Speaker 1: Meaning a live man like this man you letting butterfly
flapping his wing, big down in the forest, man and
gonna cause the tree.
Speaker 2: Fall, letting five thousand miles away. Man, nobody's seen nobody
else you see, you know, need no man like you
followed another story and.
Speaker 3: You got directed like that man got black and dag
on the panel. Man, you don't it man?
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: All right, Brad Kelly, welcome to Jay Byrdon Show.
Speaker 3: How you doing that, great man, Thanks for having me.
I'm really looking forward to this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm really excited to have you on. Uh. You
and I have been, you know, kind of swimming in
similar waters for a while. We have a lot of
friends in common, but you know, haven't actually sat down
and recorded and you know, more than just kind of
catching up. Uh, we're here to talk about your book,
The Earth and Dark. You sent me your review copy
of it. I really liked it, really enjoyed it. And
you know, I read a lot for this program. I
like to do a lot of book reviews, and there's
a lot of books that I get sent that don't
quite you know, make the cut, and this one it was,
I mean, very very quickly. I was like all right,
this is going to be a winner.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Man, obviously, you know you wrote a book, but other
than that, you know, who are you and what do
you do?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, well, well thanks for that. You know the
process of it's funny, you know, you write these books
more or less in isolation. Every once in a while
I gets an input from somebody on part of it
or whatever. And I had an editor to help me
that I pay. He's a friend of mine. But I
find that if you actually pay people, find one good
person and pay them, it actually works a lot better.
But so yeah, thank you, thank you for saying that.
I hope other people enjoy the book as well. Yeah.
My name is Brad Kelly. I'm a novelist. I got
two novels out there. The most recent one is There
Then Dark, just came out a couple of weeks ago.
I also have a book that came out a few
years ago called House of Sleep. Quite different, but I
think equally as good, and people seem to enjoy that book.
I also have my own podcast, mostly focused on literary
matters called Method Madness to focused episodes on on a
pretty decent range of books in my opinion, plus conversational
episodes with writers and other sort of Internet personality type
folks and and a few other little projects here and there.
So yeah, that's that's that's basically me. I'm from the
from the Detroit area. Originally. I got my MFA from
the University of Texas, which gets some booze in the
literary not not the Texas part. The the MFA part
sometimes gets booze from from from my corner of like
indie writers. But that's definitely an important part of sort
of my whole pathway to getting where I'm at right
now in terms of what I'm able to put out
as a writer and as a as a podcaster or
even I suppose, yeah, that's I guess me in the
in the tiny nuts, of course, I'm also you know,
a human being and a father and a husband and
and have a day job and all that.
Speaker 1: We don't care about you.
Speaker 3: That's fair, that's fair.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, in all seriousness.
Speaker 3: A couple of things.
Speaker 1: One, you did an excellent episode with one of my buddies,
Andrew Edward, obviously linked to all your stuff. I'll link
to that one because I like Andy stuff. It's a
good writer. But it's interesting you bring up the Detroit connection,
because I probably could have guessed that from this book
and right off the start. It's sort of one of
my favorite recurring features in books, which is books that
have a very strong sense of place. This is the
whole reason that I actually like New Orleans despite it
being an absolutely horrible city right by every objective standard.
It's like, well, you read you know, you read Confederacy
of Dunce's, you know, all the kingsmen and Walker Percy,
and you're like, I think I like Louisiana for no
reason at all. And obviously I'm not trying to put
Detroit and New Orleans in the same category. I would
never impune the Detroit. But in all seriousness, you have
a very strong sense of that in this book, And
so if you could, could you describe that process of
you know, transmuting this this space, this location, you know,
into a piece of art.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And you know, it's it's interesting because I
don't have a lot of love for the place anymore.
To be honest, I have a lot of love for
people that I know here, you know, friends and family
and that kind of stuff, but as a place, you know,
my wife and I are actually like in the sort
of medium term plan is to not be anywhere near
this city anymore. But you know, I was I was born.
If people have seen eight know about eight mile, that
eminem movie or whatever, I was born on twenty three mile,
So you know that's that's basically a measure of distance
from downtown Detroit. Definitely a suburban kid, for sure. But
I also went to Wayne State University, which is in
midtown Detroit, and lived down there in the in the
early two thousands, and it's a it's a place with
kind of a crazy history. And when I was living there,
especially in the two thousands, I mean I don't frankly,
I don't spend hardly any time down there anymore except
for work occasionally. But in the early two thousands, there
was this very strange vibe in which and I felt
this in some other places in the world that I've
traveled to, where there was a sense that we were
like living in the ruins of something like Detroit was
once a great American city. I mean, it was New York, Chicago,
a couple other la Detroit. Where these great American cities,
it was the I don't know if wit Oregon, but
the heart may be of the American industrial enterprise throughout
much of the twentieth century, and then it just fell apart.
And so there is this way you're living in sort
of the dark, dark mirror reflection of both like what
America could be and like what in a positive and
negative sense, what this place could be, right and the
hist and so so there's something somewhat intoxicating about that
as a as a setting. And you know, when I
graduated college, the first time I left, I moved away
and I was gone for eleven or twelve years until
I sort of circled my way back and I still
had I still had a lot of friends and family here,
and you know, I don't know a particularly interesting story.
Sort of ran out of money and stuff elsewhere in
the country. I was living in upstate New York, and
I mentally came back here, figuring somebody I'd find somebody
who would be willing to do me a favor, and
that worked out. And ever since I came back, life
has been amazing. Everything's been going in the direction you
wanted to. But I then got a job when I
came back. I have an engineering degree. I got a
job working for a geotechnical engineering firm focused mostly on sewers,
so I ended up spending a lot of time in
downtown Detroit in at a lot of that time in the
sewer systems, and a lot of that time digging holes.
Not myself, I'm an engineer, so mostly we stand there
with the clipboard and and like wagerfinger at people, but
spending a lot of time like in the actual dirt
and filth of the city and sort of I don't know,
psychically picking up on something there. And then I started
to get really more interested in the history of the
place as well, and so a lot of that has
been reading and talking to some people and digging into
old archives and stuff like that. But in terms of
turning it into like material here, it's there is a
way that certain places in the city of Detroit feel,
and I did do my best to try and convey
that because it's a it's kind of a it's a
it's what I imagine a haunted house feels like, but
at a city scale is kind of is kind of
the is kind of what the city of Detroit is
for me so well, and.
Speaker 1: It's it's almost interesting as well, because Detroit is sort
of it's emblematic of like American decline right of the
rust Bell. Yeah, and there's a famous series of photos.
I can't remember what the artist was, but of kind
of chronicling that, like he did a photo shoot in
the Cadillac Hotel and there's all the it's of course,
you know, this kind of beautiful building completely and totally decaying,
and they're very poignant images.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: I realized that was no citations on that, but I'm
sure you guys can find it on Google. It's not
hard to find.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've seen them, I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, it's it's I know what you mean. It
sort of feels like and you know, I don't pretend
I haven't been to Detroit in fifteen years, but when
I went there, it sort of felt like a place
that was emptying out, you know, where it felt like, oh,
this is we're sort of in the ruins of something.
Both on the level of you know, you can see
there was something here now there is not, but also
in the sense that it feels like it feels half full,
and you know, it kind of reminds me of if
you've ever read Gene Wolf right, he describes a very
similar process where you know, the population of Earth is collapsing,
and so to get anywhere you have to walk through,
you know, miles and miles and miles of just abandoned buildings. Yeah,
similarly to sort of uh, you know, to and towards
dream of electric Sheep as well. And I thought that
was really poignant. I didn't actually know that detail about
you working in sewers, but given the content of the book,
I probably could have guessed.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, our main character, Jim is a disgraced academic, right,
he went through a you know, cancelation. It's sort of malicious,
and we find him in this sort of like well
of self pity. Obviously, you know, this is how he
ends up, you know, working in sewers, right, doing this
kind of low end, blue collar job. There's a really
interesting scene where he goes to a dinner party with
all of his old colleagues. I'm not gonna say I
enjoyed it. It's not a pleasant scene, but it's a
really interesting one. So can I talk a little bit
about that, Like, what are you trying to get across
in that interaction?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, you know, there's I've worked, you know, I
do the work that I've done in the sewers and
at other places. I mean, I have a I'm an
odd I'm probably an odd person in terms of sort
of career and where it's placed me in in my
life and in sort of time and place where. Yeah,
I've had an engineering degree for twenty some years now,
and I've done engineering work here and there, and so
that's put me in these sort of professional environments and
meetings with people, and I've presented at you know, city
board meetings and stuff like that. But I've also spent
time in sewers. But you know, I've also through the
vicissitudes of career. You know, when I first moved back
to Michigan as a thirty something year old man, I
was I had a job cleaning boats, scraping zebra muscles
off of boats, and cleaning out engine rooms of boats.
And it was funny. At one point a friend of
mine that had gotten me this job, and he's gone
on to do great thing since then. He's an amazing guy.
But we had this moment. We're cleaning out an engine room,
a big an engine room of this yacht, and we're
making twelve dollars an hour, fifteen dollars an hour. We're
both in our thirties. We both looked at each other.
He's he's spent time teaching. He now teaches at a university.
But at the we looked at each other and we said, man,
we should have gone to college. We both cracked up
because between the two of us we had about fifteen
to twenty years of college with you know, with degrees.
We both had multiple degrees at this point. It's just
how things worked out. So I guess at that in
that sort of scene, taking Jim from you know, this
position within academia and s we're putting him in this
like blue collar an environment, part of the thing was
him sort of realizing his own incapacity to make this shift,
or his struggle with making shift, but then also realizing
that like all of the all of the sort of
on the surface level sort of good intentions of academic
types and you know, maybe people a lot of people
who sort of play at sympathy or solidarity with like
working class people and blue collar work and the stuff
that actually builds the country. A lot of it is
just fake. A lot of it is just sort of
on the surface of it, but secretly they sort of
denigrate it and think less of it and don't really
respect the fact that you know, basically the bones of
this country were mostly built by young men with a
cigarette hanging off their lip, who you know, the types
of people that Jim's interacting in with this dinner scene,
you know, wouldn't invite them into their house. Those are
the kinds of dudes who mostly built the country. And
I think that gets kind of lost in sort of
the computer toucher economy that we live in, that all
of this stuff requires people to do jobs that kind
of suck, you know. I was, I was. I was
literally out on a site today and it was four
degrees out and luckily I again, I get to do
the engineering thing. I get to stand there and you know,
take a photo and get on the clipboard and you know,
take notes and ask people questions whatever. But you know,
there's guys down in waiters in the sewer drilling holes
through an old pipe and you know, ground waters coming
in on them and all this, and it's yeah, again,
its four degrees out, and that's the kind of stuff
that makes the makes our world run. It's a lot
more important than most people's computer toucher jobs. Actually, So
I was trying to get to that on an emotional level,
I guess I don't know if that answered.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an interesting it's an interesting scene for a
couple of reasons.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: One, the relationship between your Jim and his wife and
Jim and his daughter is very very well done. And
you know, as someone who is it's someone who has
dragged my wife through a series of shall we say,
abrupt career changes. It's funny you bring that up. Like, I,
you know, graduated college with the sort of degree that
people get for a you know, because a job is
a sure thing, right, and was working in a garment
factory right, you know, on like you know, ten hour
shifts starting at five every morning, and had a very
simple realization like why am I doing?
Speaker 3: You know what?
Speaker 1: What did I jump all those you jump through all
those hoops? And I think ultimately, you know, it's easy
to say, looking back, it was a good thing for me.
But you know, in that in that scene right where
we sort of see Jim getting halfway pitied, right, the
idea that you know, he has been forced to stoop
right to such a level is seen as you know,
a very pitiable thing, and you know, the reaction or
the interaction between him and his wife, both before, during,
and after is is really interesting. So if you could,
could you just describe a little bit of that relationship
between him and his wife.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's something She's not on the page very
much at all. I mean, I think she really only
shows up in I don't know, four chapters or something
like that. She's but it was very important to me
that it be a significant part, a significant aspect of
his reality, and like his motivations and all of that. There's,
you know, the one thing so me trying to figure
out who she was. The kind of genesis of starting
to figure out who she was was realizing that I
absolutely hate the nagging wife character. I know there are
nagging wives out there, but I hate the I hate
that as a as a sterile, one dimensional plot device
like character. Yeah, like like Breaking Bad to me, the
thing I disliked the most about Breaking Bad is is
Walter White's and not because she does a perfectly fine
performance or whatever, But there gets to be a point
if you're watching that show where she clearly is there
as a plot foil to like provide friction for him, right,
and it's not she doesn't have her own like reality
she loses her own reality. So I wanted to make
sure that like she wasn't just a nagging wife who
was like causing problems for him, that he was feeling
what I think many men have probably felt in the
situation where they're sort of not living up to to
whether it's providing or defending or whatever. They feel like
there's they should be trying to live up to when
they feel like they're not living up to that. And
I wanted that to be the pressure. Not that she
was giving him, you know, giving him a hard time
about it, but he was giving himself a hard time
about it because he wasn't living up to what he
wanted to be for her. I think that's closer to
the reality for people. I know. For me, like my
wife doesn't nag me at all, but there is a
little voice in my head that is doesn't want to
disappoint her, you know. And if I did disappointed, she
probably woudn't even say anything at least not for a while,
you know. But I want to be the best man
that I can be for her. So I was trying
to put Jim through that process and give her give
him a wife who was like a real person, but
also a good person, a person that you know you
would like to a certain degree. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, and again, like I think that's one of the
things that really provided a lot of you know, emotional
weight to this is that looks as someone who is
now a full time Internet person, right, for whatever that's worth. Like,
there were and continue to be those nights where I'm
sort of laying upstairs the ceiling where it's like, not
only what did I do? What did I do to her?
Like I dragged her into this and now she's stuck,
you know, like I don't you know, you don't have
the normal job, right, all those sort of things, And
that's a you know, a minor shadow of what's you know,
happening in this. And I will say I thought that
you I thought that you handled the cancelation quite well,
because in a lesser book, that would be the point
of it, if that makes sense, and that would sort
of become this like didactic moment, and you were quite
delicate with that. So just kudo's there, But we haven't
really gotten into the sort of, you know, the thrust
of this, right, what happens to Jim when he's down
there with his you know, his coworkers. So briefly, and
again we're not trying to you know, provide a blow
by blow. There's a lot more that we can't cover.
But you know what does Jim discover and kind of
the bowels of this city?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, there's there's uh I think on the front
cover of the book, I describe it as a labyrinth
of the mind that he and the crew they they're
they're down there doing sewer rehabilitation work. So this is
hand on stuff, basically patching up a very old sewer,
and this is something I've spent a lot of time
watching at least and being right next to you, so
it's very familiar to me. And they they basically uncover
a sort of side tunnel that leads them into you know,
I almost cringe at the word to use the words,
but they basically leads them into a portal and this
Once they pass through this, the next sort of thing
that happens to them is they're now in some other
terrain within the within the sewer that seems to be
partially defined by like their own mental state. And when
they try to exit the sewer, they discover that, you know,
they're not in Kansas anymore. Fundamentally, they climb up out
of the sewer and it's similar to home, but it's
not home, and that sort of kicks off the sort
of I guess the a plot of the book of
them trying to navigate this increasingly dangerous and and unpredictable
and mysterious labyrinth that is that the sewer they were
in has become And yeah, yeah, I don't know. I think.
I don't think that gives away anything that's not already
given away on the back, in either the front or
the back cover of the book. But it gets, you know,
it definitely goes into speculative terrain. We're in We're in
sf land by page I don't know, thirty or something
like that. I would say, oh, you're on mute there.
Speaker 1: Sorry, a professional podcaster, you'd think I know how to
use this software, considering I use it at least daily.
Speaker 3: No, I get it, I get it. I'm always looking
for some button I used yesterday. Yeah, I understand.
Speaker 1: Point is the interaction between the different sewer workers is
quite It's really interesting, right. You have kind of different characters, which,
if you have worked a low end job before you
have met these guys, you have which is honestly, like,
I think one are the strengths of it is like
I'm reading through this, it's like, oh, you know, that's
not the captain, that's this guy I know, right. It
feels very kind of true to life, which I enjoyed,
and especially the kind of fish out of water nature
of being like the college kid, you know, being like,
you know, the educated middle class person for whatever those
terms are. We in a you know, more hands on
the ground setting, you capture that feeling well. But the
first sort of portal they emerge into, if I'm not mistaken,
is an almost one to one copy of the world
that they left, except it is completely and totally depopulated.
Speaker 3: So of course he's disappeared.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't really understand, you know, what's going on,
so they all, you know, leave and you know, as
they go back, obviously Jim goes back to his wife,
kids or his home where he sees nothing, something that
happens multiple times in the book with sort of different
you know, in different versions, we see that same thing happen.
But before they meet back up, Jim does a little borrowing, right, right,
and you know, this is one of the one of
really two things he carries with him through most of
this book, obviously not through all of it. But do
you want to speak to kind of the symbolic and
symbolic that sounds chin stroking the importance of this watch
in the narrative.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, that's that's a good point. Yeah. So
he yeah, he goes in, he steals this watch, and
it's a it's a very particular person's watch, which is
significant both plot wise and sort of in Jim's psychology.
And and and you know, part of the reason he
steals his watch is it's worth a lot of money.
And and you know, I suppose if you're trying to
steal something, stealing something that you can fit in your
pocket that's worth you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars
is probably a pretty good option if you're going to
steal something. But I mean, for me, in terms of
it being an aspect of the plot, it's and and
sort of what's going on for Jim, it's you know,
I see it as a sort of an attempt for
him to to sort of haltingly and fumblingly start to
assert his agency, because as the book begins, he has
very little sort of by his own, by his own doing,
by his own sort of lack of a spine fundamentally,
and so it's sort of the beginnings of him, the
very very dim early echoes of him beginning that process.
But it's also I mean, it also comes back. I
don't want to give it too much away, but it
becomes a problem later on in a in a hopefully
somewhat surprising way for people who are reading it. And
what I wanted to what I what I was hoping
to do with that is, I mean, partially what I'm
trying to do with this book is create multiple layers
of senses of claustrophobia. Right, there's the actual physical claustrophobia
of being in like an eight foot sewer pipe. Then
that's if anybody's ever been in one that's got this
own like claustrophobia to it. And I've seen people who
can't be in there before, you know, they just innately
can't deal with it. So I wanted that, But I
also want to sort of fractal layers of claustrophobia so
that when you make just in I guess how that
perhaps relates to my perspective on how sort of life
in reality works is that every decision you make has
a kind of combinatorial explosion of like what can result
from you making those decisions. And so you know, perhaps
on some level, I'm saying that because of that, because
you can't ever predict what's going to be the outfall
of your decisions. Like your best bet is like try
to do the right thing all the time, you know,
like literally just like tell the truth and don't hurt people,
and like and all of the sort of old verities
and and you know, and maybe think even if you
do that, things may still not work out, of course,
but definitely violating them is opening yourself up to, uh,
opening yourself up to that that sort of fractal layer
of cross class fractal layers of claustrophobia closing in on
you even more.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a decent amount of house of leaves
in this, uh, which you know I was just I
just sort of sprang into my head both you know,
in that sense of you know, being in this sort
of like maze of the mind, right, this kind of
like non Euclidean realm, but also because sort of one
of the other things that you know, Jim carries, you know,
through this is a book that he both aspires to
read to write and has already written. Right, he comes
into possession to you know, this book right underneath and
inside written by Jim. And it's interesting because at the beginning,
right where he's sort of stumbling around, you know, trying
to figure out how to put his life back together,
you know, one of the things that he throws out
at the parties like, oh, I'm working on a book, right,
which you know may or may not be true to
what degree. Right, he's working on that book.
Speaker 3: That's easy to pay too, right, It's easy, just big, Yeah,
I'm working on a book. Yeah, right.
Speaker 1: And I think it's interesting because it does sort of
not quite the B plot. But at the beginning to
you know, almost every chapter you get an excerpt from
his book, which is all about these underground spaces. So
what are you trying to accomplish with those excerpts from
his book? And then also what is the importance of
this book? Somewhat later in the narrative, he has a
physical copy, another thing he carries with him at least
through most of this journey, but it does stand out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, at initially there's there's that book, the book,
inside the book, underneath and inside kind of it check
on different characters through the development of this book book. Initially,
I was just doing a ton of research and reading
and listening to stuff about various trying to understand the
sort of ecosystem of images and historical references and metaphors
and frankly like even like the poetics of underground, of
subterranean spaces, of soil, of matter to some degree, and
just trying to get my head around like what this
has meant to people over time? So the fact that
we and just like a couple of examples of like
what I mean, like why do we bury our dead?
I mean, I understand that there are practical reasons for that,
but like it clearly means something to us more than
just the practical thing, right, we take it pretty seriously.
And then what is up with all these there's stories
about people, Well, why is hell underground? Right? Why? You know,
maybe it really is right, and I'm not saying it's not,
but like, clearly this there's something that we keep putting,
we keep metaphorically putting stuff down there, right, And then
it's also sort of a mysterious place, like you know,
there's it's not It's not just dirt quote unquote dirt.
I mean there's not only are there a thousand varieties
of dirt, but there's crystals, and there's caves, and there's
creatures sometimes that live down there. There's all kinds of
that stuff. But then there's all these myths about the
Hollow Earth, which I don't personally think is true, but
it's interesting that it keeps popping up. So I was
trying to under I was trying to get my head
around all what all of this was, like saying, what
was this whole part of the human story? And then
I realized, like, most of it doesn't actually fit in
this in the narrative of this book, right, but I
find it fascinating. So I think initially what I was
trying to do was create I was trying to find
a place to put all of this stuff initially, But
then kind of what I realized was I I could
sort of externalize a lot of the stuff that Jim
was going to be figuring out about his experience, sort
of post the experience, like I guess, you know, in
one sense, he's written this after the events of the
book sort of, and I've realized I could like externalize
all this sort of what could be internal thought that
he might be having about trying to figure out and
parse out his experience. So it's kind of ultimately doing that.
And then also I just thought, I mean, on top
of that, and then it becoming the book itself, becoming
this plot device within the book became fascinating to me,
And I thought, well, especially as me being a writer,
what it would do to you to like see a
book that you might write actually in existence, Like how
might that sort of rewire your motivational structures or psychology?
Might it freak you out, inspire you? Whatever? I thought
that was. I thought that was cool and interesting. Plus
it starts to make the the metaphysics of this story
even it was a way of showing how complicated the
sort of hidden metaphysics of this story actually are.
Speaker 1: Well, and there is a the kind of like symbolic
psychology of the earth, right, like the Earth is the
Earth is mother. And yet also in this narrative there
is what do you want to call it, like an
eggregor or some sort of spiritual spider at the center
of this web, who, in a bizarre way is sort
of matriarchal right, it's the like a shade of the
Devouring Mother. And obviously there's much more than this, but it,
you know, it does sort of remind me of Coraline, right,
the idea of this sort of descent into you know,
sort of an alternate vision of the possible. Obviously there
are you know, many different, many differences between the two,
but that is a very old human story, right, the
idea of you know, sort of descending into the other
world or the underworld rather where things are not as
they seem. And I'll let you respond to that, because
obviously the Spider is both a motif and a character
in this book. That's very, very fascinating. But obviously they
continually exit from the sewers over and over again and
are presented with sort of a new vista, right, a
new world, some of which are sort of shades of
the possible, some of which are incredibly surreal, and I
think the second one and fregeing them if I get
this out of order, But is this sort of you know,
this is am I opposed apocalyptic version of Detroit. It's
this sort of riot running rampant and what's interesting, I
think this is a turn for both the character and
for us is our understanding of what's happening is that,
you know, the party has sort of set upon beaten.
Jim runs, which is an interesting character development. And in
his flight he not only wounds himself right, a wound
that he will carry with him through most of this book,
but also he again goes back to his home and
is seemingly his wife and children are there, but one
of his neighbors you know, basically says it scares him
off with shotgun, says like, hey, don't come back, I
buried Jim years ago, right again, Yeah, showing us as
the audience, right, Okay, we're seeing kind of different dimensions
sound stupid, but different realities. So I realized I took
you slightly away from where I wanted to go with this.
But can you talk a little bit about the spider
right at the center of this kind of network? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's interesting when you can't. I mean, for
anybody who's listening to this, who's written a piece of
like speculative fiction that has sort of cosmological implications, right,
Like there's I don't think our world actually works the
way that the world works in the Earth and Dark, right,
But in order to kind of get yourself to that point.
You kind of have to you kind of have to
halfway believe it, just in order to figure your way
through all the implications kind of what it kind of
comes down to me, And it's it's a little difficult
to articulate, probably any more clearly than it comes across
in the book. But I think I started piecing together
like a bunch of different things mythological. Some of them
are just sort of jokes about America. Right, I'm very
interested in this idea that there is some weird thing
at the heart of America that and I'm not the
first person to say this, right, I mean, this is
kind of what Lovecraft's work is about. This is kind
of what David Lynch's work is about, this is what
some of William S. Burrows's work is about, and a
bunch of other writers and not start coming up with
this by myself, that there's something weird here that's operating
on some other plane. Maybe it's demonic, you know, I don't,
I don't know. Those those words are so loaded that
you know, you're not sure if they apply necessarily. So
I got really like thinking about that quite a lot.
And then trying to figure out, like, well, what would
the nature what is the like if you really could
like look if that's if that's a thing, and you
could look directly at it, what would it be? And
I like the spider for that for a bunch of reasons.
One is it fits into a bunch of North and
South American native belief structures in an interesting way, Like
it's not quite benevolent or malevolent. It's sort of shape
shifts in that context depending on when the story is
told and who's telling it. But it's never quite clear
that it's never quite all positive or quite all negative.
So it's in this sort of medium space where I
think they were trying to figure out what this thing meant,
and then you know, there's and then they're to me
there's also I don't know if this gives away too much,
but there's something fundamentally algorithmic about the way that a
spider works. So the way that they construct a web,
they don't construct a bunch of different kinds of webs.
They have one web that's a very specific thing that
is apparently programmed deep down in their DNA. Right, they
don't learn how to their their mother doesn't mother spiders
teach their young how to make this web. It just
seems to know how to do it, but it's in
a very almost mechanical kind of To me, the more
I thought about the kind of creepy way that it
just has this like software program running in its brain
to make to make this thing right, and it's a
trap fundamentally. So yeah, So, you know, expanding that fundamental
thing that kind of creeps me out about spiders. And
I'm not particularly a rachnophobia aphobic or anything, it's just
sort of philosophically, it creeps me out expanding that to
try and think about, well, what to me is this
weird thing about America that we keep And I still
don't know that I totally understand it necessarily, But there
is something we do here that's early algorithmic and programmatic
that we don't think we really understand. And I think,
like in in the So I Guess the Spider, there's
sort of a metaphor for all of that, and it
shows up, I mean in the book, it shows up
in other places too, because I think like the forces
that get Jim canceled, I think those are like a
weird perverse algorithmic thing run amuck as well. Right, So
it's not just this like speculative fun thing I came
up with. I'm trying to, like, al must make an
analogy for it. I think is weird about like deep
down weird about America. I felt like I was rambling there. Sorry,
Oh no, oh, not at all.
Speaker 1: And obviously we see this kind of you know, repeated
motif of like the spider or the web, and in fact,
one of these sort of alternate realities that you know,
Jim finds himself in. It is just is just a
mess of you know, ropes and lines and sort of
a spider's web, right, and it's it's kind of interesting
again the you know, the algorithmic element, because you know,
different characters react to this situation very differently, and you
know there is at least a level to which you know,
Jem and others are trying to figure it out, are
trying to kind of suss out the internal logic you know,
of this of this sort of traft that they're in.
There's another top side excursion and it bears repeating that
throughout this whole situation. Uh, Jim is seriously wounded and
obviously having an open wound in a sewer is not
good for you, right to be blunt. He's going through
suffering and in one of this in one of these instantiations,
they sort of go up into kind of a like
a Bronze age version of Detroit, right, and you know, Jim,
Jim comes out right, He's able to kind of you know,
barter for clothes, and he returns to his wife, right,
his wife speaking in an accent he doesn't quite remember,
he doesn't quite understand. But his daughter, who is another one,
I think, probably without a lot of screen time, one
of the best parts of this book. You've written her
very very well.
Speaker 3: It's very endearing. Uh.
Speaker 1: But you know, in this section his daughter has been
effectively selected as sort of like a you know, vestal version,
a you know, sacrificial I guess pawn in a religious
rite where she will be how would you say, trepand
will have a hole drilled in her head. I'm not
sure what the correct form of that would be. He
said it, right, Ye, forced to undergo trepanation. And there
are several things interesting about that. And you know, again
we're sort of watching this transformation of Jim from sort
of a you know, a low to high agency or
kind of this cowardly to courageous figure. And as they
go up to this temple right to save his sort
of alternate daughter, there is a part of this ritual
which is only known to women. His wife has done
that part. And there's a definite moment where there is
a word and you know, his wife tells him like,
there's a word that the men know, I don't and
if you don't say it, it's done right, and he fails.
He doesn't, He freezes up, He pauses and effectively runs
back into the sewer right to kind of find an
alternate world again. And so I think it's really interesting
that this, you know, the sort of alternate realities give
sort of Jim a chance to sort of go through
similar motions in a different context. But also I think
it's a really interesting moment because it's a very definite
and again we've seen this before, you know, when his
friends were being beaten he ran. Where Jim fails to act,
he freezes, and I'm curious, can you speak to that
sort of evolution. Obviously we have the the the before
and after, we know that this is an arc, but
kind of that process of him developing throughout the novel.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and on one level it's it's it's
sort of classic sort of hero's journey kind of stuff, right,
I mean the fundamental I mean the fundamental aspect of
like the modern adventure and I'm using modern very broadly.
Adventure story is a character who you know, undergoes this
transformation and they become like a better version of themselves
in some way, And so you know, it's that it's
and you know, as a for if you're a writer
out there and you're sort of thinking about how you're
going to put this thing, this book together, and you
want your character to change, and you know, it's sort
of trite to say that, you know, that's all stories
are about a character changing. Well, that's sort of easy
to say, but that change doesn't happen instantaneously. Like I
like to think that I've become a better person and
a better man over you know, my years of adulthood.
I definitely, I definitely am a much better person than
I was when I was twenty. You know, I don't
think I was a bad person necessarily, but I had
there's a lot of stuff I hadn't figured out about
myself and about the world, about responsibility and about you know,
a whole bunch of other things. And that process for
me was slow, and it was one of uh, sometimes
being forced to make forced to grow very very fast
in some dimension, forced to just confront with like, yeah,
I screwed that up in a very very serious way,
and uh, I either got to suck it up and
like adapt to that or just let it crush me.
You know. So it was trying to think about, like,
you know, turn what uh what are I think very
real things that all men go through and terms on
the process of like becoming what they could be, uh,
and trying to turn those into something that that lays
on sort of an adventure story, like something with like
very high exaggerated stakes and and and that sort of thing. So,
so yeah, that, I mean that moment of that moment
of him not not having the word he's supposed to
have relates to something that I have felt a couple
times in my life where it's sort of like, man,
it feels like everybody knows what they're supposed to do
in this situation except for me, Like how did like
who was there a manual that I didn't get that
everybody else, you know, seemed and that it's like the
self pitying way to go is like, well, I you
know everybody else has got something I don't, blah blah
blah blah blah. But you know, I've definitely all that
is to say, I've definitely had those moments where I like,
I felt like I've had I've held that feeling where like, oh,
it seems like everybody else already figured this out except
for me, and now I have to kind of go
about this the hard way. And so yeah, I was
just trying to find a way to get that aspect
of development that I think applies to most people and
narrativize that, dramatize that, make that interesting. But there's there's
other stuff going on in that scene as well. But
in terms of Jim's development, that's that's kind of what
I was what I was trying to find. I was
trying to find a real it's gonna say real world.
It's definitely not real world. It's trying to find an
in world correlative to that internal process.
Speaker 1: Fundamentally, do you mention there's other stuff you're trying to
accomplish with that, right? What else are you trying to
get at there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, well there's there's I suppose a bunch
of things. I mean in that scene, in that whole chapter.
You know, there's there's implications about what has what's been
different historically there, and you do see people. There's essentially
there's essentially like a volcano cult is basically what he's
dealing with. And I mean this sort of ties into
this broader metaphorical system that I'm dealing with here about
the Earth and what does the earth mean? What is it?
How does it relate to how humans view the cosmos
view themselves? And you know, sometimes I think sometimes I
think when you're really trying to like kind of crack
some mystery about human beings and how we are, it's
it's interesting to take like an extreme or like steer
it off in a different direction and look how it
developed differently, and that can sometimes reveal the gap between
how things are for us here in twenty twenty six.
You know, we're both in America, and we both have
our you know, you know, you and I have had
different upbringings and stuff, but our upbringings and whatnot are
very a lot more similar than if we compare ourselves
to somebody in Malaysia, Right, But I think when we
examine that gap, we can sometimes get a clear sense
of like, what are the factors that actually developed to
us sort of being who we are as individuals and
as societies. So trying to kind of like push things
out in ways that I think are interesting and emotionally
evocative and you know, maybe ring some bells to sort
of try to get a look at those kinds of things.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So there's a close to the end of the book,
there's a really interesting instance and you mentioned it earlier
when talking about the Watch.
Speaker 1: Where Jim basically is provided the opportunity to with you know,
his his newly discovered agency right or wrong, right to
go back to the day where his his life was upended,
and effectively he steals into his house, finds himself and
lays down the law, basically says like, here's what you're
gonna do, and here's you know, how you're going to
go through it. And in a worst novel, that would
be the end of it. Right, He goes back and
creates this sort of splinter reality. We're all as well.
He you know, is able to go back and fix himself.
But that's not what happens. And I think this is
a really interesting point in the in the novel thematically
and also just from a pure narrative perspective. I you
built up enough trust at this point that I wasn't
quite worried you were going to land there. But there
was a part of me wh I was like, all right,
come on, like, let's let's not you know, fumble us
at the end zone.
Speaker 3: Right, and then we're just gonna have like a like
a rising score and all this friends are gonna.
Speaker 1: Clap, yeah, and then and then everyone clapped, right right, Yeah,
read it. But so I want if you could, could
you explain what's going on there?
Speaker 3: Why?
Speaker 1: Yeah, doesn't it end there?
Speaker 3: Right? Yeah? Well I think it doesn't end there, partially
because yeah, it's a good question. Why doesn't it end there? Well,
I think part of it is I don't think I
think part of this relates to sort of my view
of how things work in life, and that is and
this is maybe the way I'm gonna say this is
going to sound more cynical than I intended. Nothing ever
is over like it's it's never really like. I don't
think it's like over until you sort of you're in
the grave, I was gonna say in the grave, and
then even not, because it's the people you leave behind,
the situations you leave behind and all that. It's sort
of never yeah, there's always like one more turn of
the screw kind of right. And and generally in my life,
all victories have come with having to sort of give
something up. There's always been this aspect where like, well,
this opportunity has happened, this doorway has opened up, so
this other one has to be closed. And if I
try to bring you know, and also that you don't
necessarily get to bring you know, if a new sort
of door opens up or a new opportunity presents itself.
Exuse me, you don't always get to bring everything with
you like you do perhaps have to. You do perhaps
have to become a different person to live on the
other side of that barrier. And that's not I think
that process of like becoming in a positive way a
different person, I think that often gets painted as this
Like really, I don't want to say people will necessarily
painted is easy, but a fairly straightforward process where it's
like well, if you just you know, if you just
eat right and you get up on time, and you
you know you stop doing this.
Speaker 1: It is a shade of a shade of the Jordan
Peterson impersonation there you're into current.
Speaker 3: It might be I've got a lot of Jordan Peterson
in my head, to be honest, probably too much. But
but you know what I mean, Like it's like you
you can't there's there's there's always like it's always more complicated.
I guess all this stuff about how people develop psychologically
and grow and become better people, and we can become
better people, but it's an it's a messy process and
occasionally it's painful, and occasionally actual sacrifices have to be
made to like become that become that better thing, right,
And that's often the reason why we don't do them.
That's we kind of know, like Jim is, he's spineless,
but that for zero reasons, right, He got kind of
comfortable in his position. He doesn't want to rock the
boat because you know who does want to rock the
boat really unless they have to, And so you know,
all of the this is the situation he finds himself
in is an accumulation of small decisions in the wrong
direction that he made, and so the process of trying
to steer that ship back. You know you're going to
bump into a lot of stuff on the way. I
guess well.
Speaker 1: And additionally, it's sort of in an exploration of that,
you know, that motif of like the arguments you have
in the shower after the fact, right where it's like, oh,
it would have been it would have been great if
I said this, And you know, of course everyone knows
that that's sort of a vain hope, right it is,
So you get to see the character who's been stewing
on that for months, right the time is bizarre in
this intentionally, so a long time you know, gets to
go back and see, I don't wait, no, you know this,
This wouldn't have magically changed everything if you had had
the perfect retort.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, that's the thing I don't I mean, I
don't know about you. I've only really like told somebody
off a few times in my life. And it's not
like it's just over after that. It's not like the
credits just roll after that, like the one time that
comes to mind immediately, I had to work with that
person the next day, so like it just it was
it was probably good in the long run, but it
just opened up a whole other set of like awkwardnesses
and stuff that had to be dealt with, right, Yeah, yeah,
it's not when Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, and there's sort of an interesting echo to that.
And we've not mentioned much about the party that Jim
finds himself with, which is you know, a lot of
the meat of the book. There's a lot going on there. Look, man,
it's an hour long podcast.
Speaker 3: Read the book. Yeah, uh, that's splice.
Speaker 1: The character of the Captain is quite interesting, and for
two reasons. One, he has both a complicated relationship with
his father, you know. One of the things he constantly
refers to this riffin of like when men were met,
you know, the men who built the sewers were different
than us. And he talks about his father and he
himself is this sort of you know, a strange relationship
to his sons. You know, he says, my sons basically
look at me like a you know, a combination between
a Confederate statue and a piggybank, you know, being this
both racist and source of money. But roughly at this
similar time in the book. Fuzzy on details, but he
meets his own father in a bar, right, he recounts,
you know, sort of going back in time what he wanted.
Speaker 3: Oh this is another that's actually another kid, that's actually
another character. But yes, oh shoot, my bad, that's okay,
that's okay. I just don't want you to. I don't
still want to start making connections that aren't there. But yeah,
but the fathers are fathers are definitely a theme here
for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, and when there is this meeting between a character
who is not the character I thought it was and
his father in you know this sort of like you know,
dingy dingy bar, it's very interesting interaction. So if you could,
can you explain that a little bit, you know, just
what happens there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So, as you know, as they're trying to
get out of this labyrinth, initially they kind of do
things sort of as a team, but over time it
gets like diffused and their their fates there's four four
guys down in this or their fates start to get
go off in sort of different directions. And one of
the characters, a guy named Ray who sort of has
his own arc. He finds himself in a sort of
time and place where he realizes if he just walks
down the block he could go, he might maybe be
able to see his father, who he never really knew
particularly well because his father was a raging alcoholic and
died when this character was pretty young. And so he
goes into the bar and he sees him, he sees
his dad. When you know this character Ray goes in,
he would have been like, I don't know, eight years
old or something at this time. He goes in and
he sees his father and he tries to have this
like heartfelt connection, or at least that's how he describes it,
and his father does not react to it particularly well,
and his father actually tries to kill him because it's
just some strange, weird dude frankly getting kind of gay
with him. That's kind of how his father sees it.
So yeah, yeah, I don't know if you want to
want something more there, I mean, that's fundamentally what happens.
I think For me, it got me. This book did
sort of thematically become about fathers in a certain way,
mostly because it's you know, four men, and the father
son relationship is a couple of them are fathers, and
that father son relationship is always sort of interesting to me,
partially for by, you know, biographical reasons to be honest,
but you know that's there is this there, there's a
this sort of tearful reunion where everything is now fine.
Doesn't Sometimes it works in real life, I suppose, but
I kind of, I guess, wanted to like not allow
that to happen, if that makes sense, because again, I'm
trying to create these sort of layers of claustrophobia right
where it's like, yeah, claustrophobia physically, but psychologically and intellectually
and ultimately like cosmological claustrophobia. And in that interaction with
him and his father, I mean this character, I think
partially what he realizes is like there is no way
to actually escape his life. There's there own the knot
for him in particular, the knot can only really get tighter,
and any attempts to like fix it or something doesn't
seem like it's going to work, or at least doesn't
he at least he doesn't see how how it could work.
That the kind of the knots only Yeah, it's one
of those knots, like the more you try to untie it,
it just gets tighter and tighter and tighter. I think
that's how he begins, and he always saw his life,
but he certainly sees it that way at that point.
Speaker 1: So we have successfully gotten almost a time without really
telling anyone what happens in this book.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we picked I think, yeah,
it's yeah yeah, but.
Speaker 1: The ending and I won't really get any of the
details to it. But there's a couple interesting parts. Right one,
Jim starts the book, he actually, you know, once things
are as back to normal as they'll get. But also
he is carried. This is sort of another recurring item
throughout the whole book, right the gun. You know, one
of the men has a gun. Jim's given it. Initially, he's,
of course, you know, very hesitant. He doesn't like it,
he doesn't know how to use it.
Speaker 3: Right But when he's.
Speaker 1: Back, there's sort of this interesting moment where he's back home.
He can see his wife and daughter again he started
on this book, but he sees in the distance another
version of him should have coming, and he reaches into
the desk and grabs the gun. So there are a
couple implications of that, right one, There are more of
him running around. He's been to other realities and you know,
seeing himself or seeing the memory of himself at the
very least, which one brings up the question of has
he really escaped?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And also we see, you know, this kind of like
final culmination of this agency, right, like I will not
let this be taken away from me. So I think
that's a very a very poignant note to end on
for a couple different reasons.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so. I hope so I liked it.
When I came up with it, I was pretty stoked.
I'll tell you that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we're coming up on time. Is there anything
you want to say before we go to plugs?
Speaker 3: No, I mean I don't think so. I you know,
for people who it's so true, I really appreciate. This
is the like the most in depth conversation I've had
about the book, and so I really really do appreciate that.
I mean, I think for people who haven't encountered it,
it's it's difficult. And this isn't me trying to just
sort of puff myself up. I think it is a
difficult book to like get a grasp of, like what
the heck it is. The cover is like intentionally super pulpy,
like we made it so it looks like something out
of the seventies that you would get off the dime
store rack that was like on purpose. Some of the
aspects of it, the story are quite pulpy, but I think,
I think if that sort of thing appeals to you,
you'll probably like it. And I think if you, I think,
if something a little bit more I don't know what
you were to use, a little bit more literary appeals
to you, I think you'll find that there as well.
So so yeah, I guess if if you like, if
you like pulpy adventure stories, listen to that part of
the promo, and if you like you know, uh, psychological,
cerebral literary stuff, listen to that part of the promo.
And I think I think both of those audiences will
find something that's fun in there well.
Speaker 1: And also, you know, listeners you're used to my book reviews.
Right when I bring a guy on, uh, I very
deliberately don't tell you too much, right, there's a lot
that we didn't get into, like really quite a bit.
So there is more to you know, pull out and
pick at and discover, Like you can listen to this
whole thing, and you know, you may have certain things
spoiled as much as spoilers matter for adults. But yeah,
there's a lot of meat on that bone. Buy this book.
It's quite good, as you'll find out, Brad. Once I've
read a book, I'll be citing it for months. It'll
come up again. But I like this book quite a bit.
You should listen to it. And then, obviously, you know
Brad's work elsewhere is worth your time. Both of those
will be linked obviously, other than you know, the book
and your podcast. Where can people find you?
Speaker 3: Man? Yeah, I'm probably most active on Twitter, that's just Brad,
Kelly one E and Kelly. I got on there early
and so I got like my just my name, which
is kind of cool. And then I'm also pretty active
on substack Brad kellyesqu dot substack dot com podcast you
can find wherever you listen to podcasts, or you can
just go to the website madmethodpod dot com. Yeah, yeah,
I'm pretty easy. I'm pretty easy to track down. So yeah,
check out Method Madness. I drop in episodes every week,
so there's constantly something coming at you and if you
don't like this week's episode, just wait a week.
Speaker 1: Well, sure thing man. Obviously that will be down in
the description. As far as my stuff Jay Burdon Show, Apple, Spotify, YouTube,
anywhere you want to listen to podcasts. This is what
I do now. I am, as I so eloquently said earlier,
a professional internet person. If you want to support me,
you get the episodes early in ad free. It's really
not half bad. The price, I think it comes out
to nineteen cents an hour right on the premium feed.
No ads is also a benefit. But I can't thank
you guys enough. This is how I support myself, so
your support means the world. Also check out our sponsor
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is true. But we have like eight inches of ice
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but I will when I can actually drive again. But yeah, Brad, thanks,
this was a ton of fun.
Speaker 3: Man. Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate it, and it's
good to meet you.
Speaker 1: To everyone at home, keep your head up. I can't
last forever.
Speaker 2: Good night.
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It doesn't have to be.
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