Austinist Interviews Sam Ramos, Novelist

So what’s your Austin story?

It’s pretty much exactly what’s in the book. My dad grew up in San Antonio, my mother – whose parents were from Mexico – was born in Brownsville, down in Southeast Texas. Growing up, she jumped around a bunch of little towns because her parents were…well, they were illegal, basically. She actually was deported about three times when she was little, even though she was born in Texas, but eventually her family ended up in Lockhart. She went to UT, which is where my parents met. I was born here, in Southeast Austin – Dove Springs, near Stassney.

Which high school did you attend?

Johnston.

So, for all intents and purposes, you are John Minor [the protagonist of Egypt Egypt]?

Yeah, for the most part. Most of the things that happen in the novel are based on real things. Like a lot of times when I’m talking about parts of the book, I’ll give it up and just say "I", you know – "when I did this" or "my character did that"

And John’s friends, then – were they based on your friends growing up?

The girls in the book [Andra and Sarah] are kind of conglomerates [of female friends]. But John’s three guy friends – John and George and [Matt] – they’re based on my best friends. The people I always hung out with in high school.

What about that incident on the East side? [ Aside: in one of the more offbeat moments in the story, John wanders into the bedroom of his friend’s dealer and discovers, to his shock, his friend being forcibly sodomized by the dealer – possibly, though we never find out, in exchange for drugs ]

[Laughs] That was completely made up, but –

It was a very funny encounter.

Yeah now whenever I think about it, - it’s a character based on my friend, Matt – and I always wonder why I ended up putting him in that sort of situation. But he was always kind of a big mouth. I felt weird about that when I was writing it, because it’s just crazy, but when I’m writing I’ll say whatever comes into my head… certainly, it’s the most ridiculous thing that happens in the whole book.

So back to your story – you finished up high school here and immediately started working?

Well, I finished high school and then ended up at UT

What’d you study there?

[Hesitates] I was a government major. I was only there for about four months, and then I dropped out. I couldn’t deal with it anymore, I really hated it.

The school, or the program?

The program I actually really enjoyed, but I hated high school and then went to UT and it was the same shit.

Except more expensive.

Exactly, and I knew I wanted to write. I didn’t see the point in paying for a degree that I didn’t care about…. And that’s when I wrote my first book, which was really shitty. It sucked.

What was it called?

It was called "How to Battle the Plague." It was the first one I ever wrote, when I was around seventeen or eighteen. I just kind of put it all out. I felt that if I wanted to be a writer, if I wanted to write a book, then … I’d have to write a book and learn how to do it.

So it was more of an exercise in form than -

Right, exactly. I needed a lot of practice. And then I got a job at Schlottsky’s, because … I was living with my parents and felt like an idiot because I didn’t have a job and I’d quit school and I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. Well, I worked there for two days … and then I quit.

[Questions with eyes]

It was basically the same thing as school, except that I had to wear a uniform. And so I quit. The day I quit I applied to Bookpeople, and I’ve been there ever since. I’ve been there for over four years. I feel like it was a good decision, I’m really glad that I did it.

ON AUSTIN

How have you seen this city change in the last decade?

I feel like the attitude of the city has changed.

How so?

It just seems like it’s no longer about just being a city – having clean streets and things like that – it’s about shooting all these movies, South By Southwest…. And even though there are a lot of aspects of these that irritate me, I do like that they’re here. But a lot of people move here, and they’ll talk about all these things they like about Austin, and [those things] don’t really have anything to do with living in Austin. It’s definitely become a lot more expensive, a lot more luxurious … I see it trying to become more and more like a Los Angeles.

ON THE WRITING PROCESS

So what’s the writing process like you? What do you start off with - characters, or is there a story you want to tell?

Well, usually it starts with a general idea, just something I want to express.

"Express" in what sense - a concept or a message?

Sometimes it’s a specific story – for example perhaps I’d want to write about being in New York, or I want to write about a family that sucks, or something. It has to be something that I feel passionate about, because if I feel like I’m into enough about an idea, I’ll be able to write an entire book about. If it’s something that I’m only slightly curious about, I’ll write a short story about it. But if it’s a big idea, then – if I get a big idea like that, I’ll think to myself, "that needs to be a book". And I’ll get a little notebook and carry it around with me. Because if you’re going to write a book, you have to get all those ideas down.

You have to let it sort of sit in the back of your head.

Yes, I’ll find myself driving on the road, and I’ll have to get this stuff down. Because if I miss it, I’ll forget it. I also have to write it down as I get the idea – that way I write it down with the feeling that I have as I get that idea, so that I can get the expression of the idea right when I read it later. I’ll start with a theme, and I’ll have a very vague idea of what the characters will be like. I’ll start at the beginning, and things will sort of add themselves. In my notebook I’ll write, "Okay, I have to have a scene where I do this, I have to have a scene where I do that…" Usually when I have about 30 or 40 pages, I’ll have enough of an idea of what I want to do far ahead that I’ll have to write an outline. And I’ll add to that and change it, but I need to have that outline to know which direction the story is headed … otherwise I’ll just meander.

So you have a general arc that your characters will follow.

And then I just write until, well… it’s done.

How long did "Egypt, Egypt" take?

That one took about six weeks. It’s actually the only book that I’ve ever entirely handwritten. I don’t really know why I did that. I just felt like being able to go around places and writing it.

Where do you do most of your writing?

In my apartment, or wherever my computer is. I also like going to Mozart’s, because I can sit outside and smoke.

It’s a nice place, actually. Although those drinks are awfully expensive.

Yeah, I usually just get coffee. Five dollars for a piece of pie? [eyes bug out]

ON SELF-PUBLISHING

How does one get published in this city? Did you approach local publishers to try and get them to print your novels before you decided to self-publish?

The second book that I wrote I tried to get published. I tried for a really long time to find an agent for it. I had a few agents show interest on it, but I eventually gave up on it because I wanted to write something else. So I wrote a new one, and it sort of got forgotten.

There’s a scene in "Egypt Egypt" where [John] goes off on a long rant about the hippies. I was sitting in a library, and I started writing that, and I realized, "this is exactly what I want the story to be about." I want to talk about Austin from the perspective of somebody who was born in Austin, who grew up in Austin, and knows nothing but Austin. I knew at that moment that I was going to self-publish it, so that it could be sold here. And that’s all I want to do with it.

And the next book as well?

The next book is also based in Austin, but it’s not all about the city. Plus I think it’s much better than the last … technically, and it’s just much more effective and it’s more universal. It’s mostly about depression and love and … I feel like it has more potential to [be relevant], nationally. I’m already trying to find agents to send it out to.

ON OTHER WRITERS

Writing influences – what writers have had a profound effect on you … who made you want to write?

I think there are four big ones: Henry Miller, whom I started reading when I was fourteen. He seemed kind of crazy

[Laughs] He’s sort of adult for fourteen, no?

There wasn’t anything shocking in it to me, but it was amazing that he was writing a novel like that.

And he got away with it.

Exactly, I was like, "nobody writes a book like this." Also, "A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey – it’s all about his time going through a six or seven week rehab program in this really expensive clinic that his parents paid for. He was really fucked up at 23, and apparently had been blacking out everyday for years, taking coke several times a day for years and drinking all day, every day … doing every drug he could get his hands on.

What’s really interesting, that I’m finally starting to realize as I’m reading the book – and this also applies to my new book, and even "Egypt Egypt" as well – is that he thinks he’s just a criminal, a drug addict, an alcoholic. And then he thinks that that’s the way he has to act, because that’s who he is. Eventually he starts to realize that, in actuality, it’s not who he is.

I was reading a book about depression the other day and it said basically that depression is a habit. People act in depressed ways because they’re in the habit of acting that way, and they forget that it’s not who they are. I’ve gone through that shit, and that’s what "Total Happiness" is about … and I didn’t realize that until yesterday.

And Jonathan Safran Foer. He’ll write a phrase that reflects an emotion and … if you’re analyzing it, technically, it might be completely incorrect. But it just makes sense. Stephen Dixon – he’s been writing for a really long time, but I’ve only read one thing of his. McSweeney’s printed a short story collection of his called, simply, "I." I liked that he’s not afraid to take risks.

Speaking of Henry Miller – the publisher name you came up with for your latest book is "Colossus of South Austin", a reference to his novel, "Colossus of Maroussi", I suspect.

Yes!

A while back Henry Miller was quoted as saying the following:

When I read that, I thought it seemed directly relevant to Austin. You have all these people flocking from the coasts, but at the same time you have all these people who grew up here and are so desperate to get out. What is it about Austin, that it’s able to have this completely dual nature?

Well, it’s like visiting a theme park. It’s like Disneyland. I mean, if I didn’t grow up here, I’d want to come here. The music scene here really is amazing. Back in high school, people kept saying it was the "live music capital of the world" and I was like, "that’s bullshit." But there’s a million things like that, and it’s just a beautiful city. There are really cool restaurants, really cool people, and it’s just so relaxed. There are places like Waterloo Records, and Bookpeople, and Emo’s and all these things.

But if you grow up here, by the time you’re twenty, you’ve been to Bookpeople two hundred times. After eleven o’clock, there isn’t shit to do if you don’t feel like drinking. You could go to a park, but then you’d get arrested. And you know, you just run out of things to do. The city’s like a theme park … there’s a short period where you can be really amazed by everything that’s going on.

ON SUBSCRIBING TO A PARTICULAR GROUP

Somewhere in the book, John ventures to the Eastside in search of inspiration. And he remarks on how the Drag is completely inauthentic, how it doesn’t have a sense of the culture that Austin is supposed to have. So he goes to the Eastside to find this, and – John is Mexican-American, but he can’t speak Spanish - he feels completely out of place. Even in other parts of the city he seems to feel out of place.

Yes, it’s a good example of the way that I am. I don’t speak Spanish. Even though I grew up in Dove Springs, I never felt comfortable there. I lived in that house until I was nineteen, and I never felt comfortable. I still don’t feel comfortable when I drive there. And yet, I feel like my people are on that side of I-35 and I feel like I relate to them.

But at the same time, when you go there, you don’t feel that you’re welcome.

I do kind of wish that I could live there and not be uncomfortable. I wish that I was one of them, so I wouldn’t feel like I was so much in the middle, and kind of a fake. Sometimes I feel like I’m a fake. I get really uncomfortable when someone who speaks Spanish comes up to me and they think that I speak Spanish, and when they realize that I don’t … it really sucks.

So what "group" do you belong to?

What I relate to is this [gestures around him]. What I relate to is being at Magnolia Café, being at Bookpeople, being on Sixth Street. But nobody lives on Sixth Street – it’s just recreation. And the people in East Austin – that’s a real life to me, and I wish that I was a part of it. I wish that I spoke the language and I wish that I could feel as though I came from that.

It does give you a unique ability to observe others.

Yes, I do that, it’s a huge part of just the way that I am. I’ll sit back sometimes and feel that I’m not really part of it. I’ll be at Bookpeople and do just that.

But as a writer, perhaps you have to be a voyeur.

That’s also why "Egypt Egypt" is autobiographical in a sense, but I didn’t just make it an autobiography, because I don’t care about my own specific life. I care about people’s lives in general, and the things they have to go through. I have a hard time going into a group of new people and figuring out how I relate to them all, unless I’m at work. I like observing, looking at someone and trying to figure out what kind of person they are from the other side of the room. Figuring out what they’re feeling at that moment, whether they’re happy or uncomfortable.

ON THE OPTIMISTIC ENDING OF "EGYPT EGYPT"

So ultimately, your novel ends on a very good note, or certainly hints at that. After all this time where he’s been stuck, not sure what he wants to do, and how he relates to the city – John finally finds it, or the start of it. Was there a similar turning point in your life?

Yeah, when I got my job at the bookstore. To me, it’s the best part of the city. I always kind of go in and out about Austin. [The ending] isn’t so much about his being happy with Austin, as him kind of finding a life that he could be satisfied with. He finds this job, he’s leaving his parents’ house, he’s finding this new life in Austin. So he can see the city from a different perspective. I was thinking about that earlier today, and why he’s so happy of a sudden. He’s working at a Pizza Hut, for christs’ sake! [Laughs]

It’s the same way I felt when I got my job – I had a new life, I was doing something different instead of feeling stuck.

ON "TOTAL HAPPINESS"

Tell us about your new book.

The new book is definitely more character and relationship based than "Egypt Egypt." A lot of it is really depressing. Basically, this guy’s just broken up with his first love, and meets somebody else and falls in love with them, but in an entirely new way. I tell the story in parallels, between the start and end of both relationships.

Concurrently?

Yeah, I’ll throw in something about the old relationship when necessary, but it mainly it focuses on the new relationship. But the main idea is how nothing lasts, no matter how good it is. And he gets really depressed about that, and has to figure out how to be happy despite that. That’s why the title ended up being "Total Happiness" - that’s basically his goal.

And this is autobiographical as well?

Yes, straight from my life, several years after "Egypt Egypt." [Laughs] It’s better, I think.

AUSTINIST GIVEAWAY!

Because we adore our dear readers, we're giving away five copies of Sam's latest novel, "Total Happiness" - signed by the man himself! To be entered in the random drawing, send us an email with the subject line "TOTAL HAPPINESS" or "SAM RAMOS" or "FREE BOOK CONTEST!" - something to that extent. We promise we won't send you any spam. Winners will be announced Friday afternoon!