INTERVIEWS BY JEFFREY KEETEN:
WHEN ALL THE DAYS HAVE GONE
”All you know and everything you will come to know will inevitably become part of your internal fabric. No matter what decisions you make; good, bad or insouciant, will shape your life much like a river cuts into the landscape. One thought is a fraction of all thoughts and one action is a fraction of all actions. The river broadens and narrows, curves and straightens, flattens and deepens but it’s always coming and always going. It deposits and redistributes everything you know and everything you need.”
Ambrosius is a gravedigger. An unusual profession and, as it turns out, a lonely profession. The mourners do not want to see him as his very presence reminds them that he will very shortly be scooping shovelfuls of soil on their recently departed beloved. It isn’t like someone will say, “Oh no, we are short one for dinner. Let's invite the gravedigger” (personally I’d find Ambrosius fascinating). Although from our perspective Ambrosius is a lonely man, he doesn’t seem to be adversely affected by being so. Lars Boye Jerlach’s protagonist for his first novel, The Somnambulist’s Dreams, is a lighthouse keeper who also has a lonely profession. I decided to ask the author about this lonely parallel between his two characters.
Jeffrey Keeten: In The Somnambulist's Dream, you had a protagonist who was a lighthouse keeper, and now in your new book When All the Days have Gone, you have a gravedigger as your protagonist. Both are in situations where they spend a great deal of time alone. They both are stimulated by letters left by a predecessor. So talk to me about the impact of being alone on the plotting of your novels?
Lars Boye Jerlach: "I believe I think about the idea of solitude/ loneliness a lot, not necessarily from personal experience, but more as a philosophical/ existential question of being. Deep down, I believe we are all alone, but that most of us have learned to either hide our solitude from others or live with others in our shared solitude. However, solitude/ loneliness is not only about being alone. I believe it’s a deeper, internal process and one that requires an internal exploration, a kind of forced mental labor, which can be uncomfortable, even sometimes excruciating. However, if you work hard enough, it does tend to become one of the most important relationships anybody ever has, the relationship one has with oneself."
I also wanted to explore the fact that Jerlach writes about these seemingly simple lives. By their choice of professions, they have eliminated a lot of the social aspects that the rest of us have to deal with every day.
JK: Your protagonists in both of your novels live relatively simple lives. I get the impression that you, too, would rather live in a simpler time or have a simpler life. Are you projecting those desires onto your writing?
LBJ: "I believe there's an urge in everyone to somehow simplify their lives and to find relatively uncomplicated meaning in the chaos.....hence the prevalence for religiosity or indeed other non-theocratic belief systems. While I believe that there is really no 'simpler' time or even a simpler life, as the complexity of existence is entirely dependent on the internalization and analysis of the intellectual output, I do readily admit that I project my own enervated desires onto my writing. The inherent problem is that simplicity very often equals complexity, i.e: what qualifies as an empty space? The question seems simple enough, and yet it's very difficult to answer."
Ambrosius finds some letters, left by his predecessor, that have a profound effect upon him. He can’t stop thinking about them, nor can he stop reading them. The letters are not only surreal but so strangely personal, as if Ambrosius has become part of the narrative. The letter writer meets a succubus in the course of his adventures, and in an odd parallel, a strange young girl named Veronica appears in the graveyard and starts up a conversation with Ambrosius.
”Her long raven black hair was held back by a broad white hair band revealing a face that was as flawless and expressionless as a Venetian mask. So meticulously placed were the dark symmetrical eyebrows over her large dark eyes: that it looked as if they had been artificially constructed. Her small straight nose sat over her full lips, that even in the faint light gleamed like they had been recently painted. There was a slight iridescent glow to her pale, slightly translucent skin that made me think about sculptural works in marble and I was suddenly curious if she might also be cool to the touch.”
There are a lot of unnatural aspects to her, like being able to read the thoughts of a nearby cat, but she is so sane in her insanity that she is another puzzle for Ambrosius to ponder. She is so wise and erudite in her responses that it is hard to associate the mind with the body. This, of course, prompted another question for the writer.
JK:You have a succubus in your story, creating some sexual havoc, but you also have a precocious "girl" named Veronica, who is intriguing, beautiful, scary, and certainly confusing. There are a few overtones of Lolita as your protagonist scrambles to sort out the juxtaposition between her appearance and the wisdom enhanced conversations that are well beyond her years. Tell more about the evolution of this character and the relationship of you as a writer to the characters you create.
LBJ:"I deliberately wanted to create a series of adjacent characters that weren't necessarily bound by time, history, or place, but at the same time were interconnected conceptually and could merge with each other to create a more holistic narrative. I am, therefore, happy to hear your confusion with regards to the protagonist's relationship with the girl, who does indeed have a strong and calculated similarity with the succubus. Although 'Lolita' was not in the forefront of my mind when I started writing, I definitely began portraying 'Veronica' as enigmatically fluid to enhance the juxtaposition between her appearance and her conversational talent, but also to more succinctly link to the alluring succubus.
When I begin writing, I generally have a pretty firm idea for each of the individual characters. I do, however, allow for the natural fluidity of the writing process to guide their development, and it's only natural that my characters grow as I write, and sometimes get themselves involved in unexpected scenarios.
Though I often think I have a fairly clear idea of the individual and his or her traits, there were certainly some unanticipated surprises that arose when I wrote, “When all the days have gone,” and there's no question that I had to allow for a bit of flexibility in the narrative to appropriately accommodate the rather complex development of some of the characters. I knew from the beginning that Veronica would be a critical character and that she would flow in and out of the narrative throughout the novel, so I intentionally attempted to make her mysterious, enigmatic, alluring, intelligent, and wise to deem her unforgettable. As contrived as it sounds, I also attempt to give my characters enough time and room to breathe on the page so that they develop their individuality both naturally and fluidly. It is, as you well know, a very fine balance, and one that I'm still attempting to perfect."
”Although I hadn’t had any imprudent thoughts, her gaze nonetheless made me uncomfortable and I didn’t know how to respond to her gaze other than returning a somewhat strained smile.”
Who is she exactly? What is she? Intelligence is always an attractive trait in a woman/girl/succubus, although, as we all know, intelligence is not a box that needs to be checked as an attractive trait regarding a succubus. By design they are everything you desire.
Jerlach certainly explores a lot of ancient philosophical thought. Is the table really there sort of thing, but he wraps it all in this mystical tale that brings new life, new meaning to what we try to understand about our lives.
JK:You wrap mysticism around classical philosophical thoughts in your books. It can seem like an odd pairing, but both deal with what is real and what is not real. One may have more respect than the other in academic circles, but I get the impression that you, in your search for greater understanding, have embraced both mysticism and philosophy equally. For you, what is the definition of real?
LBJ: "The question about what is real and imagined is obviously one of the driving forces in writing the novel and in building the structure of the narrative. I believe my interest in mysticism can easily be seen as standing in contrast to the rationalist view under which one could argue that reason alone is considered evidence for the truth or falsity of some propositions. However, I am of the belief that anything you experience or reflect on, whether it be fantasy, imagined, dreamt, or tangible, past, present, or future, becomes an intrinsic part of the fabric of your individual reality. So in a sense, everything you have ever experienced and will come to experience, therefore, has to be regarded as real."
There is one last aspect of this novel that I found very intriguing. Ambrosius is trapped in his house in a snowstorm. Every time he feels the call of nature, he has to shovel his way to the outhouse. The snow is up to the windowsills and continues adding more inches of fresh snow every day. He is a man who notices the way a blue sky looks differently from the bottom of a grave, or the beauty in a dead mouse, or the yellow designs left in the snow by a cat.
JK: One of the things I really liked in this book was Ambrosius's ability to see beauty in the mundane, dead rodents, cat pee stains in the snow, etc. I, too, have always tried to notice more than just the things we are supposed to notice as we gallop through life. I have a feeling you are the same way. Share about how those unusual things that others may not bother to notice influence your writing and your art?
LBJ "Although I think we all have a tendency to observe the world around us as “the bigger picture,” it's probably somewhat unique that some people seem to pay closer attention to the smaller details in our daily life. I have quite a few friends who're artists/ writers/ other creatives, and it seems as if nearly all of us have an urge to highlight the insignificant so to make it significant. All the images, sounds, smells, touches we collate throughout our lives, no matter how small, are all just tiny fragments that together create the much larger, more complex whole. Although I am like everyone else, who most often look at 'the bigger picture' world around us, I am aware that I tend to be automatically drawn to the unobserved even when I'm not trying, so when I write about Ambrosius's tendencies, a lot of them come from my own personal experiences. I believe that the aggregate of qualities in the very small, often unnoticed, things are what gives the most unexpected pleasure to the senses and, therefore, exalts the mind and the spirit."
I want to thank Lars Boye Jerlach for graciously answering my questions. As you can see, this short novel, 220 pages, is full of grand ideas and explores the relationship that we all have with the world around us. Some of what happens to us is not readily explainable, and I think we have to learn to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. What is real? What is surreal? Is one more substantial than the other? I can’t imagine any reader walking away from reading this book without being inspired to look at the world around them with a more discerning eye.
THE PORIFEROUS DARKNESS
”Before we get properly acquainted please allow me to introduce myself: My name is Thaddeus C. Noble and I currently reside in an unfinished stone tower, on the otherwise uninhabited island somewhere along the North Atlantic coast of the United States of America. Although, when I say that the island is uninhabited it is not strictly true. Besides the ever present sea, I do have a companion. He is a jet black Raven that I perhaps for obvious reasons named Poe.”
In the dead of night, Thaddeus has a hood thrown over his head. He is bound and bundled off without a by-your-leave from his captors. He awakes to find himself on an island with the aforementioned bird, a well stocked pantry, a stack of bottles, and no indication as to why he has been placed in captivity upon these rocky shores. While exploring the island he finds a pool of a heavy liquid that is not water but seems to be a living entity with the texture of liquid silk. While immersed in this pool, he dreams, or does he really see the truth? The blending of his mundane life and these fantastical stories becomes the story of his life. He soon puts the bottles to use. He pens missives of his plight and relates stories that his feverious imagination believes to be true. He places these letters into the bottles, seals them with wax, and flings them out in the ocean in the hopes that someone will someday read them.
Thaddeus is, by his own admission, an ordinary man, certainly not a rich man or a man who will be missed. He walks through life as gray as the sidewalks he trudges upon. He even avoids the bawdy house, located so conveniently at the end of his employer’s block, though someone so devoid of human contact would certainly benefit from even the purchased caresses of a demimondaine. ”Not that he didn’t have the urge. As a matter of fact, the young soft skinned girls looking down on the street from the upper windows, scanning the street with vacant eyes, looking for something or other to occupy their weary minds, were quite frequently unwitting but amenable companions in his nightly fantasies. However, the main reason he didn’t go was because he was deeply afraid that none of the girls would notice him, and although he was used to an exceptional high level of abandon, he nevertheless feared that the spurning or avoidance of a girl of easy virtue would exceed the amount of rejection he could bear.”
Of course, what someone needs to explain to Thaddeus is these girls of easy virtue will never ignore him, especially with a fistful of proffered cash. So the question remains, why would someone kidnap such a nondescript man and go to all the trouble of Robinson Crusoeing him? And why won’t the damn bird talk to him?
Thaddeus knows he can talk. He knows he can understand him, but Poe steadfastly refuses to converse with him. With what Thaddeus is seeing while immersed in the pool, he would relish the ability to chat with someone, even a raven, about what exactly he is seeing. Thank goodness the whale talks to him, but the whale seems decidedly less informed than what Thaddeus knows Poe can tell him. Poe could be the key to understanding everything. Wait, a talking whale? Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that. You’ll start to believe this reviewer has become as barmy as Ahab. As far as the bird, if I were Thaddeus I might start to consider what raven soup will taste like with maybe a side salad of wild lettuce.
I have known Lars Boye Jerlach for a number of years. I harass him. He harasses me. He takes time out of his busy schedule to read some of my desultory attempts at writing. He loves words. If words were a prostitute, he would lavish all of his money on her. If words were cake, he would be corpulent. If words were Scotch, he’d be a drunk. He is, without a doubt, a Sesquipedalian.
Before everyone burns up the internet googling the word, I will supply the definition. A sesquipedalian is described as someone or something that overuses big words, like a philosophy professor. I take exception with the concept of the word “overuses” though. In an age of diminishing vocabulary, I must say it is refreshing to find myself luxuriating in the opulence of words, many of which have nearly disappeared from our vocabulary. I did have to blow the dust off of a few of these words before the meaning became clear, but after reading several recent novels that failed to challenge my knowledge of vocabulary, I was enjoying and, yes, occasionally laughing at the audacity of Jerlach to use some of these words like... nugatory or how about tintinnabulated?
If you are feeling anxiety at the thought of wrestling with words, strangle that thought, murder that thought, become a serial killer of such thoughts. Don’t allow such fears to make you miss a good story. Nay more than that, you will miss an experience. So use your fingers to tweezer a few messages from the depths of Thaddeus’s bottles, and if you live on the coast of New England, peer out across the horizon and wonder...where could he be?
”Even the darkness at night is poriferous, like our memory. Enough to allow just a passable amount of light for us to see things that we would rather were kept buried in the impenetrable layers of the cold blackish mud of the river Styx.”
Word of Warning! Do tie a stout cord about yourself before venturing into The Poriferous Darkness. I've heard there are readers who have become lost and are now hurling their own bottled missives into the ocean with the hope that one of us will read them.
I challenged Lars to a thumb war, and fortunately, for a Viking, he has weak thumbs. After much cursing and copious swillings of cheap ale, he shook off his misgivings and decided to answer my questions.
Jeffrey D. Keeten: Your books revolve around an ancient and now nearly extinct form of communication. We have a generation or two of people who have never written or received a letter. Certainly, because people were writing letters without autocorrect, more consideration, more pondering was given to what they were going to write before they ever set pen to paper. Letters have been of such historical importance to scholarship that one wonders if generations in the future will know less about us than our ancestors. Our digital communications are so disposable it is hard to imagine that they will be available for future historians. Are we living in what will prove to be a lost age of communication?
Lars Boye Jerlach: I think about this all the time, especially in lieu of the younger generation mainly communicating in the language of icons, snapchat, and emojis. However, I’m also aware that we historically have passed information in hieroglyphs, sanskrit, runes, and other forms of imagery that in many ways mirrors contemporary iconography. If you look at the paintings in the Lascaux Cave that basically depicts simple forms from the world around the people who painted them, they are not too different from a contemporary approach to utilizing simple understandable images in communication. There’s always a danger that we historically will look back at this age as the era of lost communication, but I have faith in the inherent power of the written word, and I believe that future generations will be able to decipher and understand where we are coming from, although they might have a much depleted “traditional” information to draw upon.
JDK: I think of your books as the Letters trilogy because missives play a major part in the plots of each book. Do you have a more spicy or interesting title for the trilogy? And is this going to remain a trilogy or do you plan to add more volumes to this particular body of work?
LBJ: Although I never intended for the independent novels to be read consecutively, and thus have never really thought about a combined title, you are certainly not the only reader who thinks about this body of work as a trilogy. Besides the structural and formal use of letters that obviously connects the novels, there are several references in the later books that decidedly point to characters and/ or situations in the earlier novels that hopefully bring a self-referential and introspective feel to the entire body of work. At this point I’m not sure that I will add more volumes to this particular body of work, but as my mind often wanders along very similar lines of enquiry I am keeping my options open.
JDK: You work with a small cast of characters, which really helps focus the plot. I have so many characters coming and going in my writing you would think I was Balzac, so I do envy your ability to keep such a tight control on your character list.This small cast also contributes to a general feeling of loneliness. You might be only second to Anita Brookner in your exploration of isolation and people who don't fit in easily to normal society. Where does all this loneliness in your work come from?
LBJ: The subject of loneliness in literature is so profound and complex that it is difficult to address in just a couple of sentences, but I have obviously been influenced by writers in history who have so successfully introduced the concept of loneliness in their work. Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Herman Melville's Ahab, Franz Kafka’s Joseph K, Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way, Ernest Hemingway's Old Man of the Sea, and many existentialist writers, such as Sartre, De Beauvoir, and Camus, have all impacted the way I think about this issue. I have come to think of my characters' inherent loneliness as an intermittent literary loneliness as well as a poetic situational loneliness. I believe that a certain amount of loneliness is of great use to writers, musicians, artists, thinkers, and other creatives, and that there must be a newfound tolerance for not only being alone, but for the sense of solitude that brings a greater understanding of self to the surface.
JDK: Is English your second or third language? Your command of the English language reminds me of Joseph Conrad, who learned English in his twenties and yet left an indelible imprint on the English language. I have this image of you with your OED open on your desk with a magnifying glass dangling on a chain around your neck. I frequently found myself smiling when I would run across one of your more obscure words. I enjoy being challenged by your word choices, but when I was going through college, the mantra was, if there is an easier word...use it. Most of the books being published now feel like they have been written at an eighth grade reading level. You obviously reject the notion of easier is better, and by choosing these more obscure words you leave the seasoning in your sentences. Talk to me about the way you go about selecting words?
LBJ:Though it is my second language, I exclusively read and write in English. I completely understand that I’m swimming against the continuous stream of easy reads, but I fundamentally reject the notion that easier is better. I probably think about the word use in the same way a painter thinks about slight differences in color or a musician thinks about nuances in tonality. I believe a single word can be an incredibly powerful tool when used selectively, and I think a lot about the structure of sentences and how each word fits within the context when I write.
JDK: I have this silver Hopi bolo tie of the man in the maze. The cover of The Poriferous Darkness reminds me of that same motif. I think your choice is perfect to reflect the theme of the book. I guess you didn't hear that orange is the new black. :-) Symbolism is important in your books, so how much did you agonize over the design?
LBJ:Someone once mentioned that orange is the new black, but I didn’t believe them, or rather I chose to ignore it……
As with the other novels, I forwarded a brief synopsis to my designer Kyle Fletcher. He designed the cover art with very little additional input from me, so I really didn’t agonize over the design at all. I completely trust his discerning eye, and in my opinion he has perfected the link between the cover and the content in all three books.
JDK: What is next for Lars Boye Jerlach the writer? When can we expect a new book from you, and what type of book will it be?
I have a lot of other irons in the fire at the moment, and I honestly haven’t had the time to sit down and think about my next steps. I will obviously continue to write, but at this stage I can’t really tell you what is next for me. Perhaps I’ll try my hand at something completely different, but I have a strange feeling that when I start writing again, it’s going to be in the same vein as the other novels. I somehow seem unable to resist the temptation of pursuing scenarios of enforced loneliness, so who knows? The next book could quite possibly involve an astronaut…
If you wish to see more of Jeffrey’s most recent book and movie reviews, you can visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
He also has a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
INTERVIEW BY DEBRA COHEN ON OPEN BOOK POST MAY 30 2017
DEBRA COHEN: Your book “The Somnambulists Dreams” was very original. One of the things that I enjoyed about it, besides the story itself, was that it was not like other books I have read. It was refreshing to read a book so unique. How did you come up with the idea for your book?
LARS BOYE JERLACH: Although the concept was somewhat nebulous at first, I had a fairly good idea about the general structure of the novel, and I knew that the core of the narrative would be about how the solitary mind of a lighthouse keeper with a fixed routine of watch-taking and daily living slowly descent into madness.
I also wanted to create a series of adjacent stories that conceptually weren’t bound by time, history or place to the main narrative, and I decided to write them so that they can be read as stand alone segments, but at the same time interconnect and merge with each other to create a more holistic narrative. That is the main reason I introduced the dream sequence letters, thereby allowing the freedom necessary for the main character to spontaneously wander, but still stay within the actual structure of the lighthouse.
I am particularly interested in the intersection between literary genres, and the fact that The Somnambulist’s Dreams falls into a rather sparsely populated niche between existentialism, gothic and metaphysical, is most likely the reason you say that it was like nothing else you have read.
DB: How long did it take you to write “The Somnambulists Dreams”?
LBJ: It took me approximately nine months to write the book. I primarily work on my computer, but I’m unfortunately not particularly fast at typing, so it takes me quite a considerable amount of time to get the words down. Also, I have a tendency to go back and forth and edit the manuscript as I work, which in itself adds a lot of additional time.
DB: Dreams play a big part of your book. Are you a vivid dreamer? i.e. do you remember your dreams?
LBJ: No, I can’t say that my dreams are especially vivid. They’re generally a lot more fragmented and most certainly never to the level of clarity as those of the protagonist in the novel. However, when I write, I believe there’s a certain creative freedom in dreams that gives me a greater chance to explore the more inaccessible and visionary areas of the human condition.
DB: The cover of your book is beautiful. How did the design of the cover come about?
LBJ: I am really glad you asked that question. I believe a lot of contemporary books, both in the areas of fiction and nonfiction, suffer from under-designed, uninspiring and sometimes incredibly obscure covers, that often tell you very little about the narrative. It was essential to me that the cover of The Somnambulist’s Dreams immediately proffered the reader a sense of the story, almost like a visual prologue, so I approached one of my good friends, Kyle Fletcher who’s a freelance designer in Chicago, and asked him if a cover design was something he would be interested in. Fortunately he agreed to work on this project and after he read the first draft of the manuscript, we talked at length about possible designs. Besides his own input, I explained to him the importance of the colours of the ravens, the name and condition of the main character and we quickly settled on the white raven for the front and the black raven for the back as the primary motifs for the design. He then created, what I believe is a truly compelling and meaningful cover that perfectly illustrates the essence of the book. Also, his beautiful and simple addition of the lighthouse on the spine subtly hints at the location where the story takes place.
DB: Do you have plans to write another book? If so, are you currently writing a new book?
LBJ: That’s an interesting and somewhat curious question. I know a lot of people think that writing a novel is an accomplishment in itself and that many writers stop writing after their first successful output. However, I believe that most creative souls whether they’re musicians, visual artists or writers have an urge to produce and to keep producing. Most people that I’ve come across in the creative field are always thinking about, if not already working on, their next project. There are always more stories to tell, more lyrics to write and more paintings to paint. My mind is like that of a hungry rat restlessly prowling an infinite maze, so to answer your question: Yes I am currently writing on my second novel. It is similar in oeuvre to The Somnambulist’s Dreams and stylistically it entails many of the same characteristics. I am using a more or less comparable structure and although the story is different, it will hopefully evoke a variety of indeterminate questions that the reader will then ponder the answers to.
DB: Who are your influences as a writer?
LBJ: I am of course inspired by a variety of writers both in terms of genre, style, language and narrative and although I have a great affinity for a lot of contemporary writers, it should not come as a big surprise that my work is mostly inspired by writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Algernon Blackwood, Albert Camus, Franz Kafka, Stefan Zweig, Flannery O’Connor, Philip K. Dick, Haruki Murakami and my compatriot Willy Sorensen. Although they come from very different literary places, there is no question that they have all in one way or another affected the way I think about writing in terms of language, style, structure, storyline, etc. My literary landscape is also heavily influenced by movies and I’m a great admirer of Kurosawa, Luis Bunuel, Tarkovsky, Fellini, Ridley Scott, Lars Von Trier, the Coen brothers and many many others. I also listen to a variety of classical composers when I write, and I believe that some of the repetitions and variations on already established themes is something that, perhaps subliminally, plays a part in the way I approach writing.
DB: What is your favorite book?
LBJ: Unless you have only ever read one book in your life, that’s an impossible question to answer. It’s a bit like asking a parent which one of their children is their favorite and although I readily admit it’s a bit of an evasion, I honestly don’t think I can answer a question like that without feeling that I’m betraying at least a handful of other great literary works. But if you pressed me for an answer and I couldn’t select from the above mentioned authors, I would say it’s probably Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, but if you asked me again tomorrow I might say The Stranger by Albert Camus or Lempriere’s Dictionary by Lawrence Norfolk.
DB: Do you have a writing routine? If so, what is it?
LBJ: Although I sometimes find it difficult to follow, I suppose I do have a moderately established writing routine. I usually get up quite early in the morning, and after having made sure that the kids are ready for school, I walk the dog and make coffee before I sit down by my desk. Then I normally spend twenty minutes or so reading through the last couple of sections in the manuscript to mentally get myself located in the narrative and think about the next couple of sequences before I start writing.
DB: I see that you are an artist and Professor of Art. Was becoming an Author a natural progression or did you always want to be an Author?
LBJ: I have always been interested in language as a medium and I have made quite a few art pieces that utilize language as a visual component. However, being a visual artist probably had less of an influence in the progression from artist to author. I was drawn to literature from an early age and in my mid teens I began experimenting with writing, mainly producing a slew of rather trite short stories and novellas that fortunately were never read by anyone else, so becoming an author was quite a natural progression in the end.
DB: When you began writing this book, did you know how it was going to end? For instance, I have read that some authors like to begin a story and see where the writing process takes them. Other authors know how their book is going to end and need to figure out how to get to that point. What is your approach to telling your/your character’s story?
LBJ: From the very beginning I had an overarching concept for The Somnambulist’s Dream. I knew where I wanted the story to begin, where it was located, who the protagonist should be and where I imagined the story would end. However, as I began writing I did allow for the natural fluidity of the writing process to guide me. Although I thought I had a fairly clear idea of the style and structure of the novel, there were certainly some unexpected surprises that arose when I started writing and I definitely had to allow for a bit of flexibility in the narrative to appropriately accommodate the development. Some of the dream sequences changed atmospherically as I was writing them and I certainly introduced elements to the narrative that I hadn’t expected to introduce.
DB: Have you always been intrigued by lighthouses or did you become interested in them after moving to Maine?
LBJ: I have always been fascinated by the physical structure and tangible function of lighthouses, but perhaps even more so by the austere solitary lives of the people who occupy them. I imagined that the burden of being alone and knowing that it might weeks or even months before a lighthouse keeper sees another person can play some alarming tricks with your mind, and it was this notion that first compelled me to write the story about Enoch Soule.
DB: You have traveled all over the world. What has been your favorite place to visit?
LBJ: There are so many other countries and cities throughout the world that holds a certain allure, but although I left Denmark more than a quarter century ago and now reside on the East Coast of the US, Copenhagen will always have a unique, irreplaceable and treasured place in my heart.