Critical Mick

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The Wilder Way of Writing

Murder Etouffee author Eric Wilder on New Orleans, New Writing & New Trends. Email interview, Aug. '06.

Critical Mick: The city of New Orleans inspires much good writing. What Louisiana-set books would you recommend?

Eric Wilder: My favourite book about New Orleans is not a novel. It is Fabulous New Orleans by Lyle Saxon. Saxon writes with such passion about the city that it makes you want to visit it immediately. Murder Etouffee is my poor attempt at emulating a master's work. My favourite New Orleans novel, and arguably the best novel ever penned, is A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.

CM: I understand from your website, www.ericwilder.com, that you're a Louisiana native but now live in Oklahoma. How long have you lived away? EW: I moved to Oklahoma after getting a job as a geologist with an oil company during the first Arab Embargo in 1973. I have lived here ever since. CM: Your abiding love for the city's people and culture shows. EW: I have loved New Orleans since my first visit. I recently read an article called "A Confederacy of Drunks" written by a journalist that had moved to New Orleans in search of his writing muse, and to pen the great American novel. Instead, he spent most of his time away from the newspaper where he worked frequenting the many eclectic bars. As anyone that has ever visited the great city knows, every hole-in-the-wall bar is populated with Faulkner and Tennessee Williams wanna-be's, all of them extraordinarily intelligent, yet too inebriated to pronounce their own name, much less spell it. I couldn't stop laughing. New Orleans is one of the great destinations of the world – just leave your writing pad in the hotel and worry about creating literature when you sober up back in Oklahoma. CM: Murder Etouffee is a collection of history, recipe, journalism and fiction. That's an unusual format. EW: Mick, to my knowledge Murder Etouffee is the only book ever written to follow this format. Thanks for your keen eye because you are the first and only person to notice. I had the idea for several years of writing a book that would give visitors a real feel for New Orleans, not just a cold travelogue, or trite cookbook, or collection of disjointed short stories. I think this format would work for almost any place, be it Denver or Dublin – the key is that it should be written by someone familiar with the city, and by someone that loves that city. CM: You're the author of two previous titles. Do they also take innovative shapes? EW: My other books are Ghost of a Chance and Prairie Sunset. Ghost is a mystery that takes place in east Texas. It is innovative in that it deals with extreme racism without slapping the reader in the face with it. Prairie Sunset is a book the major publishers would never have published. It is too short. The protagonist is 80 years old, yet he is an adventurer and falls in love long after lust is no longer the major component of his life's equation. In all my writing, my aim is to entertain. CM: Tell me about the first story you ever wrote. EW: My best friend and I collaborated on a story when we were about ten. We wrote it in pencil on an old Big Chief tablet. I don't have the vaguest memory of what it was about.

Special Interactive Section! As first seen in Critical Mick's interview with Dublin-based poet, Eileen Casey. Click Murder Etouffee to see how Eric Wilder completed these introductions to six Louisiana classics. Then click the mystery icon to compare with the original author.   Mr. Eric Wilder, complete these sentences: 1. A green hunting cap squeezed the top of...     2. Now in these dread latter days of the old violent beloved U.S.A...     3. The waitress was in her fifties, dressed in a tight black miniskirt, white blouse, and...     4. The Giacano family had locked up the action in Orleans and Jefferson parishes back in...     5. The Greatest Free Ride in America...     6. To get there you follow Highway 58, going northeast out of the city...

CM: I found "Papa's Pirouge," with its tight writing, sound imagery, sharp detail and emotional impact, the most memorable selection in Murder Etouffee. The quality allowed me to overcome my pet peeve against stories that begin with the main character waking up. (Larry McMurtry also got away with that once. Enough with the waking!)

EW: Yes, I admit that I overdid it, using a similar opening in the short story Murder Etouffee.

CM: Have you produced more Wyatt Thomas short stories? Or is the character moonlighting from his role in your forthcoming novel, Big Easy?

EW: Wyatt Thomas appears in about ten more unpublished short stories. Big Easy is my completed, although as yet unpublished, novel about New Orleans. Yes, Wyatt is there, along with Mama Mulate, Bertram Picou and a cast of characters hopefully as colourful as the City itself. Originally entitled Voodoo Nights, Big Easy scratches the City's soft, yet very dangerous, underbelly.

CM: Murder Etouffee steams with good cooking. A generous portion of the book's thirty selections are recipes. Are you a bit of a chef yourself?

EW: I can hardly boil water. I know many wonderful cooks, but had to cobble together these recipes because none of my friends or family took me seriously when I asked for their assistance. Still, all the recipes are authentic, except for "Johnny Do's Vietnamese Jambalaya" which I concocted myself – quite tasty, I might add.

CM: Murder Etouffee opens with reality- your journey through the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Is the final story, "A Talk with Henry," autobiographical?

EW: Yes. At 17 I attended what was then Northeast Louisiana State College in Monroe, Louisiana. The Trianon (real name) was a bar just off campus. Almost any night would find the place filled with students swilling beer. I don't remember about exact prices, but you could get snockered for a couple of bucks. Henry, a stately black man with gray hair that pegged him as somewhere between seventy and one-hundred seventy, was the bartender. No matter how raucous the bar became, he always maintained his dignity, and he was always there to offer sage advice to even the drunkest of ignorant freshmen. Northeast Louisiana was integrated the year that I started college (1964). Still, Henry didn't come across to me - a simple-minded, moronic north Louisiana boy raised during the hay days of segregation – as a stereotypical black person. He impressed me as an intelligent and caring human being, and I carry that impression to this day.

CM: Tell me a little about the book signing party you had for Murder Etouffee.

EW: I'm not much on bookstore book signings. My book signing for Murder Etouffee was at Emerson Biggin's, a local club and restaurant. I had a wonderful time and even sold a few books.

CM: More specifically: tell me more about the blonde hotties you're hanging out with on the picture on your site!

EW: Yes, there were quite a few hotties at the book signing, all of them friendly. Some of them even joined me for an impromptu after-party at my house.

CM: Speaking of tasty dishes… did the party feature any Cajun cooking?

EW: Unfortunately, Oklahoma City isn't the greatest (not even the 100th greatest) place to sample Cajun cooking. We had hot wings and barbecue instead.

CM: What's your opinion on the new technologies like Internet communities, webzines, Printing on Demand?

EW: The world is evolving. All this new technology imparts power to the people. This is a good thing as it negates money and influence. Blogs, in my opinion, are the greatest instruments of freedom ever devised. Now everyone can speak their mind, anytime, anywhere, about anything. I say, go for it!

Ed. Note: Eric's own blog- a frequently updated collection of photos, fiction, news and commentary- can be found at http://justeastofeden.blogharbor.com/.

CM: This is the fifth POD that criticalmick.com has featured. I have heard good things about iUniverse. Would you like to share any experience or opinions about VirtualBookworm.com?

EW: POD is the future of publishing and is already radically changing the way books are warehoused, marketed and sold. It is also wresting power from major publishing houses and lessening their ability to dictate to the world what they alone feel we should read. Virtual Book Worm is a fine POD publisher that has many titles. As shown by the television show American Idol, there are many superstars out there waiting to be discovered. POD allows many good writers the chance to finally get their work in front of a world of ravenous readers.

CM: What project are you working on now?

EW: I am presently self-publishing many of the short stories that I wrote over the years. The working title is Name of the Game. I am hoping to publish Big Easy in November or December.

CM: What's on your nightstand at the moment?

EW: I am reading Gean B. Atkinson's - my next door neighbour - book Bloodmoon at Cabin Creek. It is a time travel, Cherokee novel set in present-day Oklahoma. I just finished The Da Vinci Code and liked it a lot.

CM: Anything I have not mentioned that you would like to bring up?

EW: Just to remind everyone to keep the people of New Orleans in their prayers.

CM: Soapbox: You've got twelve words to get one message out to the world with its lousy four-second attention span. Go!

EW: Don't wait until you're over the hill before deciding to climb it.

CM: Many thanks, Eric, for the microbrew taste of Abita and Dixie in Murder Etouffee! Next time you're in Dublin let me treat you to a real Guinness.

EW: Thank you, Mick. I will definitely take you up on that offer some day.

Eric Wilder's next novel, Big Easy, will be available late in 2006. More details will be available on his site, www.ericwilder.com.

Yo! This interview transcript and all content on the DFA Guide site are copyright 2006 Mick Halpin. All links to other sites and documents are copyright to whatever source wrote something cool enough for Mick to give it a referral. Try to claim them as your own work and bad karma will catch up with you, baby. Believe it.

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This Page Was Last Updated On 26 August, 2006.