KMWR: I was hooked from the first line—very not sorry about the pun. I’m always curious about how a story comes to the writer. Can you talk about how this story first came to you? Do you know certain parts of a story before you sit down to write it?

JF: The seed of “The Ones That Get Away” came from a dream. I was part of a deep sea fishing trip and someone caught a chimp using a banana as bait. The ape may or may not have been waterskiing. I knew the story of the shark caught off Long Island, and had visited there a few times, and that gave me the setting. I didn’t know there was a primate study center at Stony Brook until a long time after I’d written the story, and added that in later.

I can’t recall how all this initially got combined with the story of the college friends. Early versions only had them; Gina, along with her family, was added later, after one of the editors who rejected it commented that it lacked emotional heft (or something). “When in doubt, add a love triangle,” someone said once, probably.

I’m always jotting down lines of dialogue or a few sentences of description—sometimes taken from things that I’m reading—in notebooks or scraps of paper or in computer files with names like “Bits” and “Beginnings.” If I’m thinking of starting something new I’ll maybe pick a few things and try to add to them. Sort of like a pollinator, in this mode I dip into things quickly and move on to another, trying to land on something that catches. Sometimes I’ll see a lit mag’s theme, or a contest call, and go through the notes to see if I’ve got a possible match. I just did this with a couple of lines that I made into a 300 word micro and sent it off.

I’ve got a dozen or so longer stories in progress, each of which seem promising, but have stalled along the way for some reason(s). At some point maybe I’ll commit to one and try to work it through to an ending. I rarely know an ending of a piece of fiction when I begin. And it’s rare that the first ending I stick in the sand isn’t changed multiple times.   

KMWR: I love how the surprise of what Paul has in his possession is quickly replaced by the emotional tension between Paul and Joe which is then put onto Joe and Gina—can you speak to that from a craft perspective?

JF: Joe is the follower in both relationships, probably in all of his relationships. And what he encounters with Paul on this reconnection is another example of him tagging along, taking chances or doing things he would never do on his own. I think he feels unequal to both of them in different ways. Paul is the “crazy artist” Joe could never be; Gina is someone who can go from punk rock, to psychotherapy, to business management. Essentially, he’s become an employee of her family, and before that he was in corporate marketing, which a monkey could do (so to speak).

Craft-wise, having a main character who is the observer of someone much more dynamic is pretty standard fare. Getting the nudge toward “more emotional heft” brought on ways to reveal Joe’s nascent feelings of superiority over Paul that he clings to: he got the girl, after all. He didn’t have a breakdown. But at the end, he’s still struggling with his place with Gina. Maybe more than he should be; he should give himself more credit.

KMWR: The narrator does not provide an answer to Gina’s question at the end—this speaks to the story’s larger themes about the different types of losses we experience through life. Are you confident you know Joe’s answer in the story? I feel like it could go either way. When Gina asks about home, I’m not sure Joe even knows what home means to him.

JF: Yes, I agree, it’s an open sort of ending. Joe knows Gina is the best thing that ever happened to him, and may often feel unworthy. His speculation of her texting to some lover when it was with Paul, mostly on Joe’s behalf, to get them back together, was a part of his fear that she will leave him at some point. Or more likely, tell him to leave the farm. His line to Paul early on, “They let me ride on a tractor now and then,” reflects his feeling of his status.

I’m pretty sure he goes “home.” Maybe Joe (after giving up on tying his tie, and tossing it again in the back seat), returns to Gina and confesses about his affair. Sort of as a test to see where he stands with her. Expecting the worst, hoping for the best kind of thing. Willing to risk the loss.

KMWR: I was intrigued by the way you use the interiority of the cars to play with Joe’s sense of loyalty to his friends and even more broadly to his outlook in life. He is miffed when he is replaced with Gina in Paul’s car. Contrast that with the comfort he feels when Go-Go gets the passenger seat. In a way Paul has been molded by seeing life from the backseat of the car. Am I reading too much into this?

JF: This is a very interesting take. It wasn’t a conscious choice, the car stuff. But as I alluded to above, Joe is along for the ride in most situations. The situations that you cite—losing shotgun to Gina, and giving it up to the chimp for safety’s sake—reflect more of a practical outlook. Once Paul and Gina became a couple Joe had to walk everywhere, and who the hell knows about a chimp, best to keep an eye on him.

I suspect he’s a shitty driver. If it’s not clear in the story, Gina is the one who drives them down to Paul’s father’s house to look for them. So I think the car stuff is a vehicle (ahem) where both the past and present of the characters is put into focus.

KMWR: Are there any bad habits you have with your writing and if so, how do you combat it?

JF: I have to always be careful about relying on dialogue too much. I have to look for ways to add description, usually as I re-write and polish. In that aspect, I have a tendency to load in too much detail, unnecessary physical movements of characters, especially in longer works. One thing I like about doing micro and flash fictions is the economy it teaches. And while it isn’t “craft” in the sense of the writing itself, I’m sometimes guilty of sending out work that’s “good enough.” When of course it really isn’t.

KMWR: What have you been reading recently? Is there a book you loved and also one you’ve thrown across the room?

JF: I’m in the midst of finishing Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, which I’m enjoying, it’s very well-done. Before that I liked a newer one, Prophet Song by the Irish writer Paul Lynch. Next up will probably be Motel an anthology of “grit lit” short stories edited by Barbara Byar for the indie publisher Cowboy Jamboree Press, and Blue Skies, the latest from T. C. Boyle.

I haven’t come across anything I’ve disliked that much recently, although I do sometimes skip over the fiction in The New Yorker with various mutterings. The book I always mention when asked this is The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving, but it’s been so long ago I forget why exactly I thought it was a piece of shit. 

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