Mike Magnuson goes straight for the beer gut with his recent book of straight-talking, working-man's stories, \Lummox: The Evolution of a Man."" He goes from camping out in the basement of an old elementary school, to living with lesbians at UW-Eau Claire, to the long days in the factory. Somewhere in there he figures out what he's doing and laughs about it the whole time. ""Lummox"" is genuine, obscene and, to say it as honestly as Magnuson does, kick ass.
Magnuson recently talked with the Cardinal about writing and lummoxes.
The Daily Cardinal: Could you explain the essence of 'Lummox?'
Mike Magnuson: Which one, the book or the person who is a lummox?
DC: Let's start with the person.
MM: It's probably just about any guy, to tell you the truth, 'cause every little boy can remember being called a dumb lummox, the whole 'boys are clumsy and thoughtless.' That doesn't mean their moms don't think they're cute. But later in life it might be a guy you see in a sports bar or something like that. It's some guy you don't think is capable of poetic or philosophical thought and stuff like that.
DC: Could you say a little bit about the lummox of the book?
MM: He's me, obviously. Though it's me, the lummox in the book, but that doesn't mean that that lummox isn't sort of representative of a certain generation of lummoxes, if that makes any sense.
DC: How could you write this book without choking on your own laughter?
MM: It's about me. I don't think it's as funny as other people think it is. There was a first draft of the thing that was much much longer and it wasn't nearly as funny. It was more like 'Oh, the poor fat boy' or something like that. I got drunk and I ate too much and I cheated on my old lady and stuff. My editor told me to get over it because there was money involved. And I got over it. So I wrote a draft that's a lot more like hanging around with me, you know, because I don't sit around and ask you to feel sorry for me at any time, you know. Nor do I want to be around people who want me to feel sorry for them. You can dig it. Nobody likes a whiner, man. So I took all the whining out of the book and what we got is that thing. The names were changed by a lawyer and that kind of crap. I don't even know what the hell is in the book anymore because all the names are different.
DC: Could you give us some idea what it was like going to college at UW-Eau Claire?
MM: By certain stretches of the imagination it could have been just about perfect. I mean, all the time I was there the woman to man ratio was seven to three. I've heard it's gone as high as eight to one but I don't believe that. It's missing neat stuff like a football team and that kind of shit but it's a pretty neat place to go to school. Honest to God, I got a great education over there, despite all the misbehavior I took part in'as good as anyone who went to school in Madison, goddamnit.
DC: The factory stories are really vivid and honest. Could you share some of your own impressions of factory life?
MM: I hope that I'm not giving the impression in the book that working in the factory is the end of the world. I had some personal interests that were counter-indicated, if that's the word. Most of the people in the factory weren't into stuff I liked, namely jazz and literature and shit like that. Some of the smartest people I ever met worked in that factory. They weren't necessarily some of the people who were just putting bottles in the boxes but some of the millwrights and mechanics. They were super intelligent and lots of fun. They're not living bad lives, they're into that, man. They get to work in machinery all day, man. Christ, then they get home and work on cars. That just wasn't me, man. I don't know, I'm a pussy or something. I want to read books and contemplate French literature and that's cool too. Everybody's got their little niche in life.
DC: What were you like in high school?
MM: In my original draft I had all that in there but that was more mopey crap. If you go to my Web site [http://www.lummox.org] it has some pictures of me in high school. I had a big red beard and I went around like Grizzly Adams or something. I was president of high school band. I played piano in the jazz band. I was totally into it. I was a complete band nerd; I hung around in the band room in study hall. I went to my 20th reunion this summer and I hung around with the band nerds. We rule, man.
DC: How does music play into everything you write?
MM: I love music more than anything in the world, which is probably evidenced in my crappy prose style. I gotta start reading books and put those Judas Priest records down. Judas Priest is Judas Priest, and Jane Austen still sucks. What are you gonna do? Ted Nugent or Jane Eyre, take your pick.
DC: Did you really get arrested for stealing the 'Hand of God?' It's so funny it seems like you'd have to be making it all up.
MM: I've been telling that story to folks for years. There was kind of a third element that I didn't put in there. I made my mind up that that's what I was gonna do ' I was gonna get my shit together and learn and read books and be smart. Then I took English Composition; that was part of the process of being a good citizen. I happened to have one of the great teachers they ever had at Eau Claire at that class. He was a guy named Richard Kirkwood. He taught using these imaginary frogs. It was incredible, man. He had one named Ruby-Tay. He'd draw a little cartoon on the board and Ruby-Tay would say, ""That's a really interesting verb choice."" He had eight or nine frogs and set up a tape recorder in his office and the frogs would come and talk. He'd be talking about topic sentences and where to put in your little citations. I thought that if that guy could get away with it, then I'm not gonna have any problem. I loved him. I still love him to this day. You gotta have the ambition before you get into a situation like that. That's what I think about my students. I can get people turned around but if they don't really want to do it they'll give it up.
DC: Have you followed up on any of the characters of the book?
MM: They're still there. There names are different. The guy's who name is Bob Schaeffer is a paper boy in Milwaukee, 39 years old, deliverin' the Journal. The other guy repairs lawn mowers, he's on disability now, Hammer. The guy I called Todd is like a computer designer and stuff. He did really well, that guy did, he was the Ice Age Trail guy. He was actually pretty interesting in the context of living in that school building. We probably weren't at our smartest.
DC: What pushed you to write all this, to bring it to attention?
MM: I did it for the money, brother, and you can print that. And the money wasn't all that much. I'm a novelist ' that's what I do. My second novel had terrible sales and my editor wanted to retain me with Harper Collins so the only way I could do it is if I wrote this book about these goofy stories I was all telling when I was going to New York City, about crapping on the floor and farting and the Phantom Shitter. I can do them out loud, that's how I entertain people at parties. My editor heard about all of them and just told me to do the book and call it ""Lummox."" I agreed because I wanted to keep writing because that's more important to me than anything else. As it turned out it was a four-year miserable process. The first draft was 800 pages long. I got rejected and I was real depressed throughout most of it. But I really learned a lot about how to write finally, by doing ""Lummox."" Not the least of which is the way stories resolve themselves in real life aren't as sensational as I tend to make them resolve themselves in fiction. But I used the same techniques. I got scene and dialogue and all that crap. I'm a paratactic writer. I write without the customary connectives of formal writing. I emulate natural stuff and stuff like that. The greatest book I ever read of that nature was ""A Clockwork Orange."" I read that thing and I knew I wanted to do something like that. I don't want to sound like a machine.
DC: Do you have any advice for all men, for all lummoxes?
MM: It's gonna be okay, that's my advice. If you go and get a job tomorrow, it's going to be 40 years you gotta work. You should wait till you're thirty five, then it's still thirty fuckin' years. That's about it, it's gonna be okay.
Mike Magnuson will be appearing tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Canterbury Booksellers, 315 W. Gorham.""Lummox: The Evolution of a Man"" is published by Harper Collins.
