By Varshini Chellapilla ~
In 1985 at the RFK Stadium in Washington, DC, 53,371 people were witness to one of the most brutal sports injuries in American history. The New York Giants’ linebacker Lawrence Taylor collided with the Washington Redskins’ Joe Theismann to thwart his attempts at moving upfield, breaking two major bones below his knee – with one even jutting out through his pale skin. People across the nation stood up in front of their TVs at the sight of Theismann in pain, and the accident has now been imprinted in the brains of many, including author Chris Bachelder.
Chris Bachelder, who has previously written three other novels and has had works printed in publications like McSweeney’s and Paris Review, brings a story surrounding twenty-two men who dedicate one weekend of every year to re-enact this incident — an incident that ESPN had taken to calling “the most shocking play in NFL history” — in his book The Throwback Special. Dubbed by the New York Times as the Jane Goodall to his characters, Bachelder takes a ride through the thoughts and actions behind the rather odd and quite seemingly unnecessary weekend. He treats his characters with the kind of care that is rarely seen in literature today, even when he’s pulling the rug from underneath their feet.
The author visited Penn State on Sept. 14th for a reading of his novel The Throwback Special in Carnegie Cinema. The very next day, the Creative Writing Department, in ties with the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism invited him to a Q&A session with students and faculty from both departments. During the session in Burrowes Building, he confessed that it was the “most claustrophobic book” he had written to date.
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Chris Bachelder had the energy that you normally associate with your favorite professor — charming and easygoing, but quite serious. From the moment he entered the room a calm had settled in the air. Students and faculty who had been earlier exchanging pleasantries, scrolling through their refreshed Instagram feeds and eating the spread of pizza slices and fruit salad at the back of the room quietly walked to their seats around the large table. Elizabeth Kadetsky, an associate professor of creative writing here at Penn State, stood up to preface the session and segue into the introduction, given by Bachelder’s old friend Imad Rahman, an assistant professor and director of creative writing at Cleveland State University . He talked about his history with him and after a round of applause, Bachelder spoke.
He began by emphasizing that he never had a certain audience while writing the book; he wrote to explore the twenty-two men he had created in his story, the troubles that plagued them intertwined with the hyper masculine nature they were caught up in.
The absurdities of the weekend and the array of characters make the readers cringe and laugh at the same time, which brought up a question from the audience: “How do you make fun of your characters, without stripping them of their dignity?”
Bachelder hesitated before answering, immediately letting us know that this was a question he didn’t know how to answer because how, in fact, would you make sure you characters didn’t turn into clowns? A few quiet moments passed, a shriek was heard from outside and a girl a few seats away from me scribbled away in her open journal. When he finally answered the question, he simply stated that he had to keep a tenderness towards these human absurdities that he highlighted in his book. This isn’t the same as respect, he noted, rather a more elegant approach to his characters’ minds and actions.
Originally written and published in four parts for the Paris Review, The Throwback Special was formatted for old school publishing, a method more common during the days of Charles Dickens. However, when Bachelder’s editor reached out and took up the project, he was faced with the careful act of compiling the various parts together in a way that flowed seamlessly.
“[The Throwback Special] was a very peculiar book to serialize,” he said.
Surely, it must have been a peculiar book to write as well? The final product, Bachelder told us, ended up being very different from the initial idea that had been brewing in him. “[It] didn’t set out as a study of contemporary masculinity in America,” he laughed.
He described his love for football since he was a child, growing up watching and admiring the rigidity of the sport. He said he loved the cool, discreet plays and had always been drawn to the scientific methods of playing football, but the awful violence that recurs was something he couldn’t stop thinking about. He had watched the replay of the Theismann injury so many times, that after a certain point it looked like the players were re-enacting it. “You don’t want to do what you always do,” he said in terms of his approach to his book.
This sparked new interest in the audience that was intently listening to him. Someone asked him how he coped with all the plots that he had to tangle and untangle and tangle again. Describing a method his creative writing professor had taught him in college, Bachelder explained that there are always two stories within one: an outer story, that delves into the surface level plot, and an inner story, that concerns itself with what the author is trying to convey.
“It’s important to find the line between the two,” he said while citing Dorothy Baker’s “Cassandra at the Wedding” as an inspiration of sorts.
He also emphasized that “tone is a vehicle,” and it’s what he’s always been interested in. A third point that everyone wrote down in their journals, papers, and books : “more is more.” The more information and depth you provide, the more you’re ensuring that the readers stay attached to your story and characters. Well, within all of this, how would you know if the inner story got to be too much? You don’t. There’s never a way of answering “how” questions. You just trust that it didn’t get to be too much for the readers. Just like he did, with his own story.
The Throwback Special has been lauded by The New Yorker, The LA Times and other publications for its unique ways of bringing together the virtues and vices of 21st century masculinity and friendships, and rightly so. With its satirical approach to hypermasculinity and football violence along with the bumpy road of mid life crises, Bachelder’s fourth book was a true taste of the author himself — eclectic, placid and yet, exciting.
Thank you for speaking to us, Chris Bachelder.