A Chat with E. Christopher Clark, author of the Stains of Time series

In the first book of his Stains of Time series, E.Christopher Clark pulls in magical realism, a hearty dose of nineties’ nostalgia, and family drama to tell Veronica’s story. Pregnant at sixteen, Veronica marries the baby’s father to appease a father who might never be happy with her, but really won’t be happy with her if she follows her heart and dates women as she wants to.

Clark kindly answered About a Book’s questions about The Piano of Death, the series as it stands now, and his plans for its future.

About a Book: How/when did you conceive of The Piano of Death?

Clark: The book that people can read today really started to come together in September 2011. I met with my friend, the actor/director Crystal Lisbon…to plan a benefit for the arts organization she was starting. Another friend of Crystal’s, the musician Mary Casiello [joined us for that meeting].

We were trying to put together an evening of theater and music, and I was tasked with writing the script. The theme…was the conflict between the artistic life and the real life, which all of us were struggling with. This led me back to a cast of characters I’d been working on since the fall of 1997.

I came up with a structure that worked for this yarn I’d been trying to spin [since 1997]. My main character, Veronica—a musician and young mother—would take a trip down memory lane to see where making one turn instead of another might have changed her life.

About a Book: Did you always intend for the Stains of Time series to be a two-parter?

Clark: The series began as a series of plays, which I developed into a single novel during my MFA program from 2003-2005. I tried shopping it to agents numerous times. Once I wrote that script for Crystal’s arts benefit and got great responses wherever it was staged, I started to think about the story as a series again.

About a Book: The main character, Veronica, is a lesbian; did you have any hesitation as a cis straight male writing from that point of view?

Clark: Well, here’s the thing: back when I started writing it (1997-1998), it never occurred to me that I shouldn’t. And by the time I did realize I should be more careful trying to “write the other,” I had spent 15-plus years writing Veronica already. She became one of my oldest and dearest friends, in a manner of speaking.

The other thing that really helped here was that the vast majority of the people in my grad school workshops were women, the beta readers I had in the years after college were nearly all women, and the final person to look at the manuscript before it went to press was a queer woman. 

About a Book: Veronica’s father is quite hung up about her sexual identity; do you think his reactions have anything to do with the time they’re set in (late nineties, early two-thousands)? If this had been ten years later, do you think he’d react differently to his daughter’s sexual orientation?

Clark: Oh, absolutely. Veronica’s dad is a product of the time he grew up in. He was born in 1950, was the star of the football team in high school, and went off to fight in Vietnam. He dedicated himself to living out the American Dream. And when both of his kids turned out to be gay, he kind of lost his shit.

About a Book: Though it’s not in the book, did you explore for yourself why he had those feelings about Veronica’s sexuality?

Clark: Yes. There’s a big storyline between Veronica’s father and Veronica’s older brother that didn’t make it into this book, and it involves questions about the dad’s own sexuality. I hope to explore that in a future book.

About a Book: Can you speak about how writing these characters for stage versus for a novel differed for you as a writer? I saw glimpses in the book of what almost felt like stage direction.

Clark: I’m a big believer in what I call “narrative cross-training.” That is, I think prose writers can learn from poets and script writers and vice versa. Writing these characters for the stage has always been a way of zoning in on what really matters.

About a Book: There is a magical realism element to the book; is this a genre that you read much? Were there any particular books that inspired you to use those magical realism elements here?

Clark: I love magical realism and its cousin fabulism. I think that’s because straight-up fantasy is too self-indulgent and inefficient in its storytelling for me. But after years spent reading nothing but “literary” fiction in grad school and the years after, I was missing my roots as a reader and writer of comic books.

Most of the books that I’ve read in the past few years that really stand out in my imagination are tinged with magical realism or other weirdness. Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties, all of Karen Russell’s work, Neil Gaiman—these are the things that I find myself returning to again and again these days.

About a Book: Can you tell me more about The Boot of Destiny, the second book in the series? I understand it’s from Veronica’s daughter’s point of view. Why did you want to explore that?

Clark: [In Boot of Destiny] we have a character, Tracy, whose been raised for much of her life by two moms, who has a loving and supportive extended family, and is about the be valedictorian of her senior class. But then she realizes that her perfect life isn’t as perfect as it seemed. And the central male authority figure in her life, just like in her mother’s life, has got some explaining to do.

Of course, Tracy’s grown up as a more confident young woman than her mother. So she takes matters into her own hands. 

About a Book: You sprinkle pop culture references, oftentimes musical ones, into the book. There’s some November Rain, George Michael, and even Janet Jackson takes a quick bashing (how dare you). Why do you include those here?

Clark: Before you throw something at me, please know that I love Ms. Jackson, who I will address as such because I realize now that I’ve been nasty.

Pop culture is part of the language for a lot of people our age, and for a lot of people in the generations coming up after us. So it just made sense to me to include it. Music is a part of setting for me, and I’m writing about a family with more than one musician in it, so I couldn’t resist providing a kind of soundtrack for the book.

Where I try to be careful is to always (or as often as I can) provide context for the people who won’t get the reference. That’s something I harp on my students about, so I try to set a good example. Pop culture references, in my opinion, should be like Easter Eggs in movies—little bonuses for the people who catch them, but nothing that will ruin the story for the people who don’t.

About a Book: Do you imagine you’ll do more with these characters in the future?

Clark: I’m nearly done with the third book in the series, tentatively titled The Chains of Desire—that’s a scoop; Chains centers on a character who pops up at the end of Piano and figures heavily into an important chapter in Boot: Robin Gates, the guitar-slinging ex-girlfriend of Veronica’s cousin (and Tracy’s father-figure) Michael. It fills in some blanks left by the first two books in the series and introduces us to Veronica’s cousin Ashley.

The fourth book will center on Ashley, but also on her relationship with Tracy.

The fifth and final book in the series, if all goes as planned, will bring us back to Tracy as the POV character and wrap up the family mysteries I’ve been hinting at since the beginning of The Piano of Death.

About a Book: Where can people find you on social media?

Clark: I’m @eccbooks on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.