W&D: What on earth prompted you to create the Brothers?
Jesse: To me characters must be intrinsically attached to, and a product of, their time and place, as opposed to simply being the sort of characters that one might at any old place or time. I've also got a strong interest in writing about the historically under-represented and villainized. That, and one too many late night roleplaying sessions.
W&D: Has religion played a roll in your life and times? The brothers are very much into discussing religion and their beliefs, though Im sure most of it would cause the Church to run for the hills.
Jesse: I'm decidedly agnostic, and was not raised in a religious household, which no doubt plays into my interest in religion--being outside of something as fascinating and faceted as religion compels one to examine it more closely, not less, in my experience. I certainly wouldn't want anyone to conflate my beliefs with those of Hegel and Manfried.
W&D: What are your greatest influences, who or what do you use as inspiration?
Jesse: All the usual suspects in terms of the general--books, movies, history, comics, roleplaying, my experiences. In terms of the specific, I learned to write from reading, and I've never been one to stick to a single genre--Roald Dahl and Douglas Addams were early influences, and later on I got into the old school weird triumvirate of Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and Lovecraft, and also the Italian post-modernists Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco. I''m one of those people who listens to music when I write, and while I often go in for instrumental pieces--European folk music, orkestars, Kronos Quartet, that sort of thing--I also get a lot of mileage listening to The Tiger Lillies, Nick Cave, sundry metal outfits like Cradle of Filth and Amon Amarth, and more recently a group called The Widow's Bane. I've also found myself listening to wildly inappropriate stuff like They Might Be Giants and that one Lady Gaga track that was really big when I was editing my last novel, but don't tell anyone.
W&D: I kind of suspect there is a touch of Grossbart in all of us if we look deep enough. Did they borrow any traits from yourself?
Jesse: I try to be honest to a fault, but the Brothers G put me to shame in that regard. They're meant to embody much of what is problematic about humanity--our myopic, selfish natures, our casual violence, our general insanity--but also our perseverance, and our unfailing loyalty to our families, and our dreams. For better or worse, I think the Brothers did inherit their obsession with being correct from me--I can be a real boor sometimes.
>What can we expect from you next?The Enterprise of Death is my next novel, and it will be released from Orbit in march of 2011. This one has a slightly higher fantasy element to it but is still historically set and carried by its humanity, I think. I also have short stories forthcoming in several venues, details of which can be found at my website www.jessebullington.com.
W&D: What do you do for fun when not writing twisted characters?
Jesse: I love the outdoors, especially hiking, and spend as much time in the mountains as I possible can. I also read every chance I get, and play boardgames, videogames, and various other diversions.
From WrathofMe on the aSoIaF forum:
>I have studied the German language and German history extensively, because of my strong interest in the region and the culture. What interested you in Germany and German folklore?
Jesse: I've always had a fondness for folklore, at least as far back as I can remember. I was fortunate enough to spend a year or so living in the Netherlands when I was a child, and for part of that time we traveled in Germany, where several friends of our family live. I don't think it will come as a surprise that to a child already enamored with the Brothers Grimm, and fantasy and horror, that country's brooding castles and benighted forests struck a deep chord, one that still resonates with me. As I grew older my childhood experiences and interests informed my growing interest in history, and the result is a continued fascination with the region. My language skills, I'm unhappy to report, are perfectly atrocious.
>I realize that this is a bit broad, but could you briefly describe the research process for the writing of this book?
Jesse: I went into the project with a decent background in the historical setting, and researched as I went in a very general sense--re-reading Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, for example, but also seeding the manuscripts with notes to myself in terms of specific items I needed to research better. When I began the novel I was not sure exactly what year the novel would take place in, and only settled on a date when I decided which major historical event I most wanted the Brothers Grossbart to blunder into. Prior to my fixing the date, I had a rough twenty-year window I was working with, but once I decided it would begin in late 1364 I had to go back through and excise certain bits and edit others to make it as accurate as possible. Finally, after completing the revised manuscript I went through the copious notes I had made and researched the individual items I was unsure of--my wife was a grad student and generously allowed me to pillage her university's library to this end. At a certain point you have to come to terms with the fact that you're never going to be able to get everything spot on, but I think the effort is nevertheless crucial to good historical writing--the night before I had to mail the completed, copy-edited manuscript back to my publisher I finally received a book on medieval sailing that I had been trying to get forever, and jumping to the chapter I was after I saw I had made a rather massive blunder and thus worked until about four in the morning re-writing a scene on the boat--I had the anchor on the wrong end of the damn ship, and equipped it with an anachronistic chain to boot. To reiterate, I had already done quite a bit of research beforehand, researched as I was writing in terms of the setting and a few important details, and then researched many of the details after the fact--for me research is something that takes place before, during, and after.
>I have read that "Watership Down" was simply the novelization of stories that Mr. Adams told his children. With that in mind, I wondered what inspired you to write "The Sad Tales of the Brothers Grossbart"?
Jesse: Part of it was the simple notion of writing something I would have liked to read as a teenager, which is when my taste in literature really solidified, but of course also something that would be enjoyable to me as an adult. I also wanted to write something that my friends would enjoy, and that was really the extent of my ambition for the project at first--to write a book that my role playing cohorts from high school would get a kick out of, and see bits of themselves in; to be frank, I assumed it would be a little too weird to ever find publication. That I was wrong on that count has been one of the happiest misconceptions of my life! Thanks Jesse
Jesse: To me characters must be intrinsically attached to, and a product of, their time and place, as opposed to simply being the sort of characters that one might at any old place or time. I've also got a strong interest in writing about the historically under-represented and villainized. That, and one too many late night roleplaying sessions.
W&D: Has religion played a roll in your life and times? The brothers are very much into discussing religion and their beliefs, though Im sure most of it would cause the Church to run for the hills.
Jesse: I'm decidedly agnostic, and was not raised in a religious household, which no doubt plays into my interest in religion--being outside of something as fascinating and faceted as religion compels one to examine it more closely, not less, in my experience. I certainly wouldn't want anyone to conflate my beliefs with those of Hegel and Manfried.
W&D: What are your greatest influences, who or what do you use as inspiration?
Jesse: All the usual suspects in terms of the general--books, movies, history, comics, roleplaying, my experiences. In terms of the specific, I learned to write from reading, and I've never been one to stick to a single genre--Roald Dahl and Douglas Addams were early influences, and later on I got into the old school weird triumvirate of Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and Lovecraft, and also the Italian post-modernists Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco. I''m one of those people who listens to music when I write, and while I often go in for instrumental pieces--European folk music, orkestars, Kronos Quartet, that sort of thing--I also get a lot of mileage listening to The Tiger Lillies, Nick Cave, sundry metal outfits like Cradle of Filth and Amon Amarth, and more recently a group called The Widow's Bane. I've also found myself listening to wildly inappropriate stuff like They Might Be Giants and that one Lady Gaga track that was really big when I was editing my last novel, but don't tell anyone.
W&D: I kind of suspect there is a touch of Grossbart in all of us if we look deep enough. Did they borrow any traits from yourself?
Jesse: I try to be honest to a fault, but the Brothers G put me to shame in that regard. They're meant to embody much of what is problematic about humanity--our myopic, selfish natures, our casual violence, our general insanity--but also our perseverance, and our unfailing loyalty to our families, and our dreams. For better or worse, I think the Brothers did inherit their obsession with being correct from me--I can be a real boor sometimes.
>What can we expect from you next?The Enterprise of Death is my next novel, and it will be released from Orbit in march of 2011. This one has a slightly higher fantasy element to it but is still historically set and carried by its humanity, I think. I also have short stories forthcoming in several venues, details of which can be found at my website www.jessebullington.com.
W&D: What do you do for fun when not writing twisted characters?
Jesse: I love the outdoors, especially hiking, and spend as much time in the mountains as I possible can. I also read every chance I get, and play boardgames, videogames, and various other diversions.
From WrathofMe on the aSoIaF forum:
>I have studied the German language and German history extensively, because of my strong interest in the region and the culture. What interested you in Germany and German folklore?
Jesse: I've always had a fondness for folklore, at least as far back as I can remember. I was fortunate enough to spend a year or so living in the Netherlands when I was a child, and for part of that time we traveled in Germany, where several friends of our family live. I don't think it will come as a surprise that to a child already enamored with the Brothers Grimm, and fantasy and horror, that country's brooding castles and benighted forests struck a deep chord, one that still resonates with me. As I grew older my childhood experiences and interests informed my growing interest in history, and the result is a continued fascination with the region. My language skills, I'm unhappy to report, are perfectly atrocious.
>I realize that this is a bit broad, but could you briefly describe the research process for the writing of this book?
Jesse: I went into the project with a decent background in the historical setting, and researched as I went in a very general sense--re-reading Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, for example, but also seeding the manuscripts with notes to myself in terms of specific items I needed to research better. When I began the novel I was not sure exactly what year the novel would take place in, and only settled on a date when I decided which major historical event I most wanted the Brothers Grossbart to blunder into. Prior to my fixing the date, I had a rough twenty-year window I was working with, but once I decided it would begin in late 1364 I had to go back through and excise certain bits and edit others to make it as accurate as possible. Finally, after completing the revised manuscript I went through the copious notes I had made and researched the individual items I was unsure of--my wife was a grad student and generously allowed me to pillage her university's library to this end. At a certain point you have to come to terms with the fact that you're never going to be able to get everything spot on, but I think the effort is nevertheless crucial to good historical writing--the night before I had to mail the completed, copy-edited manuscript back to my publisher I finally received a book on medieval sailing that I had been trying to get forever, and jumping to the chapter I was after I saw I had made a rather massive blunder and thus worked until about four in the morning re-writing a scene on the boat--I had the anchor on the wrong end of the damn ship, and equipped it with an anachronistic chain to boot. To reiterate, I had already done quite a bit of research beforehand, researched as I was writing in terms of the setting and a few important details, and then researched many of the details after the fact--for me research is something that takes place before, during, and after.
>I have read that "Watership Down" was simply the novelization of stories that Mr. Adams told his children. With that in mind, I wondered what inspired you to write "The Sad Tales of the Brothers Grossbart"?
Jesse: Part of it was the simple notion of writing something I would have liked to read as a teenager, which is when my taste in literature really solidified, but of course also something that would be enjoyable to me as an adult. I also wanted to write something that my friends would enjoy, and that was really the extent of my ambition for the project at first--to write a book that my role playing cohorts from high school would get a kick out of, and see bits of themselves in; to be frank, I assumed it would be a little too weird to ever find publication. That I was wrong on that count has been one of the happiest misconceptions of my life! Thanks Jesse
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