How would you handle being wrongly accused of sexual abuse? J. Michael Dew talks to us today about All The Bad Things ...

"Robbie Toe never touched Missy inappropriately, never raped Blue Jean by the fire, never did anything to the other five girls who accused him of sexual abuse. But no one cared to hear his side of the story ..."

Please welcome J. Michael Dew to my blog today to talk to us a little about his novel All The Bad Things. But before we get into the questions and answers, why not take a quick look at my review of this magnificent piece of literature:

All the Bad Things by J. Michael Dew
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Written in first person, from the points of view of four people living in northwestern Pennsylvania, All The Bad Things pushes boundaries, not only because of its controversial content, but because the four distinct voices are written exactly how they would speak.

Some might think this would be difficult to read, but it's not. Not at all. It took me only one page to get into the rhythm of the language and to realize that I was embarking on an unconventionally-crafted masterpiece. I am in awe. And I think you would be too. Writing like this doesn't come easy.

For fear of giving too much away, I'm just going to say that you won't be disappointed. Even if stories like this do not appeal to you, I think if you gave it a chance, the distinct characters would draw you in whether you wanted them to or not. Forget about your opinion of coarse language in literature, forget about your opinion of shocking content, and realize that without such content, this book would not be authentic. Without it, this story would not even be worth writing.

And the ending left me shock. It also left me feeling and thinking things that I should probably be ashamed of. Yes, this is definitely a masterpiece. I wouldn't be surprised if it was made into a movie within a year of its release.

Buy it. Buy it now.

View all my reviews

Jessica: Welcome to my blog, J. Michael. Thank you so much for speaking with me today!

J. Michael: The pleasure is mine.  Thank you for having me.

Jessica: Firstly, I have to say that I absolutely love how All The Bad Things is written in “bad English” and without speech marks to heighten the authenticity of your characters’ backgrounds. A lot of “experts” say that writing like this makes a story difficult to read, that it’s better for people’s accents to be hinted at rather than completely spelled out. Did you encounter any difficulties, while trying to publish this book, with editors accepting the fact that the story should be told this way?

J. Michael: As you well know, there is a bit of serendipity behind connecting one’s manuscript with the proper editor.  I was fortunate in that All the Bad Things found a home quickly and did not have to suffer too much rejection, unlike my other two completed manuscripts.

I suppose my book was rejected by some editors because they perceived its style to be unorthodox – that most readers would hurriedly abandon the book for this reason.  Naturally, these editors had in mind a particular audience when they made their call.  They read a sample of my book, thought of their target audience, and made their decision.  Had I been in their shoes and understood that the audience I wanted to please was one used to conventionally-told stories with conventional styles, etc., I would have made the same decision to reject the manuscript. To capture the authenticity of the language of northern Appalachia (as I see northwestern Pennsylvania to be) so that I could accurately depict the overall culture, I was perfectly willing to discard certain rules of writing that, perhaps, would have made the story more palatable to a larger readership.  In doing so, I aspired to the heights of Cormac McCarthy, Daniel Keyes, Sapphire, and Anthony Burgess who all deliver to the reader language as it is and not as it might be suggested.  I would like to think that my choice to write the book in this way elevates All the Bad Things to a more “literary” category.  My book was never meant to be sold in the checkout lane at the grocery store.  I hope never to write a book that could be. 

Jessica: I know from personal experience that many readers of my work assume that because one tiny element of my writing is based on a real experience, that it probably means the work in its entirety is also true. This frustrates me. And I imagine it might frustrate you too. So I have to ask, seeing as on the dedication page you’ve written “For Troy, who lived it,” if this means All The Bad Things, is actually based on a true story? If so, could you tell us what aspects of the book are drawn from true events? And to what extent?

J. Michael: John Steinbeck famously said that he, as a writer, was a “shameless magpie,” meaning that he freely informed his works with real life persons and events.  In fact, George and Lennie from Of Mice and Men were based on real individuals; indeed, Doc in Cannery Row was practically an exact replica of his best friend, Ed Ricketts.  To answer your question: Yes, All the Bad Things is based on a true story but only in part.  In the first part of the book, I borrow heavily from actual events, but I completely abandon doing so in the second part.  In the wider context, however, I must say that All the Bad Things is a story many men unfortunately “lived” and, as the case may be, are still living.  I wanted to shed light on a very nasty “sin,” if you will, that seems to be more and more cropping up as our society becomes likewise more and more sexualized.

Jessica: Being an Associate Professor of English at Georgia Perimeter College, I imagine you are influenced by a lot of different types of literature. Could you tell us what authors inspire you? Is there any particular author who inspired you to write All The Bad Things?

J. Michael: My students ask me this question every now and then, and it remains an impossible one to answer.  The Russian short story writers inspire me by their ability to capture so much by saying so little, and the American novelists of the 20^th century inspire me by their sheer, oftentimes reckless passion.  I also read a lot of poetry to get a sense for how nuance should work and how I might use similar strategies in my own works.  I guess a writer should always have a different favorite author – Hemingway one week, Tolstoy the next – because if we as writers dwell too long on one author, we run the risk of being copycats and, hence, writers with voices not our own.  What a tragedy that would be!

Jessica: All The Bad Things is about a very controversial issue and includes a lot of coarse language. Do you ever find yourself having to explain to people you know how “someone like you” could write such a divisive novel? If so, how do you respond, and does it (or has it) caused any discomfort between you and your family/peers? I know that I still can’t overcome the horrible weight in my stomach for days when someone confronts me about the content in my books. It’s just so hard to explain to someone who doesn’t write. How do you deal with this?

J. Michael: Sure, some of my readers are astonished that I would write about the unsavory sexual exploits of morally-loose individuals with such graphic detail.  My reason for going down some nauseating literary paths, however, is really quite simple.  As a lover of the truth, I felt that sanitizing the language and those scenes would be a step away from authenticity.  While there is no gratuitous sex or violence in the story, per se, there is a good bit of it in general.  Readers should be aware, though, that my intent was never to shock for shock’s sake but to portray a reality out of which a situation like that faced by Robbie Toe can come.  Blue Jean, Robbie Toe’s fourteen year old accuser, has never had a father or father figure in her life.  I hope that savvy readers will make the connection between this fact and her sketchy behavior, seeing, perhaps, that the former is the cause of the latter.

Jessica: Thank you so much for your time, J. Michael! It’s been a pleasure to have you here.

J. Michael: Thank you!

If you would like to purchase All The Bad Things, it is now available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. If you’d like to learn more about J. Michael Dew, please visit his website.