right. We’ll put up a new post when it’s out on Amazon and B&N, and elsewhere.

D: Great. Looking forward to it.

First Interview with David Ewald

Macromere: Tell us about the audio files you’ve made available on your website for He Who Shall Remain Shameless. Is there any logic to them? Why, for example, is story number four in the book available to listen to but not the first three stories?

David: The stories you see now on the Audio page of davidmichaelewald.com were recorded without having first been published. The first three stories, “Harriet”, “Chris”, and “Ai’dah” were published in The Harrow and The Bend respectively. The fifth and sixth stories, “Christopher” and “Aegeus”, were also published (in Morbid Outlook and The Chimaera). When I realized the stories were coming together to form a book, an interconnected novel, I decided to not attempt to publish any more of the stories individually but rather get the words out in another way….I’d always thought of trying my hand at recording audio versions of these stories, but I’m no actor, and I’m certainly not able to pull off anything resembling a British accent—or any other accent for that matter. I felt that in order for these recordings to have any success an actual actor would have to be brought in. Matt Gunnison was up to the challenge. Over several months, he and I worked together to get the recordings right. Even then I decided to let the published stories remain unrecorded. 

M: Stories eight, thirteen and fourteen are also not available. Does this mean they were previously published?

D: No. “Linda” is a story that has gone through plenty of revision, and so I’ve taken down Matt’s recording since it’s significantly different from the version that will end up in the published book this summer. As for “Radu” and “Colleen”, well, by not making those available I’m hoping listeners will be interested enough to know how the book ends to read the book itself. 

M: Thanks for clearing that up. We were wondering.

D: I understand that anyone who goes to the Audio page may be hesitant to dive in. My suggestion is to start with the earliest story available, “David”, and go from there (“Andrew” followed by “Alice” and so on). It’s helpful to have read the first three stories before “David”, but “David” is also a good introduction to other aspects of the book—namely the protagonist’s archnemesis, who makes his first real appearance in that story.

M: The Meritocrat.

D: Right. The Meritocrat.

M: So, any plans of making the entire book available in audio?

D: At some point, yes. I’d like to make He Who Shall Remain Shameless available in as many different formats as possible. After the e-book release, I’ll likely look into releasing the novel as a podiobook. 

M: Thanks for taking time to talk with us, David. Until next time.