Steve Bertrand on Books: David Prete

'August and Then Some: A Novel' ~ Twisted bonds between a father and his children lead to revenge and a desperate hope for redemption and forgiveness. Throughout, David Prete’s vivid sense of atmosphere, tight plotting, and crackling dialogue give the dysfunctional family story a new lease on life.

Published

over 4 years ago

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Arts & Society, Books And Literature, Book Reviews

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Steve Bertrand

Transcript

david creech first novel audacious and then some is one that was sort of grab you and keep hold of you until you finish it until it lets you go you don't believe that it l a he joins us now david we welcome parents and say it's a it's an uncomfortable subject though isn't it octavia thank you both here and there is a i wonder if you said it is uncomfortable to read that brilliantly written i just said he and his salary they would rather watch the years that well you know ah there's even the there's always that sort of understanding that here in the business of entertainment not heard what's your reading and so you know you don't love it when you deal with subjects that you have to do it for whatever reason and don't want to be you know i think that's the point where actually in town making it so difficult for some it could get through that you know that they just can't serve stay with that now at the same time in umm you know one of them back off break you in just the unit chief in which you know that but you know there's that there's that scene knowing there's a responsibility to resign you know when you consider that in just the keeper of detaining them hours earlier now well it is i mean i didn't mean it started a scary way i think you've certainly done that and but it's an uncomfortable sort of there's a skill it's easier to write a happy go lucky chick lit book manages to write something that is a bit darker but still the reader that i guess have you with us chicago ninety one fifth of the most gruesome i did it uh no idea i don't know i mean there's different you know how it would be helpful almost impossible for me richard butler the right i'm going as much brains not their mom or it's not fair not just him greta this is red so for me this for me to imply that one is easier than others probably the wrong thing too you especially to its success politically and writers who i love the income will likely not they have in our back entertainment again and this is a really entertaining and that's now that's if it's to reward center meaning if you lose your looks if you have to grab their readers their audience from art form in your hand if you lose them because they're not entertaining them enough to know everything that you believe all year perceptions about you matt and me all the deeper issue you want to get you are completely gone you have to hold them after keep their attention not so entertaining and balanced one is talking about the book but i want to do but you you're a guy with several different sort of entries and your business card right his death an actor director of what's at the top uh i always put enough medical order he said he had become this uh you know it at that at this point and i just feel like it's from e i'm still in a process of trying to understand how they informed me one other than acting writing and and then directing and you know right now my main focus is directing it is amazing in it and stay program but northwestern and a bomb the things that i've learned in writing and acting are obviously really feeding into this tiny character and structure plot in all kinds of stuff uhm i think the main difference now is talking to american forces about the same time main difference between actors and the directors and writers is that the actors their tools are basically sounds and movements and yes they're using force but somebody else's or is it that they're coming from a different part of their own as you know they're brave and the director and writer whose tools are words and so you know these things just still like about him that indeed the experience of being involved in those positions is this thing and i'm still sort of trying to figure out how i'm how that's all sort of informing so who loses the stories they're writing the director for them the actor well i think come way back i think that that the novelist owns the story the director and me after all are meeting and a playwright you tell a story so i think that they all have a bit of ownership and holy trinity ok phil but when it bought the things you and your card is redeemed as coach and i've never heard of a sense of what's their meaning to it it came about accidentally i wasn't home at first but came out i didn't come coppola readings and that people are writers have come until that and they're like wow i really do believe that while there have been active for fifteen years a better vision and they're sick and you can show me a little bit you know teach because i know about my book tour i guess on the everything's good as people are coming a ratings and more on the really good at it but you know ok you know when it started and just kind of took off from people or inviting in their book club's other writers' groups and and i've taught in universities a hands on i'm going corsages a loan or a collage of the man on his teaching and different writers had a room that are delivering their fifth film work the obvious and then some said the new york now i ask you about the title because i've seen it written in different ways that season to injury with august's capitalized and in none of the other words sin is that you designed by a blaze that well there are commanders there to maps are on this and i wanted it should be just a sentence come because i felt like that who is a more urban lines with howls of voice of the book itself from where it sat in silence complete sentences and the characters are very articulate on it but but very packed and and and and and on educated and i just select out that we are keeping a sense of the systemic effect them more than i have and i think it's but it's hard you can say too that some people think as it turns up a lot of times and all of which casts yeah and you know that's some sort of a reviewer's probably so and you can look at the book you can tell you i know chris is every letters couple of hundred thousand settlers a doubt that but it's a book about correlation chips made several interesting jane in the history is a central voice is but you know keith is along with him but i'm interested in it and so that they each have two very different father son relationships in their family and tell me about that well i i think that there are very a different and that is that nokia has been and are they work together they see each other on a regular basis there are armed there are more physically comfortable around each other you know i mean it's it's and it had locks and an icon and that sort of a very physical and aggressive relationship on duty now is that going to spend much time together all day you know he's he's in a house of them obviously but uhm i think i know but i think that his is the presence of jamie shea's father figure press isn't that really get a e has the story goes on the stand is to lean towards know he's a great rarity and on and that and that's always been really fascinating to me how old you know we there's just certain things that are very liberating about finding somebody who is are you getting him into a relationship in which jurors did the appropriate age to be a father son or a father daughter one of the cases and and then being liberating somehow and somehow more are affected it at certain moments in your life and i think the eighties in this moment where ricky is definitely much more effective on ricky seems to be of a better father figure two j t that he has been held yeah yeah and you know i think that's that's the wall and then unbelievably difficult thing about parenting where you know it and i don't know exactly what it is that now makes about parents are overgrown people a lot more comfortable sometimes around children that are in their stride it is sort of a liberation of the more honest fair open and yahoo are not as guarded but the other thing that has touched even the worst that can there be two fathers who in a time of crisis ricky turn stingy can be said for a moment you have on that if there is enough they don't know that they know each other well they don't always do very well known that there are circumstances that bring them together and i and i think in that part of it is that a month from today they share the same sort of like i don't i don't want it is easier than i think this is not participating in a world in no way you know everybody says it's hard but they don't have well you know that when you feel like you felt like everything inside of you this is destroying the union on how you bounce back from bret thank you ricky stingy he's dead is an abuser fees and that's been out there pretty early on in iowa and has a great impact on shaky and his sister danny i've had gt leader meets a young girl in an apartment he moves in too day in lost earnings estimates stephanie you said to me about the the differences in your hollow treaties relationship with danny enforces relationship with staff uhm i think that i think that he is dan you know and and insisted that no one is one is about the only sort of grow it at that age range that he wasn't really ever closed here on the hill girlfriends and high school found but it's i think that i think that you know no he that that whatever they had together as transfer right onto this stuff in there when he meets are found particularly its designer two save her mother's daughter and his sister wasn't even in some deep stuff and he you know basically this whole thing is like telling you there and it's like how to do this he took that you know about that responsibility on himself and it listed some help but i think that he's trying to do the same thing two stephanie but she's so different than they know it's not working is really know how to elect you know deal with her but that's about seventeen about him too and it's his chance it's sort of redemption as well yeah yeah i mean i think he definitely feels about whether he's in a pit in words and not sure but i think it definitely is trying to do that and if you can't it's a lovely book thank you and we have really enjoyed it and that it would do and i know you've written the forward button not a novel will you write more novels in the future yes i do have some of them are women really wanted to sell about fifteen or sun literary editors have you got that outfit well i you know i have him back at this point is it's onions cooked croshere completely different way which is that time throwing little bits and pieces of a down month and a file somewhere in keeping it away because i can't focus on the entire thing right now is that just have too many other things going on but uhm i feel like these characters that going to be his next novel are sort of slowly growing somewhere right now hopefully in my head and hopefully have a paper at the same time though you know them meet me come lonesome ends with the city and that's how it happens right in the recovery look people say yeah you have done so in one other thing alan the first novels often are autobiographical is there any of you in this town well i got the ap courses and industrial income and if you don't see the different different aspects of myself but not in it and the different characters in it yeah i think that all i got a lot of them insisting on first look at her work is much more autobiographical and this is this deals with themes that are very autobiographical been on a set of circumstances they did create the name of that book all this and then some business tycoon as tough as their parents taught you that kind of siebert rand follows and facebook it steve berk and on books