3 Questions

with Jim Ruland

Author and columnist Jim Ruland has written in punk rock publications for more than 20 years, is the author of the short story collection, Big Lonesome, and has been featured in every issue of Razorcake to date. Local author James Reich conducts an interview with Ruland about his new book, Forest of Fortune, at Collected Works this Friday.

Did you spend much time in casinos in order to research your new novel?

I spent five years working in an Indian casino, and the novel draws from that. To leave a big city and work on a reservation, it’s culture shock. I felt very isolated, and I was doing a lot of things I shouldn’t be doing. The Pemberton character is probably the most autobiographical of the characters, and my own experiences inform Pemberton’s to a certain extent. But, his experiences don’t mirror mine. He’s not punk at all, but he has a punk rocker’s affinity for partying and drugs and alcohol.

Addiction and affliction seem to be the underlying theme throughout the book. Is this something you have a personal interest in?
Right in the middle of working at the casino, I got clean and sober. There are three characters in the book, and addiction and control, or the lack of it, plays a major role. When I got sober, it really opened up my eyes to a lot of the things going on in the casino and the way it operated. It was probably not the best place to go and get sober, but it gave me a lot of empathy for the people who were there.

Your book has the attitude of a crime drama in the vein of Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett. Was the hard-boiled genre an influence on your writing?
Yes, absolutely! When I got out of the Navy and college, I wanted to be a writer, but I had no idea how to go about doing it. I really didn't feel like I learned how to write in school. I started reading crime novels by Jim Thompson and David Goodis, and a lot of pulp writers that were published in Barry Gifford's Black Lizard series. Then, I moved to LA, and I worked in a coffee shop and had no money, so I would scour used bookstores for paperback pulp novels like Hammett and Chandler, and even grittier stuff.

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