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interview with Tyler R. Tichelaar

Narrow Lives

Tyler R. Tichelaar
Marquette Fiction (2008)
ISBN 9780979179037
Reviewed by Kam Aures for Rebeccas Reads (4/08)

cover of authros book

Today, RebeccasReads welcomes Tyler R. Tichelaar, who is here to talk about his new novel, “Narrow Lives.”

Tyler R. Tichelaar is a seventh generation resident of Marquette, Michigan, the setting for his historical novels. Tyler has a Ph.D. in literature from Western Michigan University and Bachelor and Master’s Degrees from Northern Michigan University. He has lectured on writing and literature at Clemson University, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of London. He is currently the Vice-President of the Upper Peninsula Publishers and Authors Association and he is the Associate Editor at Reader Views. Besides his new novel, “Narrow Lives,” Tyler is the author of “The Marquette Trilogy” composed of “Iron Pioneers,” “The Queen City,” and “Superior Heritage.” He credits the roar of Lake Superior, mountains of snow, sandstone architecture, and family stories as the inspiration for his writing.

RR:  Welcome, Tyler. I’m so happy you could join me today. To start out, will you tell us the gist of what “Narrow Lives” is about?

Tyler:  Thank you. I’m very excited to be talking to RebeccasReads today. “Narrow Lives” is about Lysander Blackmore, and those who knew him, both his family members and friends and acquaintances. Lysander is a wealthy banker, who has no qualms about using his position to his advantage, both to gain wealth and to deprive others of it. He also has no qualms about cheating on his wife. And then the day after the stock market crashes in 1929, he commits suicide. Those who knew him, especially his family, are left to deal with their own emotional responses to how he treated them as well as the community’s response to him.

RR:  “Narrow Lives” is really not just a novel but a short story collection at the same time. Will you explain the format of the book and why you chose to write it in that manner?

Tyler:  The novel is told as a series of independent short stories all connected by the characters, rather like “The Sound and the Fury” by William Faulkner or “Winesburg, Ohio” by Sherwood Anderson, although I hope more entertaining. There are six short stories and then the final section which is about half of the book and really a novella in itself. Each section is told in first person by a specific character who knew Lysander Blackmore or in some way had his or her life affected by Lysander. Among the stories is one his wife tells about his marital infidelities, one by his legitimate daughter, another by his bastard son, and another by the son of his best friend. You can imagine the opinions some of these characters have of him.

I chose to write the book as short stories because I wanted to express how one person’s life can have such a wide influence on so many different people, even decades after he is dead and upon people who never met him. I also wanted to show how no one can completely understand another person. The people closest to Lysander ultimately do not understand him. I don’t know that the reader, who has the vantage point of all these different interpretations, can understand him. I’m not even sure I understand him.

At the same time, the point is partly that the inability to understand a person who has influenced your life does not matter because a person needs to choose to live his or her own life. That is why I chose the title “Narrow Lives”—the characters find themselves trapped in the world they allowed Lysander’s behavior to create for them rather than allowing themselves to live life fully and independently. I hope I warn the reader against living in the manner many of the characters find themselves unable to escape.

RR:  What is the relation of “Narrow Lives” to your Marquette Trilogy? Do you advise people to read “The Marquette Trilogy” first?

Tyler:  No, “Narrow Lives” can be read by itself. It is only loosely connected to “The Marquette Trilogy.” In fact, Lysander is the only character from “The Marquette Trilogy” who had a major role in that series. Several of the other characters had brief appearances in “The Marquette Trilogy,” such as Lysander’s son Scofield, and Lyla Hopewell. I had so many characters in my trilogy I could not do justice to them all, and I realized several of those characters lived in a different kind of world. My trilogy has a bit of a “wholesome” nostalgic American feel to it. The characters in “Narrow Lives” tend to live more on the seedy side of society. But I wanted to show that all these people can exist in this same small community. I think “Narrow Lives” will surprise readers of “The Marquette Trilogy,” and yet by the time they finish the book, they will understand why it was written and see it as part of a realistic depiction of life and the Marquette area.

RR:  What was it that fascinated you enough about your characters to write this book?

Tyler:  As I mentioned above, I wanted to try to understand Lysander Blackmore, although I still do not. But I think the real answer to what I wanted to depict and what inspired the novel is what Willa Cather said about small-town life. I quote her at the beginning of “Narrow Lives”:

In little towns, lives roll along so close to one another; loves and hates beat about, their wings almost touching. On the sidewalks along which everybody comes and goes, you must, if you walk abroad at all, at some time pass within a few inches of the man who cheated and betrayed you, or the woman you desire more than anything else in the world. Her skirt brushes against you. You say good-morning and go on. It is a close shave. Out in the world the escapes are not so narrow.

My title actually came from the use of the word “narrow” in that quote. I struggled for years with the title. I had a working title but I did not like it and could not think of a better one. Finally, one day I reread the quote and the title came to me.

In “Narrow Lives” and all my fiction, I want to show the dynamics of small-town life, and at the same time, on a larger scale, how closely all people are connected. Marquette today has about 25,000 residents. That’s big enough that I don’t know everyone in town, but it’s still small enough that if I meet someone I don’t know and name a few people I do know, that person is sure to know several of my acquaintances, friends, or relatives. Since my family has been here since 1849, I have many relatives in Marquette, even fifth cousins I’ve never met, but we have a common connection.

It fascinates me to think how closely we are all connected. I may not even know the person who lives across the street from me, but he or she may have an entire wonderful or tragic life that is being lived just fifty feet from where I am living my life, and that person’s life could be affecting the life of someone whose life is interacting with my own.

I have also always been fascinated by genealogy, as is reflected in the complicated family trees of my characters. I have over 300 characters altogether in my novels, and they are almost all somehow connected to each other by marriage or blood. The entire human race is really that way. Recent studies of DNA have shown that everyone living today of European descent can claim to be descended from anyone who lived prior to the year 1200 A.D. and had children. That means all Caucasians are descendants of William the Conqueror, Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Roman Emperors. I am sure the case is similar for those of Asian and African descent. The human race—six billion people—is itself a closely-knit family. This fact is mind-boggling to me, and it is perfect as an inspiration for expanding the world of fictional characters.

RR:  You mentioned that in “Narrow Lives” the characters all have their own sections, told in first-person. Does that include Lysander Blackmore?

Tyler:  No. I can’t say I really ever considered writing a section told by Lysander Blackmore. I wanted the novel to represent how little one person can really know about someone else and what motivates a person. It is no secret that Lysander commits suicide in the novel. The question is why he did. The town is full of rumors but no one really knows, although the reader is given a good clue in “Narrow Lives” but personally, I am not even sure myself why he did it. Some characters think he was ashamed of his philandering behavior, others that he lost money in the stock market crash of 1929. Whatever his reason, he took it with him to his grave, not even leaving a suicide note. While the rest of the characters all tell their stories in first person and were very insistent with me that their voices had to be heard, Lysander just would not speak to me. I guess he was not a nice man in the novel, and he was not a nice or cooperative character either, but in the end, he helped me create an interesting novel nonetheless.

RR:  Will you explain a little bit about Lysander’s influence on the other characters? The back cover states that the novel “depicts the influences one person has, even in death, upon others.”

Tyler:  The question might really be why Lysander has such an influence on people. The words on the back cover following that line say the novel “explores the prisons of grief, loneliness, and fear self-created when people doubt their own worthiness.” I will give you two examples of Lysander’s influence in the novel. His wife, Lydia, realizes the kind of man he is early on in their marriage when she learns he has kept from her that he has an illegitimate son. She lets this go. She decides to accept it. Later we find out he has other mistresses. She must have known about these as well, but once she started accepting one thing about him, it snowballed until she found herself trapped and eventually very bitter. His influence on his bastard son is also significant, even though Scofield is only three when his father dies. Scofield knows everyone in town is aware that he is Lysander Blackmore’s bastard. Scofield experiences some mild mistreatment from people because of this, but he chooses, even though he may not realize he is doing so, to believe he is bad because his father was bad, to believe he is less than other people. That is how his father’s influence forces him into living a narrow life.

RR:  Tyler, could you have set these stories elsewhere? What made you decide to write fiction set in Upper Michigan?

Tyler:  Upper Michigan is a beautiful place. The people here are really survivors of its harsh winter climate when the temperature can be as low as forty below zero (and that’s not counting the wind chill). There have been winters when we’ve received as much as 300 inches of snow. It’s really an effort to survive at times, and that’s in the twenty-first century. Can you imagine what it was like in the mid-1800s when the first settlers came to Upper Michigan? They had shovels. No snowplows, no snow blowers, no electricity. Just shovels. I don’t know how they did it. And to think that my ancestors were here at that time. They must have been amazingly brave to leave their homes in Europe or New England to come here where there was nothing but a lake and a forest, but they came because iron ore had just been discovered in Upper Michigan and they had dreams of a better life. Ultimately, more mineral wealth would come from Upper Michigan than from any of the gold rushes in California or Alaska. This land was built up because people believed in the American Dream—because opportunity existed and if you worked hard, you would succeed. How could I not write about such incredible people?

And my grandpa was always telling me stories about his childhood and things that had happened to him, his parents and grandparents. My grandpa and great-grandpa were carpenters, and many of the houses they built are still standing in Marquette. I feel connected to this place and its history when I walk past those houses, when I go to Mass at St. Peter’s Cathedral where my great-grandparents went 120 years ago, and when I visit Park Cemetery where my great-great-great-great grandfather, Basil Bishop, a veteran from the War of 1812, is buried. When I am so connected to this place and it has influenced me so much, how could I not write about it?

RR:  Tyler, how long does it take you to write a novel?

Tyler:  That is a really difficult question. I have published my four novels in just over a two-year period and people are surprised by how quickly each is published, but I have been working on these characters and stories since 1999, and in the case of one character since 1987. The first version of “Narrow Lives” was a novel I wrote in 1992 that I never published—it was a much longer version of what ultimately became the first two sections of “Narrow Lives.” In that novel, Lysander was a minor character who only showed up at the picnic scene. Then when I wrote “The Marquette Trilogy,” I envisioned a scene where the Whitman family risked losing their farm, so I realized I needed a nefarious banker and remembered Lysander whom I had created earlier. I started to wonder what he was really doing at that picnic, and how to make Margaret Whitman’s confrontation with him at the bank more dramatic. Lysander’s character just grew from there. He was rather like a thorn in my side, the most despicable character I’ve ever written about, and yet one I could not stop thinking about. I worked on “The Marquette Trilogy” from 1999 to 2002, drafting it. When I had all three novels drafted, I took a break for several months, and during that time, partly just to entertain myself, I wrote the draft of “Narrow Lives.” Then after the Trilogy was completed in 2004, I went back and revised “Narrow Lives.” Then in the summer of 2007, just a few months before I was going to send it to the printers, Lysander’s daughter Matilda started talking to me and demanding her story be included in the book. Overall then, it would be fair to say that “Narrow Lives” took fifteen years to write.

RR:  Tyler, did you always want to be a writer?

Tyler:  I always loved to read from an early age. When I was in third grade, a friend of mine told me her aunt had written a mystery novel. I had not until that point really thought about how writing books could be a career. From then on, I knew the job I wanted was to be an author. I wrote short stories on and off after that, and then as I mentioned above, I started writing my first novel in 1987. I haven’t stopped writing since. Writer’s block is about the worst affliction I can imagine having.

RR:  Do you have any more novels you are working on?

Tyler:  Absolutely. I am never not working on a novel. “The Marquette Trilogy” covered the years 1849-1999 and the lives of seven generations of characters. That’s a long time period, and not everything could be covered in just three books, which is why “Narrow Lives” had to be written. My next novel will be published in the spring of 2009 and it is actually the revision of the very first novel I wrote as a teenager between 1987-1990. It is the life story of Robert O’Neill, the novelist who is a minor character in the last two volumes of the trilogy. I then have one more novel also set in Marquette that I will publish. I have several other fragments of Marquette novels I am working on. I would also like to try my hand at writing fantasy and have ideas for a series of novels set throughout the Middle Ages with a fantasy twist. Who knows? I might even try my hand at some science-fiction.

RR:  Tyler, I mentioned in your introduction that you have a Ph.D. in literature. I am surprised your degrees are not in creative writing. What about literature interests you and why did you choose to study it?

Tyler:  I wanted to learn from the great writers. From early on, I was attracted to the classics. By the time I finished high school I had read all the novels of Dickens, Austen, and the Brontes and many of the other classics. I could never understand the students I knew in the creative writing programs who didn’t like to read but liked to write. I wanted to do both, and I knew studying literature would make me a better writer, and I think finding my own voice and place in that literary tradition was what I most wanted to do.

My novels have been compared frequently to those of James Michener because of their historical content that runs over a long time frame, but I am more pleased by the comparisons I have received to Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire and Palliser novels or John Galsworthy’s “The Forsyte Saga.” Willa Cather is also a major influence on my writing. The title of my novel “Iron Pioneers” is in many ways a tribute to her novel “O Pioneers” because she chose to write about the land of Nebraska that she loved so well, and I wanted to be part of that regional fiction tradition by writing about the land of Upper Michigan that I love.

RR:  Thank you for joining us today, Tyler. Before we go, will you tell our readers what additional information they can find on your website about “Narrow Lives”?

Tyler:  Certainly. You can visit www.MarquetteFiction.com. There is a book catalog page where you can purchase all my books, including my entire trilogy at a discount. There are some wonderful pictures of the Marquette area in the background including the Marquette County Courthouse where the famous Teddy Roosevelt Trial took place and “Anatomy of a Murder” starring Jimmy Stewart was filmed, and of St. Peter’s Cathedral where Bishop Baraga, who is in the process of being made a saint, is buried. All these places figure prominently in my novels. There is a timeline of Marquette’s history from Father Marquette’s first visit to the area in 1671 through to the present. There is a page outlining the family trees of all the characters in my novels—they are quite complicated at times, and be forewarned that if you haven’t read my novels, looking at the family trees might give away the plots of who marries who! There is also a “My Marquette” page where I have posted some articles I have written about my writing and how Marquette has influenced it. I hope readers will visit often and join my email list. I am always updating the website. Finally, thank you again for having me today.

RR:  Thank you, Tyler. It’s been a pleasure. We will be looking forward to your future books!

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