"YOUNG PEOPLE ARE MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS TO WRITE...": NARROW THE ROAD'S JAMES WADE

James Wade's latest, Narrow The Road, follows William Carter and his buddy Ollie searching for his father in Depression era East Texas who left them to organize for the bonus due Great War vets, in order to save their farm and the life of his mother. Along the way he runs into and fall for Lena a girl on the run from a medicine show she was sold into. The book serves as a historical adventure and dark, gritty fairy tale. The author was kind enough to talk about the book.

SCOTT MONTGOMERY: What drew you to return to the Depression?

JAMES WADE: Probably a combination of things. A tough childhood. Existential dread. Not being able to make sense of the world or its priorities. A failure to underst-- Ohhhh, you mean the Great Depression? Yeah, basically I was just fascinated with the time period because it so closely mirrors the thematics of the present. And even after writing Hollow Out the Dark, I didn't feel like I really explored the period as much as I wanted to. So with Narrow the Road I stuck strictly to the history in terms of geography and towns, newspaper headlines, even railroad lines. I wanted this story to be as rooted in reality as I could make it, so that when we do get a seemingly metaphysical moment, it really stands out.  

S.M.: How did portraying it through  younger people affect your perspective in writing it?

J.W.: Young people are my favorite characters to write because they often still have the intellectual flexibility to hold space for conflicting ideals. As people age-- most people-- they become more set in their ways. But for young people the cement hasn't set yet. So William and Ollie and Lena all have differing perspectives on family, war, morals, etc. and they're able to absorb challenges to those perspectives in a thoughtful and adaptable way. 

S.M.: How do you research for a novel like this and your other period pieces?

J.W.: Digital archives at colleges and libraries are great. Public libraries in general are treasure troves for research. My local library, Ty Preston Memorial, has a wonderful Texana section with ample historical accounts. For this novel I also had a wonderful magazine of sorts called, "Were You At Manning?" which was a 20-or-so-page publication produced by former residents of the Manning mill town in East Texas. It detailed what life was like growing up there. It was published in the 1980s by a group of people who had been children during the 1920s and 30s. It drew on their memories, as well as archival papers from high school students in the 1920s. 

S.M.: I love the friendship between William and Ollie. How did you go about constructing it?

J.W.: William (mostly) carries himself in a stoic manner-- especially early on in the novel-- and so naturally the narrative called for a companion who was his opposite. Ollie is happy-go-lucky and provides some great levity in moments. Both boys are teetering on the cusp of manhood, and both are probably wise beyond their years, but they also both hold some naivety about the world and how things are supposed to go. I think Ollie's journey is just as impactful as William's, even though they come to different conclusions about what they want out of life. 

S.M.: Lena becomes a unique love interest for William. How did you approach her and the young love between the

J.W.: I didn't want Lena to be another casualty of the manic-pixie-dream girl trope. I wanted her to have agency, power, and grit. She is, at the very least, on equal footing with the boys, and in many ways exceeds them in skill and smarts. And for William, he does fall into the trap of projecting onto Lena a deeper meaning to their relationship than what she is willing to accept. Again, she holds the power. But that's an important lesson for him, and one that ultimately helps him better understand himself and some of the novel's other concepts. 

S.M.: Probably because of the young person's view of The Depression in East Texas and humor., I couldn't help but think of one of your influences, Joe R. Lansdale. What have you learned from his writing?

J.W.: I read a lot of Joe Lansdale when I was first starting out, and I remember being really impressed with The Bottoms. The pacing was great and the voice felt so true. And the simplicity of The Nightrunners made it one of my favorite horror novels. But I would probably say Narrow the Road was influenced more by the likes of William Gay and Kent Haruf-- trying to reconcile Gay's elaborate and masterful prose with Haruf's spare and moving simplicity. I was also reading a lot of nonfiction while writing this-- mainly from Jim Harrison, Edward Abbey, and J. Frank Dobie-- and I'm sure that seeped into the manuscript some, too.