Inspiral Carpets: An Interview David Amadio by Curtis Smith

David Amadio teaches Creative Writing and Composition at Lincoln University, America’s first degree-granting HBCU. He received his MFA in Fiction from Bowling Green State University in 2001. His work has appeared in Cleaver, Packingtown Review, Adaptation, Talking River, Nerve Cowboy, and the San Francisco Examiner. He belongs to a three-man comedy troupe called the Minor Prophets, which has written, directed, and produced over thirty award-winning short films. David lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two children. Rug Man is his first novel. Find him at https://www.ravioliparachute.com.

Curtis Smith: Congratulations on Rug Man. I really enjoyed it. This is your first book, correct? First books often have an interesting journey. Can you tell us how you ended up working with Paul Dry?

David Amadio: Yes, Rug Man is my first book. When I completed the manuscript in the summer of 2021, I sent it out to 15 different small presses. Seven didn’t get back to me, seven said “No,” and one—Paul Dry Books—said “Yes.” Paul notified me of the book’s acceptance via e-mail in a one-line message: “I like Rug Man and would like to publish it.” That’s it. No fanfare, no confetti, just a simple confirmation. I had to laugh at its terseness.

Paul has offices on Sansom St. in downtown Philly, not too far from where I live. When I was hunting around for publishing houses, I Googled “Small Presses in the Philadelphia Area,” and PDB came up. It being a local press initially drew my interest, but I was further taken by Paul’s stable of authors and the many different genres that he publishes. (He’s put out books by Dana Gioia, who has done great work with the Poetry Center at West Chester University, my alma mater.) Paul has also brought several obscure titles back into print, forgotten classics that he feels strongly about and wants to reintroduce to a new readership.

It turns out that Paul knows my Aunt Judy. They were neighbors in Philly’s Fitler Square neighborhood for nearly 20 years. I didn’t find this out until after the book was accepted for publication, and it’s been one of the more delightful synchronicities of this whole experience. In a word, Paul is a mensch. He’s not only my publisher but also a dear friend and confidante. He cares about the work as well as the writer behind it, the person and the pages. I imagine that’s not too easy to find.

CS: You teach writing as well. I’m always interested in the ways this influences one’s work. Do you find it energizing or motivating? Or is it difficult to go from helping others with their writing to focusing on your own?

DA: I’ve been teaching Creative Writing since 1999, at Bowling Green State University, West Chester University, and now Lincoln University. I’m a product of the workshop method, so I bring many of its principles to my classes, especially the idea of community, a small group of writers composing and sharing their work in an atmosphere of encouragement and honest criticism.

The method has its detractors, and I’m not above finding fault with it, but I was reared in the workshop by writers like Chris Buckley, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Wendell Mayo, and Anthony Doerr, and I feel duty-bound to continue the tradition, as it gave me confidence, direction, and an appreciation of the truth.

I’ve read hundreds of stories and screenplays in my workshops, and I consider myself a fairly decent diagnostician, someone who’s able to quickly identify what is and isn’t working in a story, and to recommend a solution or narrative alternative. I use this same perspicacity when examining my own work, the same level of clinical care. In this regard, I am both student and teacher, patient and doctor, and I don’t know if I would have fine-tuned this internal relationship without the ongoing crucible of the workshop.

In addition, teaching writing gives me an opportunity to share with my students—and reinforce for myself—Flannery O’Connor’s habit of art, which is the centerpiece of my literary philosophy. If nothing else, teaching allows me to set my feet once more in the bedrock, the foundation of this thing that I do. Returning to Mystery and Manners each fall saves me from flying too far north of the start.

CS: The novel is dedicated to your father—but his role in this plays a much larger part than your typical book dedication. Can you discuss how you used his life and work as a basis for this book?

DA: My father is the inspiration for the novel’s protagonist, Frank Renzetti. Like Frank, my dad is a carpet installer, a job he’s been doing faithfully for the past fifty years. A true artisan, he can manipulate goods that other installers won’t even touch, bending to his will even the most stubborn of textiles, making wool and sisal and polyester do things and go places where it technically should not. One of his greatest skills lies in his hand-sewing, a practice that has fallen out of favor in this age of rapid turnover. My father possesses a kind of blue-collar magic, and yet he never speaks of it as such, never puts this fact in lights.

That became my job: taking this quiet, unassuming man—a member of what Frank O’Connor calls a “submerged population”—and placing him on the marquee, lifting him from the floor and holding him up for readers to see in full. And I wanted them to see more than just his artistry; I wanted them to see his character, his work ethic, his mental attitude, his practical spirit, his love of family, his admirable simplicity, as well as his flaws and foibles, the deficiencies and shortcomings from which we all suffer.

And perhaps there’s another reason for using his life as inspiration. Of late, men have gotten a bad rap, and for good reason. Many of our public male figures lack grace, humility, and basic self-control. They have been cancelled for their moral and sexual transgressions, and their utter folly has cast a shadow on “dudes” in general. But there are many good men still among us, and my father has always been such a man. I felt that his life could be shown as an example, a counter-image of sacrifice and solidity rather than predation and power.

CS: We share a similar background—and I’m wondering how the setting of Philly/Delco shaped this novel? Would this be a different story if it took place in LA or Houston? How so?

DA: Delco (short for Delaware County) is one of Philadelphia’s collar counties, and while it shares much of the energy and ethos of the metropolis, it has its own cultural identity, its own tough-leathered swagger.

In the book, Delco influences and informs the characters’ speech patterns, eating habits, work choices, political attitudes, and class consciousness. Much of Delco is blue-collar, and many of its residents—namely the contractors in the building trades—travel to nearby Montgomery County for work, where a great deal of wealth is concentrated on the Main Line. Sensibilities are different there: a little more stilted, a little more aristocratic. Frank works amid this climate of money and privilege, but he finds it vexing, alien, incompatible with his humble, working-class values. He only comes into contact with the Main Liner in these transactional scenarios. If not for a service being rendered, he would have nothing to do with his well-off customers and they would have nothing to do with him.

I’ve lived in Delco all my life, save for the two years I spent in grad school. We’re a proud, provincial lot, but we’re also brutally self-effacing. Only Delconians are qualified to critique Delco (just as Frank is the only one qualified to judge the carpet trade), and the things that typify us are often the same things we bemoan: our overly emotional attachment to local sports teams, our fetishizing of the Italian hoagie, and our high rate of drug addiction, a social ill that touches Frank’s life when his two mechanics are arrested in a drug bust.

Not too long ago, Delco received national attention with the popularity of HBO’s Mare of Easttown. Following that exposure, I started seeing more and more of my neighbors wearing Delco hats and T-shirts, flying Delco flags from their pediments, slapping Delco bumper stickers on their cars and pick-ups. To borrow a phrase from Walker Percy, the show “certified” Delco for longtime residents, legitimizing it as a site of creative interest. All of a sudden, Delconians were visibly expressing their pride, something that might have warranted in-house censure in the pre-Mare days.

I started the novel well before this phenomenon, and I’ve watched it take shape with both skepticism and wonder. As I was writing the book, I wasn’t conscious of its Delco-ness, but readers have told me that it may be the most Delco book ever written. I would stand by that, but I wouldn’t slap it on the cover for the purpose of selling copies. It’s un-Delco to like Delco so much that you need to commercially declare it, which makes the straightforwardness of the merch fever so confusing. It’s not going to stop the other collar counties (Bucks, Chester, Montgomery) from laughing at us. In fact, it might incite more ridicule.

But we’re used to that. In the end, the story of Delco is the story of Frank Renzetti. Dignity, for both man and county, will forever be deferred, withheld until our inferiority complex no longer gets a rise out of us. But that may never happen. We just have way too much fun tearing ourselves down and shouting to the four winds, “Look how awesomely fucked-up we are!” And, to be honest, we don’t want your lousy recognition anyway; we just want to finish the work week and go to the Jersey Shore with the rest of the shoobies.

CS: I enjoyed the focus you employed—one week, one very hectic work site—and I was wondering when this scope came together for you—was it there from the beginning or did this shape arise on its own through your earlier drafts? Once you had this timeline set, did the deadlines imposed on Frank help you structure the book’s arcs?

DA: The work week is an American institution, a framing device with which we’re all familiar. It’s a way for us to segment time and organize the dispensation of pleasure. The weekend acts as a scheduled reward for the previous days’ effort. But Frank’s week is one without end, a nightmarish cycle in which Friday is a false dawn, another example of deferred or delayed dignity.

When I outlined the book, I planned for the job to last two weeks, with Frank visiting the Jersey Shore on that first weekend, but then, halfway through the rough draft, I reconsidered the trip to Ventnor. Instead, I dangled it in front of the character as a mirage of the mind, a place the job prevents him from ultimately reaching.

The carpet installer is usually one of the last contractors to appear on a job site, and typically his stay is much shorter. Therefore, the mayhem is fresh to him. He remains open to the job’s irritations, unlike the carpenter or painter, whose reactions are less acute, somewhat deadened by repetition. If Frank had made it to the Shore, his stores would’ve been replenished, and I wanted to show, rather quickly, the physical and mental depletion that leads to major injury. The Atlantic Ocean’s convalescent air staves off that rapid decline.

Also, I’ve always been partial to the plumb corner, the clean edge. There’s something finite, almost geometric, about the single work week. A novel can be a vast, unwieldy thing, exceeding its boundaries where none have been established. The novelist can’t ignore the passage of time, as the reader is constantly aware of its unraveling. Many writers have seen fit to explode time altogether, with varying results, but for my first longer work I craved structure, an expected terminus, and the week’s tight, predictable chronology satisfied that craving.

 CS: A first novel is always a learning experience. What lessons might you take moving forward as you tackle your next one? What’s the advice you wish you could go back and offer the younger version of yourself as you first set out on this project?

DA: The novel is the piano of stories. When I was in my mid-20s, fresh out of grad school, I never thought I’d be able to write one. I had just gotten comfortable with the short story; the prospect of writing a novel seemed remote, a daunting dream. For years it remained an object of fear, until one day I decided that I would no longer live in awe of this dreadful improbability and set about the task of playing the piano.

One thing I’d say to my younger self (and to all would-be novelists): Don’t be afraid. Fear of the big book paralyzed my powers for over a decade. I did plenty of writing in that time, but most of it was an elaborate distraction, a postponement of the inevitable. Don’t delay. Don’t put it off. Commit to it even if you still view it as a spectacle, even if it still mystifies you, because in working through your doubt it will be laid plain to you. You will discover the ability to do it in the composition itself. It will happen inconspicuously, rationing its surprises, but it will happen.

The first novel, among other things, is a confirmation. It’s a testament to patience, discipline, and sustained artistic focus. It is an incentive to write the next one, and to do yourself one better, to go further, say more, to surrender to the new in all its fitful uncertainty.

CS: I talk to my students about understanding the themes that call us—and then working with those tides rather than against them. In the book, I was feeling the themes of class and family—and also duty. Am I on target here? If so, what about these notions intrigues you?

DA: Growing up in an Italian-American household, family is paramount. Nothing comes before or after it. Like Luigi Barzini says, “No Italian who has a family is ever alone.” However, in the novel, Frank is emotionally and professionally estranged from his son, Paul, and for much of the story a gulf exists between them. Frank wrongly believes that Paul, a financial consultant, doesn’t appreciate his livelihood, and this places a strain on their relationship. Because Paul has not chosen to follow in his father’s footsteps, Frank thinks that his son doesn’t respect him.

I have two younger brothers and we’ve all put in time with the family business, Ascot Carpets. It was a means of earning our daily bread, but it was also a means of honoring our father and our great uncles, who started the business back in the early 1950s. Working with my father was hard, but the pain was justified because we felt like we were contributing in our own small part to Ascot’s legacy, we were fulfilling our duty.

My brothers and I have all gone into different fields, and I’ve always felt guilty about that, like we turned our backs on the old man. Writing the book lessened some of my guilt. Though I ultimately chose a life of letters, I still honor and revere my father’s blue-collar philosophy. I bring it to my writing each and every day and it continues to yield fruit.

I’ve already talked a little about class, but I’ll add this: Frank, like my father, doesn’t care about how his customers view him. He doesn’t care about their upper-crust opinion because he knows there’s nothing he can do to change it. However, he does care about how his son views him. Paul is family; he’s not a medigan (non-Italian). While Frank is sometimes the casualty of petty class posturing, it never affects his self-image. Only in the unresolved conflict with his son does he look at himself through someone else’s eyes, only in his own living room is he stirred to deeper self-reflection.

CS: I also enjoyed this book’s take on craft—both its joys and pains. It had a real loving vibe. Is this accurate? If so, I’m guessing this emotional stance might have helped guide the story.

DA: When I worked for my father, I definitely didn’t love carpet installation. In fact, there were days when I despised it. There’s a brutality and a rawness to the job, especially the extraction phase, and I describe those aspects along with the more refined elements, like sewing and seaming. Needle and thread were beyond my skill set, so they’ve always remained somewhat magical in my eyes. I would watch my father sew and be awestruck by the precision of his craftsmanship, the ease with which he managed the goods, and I wanted to convey that sense of wonder to the reader, presenting his handiwork as both a source of inspiration and an object of study.

A local reporter called the novel “the Moby Dick of carpeting,” since I spend literally pages describing textiles, tools, and different application methods. I find this analogy to be overly generous but also quite apt. I read Moby Dick in preparation for Rug Man, so I guess some of the descriptions could be called Melvillian, if you want to take it that far. People have said that they learned a lot about carpet installation from reading the novel, which leads me to believe that maybe it’s an instruction manual masquerading as a fictional tale.

As far as literary fodder goes, carpet installation is not readily attractive, so I figured the best way to make the subject interesting would be to treat it in a quasi-religious manner. The book argues that the act of putting in a carpet is a form of religious observation, an appeal, in bodily terms, to a higher standard. But it only comes off this way if its steps are marked with ritual care, from the unlatching of the toolbox to the snipping of the final thread. It is elevated in the reader’s mind as a result of this closer and more loving point of view, a perspective denied me when I was still down on my hands and knees, grunting away.

CS: You also make short films. Do you see any overlap between these creative processes? Does one help the other in any way?

DA: The novelist and screenwriter Richard Price says that when he’s writing a screenplay, he’d rather be writing a novel, and that when he’s writing a novel, he’d rather be writing a screenplay. I don’t share Price’s extreme generic aversion, but, when I’m neck-deep in narrative prose, I do sometimes long for the screenplay’s lighter touch. There is overlap between the two, but there are more differences, the main one being the screenplay’s insistence on externals, what can be seen and heard. Action and speech are the screenwriter’s primary tools of expression, with description and narrative instruction performing a supplementary role. Thoughts don’t translate well to the screen, and converting them to speech requires the use of voice-over, a technique that often turns interiority into mere exposition.

I don’t know if there’s much that novel writing can teach the screenwriter, but there is much that screenwriting can teach the novelist. Robert McKee, whose Story is a must-read for aspiring screenwriters, talks about something called the Gap, which is the discrepancy between what a character wants and what a character gets. Writing fiction, I’m always looking for that moment where the subjective and objective realms collide, where the character’s desire meets cold, hard reality. Characters reveal themselves in McKee’s Gap, acting and reacting in ways that either derail or accelerate their mental and emotional development. Syd Field, the author of Screenplay, preaches conflict on more than one level, so to diversify the story’s sources of tension. In Rug Man, Frank struggles against the general contractor, the house where he’s working, his son, Paul, and his own failing body. There’s conflict on a personal level, an interpersonal level, and an extra-personal level—all localized within the protagonist, the human constant.

Another thing that screenwriting can teach the novelist is ruthlessness. The screenwriter finds the subject of the shot or scene and goes right for it, never dallying too long. If a scene grows too large, it’s nothing for the screenwriter to lop off its head and feet, trimming the fat until it’s lithe and lean. Directness and immediacy are king. In a novel, of course, there is more room for the creation of mood through setting details and expository information, but summary has its limits. Expediency and dispatch don’t have to be the order of the day, but the novelist should feel free to exercise them if the occasion calls for it.

CS: What’s next?

DA: I’ve got a few things cooking at the moment. I’m about 1/3 of the way through a novel-in-stories called The Offliner, which is the fictional counterpart to “The Flip Phone Manifesto,” a Tedx talk I gave in early 2020. The book is a satire of our global smartphone addiction, and centers on a peripatetic protagonist named Gry Runch who leaves his family in search of anyone who hasn’t succumbed to the comfortable disease of Progress. I’m almost done researching a new novel, tentatively titled The Lungs of Philadelphia. It’s a piece of historical fiction set in Atlantic City in 1982 at the height of the Scarfo crime family’s reign of terror. Lungs tells the story of many different individuals, but it mostly focuses on one Bernadino Cappelli, a character loosely based on the great tenor and South Philly native Mario Lanza. My comedy troupe, The Minor Prophets, is poised to release the first season of our web series, The Book Club for Men. In the series, three men (a bibliophile, a surveyor, and a drunk) come together each week in a church library to discuss the great books of the world. And when there’s time left over, I’m working on a long-term academic project called Lace the Track, a book about the relationship between hip-hop and sneaker culture. Gotta stay busy.

 Curtis Smith’s last novel, The Magpie’s Return, was one of Kirkus Reviews Indie Picks of 2020. His next novel, The Lost and the Blind, will be released in September.