I was very fortunate to have a conversation with author Eric
McKinley about his debut novel, Blessed Sons this week. Blessed Sons follows an ensemble of
characters through the complicated scenario leading up to and following the
shooting death of a star high school athlete.
The characters seem simple enough: the boy and his family, the
shopkeeper, and the lawyer who is assigned to the case. But the emotional relationships that McKinley
creates for each character are fascinating and nuanced – and the characters are forced to examine some
of the most difficult things that life holds – race, class, violence, death,
and the consequences that go along with each.
When I sat down with McKinley, I tried to ask him some meaningful
questions. Often I was reduced to just
gushing about my favorite parts of the book, but here are the highlights of the
interview:
Mrs.O: In this book, the protagonist is a lawyer
named Jon, you happen to be a lawyer, how often do people ask you about the
lawyer component of this book?
McKinley: Sure, even people that don’t know I am a
lawyer ask me about the detail of the trial and want to know if I have personal
experience with the plot line. But I
don’t want people to get bogged down in making comparisons. I don’t want people to think this is the
only thing I write about – or that I will write about in the future.
Mrs. O: You do convey a great bit of detail - like
how the lawyers talk to the judge and how the whole legal process goes, even
down to the details of the rooms they are meeting in and how they differ from
one another.
McKinley: Yes, but being a lawyer
is not a monolithic experience. Some
judges are casual; some lawyers are too, stylistically. Some are more talented than others. Not everyone will be the same.
Mrs. O: At the reading you did
today, you spoke of intentionally making the city of Philadelphia a character
in the novel. You did so
beautifully. Even though I live here, I
felt that I was really getting an insider’s view of the city – and was
transported to each locale with you, in the same way that I am in books that
take place in far-away locales.
McKinley: First of all, thank you for the kind words.
Yes, I was very intentional in making the city part of the ensemble. Places like Bob and Barbara’s and Cookum’s
are real places, although Cookum’s has closed down now. I wanted to include the detail of the city
because this story might be different in a different city.
Mrs. O: You acknowledge that this
story has an eerily similar context to the Trayvon Martin case, do you think
that would have been a different scenario, had that tragedy happened in
Philadelphia?
McKinley: I think it might. Philly is different. We have an African American Mayor and an
African American Police Chief, and obviously a large population of African
American residents, so I think the reaction would have been different. George Zimmerman wasn’t even arrested until
some of his bizarre post-shooting behavior happened. And his bail was set rather low. I don’t know that that would have happened
here because our public leadership contains so many people of color.
Mrs. O: What about Music? You use music in a very theatrical way in
this novel – I could so easily see it translated into a screenplay – but did
you intend for Music to be another character?
McKinley: Music is not meant to be
a character in the same way that Philadelphia is an intentional character, but
I did imagine the scene and what kind of music would be playing, because that
is part of the experience of being in Philadelphia. Most places would have a jukebox or a band,
so I did think as I was writing about what would have been playing.
Mrs. O: Yes! I was so happy to see a mention of one of my
favorite artists – Mos Def – in a description of Jon. I immediately thought – oh now I can get an
idea of this person – he is probably my age, and is thinking about music in a
way that is not necessarily following trends.
McKinley: He is not a trendy
guy. And the song choices were very
intentional. Part of my desire for this
novel to be an ensemble piece was to include things like music in that
way. Food is another component that was
meant to augment the story.
Mrs. O: I find myself very drawn
to the psychology of Jon – he is so apathetic in so many ways – and
particularly to the women in his life – in his relationships with his wife and
his mother, he is so stuck.
McKinley: I think of him not so
much as a protagonist but as an anti-hero.
So much of what he is doing is just trying to survive. He is not a white knight swooping in to save
anything. In some ways he is just a guy
trying to keep his job, trying to keep his marriage together. But he does have a baseline competitive
streak and at a certain point he gets interested in winning; in winning his
cases, in trying to ‘win’ his marriage.
He is trying to do the right thing.
But, he has a definitive threshold for how much he is willing to give a
shit. At a certain point the effort
becomes too much of a struggle and turns into a blockage. He loves his people, but there is a limit to
his emotional reserve. He loves, but not unconditionally and not without
limits. Jon’s relationship with his mother is the best illustration of
this.
Mrs. O: Tell me about the great
bartender character – Cook – he seems to be such as great father-figure
character. Was he intended to be?
McKinley: That is an interesting question and a
characterization that I had not thought of before. He certainly represents a refuge for
Jon. Cy (the best friend) and Cook (the
bartender) both fulfill that role of providing a safe place for him to go
amidst the madness. Look, there is a lot
of judgment coming at him from all angles.
Judgment of whether he is living up to his potential or not. Men don’t get that kind of judgment from
other men. The idea is, “Okay, fine, my
boy is going to cheat on his wife, or he drinks too much, but he is still my
boy.”
Mrs. O: But the relationships with
women are more judgmental?
McKinley: Yes, for Jon, the women in his life don’t
need to do anything. They have been accepted by him. They are already at the standard needed for
his engagement. And of course this is
vast generalizing, but women have a more project-based attitude toward men. They want men to be more, to be what they
think is better. The men are fine – saying:
“That’s it, this is my guy, whatever happens.” Conversely, men become apathetic
or compartmentalize because they have already made the decision to commit to
the relationship and they are in it for whatever it is.
For instance, there is a scene in
the book where Jon is looking around his marital house and he is seeing that
the décor is fundamentally his wife’s.
He accepts it and is comfortable within it, but it would be different if
it was just him. It is clearly her
house. But he is okay with that. He knows he will stay and try to make it
work. She is going to have to be the one
that leaves him – even though it is obvious that they have evolved away from
one another. He would stay
forever. Just like he would never leave
his job until he reaches a true breaking point.
Mrs. O: I guess women have more
rules than men do about their close relationships – a code of conduct
maybe? But I feel like there is such a
strong male tone to the book. Even the
narrator has a male tone and an urban tone.
McKinley: Interesting, I meant for
the narrator to be omniscient, but you might be right. Men – and again I am generalizing – don’t
have the same rules toward their close relationships. They can have conflict without analysis –
they just accept whatever happens – with or without explanation or
resolution. They just keep going.
This is true with Jon’s marriage –
he’s in it. He is at a point where he
doesn’t feel like he has a choice, so then he honors his commitment. He is not intentionally trying to push Cheryl
away. He doesn’t want to be an island
but he doesn’t want to be domesticated either.
Mrs. O: I want to be sure I’m not
providing any major spoilers, but there is a moment when Jon finally breaks
down. Can you tell me more about what is
going on to finally bring out this emotion from a character that has been so
stoic up to this point.
McKinley: He is not a guy that
feels like his life belongs to him. It’s
not his house, it’s his wife’s. It’s not
his marriage, it’s on her terms. It’s
not his job; his colleagues take much more ownership of the firm. It’s not even really his case, it’s Saul’s
and Jerrel’s. So when something that he
really owns and loves is finally touched by this situation, he reacts. Because he has so little stake in the rest of
his life, this becomes an even greater violation.
And I think it important to note
that there is a lot of pressure coming from his community. They know him and they know the implications
of him defending this person. He had been
able to remain detached, but then all of a sudden, it’s all there in his
face. He’s there in the maelstrom of
crap.
Mrs. O: Right, that is a great
part of the story – this all hits very close to home for him on so many levels.
McKinley: His role provides even
greater scrutiny because he is from the same community where the pivotal action
occurs. He has considerable talent and
good intentions, but he is in a difficult situation.
Mrs.O: The book really has such
interesting topics for discussion. Race,
gender, class, mobility are all strong themes.
I see why you have offered to attend book group discussions because
there is so much fodder for discussion!
Still with us? I know that was a long interview, but I have to thank Eric McKinley for indulging my many
questions. You can find the book
through the author’s website http://ericmckinleyfiction.wordpress.com/,
the publisher’s website: http://wragsink.com/#/ericmckinley/,
and on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Blessed-Sons-Eric-McKinley/dp/0983045445
