Nathan Leslie is the author of the short story collection, A Fly in the Ointment (Loyola College/Apprentice House, 2023), which includes the story “The Caretaker,” first published jmww in 2017. His latest collection acts a companion to Hurry Up and Relax, the 2019 winner of the Washington Writers’ Publishing House prize for short fiction. Nathan is the author of eight other short story collections, a collection of poems, and a novel, The Tall Tale of Tommy Twice. He serves as the series editor of Best Small Fictions, the editor of Maryland Literary Review, and the organizer of the monthly writing series Reston Readings. He teaches in the English Department at Northern Virginia Community College, and received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Maryland. For links to his work, and to subscribe to his Substack about song lyrics, visit www.nathanleslie.net.
Joanna Theiss: I really enjoyed A Fly in the Ointment and I’m excited both as a writer and a reader to talk to you about it. When you put together the collection, how did you decide which stories made the cut?
Nathan Leslie: Over the years, I’ve developed a sense of how to piece together a short story collection. This particular collection is a little more sprawling than some of my others and less cohesive in terms of an aesthetic. For years, I wrote thematic collections and every story fit the theme. So, in Sibs (Aqueous Books, 2014), every story dealt with brothers and sisters. Writing in that way was very productive for me because it gave me a focal point, with the stories interlocking, almost like an album concept. You may sense that there is some connection between the stories in A Fly in the Ointment because they deal with what is going on around me currently. I have an almost journalistic approach to trying to capture stories about characters who could exist right now, in 2023. I’m interested in tackling contemporary themes and issues without being overtly political, but through my observations.
JT: I’m going to play favorites and tell you that my favorite story in the collection is “A Straight Arrow.” I admired how you developed the character of Kevin, especially how he navigates his conversations with his ex-wife’s snobby family. I wondered if you could talk about the genesis of the story and the development of the character.
NL: Kevin is somewhat based on an amalgam of people I know, people who can negotiate a gathering very effectively. That was the starting point, and I just ran with it. The same goes for “Fly in the Ointment.” I base characters on people that I know, or knew, then I put them in a fictional scenario and see what happens.
JT: How did A Fly in the Ointment become the collection’s title story?
NL: It’s one of my favorite stories, and one that tapped into the underlying anxiety I was trying to capture throughout the collection. That particular story was inspired by a time I went to a certain area of Virginia, a few hours away from where I live, and I ended up at a country club. For me, country clubs are very strange places because I’m not that kind of person, but I ended up there, and it struck me as so odd, that gated-community sort of bubble. I had a character in mind to set there because I’m not as interested in writing about the obvious person at that place, but rather, a worker at the country club. To me, that perspective resonates with one of the struggles we have in twenty-first century America. The bubblification, if I can use that word, of our society. Everyone is separated from each other, existing in their own little bubble. Class is a big divider. People with a lot of money don’t want to deal with people without a lot of money. It’s very striking to me how we’re returning to this early nineteen-hundreds mindset.
JT: Right. I noticed a lot of outsiders in this collection. There’s Kevin in “A Straight Arrow,” the landscaper at the country club in “Fly in the Ointment,” the retiree at the swimming pool in “The Lone Caucasian Male,” and the group of outsiders in the disordered eating camp that is the setting for “Sticks.” What draws you to outsider characters?
NL: That’s a great question, because I’m not really sure what draws me to those kinds of characters. I always have been, though. The person you don’t notice is the one that has the more interesting story to tell. In “Sticks,” the character of Monica is really isolated by the other kids, and that story is told from the other kids’ perspective.
JT: Monica is the outsider of the outsiders.
NL: Outsider of the outsiders, yeah. In my novel, The Tall Tale of Tommy Twice, the main character is an orphan. An orphan is the ultimate outsider, who doesn’t fit in even with his own family. I don’t know, maybe it’s from undergrad, when I read too much existential philosophy.
JT: I also loved how many shady businesspeople show up in the collection. There are people selling a longevity serum door-to-door, people passing off common quartz as expensive, rare gems, a toe fungus removal company, and children selling dubious collectibles. Which comes first, the character or the off-the-wall business idea?
NL: It’s funny because recently I’ve been writing a lot of satirical pieces which I would classify as nonfiction, and a lot of them do revolve around some kind of spin game. I’ve found since Donald Trump—or maybe even before—everyone is constantly spinning something in a very bizarre way. Trying to shine a turd, so to speak. There is a lot of conning going on in our society, and it’s something I’m trying to reflect as a problem. It may go back to that bubblification problem: screw the outsider, so I can get a little more.
JT: I see what you mean about the cons, but I was also struck by the gig economy nature of what these characters are getting up to.
NL: This is also a reflection of what is happening a lot today. How many people are struggling financially as a result of their jobs being watered down or taken away? I wrote a lot about gig economy characters in Hurry Up and Relax perhaps because, back in the day, I was one of those people. For many, many years, I strung together gigs, too. I tutored, I freelanced, I taught part-time. One of the most serious stories in A Fly in the Ointment is “The Hill,” where the character is on the fringe, trying to make money, and then he just loses it. Those characters may be more prevalent now than when I was growing up.
JT: Can you talk about how your writing has developed since you first started?
NL: In some ways, I’m still pursuing the same idea as when I began. I’m really not writing autobiographical experiences, but observational stories about those I see around me. My first couple of collections were experimental in their approach, and I’ve become more content with a traditional narrative.
I still love the first-person point of view. That’s still my go-to. I love to be inside the voice of someone else, and to wear someone else’s mask.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve been writing poetry, satirical pieces, novels, and fiction as well. It keeps it fresh for me to try different things and not just resort to the same genre over and over again. Or maybe I’m just a dilletante, I’m not sure.
JT: Is movement between genres a quality you admire in other writers?
NL: I don’t think writers do that enough. Maybe it’s a result of the success of MFA programs. At the University of Maryland, I remember there was the poetry program and the fiction program and there was a wall between them and you were not supposed to even dabble in the other genre. Obviously, each genre has its own nuances and you have to know what you’re doing, but the only way to do that is to try it. Maybe I’m not the world’s greatest poet, but I do enjoy writing poetry as a different means of expression. I feel like I’m learning. Same thing with novels. Novelists tend to be very verbose, using a different kind of expansionist writing that doesn’t come naturally to me. But I’m learning how to tell a story in a longer format.
I’ve realized from being the series editor of Best Small Fictions that there’s an element of flash fiction which is really poetry. With flash, the focus is not so much on the characterization but on the language, and that’s where it becomes akin to poetry. Some of the flash fiction being written today is so beautiful to read, so lyrical and gorgeous. I think there’s enough room in the literary world for all of it. Everyone is going to disagree on what’s good and what’s not, but I like writing flash fiction just as much as I like writing longer stories, because each piece is its own little world, and you have to honor what the author is hoping to convey and the characterization.
Another thing that has changed in my own writing is that I didn’t have a sense of humor as a writer before. My stories were all deadly serious. Now, I’ve become much more interested in snarky stories and being more biting, more satirical. This collection is more serious, though you may have laughed out loud at some parts. I don’t know how that happened, or why that happened. Maybe it’s just a reflection of our weird world. Our world is so weird, it’s hard not to laugh. That’s a totally different approach in my writing. I just laugh at things so much more.
JT: I definitely laughed out loud at the story “The Looser,” which is told from the perspective of a teacher at a night school. His students are pretty terrible. Can you talk about your inspiration for that story?
NL: That’s probably one of the most autobiographical stories in the collection, because I did teach at a night school for one or two years. It was so painful, I had to write a story about it. Before I went to grad school, I worked in a program teaching kids who were sick or couldn’t go to school but the state or county still mandated they get an education. And sometimes that included kids who were expelled for long periods of time, and through that, I got involved in teaching night school. I exaggerate a little bit in that story, but not too much. I’ve been trying to write about being a professor at a community college, but I’m just too close to it. It took me years to write “The Looser.” I couldn’t have written that in 1997, it was just too painful.
JT: What’s coming up next for you?
NL: The past year was so busy. I had two short story collections come out – A Fly in the Ointment in May and Invisible Hand in December – and I’m editing, organizing Reston Readings, and teaching. I’m hoping to publish another novel soon. I have so much short fiction out there, I’d like to do something different.
Joanna Theiss is a writer living in Washington, DC. Her short stories and flash fiction have appeared in publications such as LEON Literary Review, Bending Genres, Anti-Heroin Chic, Fictive Dream, and Best Microfiction 2022. In a previous life, she worked as a lawyer, practicing criminal defense and international trade law. Links to her work are available at www.joannatheiss.com.
JMWW 