A resident of Olympia, Wash., Jim Lynch is the author of three previous novels: The Highest Tide, Border Songs and Truth Like the Sun. His latest book, Before the Wind, concerns a family of sailors who, after years of estrangement, reunite for a race in Victoria. It was recently published by Bond Street Books.
Why did you write your new book?
I feel like I've been preparing to write this book for most of my life. The beauty and danger and exhilaration of sailing hit me early on and stuck. So once I began writing fiction, I knew I wanted to build a story with sailing at its core, with the hope that if I described it well enough, it could work as a microcosm for almost anything. I also wanted to write about the push and pull of a gifted and volatile family, and saw all this material coming together as an irresistible opportunity to write about what I know and what fascinates me.
Whose sentences are your favourite?
Well, the answer to that question changes all the time. In college, I filled notebooks with my favourite sentences from novels I read by Raymond Chandler, Tom Robbins, Louise Erdrich and others. I still routinely underline sentences that dazzle me. Most recently, they belonged to Michael Chabon. His novel, Telegraph Avenue, overflows with gorgeous and funny sentences. One of them goes on for 12 pages and, amazingly, holds up. I admire his daring playfulness.
What scares you as a writer?
So much of writing and rewriting is slow and exasperating. The days when it's truly exhilarating usually arrive when my characters finally begin to feel absolutely real to me. That's when the entire novel might finally rise up off the runway and take flight beneath my fingertips. What scares me is that I know, at some point, I won't be able to find that thrilling and productive zone again.
Which book do you think is under-appreciated?
Every book written by Rachel Carson. When she's remembered at all, it's for Silent Spring, her non-fiction book that took on the pesticides industry and broke the news that we were poisoning the earth, the birds and ourselves. But what few people seem to realize or recall is that she was a brilliant oceanographer who first and foremost wrote about the oceans in the 1950s with prophetic and poetic power as well as Joan Didion-like precision. The Edge of the Sea and The Sea Around Us are still relevant and inspiring.
Which country produces literature that you wish more people read?
Canada! I could probably say the same thing about most countries other than the United States and England but Canada's on my mind. While it makes sense that Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood pop off the shelves down here, I don't understand why some Canadian writers aren't bigger in the States, at least not yet, such as Miriam Toews. She wrote such a hilarious and touching novel about a family road trip across the States – The Flying Troutmans – yet I always have to spell her name to smart readers who should've already discovered her.