An Interview with Derek McCormack
by Kevin Killian

I met Derek McCormack at a conference staged at, of all places, Buffalo New York. At that time he'd written two collections of short stories Dark Rides (1996) and Wish Book (1999), and was working on a novel, The Haunted Hillbilly, which has since appeared. These books were all published in Canada, but a brace of US publishers are bringing them out in the US this year. Soft Skull Press will print the novel, and "Little House on the Bowery," an imprint of Akashic Books, has issued Grab Bag, an omnibus of the two volumes of short stories. McCormack is one of the most interesting writers of our day, and his stories will live forever as masterpieces of a bittersweet cruelty which, once indulged in, renders both giver and taker helpless, hooked on the wrong. As Britney Spears says, "I'm slipping under, with a taste of a poison paradise. I'm addicted to you, but you know that you're toxic."

Kevin Killian: What star sign are you, and how does it influence your work?

Dennis McCormack: I'm a Gemini. On the cusp of Cancer. Is that good or bad? I don't understand astrology. John Taylor of Duran Duran was born on the same day. It seemed cool in high school.

KK: Speaking of stars, what has been your most electrifying star sighting?

DM: I bumped into Paul Walker in Chicago. Is he hot. I saw Xander from Buffy. At a mall in Hollywood. The mall that looks like a Griffith set. I can't remember its name. The Academy Awards are held there. I tailed him into a bar. I pretended to make a phone call. I stood by the payphone with the receiver in hand. Didn't dial. Didn't talk. forgot to. I was so excited.

KK: Now that you are "invading America," what are your hopes and fears? If like KD Lang, doing a new LP of covers of songs by Canadian composers, you were pressed to cite your favorite Canadian writers, could you?

DM: "Invading." That's funny. Fears? The usual. People not reading the books. People reading the books. Hopes? I want to see some haunted houses. Knott's Scary Farm. The Haunted Mansion. I'd love to see the Enchanted Forest in Oregon. I have a bunch of books about it. I feel like I know the family who founded it. As for Canadians . . . I'm a big fan of Tony Burgess. He writes hallucinatory horror novels. The best known is Pontypool Changes Everything. Caesarea's my personal pick. It's a beaut.

KK: When I was out sick in 2003, I kept thinking of myself as a character in one of your books, thrust into the hospital in indignity. Why are doctors and nurses so sexy?

DM: Well, I think I know why they are for me. I was a super-sickly kid. In and out of hospital. Operations. It was like that till well into my twenties. I thought that the only way I could survive it was to sexualize surgery. The restraints. The anaesthetic. The cystoscopies. I never succeeded. I mean, it never stopped being scary and painful. It was, however, the closest I got to sex. I'd get these incredibly handsome interns handling me. It was mortifying and tender. It was like proms.

KK: I've never been to Toronto, though I've heard it's a city 90% of which is completely underground, and some of its citizens never see the sun. Others have told me this isn't true. Have you lived there a long time?

DM: You make it sound way more exciting than it is. A city of mole-rats! I've lived here for almost twenty years. I moved here to attend university. U. of T. I dropped out.

KK: What figure from the 1950s inspires you?

DM: Charles James. [UK-born American couturier (1906-1978). Famous for his "sculpted dresses," he is said to have been the first designer to emphasize the zipper, thus ushering deconstruction into high fashion. He designed with the "precision of an engineer," and for a goof was responsible for Gypsy Rose Lee's break-away striptease costumes, as well as his bread and butter, the sumptuous evening gowns worn by the swans of the Best Dressed List-Babe Paley, Marella Agnelli, Mona von Bismarck, Millicent Rogers et al. He died broke at the Chelsea Hotel twenty years after a mysterious retirement.]

KK: Are you planning a non-fiction book?

DM: I've got one on the go. It's about Christmas commerce in Canada. It's the history of fake snow and gift wrap and holly farming, etc. The country's first turkey processing plant. In Turkey Point, Ontario. This morning I visited the headquarters of Toronto's Santa Claus parade. A warehouse where they store floats and costumes. They had this one float, a haunted house. All black and gray. Jack-o'-lanterns on pikes. Isn't that crazy? In a Christmas parade? Pizza Pizza commissioned it.

KK: If cruelty were a virtue, would it still be the fuse that drives your writing?

DM: I think so.

KK: Did you get to meet Timothy Findley while he was alive? [Timothy Findley, one of Canada's leading novelists, was the author of The Last of the Crazy People (1967), The Wars (1977), Famous Last Words (1981), and many other classics of Canadian literature. He lived on "a picturesque farm" in Ontario and was a great friend of the actress Ruth Gordon. He died in June 2002.]

DM: I read at a gay pride event in London, Ontario. Years ago. Me, Tiff Findley, Shyam Selvadurai, a bunch of other folks. I read from Wish Book. What a bomb. Findley hated me. He refused to have his picture taken with me afterward. So I got left out of the group photo. As I was leaving, I stuck my hand out. "Pleasure reading with you," I said. "I'm sure it was," he said.

KK: Some writers are described as "magicians with words."

DM: When I was a kid I fancied myself a magician. I did shows at old folks homes. My sister assisted. I think I made her wear a French maid costume. That's not really an answer, is it?

KK: It wasn't a very good question. What does your family make of your writing?

DM: My sister loves it. My folks are looking forward to my Xmas book.

KK: Favorite play by Shakespeare?

DM: Macbeth.

KK: If money and/or bashfulness were no problem, what would you go as for Halloween?

DM: Thing is, I hate dressing up for Halloween. I love trick-or-treaters. I love decorations. But costumes make me claustrophobic. So, I probably wouldn't go as anything. Surgery doesn't scare me, though. I'd happily go on Extreme Makeover. I'd love to look like Jake Gyllenhaal.

KK: Sometimes I think writing fiction is more confrontational than poetry, in that it more freely exposes the fantasy life of the writer. Does it take courage to write, or are we just little children playing with crayons on the wall?

DM: I don't feel courageous. I don't really feel exposed, either. I think of my books as tricks. They're like X-ray Spex. You think you're looking at an X-ray. But it's really feathers.

 

For more information about Derek McCormack, visit him online at: Suspect Thoughts

This interview originally appeared online in Suspect Thoughts.

Kevin Killian, born 1952, is a poet, novelist, critic and playwright. He has written a book of poetry, Argento Series (2001), two novels, Shy (1989) and Arctic Summer (1997), a book of memoirs, Bedrooms Have Windows (1989), and two books of stories, Little Men (1996) and I Cry Like a Baby (2001). For the San Francisco Poets Theater Killian has written thirty plays, including Stone Marmalade (1996, with Leslie Scalapino) and Often (2001, with Barbara Guest). His next book will be all about Kylie Minogue.