A CONVERSATION WITH CLYDE EDGERTON
Q: How much were you involved in the making of the movie
Walking Across Egypt? How do you feel about the movie?
A: I was involved very little—though the person who originally
optioned the novel, Madeline Bell, kept me informed
early on and was very dedicated to getting the movie done. I
was given an opportunity to read over the script and offer suggestions
about language and plot. I spent a couple of days on
the set as an observer. After the novel was actually bought
from Madeline I was out of the loop. This was okay because
I was working on another novel and needed time to devote
to that. When I heard that the movie was not going to be distributed
to theaters I was worried that it might be a bad
movie; then when I saw it, I felt that it was okay and that
the major actors did an excellent job. The feel of the movie
was too sentimental for my tastes, but generally I’m satis-
fied that it’s not a movie to be ashamed of, and after all no
movie makes the novel either better or worse than it was to
start with.
I was especially lucky to have someone, in this case
Madeline Bell, feel strongly enough about the book to stick
with it over a number of years.
Q: What was the seed that launched the novel?
A: My mother fell through a rocking chair without a bottom
and was stuck for about twenty minutes. For a while she didn’t
know if she could get out or not. At the time she was around
eighty. The way she told about the event was so funny I had to
make up a short story about it. The short story was expanded
into a novel when I realized that I could add a juvenile delinquent
to the mix.
Q: Why the lack of clarity at the end of the novel about what
happened to the little dog?
A: There was a little stray dog in my mother’s life at the time
and that helped me get the dog in at the beginning of the book,
and then I didn’t need him anymore. My publisher, Louis
Rubin, said—during the revising stage—that I couldn’t introduce
a dog in the way I had and then just have him disappear.
But I didn’t want too neat an ending, so at the end of the novel
I hint that the dog will be back, rather than bring him back all
the way. I like endings to be like life—ambiguous—and so I
didn’t tie everything into a bow. Some may interpret this as a
lack of clarity. I see it as realistic.
At one point in an early draft, I wrote an ending in which
Mattie died, but it felt wrong somehow, so I went back to a
final meal with Lamar. Then in a later draft, after the suggestion
from Louis Rubin, I added the conversation about the
dog.
Q: Was Mattie Rigsbee based on anyone you know?
A: As mentioned earlier, the incident of getting stuck in the
chair happened to my mother, and the character Mattie shared
certain characteristics with my mother. Initially I may have a
real person in mind when writing a character, but that real person fades as I create the fictional person, and then finally the
fictional person takes over. Sometimes I make up a character
completely. In Walking Across Egypt, Robert and I shared a few behaviors,
but only a few. Sometimes my mail came to my
mother’s house and I’d pick it up, and occasionally I’d clean
out her roof gutters. Elaine was completely made up, as was
Mattie’s sister, Pearl. Several years before writing the book, I
met a man who collected lamps, but he shared no personality
traits with Robert that I know of.
As mentioned above, all the characters come to have their
own personality, mannerisms, thoughts, and actions which belong
to only them.
Q: What was the source of Wesley Benfield—was he based on
someone you know?
A: Wesley is almost completely made up. After writing about
Mattie getting stuck in the chair, I heard about a sixteen-yearold
boy locking himself in a bathroom at his grandma’s house
and refusing to open the door. I immediately saw how he
could figure into my story about Mattie Rigsbee and then
planted the letter in his uncle Lamar’s billfold.
Driving to work, I used to pass by a correctional center—
as it was called—and there was the curled barbed wire along
the top of a high chain-link fence, and guard posts. This image
helped me see Wesley at the YMRC.
Q: Describe the experience of writing this novel. Did it take a
long time to write?
A: The novel came very quickly. During the time I was writing
it, I would write from 5:30 or 6 A.M. to 7:30 or 8. My quota
was seven pages a day and on most days I met it. This is very
unusual for me. With all other novels, I’ve been much slower.
I can’t imagine writing seven pages a day now. I’ll be lucky if
that happens again. In seven weeks I had a rough draft and
then I spent about nine months revising and polishing. Normally
it takes me two to five years to write a book from beginning
to end, and then the wait until publication is about nine
months.
Q: Discuss the editing process in the revising of this novel.
Did you get much help?
A: My editor, Shannon Ravenel, is always very helpful. As I
recall, she didn’t see any of this book until I had a first draft,
though that’s not always the case. (Occasionally, I let her look
at a draft that’s just getting under way.) She then marked it and
asked questions. Then over several drafts, I’d revise and she’d
read and ask questions. Finally, when the manuscript was near
completion, my publisher, Louis Rubin, read it and offered
suggestions, and then Shannon had a last look.
What is very helpful about working with Shannon is that
she asks good questions and makes comments in such a way
that I do not feel the book is ever out of my hands. I’m free to
follow or not follow her suggestions and hints. Because she’s
very insightful, her guidance always helps the book in many
ways.
Q: This was your second novel. Did writing your first novel,
Raney, teach you anything about writing this one?
A: I think it helped me understand that it’s okay to throw
scenes or subplots away. You can always get them back. With
Raney, I was more nervous about deleting material—and that
was because it was a first novel, I think. In general, a new
novel, unless it is very much like the previous one, brings new
problems and concerns to me, and in some ways it’s like starting
all over again.
Q: Why did you write this novel from a third-person point of
view rather than a first-person point of view?
A: My first novel was first person and I wanted to try something
different. I happened to be reading a novel, July 7th by
Jill McCorkle, just before I started this novel, and I really liked
the way she’d get into one person’s head, then another person’s
head, so I decided to try it, and luckily it fit with what I
was doing.
Point of view has become generally more problematic
with each novel I’ve written. It’s a fascinating topic. Changing
the point of view changes the story, the mood, and the meaning
of a story. In several of my novels, I wanted to write from
a third-person omniscient point of view but realized that I
could get more energy in the story if the characters spoke
themselves, and so I let the characters tell the story.
Q: What are noteworthy reader responses to this novel?
A: People often tell me that Mattie reminds them of their
grandmother, or mother. I also had a student in a tenth-grade
class once ask me if the characters were black or white. His
question was a consequence of his own experience with food
and cooking like that in the novel. He grew up in a Southern
household of black people who ate many of the same foods
cooked in the same way as those of the white people in the
novel—and my real family.
Q: How do you distinguish between religion and theology?
A: I don’t think about these matters very much. Maybe I
should, but I don’t. I think some other people should. It’s all I
can do to write made-up stories about made-up characters. To
do this job well, with clarity and simplicity and depth, takes
time and effort. And I do believe that all the while that I’m trying
to do it right, I’m working toward meaning and order,
toward making something out of chaos, something that makes
sense, something that helps me understand human beings, behavior,
good and evil. If I affect other people in positive ways
then I’ve done all I could dream of.