Vin Suprynowicz and Scott Bieser
[Continued from page 3]
SUNNI: [laughing] Wow, Vin, I never figured you for a music druggie like me ... You have something of a reputation as an intimidating person, even among other very competent pro-freedom writers. I recall being most anxious about interviewing you for VirtualCon 1, which I think was our first contact. Yet that interview went very well, and became one of my favorites. Why do you think you have this reputation?
VIN: What's bad about that is it seems to scare away the good people, while of course it has no affect at all in running off these statist twits who have done none of the reading and think they're going to stump you with, "But you forgot the militia clause; the Second Amendment only means you have a right to carry a gun when you're on duty with the National Guard. Teacher told me, nyah nyah." I do some columns where I quote one of these simpering toads and then I dissect him without any anesthetic and I guess people figure they might get the same treatment. Or maybe it's the guns on all the book covers, I don't know. I'm really a warm and gentle guy. I just have less and less patience with people who won't even bother to go spend half an hour with Google before they come at you with their fatuous memorized government-school sound bite that was already refuted by H.L. Mencken and then shot and buried out behind the barn by John T. Flynn in 1937. They need to get some new lies; the old ones are wearing really thin. But I don't mind people who just have honest questions. Really. Maybe I was getting short-tempered. It was time for a change. I'm much more mellow when I'm writing these new books. It's a much bigger canvas.
SUNNI: I can vouch for you being warm and gentle. All of our interactions have been very pleasant, and mutually respectful. Maybe that's part of it; other pro-freedom individuals maybe think that if they don't agree with you on every item on the pro-freedom laundry list, you're going to dissect him or her without anesthetic too ... they don't give you the benefit of doubt.
SCOTT: I remember the first time I saw Vin in person at that Freedom Summit. I was expecting him to be more of a fire-breather, too. Actually he's very mild-mannered and personable. And when we work together on stuff like book covers he's so incredibly polite with his criticism that I almost want to tell him, "Cut the crap, Vin, I'm a professional. If something stinks, say so!" But I have to admit I like having my ego stroked.
SUNNI: It was a nice bonus to learn that you'd done the cover art for the trade paper edition of The Black Arrow.
VIN: Scott is on the right wavelength, politically, and he's got the chops as an artist and illustrator. He read an early manuscript version of The Black Arrow and came up with a cover idea. In this case, I suggested something else, which turned out not to work at all. We got as far as a rough sketch and it became obvious my idea would have been much too busy and hokey. So after I wasted a little of his time we went back to this one, to Scott's original conception, which strikes just the right tone, I think. We had one reader actually complain that it looked too much like a throwback to the pulp covers of the '40s and '50s. Well, duh.
SUNNI: I don't want to give away too much of the book, but I'm really interested in where the character of Daniel Brackley came from. He's such a contrast to the other major male characters ... and of course, I loved despising him. Is he based on a man or men you know?
VIN: My friend Bill Branon, who was the first manuscript reader to come pretty close to getting this book, which is why his blurb is on the first page, says Brackley is the protagonist of the book. "There's your protagonist." Not the hero, mind you; he's the villain. But Bill meant that Brackley is the central character. He's the best developed character. Andrew Fletcher is much sketchier, because the readers demanded that. All this crap we hear from the Beat Generation critics about people wanting a conflicted, neurotic hero is so much crap. They want Tom Selleck or Sam Elliott in a big hat and a bandana, strong and silent, saying "Yep" and shooting that sleazy Mark Harmon. People react to the hero, they bounce off the hero, who pretty much stands there looking good. But with a villain, all those rules are suspended. Daniel Brackley is what all these feminist schoolmarms are going to get if they insist on turning our little boys into sensitive little girls who brood about their deepest feelings. What does every woman complain about? Her man won't tell her his deepest feelings. Why won't they tell us their deepest feelings? Why why why? Well, are you sure you really want to hear them? Here's Daniel Brackley, explaining his deepest feelings about women and the way they treat men in the endless rituals of dating and mating, and women immediately shriek that they want this guy killed. It's hilarious; you can set your watch by it. End of chapter four. Turns out they don't want to hear it, at all. Brackley has disadvantages, he has handicaps; he's short and pudgy and bald.
SUNNI: Hey! A lot of women like bald men! Bald can be very sexy!
VIN: So he uses the same techniques to bed a woman as the Claude Rains character used in the movie Casablanca. Well, everyone thought Claude Rains' Captain Renault in Casablanca was just a lovable rogue. "I'm shocked, shocked to learn there is gambling going on in this establishment!" It's fine when he throws away the Vichy water at the end and walks off arm-in-arm with Humphrey Bogart, because they could never hear his thoughts, it was all handled so elegantly, with such indirection and subtlety and savoir faire. Well, I'm sorry, Captain Renault was going to give that young couple the letter of transit if the pretty young wife spent the night with him. And you know what he was going to do to her? He was going to fuck her.
Aaah! Aaah! I can hear the shrieks all the way from Bayonne. You let people in on what a guy like this is thinking -- especially female readers -- and they're immediately out for blood. Every man in the world over the age of 14, when he sees a handsome woman, he doesn't think, "Gosh, I wonder if she has a Ph.D." No, he thinks: "Nice tits." But women don't want to be told that. Daniel Brackley holds up the dark magic mirror and says, "You wanted to know what's really going on in a man's mind? Are you sure?"
I'm not saying he's normal. Daniel Brackley is pathological, obviously. But I've had male readers tell me, "I had an experience just like he talks about where he got rejected by Carmilla. There but for the grace of God go I."
SCOTT: That was me, actually.
VIN: Yeah. I wasn't sure you wanted to go public with that. [laughter from all]
SCOTT: Yeah, you can go public with that, so long as you also mention that I am now happily married. And I still have all my hair. But I did have some tough romantic times, and I really felt sorry for Daniel at that point in the story. But what he did as a result of that was still inexcusable and he fully deserved what he got in the end -- and I thought that the way Vin played that out was just about perfect.
VIN: Back to Danny Brackley: I've had guys tell me, "This guy may be evil, but a lot of what he says about women and marriage is right on target." He's expressing things that every man has felt. The difference is that this very casualness, this thick skin, this refusal to brood and dwell on emotional hurt that women complain about in men, actually saves us from becoming like this guy.
My mom was visiting Las Vegas when she read the book and she got so shrill she actually yelled at me, "I don't know why you have to give this guy so much space in your book!" This is a guy whose character and personality are defined by the way he's been treated by women -- it's almost the key to the book, looking at the way the characters' personalities are defined by how they've been treated by the opposite sex. And I get the distinct impression women don't want that staring them in the face. Daniel Brackley moves us past a whole layer of pretense; he makes it okay for everyone to start speaking their mind. Daniel Brackley is the way every man feels when he thinks he's getting the right signals and he puts a move on a woman and he gets shot down, rejected, thrown out, treated like shit. Only instead of grabbing a beer with his buddies and laughing and saying "Better luck next time," this guy hoards his rejections and disappointments and perceived betrayals, he collects them and broods on them and plans his revenge. John Lennon sang, "I'm gonna break their hearts all 'round the world," and Danny Brackley is a really big Beatles fan.
