Reality Is Plastic
An Interview with Robert Freeman Wexler
For some writers, prose is a means with which to construct an analogue of reality. For Robert Freeman Wexler, fiction is a means with which to de-construct reality. Yet his stories have such a strong sense of linguistic integrity, it’s hard to believe that he isn’t reporting his experiences from a parallel universe.
Rick Kleffel: Robert, what sort of fiction first drew your interest as a reader?
Robert Freeman Wexler: The usual kid stuff—Hardy Boys, Willard Price’s adventure books (brothers Hal and Roger go off to capture wild animals for their father’s zoo animal distribution company). I found a copy of Arthur C. Clarke’s Reach for Tomorrow and a book called something like 12 Classics of Science Fiction lying by a ditch near the railroad tracks. That was probably the first adult sf I read. I grew up in a house full of books. And some cousins owned a bookstore called The House of Books. So I never had a lack.
Rick Kleffel: And which writers made you want to write yourself?
Robert Freeman Wexler: No one really. Although I read a lot, I don’t think reading is what made me want to write. Realizing I wanted to be a writer happened in college, but I can’t point to anything specific.
Art and music were probably more of a factor in setting off my imagination. One of the things I wanted to do was figure out how to translate into fiction the late ’70s early ’80s punk rock I was listening to in college. How to capture the rawness, or the individualism, but without the prose looking amateurish. Not knowing how to play bass or guitar can work in music, but not being able to move words into their proper configurations doesn’t quite do it.
Later, after college, I discovered Angela Carter and J.G. Ballard, and Patrick White. I remember looking at the beginning of White’s novel, Voss, and knowing I couldn’t do what he was doing but wanting to try.
Rick Kleffel: You obtained a degree in journalism, and worked as a journalist. What led you to this decision?
Robert Freeman Wexler: I’ve never really worked as a journalist. No one would hire me.
I chose journalism because I decided I wanted to be a writer but didn’t know how to go about it. I had never connected books with the people who wrote them. I didn’t know people could be writers.
During college at the University of Texas I wrote for the student paper’s entertainment section (with a student body of 45,000 to 48,000, plus faculty and staff, we had a pretty good daily paper, which was a lot of fun to work for). After college, I wrote some feature articles here and there, but that was it for journalism.
Rick Kleffel: You attended the Clarion workshop. How was this experience? Tell us the gory details.
Robert Freeman Wexler: Complex. Nothing gory. An intense group of naked (metaphorically) writers suffering from sleep deprivation and too much togetherness.
Rick Kleffel: Would you recommend Clarion to would-be writers—even if they don’t intend to write science fiction?
Robert Freeman Wexler: I wouldn’t recommend Clarion to people who aren’t interested in writing fantasy, horror, or science fiction. They would gain something from the intensity of the experience, but the whole thing is set up to produce genre writers. Someone who doesn’t read the genre and isn’t interested in writing it would be lost. But it wouldn’t happen. Someone like that wouldn’t have heard of Clarion.
Even someone like me, who has read a lot of genre, might have a hard time at Clarion because of its orientation toward a more traditional type of genre writing. I’m sure some of my instructors didn’t think I had much future in the genre (one comment from an instructor during our conference was that it was too bad I hadn’t lived in the early 20th century, when my writing style might have been more appreciated; and another said that since I was living in New York City, I should go to Borges lectures where I could try to meet literary editors). This isn’t what I would call an effective teaching method.
But I also had some very good and generous teachers, with whom I’ve since stayed in touch, and my overall experience there was great. One important thing for someone to consider is whether you are firm in your concept of who you are. Not how good you are—because everyone who goes in probably has an inflated view of that (which thankfully levels off after a week). But what kind of writer you want to be. What things make you want to write. Everyone there is vulnerable, exposed, and it’s easy to be swayed by a sort of genre-beast group-think. Which isn’t done consciously (talking about my own experience of course)—there wasn’t someone threatening me unless I turned toward the middle, but I did come out of it with my sense of what I wanted to do having become somewhat muddled, and it took me some years to settle back into trusting myself, trusting my sense of knowing what worked best for me.
