Interview 2007-002: Andrea Portes

The following is an interview with Andrea Portes, author of the recently published novel, Hick (Unbridled Books, 2007).  Andrea currently lives in the Los Angeles area and writes online columns, monitoring the nightlife there.

Dan:

Hello, Andrea.  I’m glad you could find some time to answer some questions.

Andrea:

But of course…

Dan:

You were born in Illinois, moved to Texas around 1 month later and time spent in various other states including North Carolina and Nebraska, and even some time in Brazil, while growing up.  What was it that led to all of the moves?

Andrea:

My parents got divorced when I was three and we just kind of got shuffled around back and forth between them from then on.

Dan:

Did all of this moving lead to your becoming more withdrawn, or were you forced to adapt into an outgoing type with all of the new locations?

Andrea:

It, basically, turned me into a withdrawn sociopath. I never really said anything but I used to gleefully stab the other children in my daycare with my fork.

Dan:

While I must admit that I was tipped off by an insider that I might really like Hick, it was really the first sentence that grabbed me:

“You know why you keep losing, cause, guess what, you’re a fucking loser.”

It just seemed a perfect jumping point into the story, and certainly laid Luli McMullen’s voice out perfectly.  Was this always the starting point of your story, or did it find its way through many revisions?

Andrea:

Actually, that was the first line of the book from the very beginning. I was at SLOTS OF FUN in Las Vegas, playing the nickel slots, with my friend. I think he kept losing and so I just said, “You know why you keep losing, cause, guess what, you’re a fucking loser.” And he and I basically spent the next ten minutes laughing and he then said, “That would be a great first line of a novel.” And I said, “You’re right!” And so it began…

Dan:

The thing that really grabbed my attention at first was Luli’s voice.  It’s amazingly consistent throughout the novel.  Was it difficult to continually find her voice as the story progressed?

Andrea:

The voice kind of came to me out of nowhere in the first place, so it did most of the work for me. I kind of just wrote down what was talking to me. I know that sounds like I may be a bit of a nutcase, but she just sort of talked to me until I told her story.

Dan:

As great as Luli’s voice is, I’m not sure it would have been able to hold my attention for over 200 pages on its own.  Instead, it’s Luli’s ability to continue moving forward with a belief that things are going to turn out all right, almost even distancing herself from any negative events that might happen to her, that makes her such an interesting character.   We’re you at all worried that readers might not give credence to such a young character’s acting in such a manner?

Andrea:

Children are insanely adaptable. I’m glad people seem to pay more attention to their children these days but... you know, you kind of just figure out how to survive. You can’t really survive if you just sit around saying “Woe is me.” Luli distances herself from negative events to survive… she doesn’t let them define her.

Dan:

Based on some of the comments in your acknowledgements, particularly your statement to your mother that if not for her, you would have “taken my rightful place as the second female serial killer of all time,” is it safe to assume that while Hick is a work of fiction that you may have taken some aspects of your own childhood to use as framework or starting off points for some scenes?

Andrea:

Absolutely, the nomadic existence we had growing up led to a kind of reptilian mentality. I really didn’t learn to “feel” or “care about others” for a long time. This was problematic, as, on the outside, I was kind of this blonde, blue-eyed little thing but…you know…on the inside I liked to stab the other little kids with silverware.

Dan:

Looking back, the announcement that this book was purchased by Fred at Unbridled was made last August.  It seems like the book was fast-tracked into publication as most new authors find their sales date to publishing date to be over a year at least.  Was the manuscript that close to being ready when sold, or was their just that much excitement about it on Fred’s part to get it into that next catalogue?

Andrea:

I’m not quite sure. Fred said, after buying HICK, that we had only one month to do the revisions. So, I immediately broke up with my boyfriend, house-sat at my friend’s house and spent the entire month writing, editing, thinking about writing, looking very strange, wearing odd outfits and just diving into the editing process with no distractions. So, I made the “one month” deadline but I’m still not quite sure what the rush was all about. Of course, in my secret BLINDINGLY NARCISSITIC heart I would like to think that it was because there was just so much excitement to get it into the next catalogue…but, honestly, I have no idea…

Dan:

I understand that you’ve recently also had a short story, Moped, and a poem, August, selected to be published in a couple of anthologies.  Have you written many shorter pieces – stories and/or poems?   

Andrea:

Actually, not really, because I don’t understand those forms that well. One of my college friends, Griffin Hansbury, is an amazing poet and when I read his poems I understand that I’m not very good at it. It’s just not really my forte. Short Stories maybe...

Dan:

I also see you’re working on a new novel, Menagerie of Nutjobs.  Based on Hick and the title of the next one, it appears you have an affinity for those who might be viewed as slightly off-kilter.  What is it about such individuals that draw you to them as an author?

Andrea:

I think it must have to do with growing up as the weird kid. We switched schools so many times that we were just considered freaks wherever we went. So, I have a lot of empathy towards outsiders. I’m always interested in the person who is ruining the dinner party. I feel kind of CRAZILY UNCOMFORTABLE around a lot of people smiling and nodding and talking about design…but, if you bring in the drunks, the drama, the break-up, the tears, I’m completely at home.

Dan:

Beyond writing fiction, you also pen two online columns about nightlife in Los Angeles?  That almost sounds like a dream job (assuming there is pay involved) for a young person.  How did you end up working for these two sites?

Andrea:

Well, to be honest, I sort of live at the level of a church mouse. This is partly because I have a level of disdain for worshipping material things so I give away my things like the apocalypse is coming. Seriously, ask my friends, if you come over to my place you will leave with your arms full and two sofas and the pictures on the wall… I just hate having too much stuff around. So, these jobs aren’t really that lucrative or anything, they’re just interesting. Everyone around me thinks I’m crazy to not have made more materialistic decisions in my life… but, I don’t know, furniture and shiny objects don’t really turn me on.

Dan:

In a column about a club recently, you noted that your mom taught you two things, the second of which was to always keep your promises.  Seems pretty straightforward.  Might you expound a bit on the circumstances behind why mom might have taught you the first – Never drink blood?

Andrea:

Ok, yes, you can get the real dirt about this on my Myspace blog, but I will condense it here to say, well, um… when I was growing up…I loved the taste of blood. As a tot, when injured, while normal kids would run to their mother crying, "Mommy, I got a boo-boo!" I would, instead, begin sucking the happy injury with the voraciousness of a starving leech. My mother would patiently persuade me that "Good girls don't suck their blood." Not their thumb. No, no. Their blood.

Dan:

It appears that perhaps acting was a first love of yours – I assume that you are indeed, the Andrea Portes who walked off with the 1987 Class A Outstanding Female Performer award in the state of Nebraska?  It also appears that you did some further theatre acting at the LaJolla Playhouse (Boy, 1996) and possibly even some film work (Playback – I assume you are the women Jeff loves and robs a bank for before things go wrong).

If these listings of Andrea Portes all pertain to you, do you still do any acting, or if not, do you miss it?

Andrea:

As much as I would love to say that wasn’t me…unfortunately, I can’t. Yes, that was me. I caught “the drama bug” as David Sedaris called it. It’s my two sister’s fault, really. They were auditioning for some PBS show in Nebraska called STRAWBERRY SQUARE and they dragged me along because they were babysitting me. Well… the casting director took one look at me and said, “Her!” My sister’s hated me from that moment on, I’m fairly sure. Of course, the day of the “big show”, I came in wearing such crappy, hand-me-down clothes that they kind of put me in the back and cut me out entirely. It was completely humiliating. However, that did not stop my mother from then putting the five of us kids on “the drama circuit”.

Dan:

You also obtained an MFA in Theatre at the University of California – San Diego, and moved from there to being a script reader at Paramount.  Can you recall any scripts that you may have been the first reader on that readers will fondly remember being a great movie?  Or, when one is hired to be a script reader out of college, do they get the “really good” scripts that make one wonder what the author was thinking?

Andrea:

The first script I got involved a story about a girl whose boyfriend dies and comes back as a dog. I also got a script that had a drawing of a spaceship on the front page, with arrows pointing and a little handwritten note that said, “Here’s where the aliens come in.” I did get one script I quite liked, called IGBY GOES DOWN, but they didn’t really seem to care what I thought, to be quite honest.

Dan:

As an author these days, one cannot count simply on their publisher to help garner attention (though with Unbridled, you’ve got the best of the best, in my opinion).  I see you have a pretty large reading tour (35 cities per your galleys) as well as your own personal MySpace page, and one set up for Hick as well.  Do you fall into the category of author who sees these as necessary evils, or the type who is genuinely excited about being a part of the marketing process?

Andrea:

A writer friend of mine, Jane King, told me that you have to wear two different hats… the writer hat and the marketing hat. Somehow, to divide them into two entirely different things makes the whole thing make more sense to me. The part of me that sits around writing and wearing weird house-frau outfits is a completely different part of me than the one that goes out and, say, puts on clothes and, say, washes my hair…and tries to make it appear that I am a normal person who might possibly be worthy of note.

Dan:

Lastly, if you were a character in “Fahrenheit 451,” what work(s) would you memorize for posterity?

Andrea:

THE PAINTED BIRD by Jerzy Kosinski
THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
BLONDE by Joyce Carol Oates
AMERICAN PASTORAL by Philip Roth
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton
And, of course, HAMLET.

There are two HAMLET references in HICK, by the way… sort of a tip of the hat.

Dan:

Thank you, Andrea, for taking time out of your schedule to answer some questions. 

Andrea:

Thank you for asking me. I’m in Iowa right now, on the road, and we went last night for BBQ at a place with Vintage Winchester Rifle posters all over the place. My favorite was this one that had a blonde, blue-eyed ten-year-old boy in a cowboy hat, jeans and cowboy boots handing over a Winchester rifle to a ten-year-old native-American girl, with the text:  “ALL THE POWER FOR LESS OF THE WAMPUM.” My mother had to hold me back from tearing that one off the wall and bringing it back with me to Echo Park.

***  Andrea Portes is currently out on an extended book tour - personally, the responses above make me want to go out and see her (not that she'll be in my neck of the woods).  If you read the above the same way, check out where she'll be reading and signing.

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