Before becoming an author and a professor (at Central Michigan University), Darrin Doyle worked as a paperboy, janitor, mover, telemarketer, salesman, Kinko’s copy consultant, porn store clerk, prep cook…and so on. We had great fun talking to him about his job history, his new story collection (The Big Baby Crime Spree and Other Delusions), working the backstory into a story, and much more.
Please tell us what your new book, The Big Baby Crime Spree and Other Delusions, is about.
It’s a slim collection of five short stories. The stories feature shades of uncanny, dark humor, stylistic language, and working-class protagonists who seek to fix some dissatisfaction in their lives. They seek this remedy through obsessive behavior that might be either healing or misguided – the results are in the eye of the beholder.
What do the stories in this new collection have in common?
The thread that binds these stories is the notion of belief – not religious belief, necessarily, but belief (mistaken or not) in our power to control the circumstances that impact us: as poet Wallace Stevens wrote, “It is the belief and not the god that counts.” Their belief sustains them, rightly or wrongly.
You have had a great number of jobs on your way to becoming a professor and author. Did you take some of these jobs for the purpose of being able to better develop characters from various walks of life?
I never took a job for a reason other than to earn a paycheck, although I’m sure you’re right that the result was working with and dealing with a wide variety of people. Each of those experiences made me who I am today, and they undoubtedly continue to affect my storytelling at every turn. What I probably took most from all of those jobs was my work ethic – sticking with a task even when you want nothing more than to just walk away. It gave me a great amount of discipline.
Which jobs were most surprising? Which turned out to be most useful for your writing career?
The porn store was the wildest, and if you ever buy me a drink I’ll share a ton of hard-to-believe and bizarre anecdotes from that job. I’ve never been able to turn that experience into fiction, though – maybe because there was just so much. It’s difficult to corral all of that into a narrative.
Oddly, the job that may have been the most influential on my writing life might have been paperboy. I began at age 9 and did it until age 15. Those six years gave me the chance, 365 days a year, over an hour each day, to be alone with my thoughts. I remember being lost in my imagination for the entire time I walked my route, making up stories, songs, whatever – just lost in my head. Later, I worked as a custodian at a School of Cosmetology, again primarily by myself. Then I worked overnights for a number of years at Kinko’s – alone for most of the shift. I probably unconsciously gravitated toward jobs where I could be in my head whenever possible.
In addition to The Big Baby Crime Spree, you’ve written several other books. Which book, or story from a collection, would make the best movie and why?
My novel The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo would make a great movie! It’s part comedy, part drama, part monster movie, set firmly in the zeitgeist of the 1990s. There’s lots of opportunity for cool special effects, a few celebrity cameos, and a quirky, funny, and damaged family at the heart of it all.
Your publisher’s book blurb for your story collection Scoundrels Among Us says that the book will leave readers “disturbed, dazzled, delirious—and begging for more.” Which of the first three conditions are you most interested in inciting in your readership and why?
“Dazzled” is my favorite word of those three, so let’s go with that one. Seriously, I don’t usually set out to disturb the reader (this seems to happen without me trying). And “delirious” can mean good but can also mean out of your mind. Good stuff tends to “dazzle” us.
What do students struggle with most in creative writing classes?
I see a lot of students who have the misconception that summary, flashback, and backstory are “not part of the action” of the story. It’s as if these tools are merely a necessary evil that sometimes writers must include, and if they have to include them, it should be super quick and uninvolved. I could be wrong, but I wonder if this is because so much of the storytelling that they experience comes through visual media like TV and movies (where most backstory is given through dialogue). Or maybe nowadays the fiction the students read doesn’t include much backstory or summary.
I don’t know the reason, but it bums me out. I have to convince them that everything is part of the “action” of the story, and there’s no reason this material can’t be entertaining and well-written, and worthy of the reader’s attention.
It’s kind of cliché to ask a writer where he gets his ideas, but in your case—because you’ve written so many short stories, no two of which are alike—it seems totally appropriate. How do you keep coming up with these unique ideas, especially as you spend so much time teaching?
Thank you for saying so. I think I’ve been blessed with a very active imagination. Maybe I was able to cultivate this imagination, as I mentioned earlier, with some of the jobs I had along the way. Also, the truth is simply that I push myself to be inventive from one story to the next. I’m restless. I don’t want to tell the same story twice. I’m influenced by a wide range of writers, musicians, filmmakers, and other artists.
You mention the amount of time I spend teaching, which is true: my writing time is limited. However, as cliché as it sounds, my students and experiences in the classroom are a huge source of inspiration for my writing. My collection Scoundrels Among Us was directly influenced by the writing that my students did in a class on forms in fiction that I taught. Often when I assign in-class writing, I do the assignments along with the students. And just seeing their enthusiasm and the freshness of their perspectives on a weekly basis keeps me invigorated and eager to write my own stories.
What are you working on now?
I’m so glad you asked. I’ve been working on final edits of my forthcoming novel, The Beast in Aisle 34, which will be released in October 2021 by Tortoise Books. I’m extremely excited to share it with readers. It’s a horror-comedy about a 30-year-old named Sandy Kurtz who works at a big-box home improvement store. He’s married with a baby on the way – and he’s also a werewolf. He and his wife live in rural Michigan, so Sandy believes that he should be able to sustain his lycanthrope appetite by feeding on the local deer (and keep his secret from his wife). The novel wrestles with issues of masculinity and identity – along with having werewolves, Sasquatch hunters, LARPers, and a Lycan support group. Speaking of great movie potential – this one’s got it!
Where can fans learn more about your work?
My website at darrindoyle.com has links to published short stories as well as links to all of my books. You can also find me on Twitter (@DoyleDarrin), on Facebook (Author Darrin Doyle), and Instagram (@darrindoylewriter).
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