The inherent danger with a politically grounded novel is the potential to read the book as an author’s manifesto. There is a desire for the reader to take a Rhetorical Critic’s stance on the text and interpret every politically-backed statement as the author’s personal belief. And with this danger comes the potential to polarize audiences. Joey Goebel’s third novel, Commonwealth, is weighed by this dynamic, however he has the storytelling chops to move beyond treatise territory and deliver a great story, helped, not hindered, by the political setting.

Commonwealth follows the Mapother family black sheep, “Blue Gene” Eugene, as he slowly morphs from passive flea marketer and Wal-Mart enthusiast to aggressive philanthropist with communist leanings. Blue Gene, willing dissident in regards to his family’s unfathomable fortune, adopts a working class lifestyle far removed from his wealthy family. This tension is only heightened by his brother, John Hurstbourne Mapother’s, campaign for a congressional seat. As the novel progresses, pandering for votes becomes not-to-far removed from pandering for familial affection, which forces the Mapother family into devastating conflict.

Though Blue Gene is mostly a caricature of the “red neck” conservative right, much of the conflict deals with the narrator’s unexpected struggle with these “red state” ideals as seeded by the novel’s love interest, the elfin-faced Jackie Stepchild, female lead of the anit-establishment punk band Uncle Sam’s Finger. Jackie represents a caricature of her own, the Left extremist, anti-capitalist aggravator, and the juxtaposition of the two characters adds to the Rhetorical Critic’s argument that Goebel himself may be attempting to find his place between Left and Right just as Blue Gene questions his own stance between these extremes. Much of the political points and counterpoints within the novel are so well articulated that it becomes hard to distance the author from the material. And I argue that this is exactly the point of the novel.

Beyond the politics of Commonwealth is a story very much grounded in the coming of age tradition. Blue Gene, always a proto-male, in love with monster trucks and professional wrestling, falls for Jackie in a way that might best be described as a simple crush. Though the relationship elevates as the novel progresses, Blue Gene has difficultly in admitting to his attraction, instead playing the “man’s man” role after their first extended conversation by commenting that “he hadn’t even gotten a good look at [her] breasts” [pg. 174].

Goebel’s previous novels are decidedly absent of politics, making Commonwealth quite the departure. And more so perhaps, an evolution. Where The Anomalies deals with a ragtag group of outcasts learning to accept their place in society, and Torture the Artist explores the importance of creation on a conceptual level, Commonwealth combines the two models to examine how seemingly radical views may be implemented in order to create a society properly disposed toward community rather than toward the individual.

The great Kentucky author Joey Goebel wrote The Anomalies and the widely acclaimed Torture the Artist. He also is getting his career off the ground now in Europe, especially in the German-speaking countries*; hell! He even has planned two appearances in the lands where I hail from this fall… so, reason enough to ask a question or two to Mr. Goebel (by e-mail).

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ML: Joey, I know it’s been a while, but do you remember anything bizarre, or worth-telling in any way, what happened to you when you heard MacAdam/Cage actually wanted to publish The Anomalies?

JG: I found out that I would be published in the summer of 2002, which was the summer after I graduated with an English degree. After I graduated, I didn’t know what to do, really, because I couldn’t find a job with the degree I had chosen—though I don’t regret that decision in the least—and so in June, I didn’t know what to do except take my old summer job of working at a horse racetrack. I know—such a stereotypical job for a Kentucky boy (I also love fried chicken). Anyway, I toiled away at the racetrack for the next several months, not really knowing what I’d do once the summer race meet ended. All the while, for the last year I’d been sending out queries, hoping to make something of myself as a writer. So one night I came back home from a meal with my family at the Roca Bar (an Indiana bar/restaurant that was the first in the area to serve pizza way back), and I got a message on the machine from a MacAdam/Cage editor saying he liked my query, and would I please send him the entire manuscript. It wasn’t much longer that he called me back and said that he loved it, the publisher loved it, and they wanted to release my book. That was in August. I remember it was on a day off from the track, and I usually rewarded myself for working by buying a c.d. That week I bought Frank Black and the Catholics’ BLACK LETTER DAYS. I came home from my town’s only record store (now closed), put in the c.d., and was listening to a song called “California Bound” (“God willing, we are California-bound”), when the editor made that fateful call. Coincidentally, MacAdam/Cage is based in San Francisco, and I was told I would be flown there, so I was indeed California Bound” for the first time in my life.

ML: Do you ever have a look, maybe accidentally, when it just falls open out of the bookcase, into Anomalies or Torture and think, “Oh dear Odin, I wish I would put this so and so?”

JG: No. Each work was a product of the self that I called ME at that particular time, and it represented my soul then, the future me has no business arguing with the past me. I could say something like that, but it’s complete bullshit. I haven’t read either book in a good long while (last time I did it was because I needed to brush up on what I wrote about because I knew I’d be talking to a lot of interviewers and didn’t want to look like a moron or somebody who didn’t even write my own book, a la Pamela Anderson), but sometimes I have little flashbacks where I remember plot points or lines I put in those books. And since I learn more about writing as time goes by, of course there are some things I wish I had done better or had not done at all. So I think that is completely common behavior for any writer. I think that in general when someone says, “I have absolutely no regrets,” they are absolutely full of it.

ML: Is there a lot of autobiography-ness in your work? I’ve heard you used to be a record reviewer, as is Harlan Eiffler. Vincent Spinetti is, besides many things, a screenwriter, as were you. You’ve been in two bands, The Anomalies is about this band. You just told about your career as a horse race track employee, one of the Anomalies characters is working on the race track as well… is the next novel going to be about a person with a profession you haven’t been telling us about yet? Are there more real life experiences in your work?

JG: It’s funny, but your question tells me something about my own writing, so thank you. What I noticed is that all the autobiographical things you mentioned were jobs. So apparently, I was able to suck quite a bit of writing material out of these jobs (though two of them—failed screenwriter and punk rock musician—could hardly be called jobs), and I’d encourage any other writer to do the same. The good thing about jobs is that they force you to experience things (often unpleasant things). So sure, up to a certain degree, my novels are autobiographical. I’d say about 20% of the material in my novels is autobiographical, but I suck at math; it’s probably less. Truth is, I value imagination over experience. I don’t think imagination gets nearly enough credit in the world of writing. All you hear writers talk about is experience. The problem is, so many writers—no, so many PEOPLE—follow the same mold that their experiences are actually quite similar. Imagination takes your route up into the clouds or into a volcano or inside a jellybug’s brain. (What the hell is a jellybug anyway?) Flannery O’Connor said it better than I ever could. She said, “Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.” So I feel like if I never experience anything else but oxygen and bowel movements, I’ll still be set as a writer, just from growing up. The rest will be imagination.

ML: How important is your fan base to you, really?

JG: My fan base is crucial, because without eyeballs reading my words, what do I have but a big collection of organized ink? And I don’t like the term “fan.” I prefer “reader” or “audience,” but I know what you mean. In other words, it is the readers who give meaning to my profession. If time weren’t what it was, I’d take every reader out for brunch.

ML: One brunch coming up this fall then, I guess…

***

* The Anomalies is renamed as Freaks, Torture the Artist as Vincent in German.

For more information on writer Joey Goebel, check out his official site here.