Dj Buddy Beaverhausen: Hello, Kevin, and welcome to our
Q&A regarding your memoir, A Quarter Inch from My Heart, which
will have its book launch June 3rd.
One motif that's conveyed quite
powerfully in your book is the conflict within people's darker side and higher
self. Did you consciously convey this theme in A Quarter Inch from My Heart
or did it develop organically as you wrote?
Kevin Scott Hall: I’ve always been very aware of the
close proximity between good and evil, cruelty and altruism—in myself as well
as others. I think the world would be a better place if each of us could
honestly realize that we have the capacity to do both good and evil. It is our
challenge in life to choose good as often as possible. I can’t say that I
consciously thought of that while I was writing, but I’m not surprised that you
found that. I think about that duality constantly in my life.
DBB: Your last book, Off the Charts,
was a novel. What made you decide to tackle the memoir as a form of literary
expression? And, subjectively, how did the experience of writing A Quarter
Inch differ from that of writing Off the Charts?
KSH: I never thought I’d write a memoir,
but after this experience I thought to myself, “I have to write this down.
Nobody is going to believe this happened. I can hardly believe this happened!” I
thought it would be easy at first because I was just recalling the story. But
no, you have to go deep. Off the Charts
was a lot more fun to write. The memoir became a way for me to
channel my grief and to make sense of tragedy. I need to find meaning in my
life and writing a memoir helped me to do that.
DBB: The book largely focuses on your
relationship with your friend, Maurice (who makes a truly fascinating central
character). But, woven into the fabric of this memoir are you remembrances of
your friend, Neal, and your near-fatal stabbing on the streets of New York.
What makes these incidents necessary to the main thrust and storyline of your
book?
KSH: Neal was a friend since childhood
and he probably knew me better than anyone else, and we had gone through those
awful high school years together. I lost him a few months before Maurice came
into my life. I chose to start with losing Neal because I think that loss
really shifted the ground under my feet and I was having trouble finding my
bearings. When Maurice arrived, I was probably desperate for a friendship and
so made some decisions about taking in Maurice that I may have questioned a
little more thoroughly if I’d been in a more stable place, mentally and
emotionally.
As for the stabbing, many years before,
I think that was a watershed moment in my life that caused me to be very wary
of strangers and shattered a trust that I have always had about people’s basic
goodness. So revisiting that time in this book, I think, draws a parallel to
how, ten years after, I was able to trust a stranger to the extent of inviting
him into my home and allowing him to stay. The title comes from the fact that
the blade came a quarter inch from my heart, literally. With Maurice, I kept
him a quarter inch from my heart. It’s debatable now whether that slight
emotional distance protected me and him, or whether we lost out on something
that would have been even more amazing.
DBB: New York City is the setting for
most of the events that unfold in A Quarter Inch from My Heart.
But, in a sense, it also comes across as another character in this story, I
feel, continuing the theme of the conflict of darkness and light within. Again,
I wonder if this was by conscious design or a subconscious one?
KSH:
This was definitely subconscious design, but no less real than a
conscious one. You will see that the book is populated with all kinds of people
who represent the best of humanity and the worst. But you’re right—there is
even a meditation on good neighborhood versus bad.
DBB: During your friendship with Maurice,
he stole and used your credit card. For me, that would be unforgivable. How did
you find it possible to ever again trust, and remain close to, someone who did
that?
KSH:
In the moment, it was unforgivable. But he had a way of pulling me back
in. It was like a child stealing from the cookie jar, not a scammer who was
cleaning out my bank account. I almost didn’t notice it because the purchases
were so negligible. By then, I was so deeply involved that there were greater
issues than his using my credit card to buy a few things at Duane Reade. And in
the greater picture, I think it was more important for me to be able to
forgive, and for him to be forgiven.
DBB: You write Maurice was clinically
bipolar. I sometimes think there's something a little schizophrenic about
being able to create; to being artistic. I mean, I think you have to let
yourself be a little crazy and "outside yourself" at times. Do you
think there's a kinship, or at least a fine line, between the creative process
and insanity?
KSH: I think he was bipolar. That was a guess
later on, after discovering a bottle of pills he had. It made sense when I read
up on the symptoms of bipolar disorder. Maurice was incredibly creative and
gifted, much of which I didn’t discover until he was gone. But he was creative
in the way he lived his life and experienced moments. Much more so than I was.
I think insanity and creativity go hand in hand. I’m not saying we should
strive for insanity in order to create—no! But I think when we, as creative
people, are in our zone, it’s a pretty insane place to be. Beautiful, but hard
to understand for the uninitiated.
DBB: A Quarter Inch from My Heart
is, among other things, a story about faith in your fellow man, in God, in your
spiritual beliefs and it's about your support network of family and friends. As
with all good autobiographical writing, in the specific and personal, apart
from the first-person point-of-view, there is a greater, universal epiphany all
readers should be able to connect with. What do you think that might be in your
memoir?
KSH:
Ooh, great question. First of all, I’m grateful that readers are finding
things in this book that I had no idea were there. One epiphany might be that
we should never count anybody out. Everybody has value, everybody needs love.
Who knows—even the guy who stabbed me, although I have no interest in exploring
that. The other might be—and I’m borrowing this from Mary Gulivindala, who
wrote one of the Amazon reviews—that there is no road map to life. Things
happen, and we negotiate the curves as best we can. I think the more we are
armed with all of those things you mention in your question, the better we are
able to deal with such things. But I don’t recommend people make the choices I
made. It worked out for me, but it was high-risk behavior.
DBB: I know you to be a very devoted and
caring friend, and I know how protective you are of the people in your life. In
the book, you struggle with boundary issues regarding your protectiveness with
Maurice and question your own motives regarding this. At what point, do you
think, does Christian duty become more of a Christ complex, and where
does one draw the line?
KSH:
Well, that was the problem. I was negotiating each turn as it came; I
didn’t draw a line. I was not as perfect and loving as I thought I was, I had a
lot of maturing to do. There’s a basic Biblical commandment that Jesus says:
“Love others as you first love yourself.” I think people misunderstand that because
most people do not love themselves. And so the love they give is full of
conditions and inside—and sometimes outside—they are angry people. We’ve seen
people like that in our churches, right? This is the good news? Look at the
sour puss on your face! We need to learn to love ourselves first—and I don’t
mean treating ourselves to material things or becoming a braggart (that’s
insecurity, it’s not self-love)—but deeply and honorably taking care of
ourselves. I did give love to Maurice that was beyond anything I could muster
up on my own—I was trying to draw from the well of my faith—but I was often
doing so at a cost to myself. I was not equipped to deal with his issues,
really, and there was often a question as to whether I was going to save him or
he was going to destroy me. Basically, humans should be in the business of
helping, not saving (thank you again, Mary!), and we need to find where that
boundary is.
DBB: Earlier this year, I interviewed Dr.
Frank Spinelli about his memoir, Pee Shy, which, like yours, was
a very dark and candid recounting. It must be very difficult to explore and
re-live painful experiences. Why put yourself through that?
KSH: At first, I thought it would be
easy. After all, I knew the story, I just had to tell it. However, when my
publisher read my story, he came back with a lot of red marks and questions on
the manuscript. Basically he asked, “Where are you in this?” In other words, I was
telling it like a journalist, but with memoir you really have to put your heart
and soul on the page. So each succeeding draft became more difficult. There
were times when I was bawling my eyes out as I was writing, like that scene
with Diane Keaton in “Something’s Gotta Give.”
I very much agree with that quote from
Socrates, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” We don’t solve the
problems of our past by choosing to turn our eyes away from them. To overcome
them, we need to go all in.
It was very difficult and I never want
to write a memoir again. However, it was like six years of therapy. In the end,
I did put the grief behind me and, having revealed so much about myself here, I
now feel quite strong, even fearless.
DBB: So, God sounds like Darth Vader you
say?
KSH: [Laughs] Now that I think about it,
it could have been Kathleen Turner. I don’t believe God has a gender.
DBB: Can you give us further details
about the Quarter Inch from My Heart book launch?
KSH: Yes, I’ll be doing the launch at Middle Collegiate Church in the East
Village. This has been a place I’ve called home for the last 15 years, and it
figures very prominently in the story. So if people come to the party, when
they read the book they’ll have an exact picture in their mind. Jacqui Lewis,
the senior minister, who also played a significant role in the book, will also
be there and she’s going to talk with me for a few minutes about the book. So
you’ll get to meet the real Jacqui too. And I’m going to sing a couple of
songs. In the last few years, people have only known me for writing, but I had
a long career as a singer/songwriter. I have to warm up my voice, though! It is
out of shape!
DBB: Congratulations, Kevin, on a job
well done. I highly recommend A Quarter Inch from My Heart to everyone
as a rivetingly good read they should add to their book list. And thank you so
much for doing this Q&A with me.
KSH:
Thank you. These were wonderful questions and got me thinking more about
the book as well.
