An Interview with Ron MacLean

Ron MacLean is the author of the story collections Apocalypso (forthcoming), We Might as Well Light Something on Fire, and Why the Long Face?, as well as the novels Headlong and Blue Winnetka Skies. His fiction has appeared in GQ, Narrative, Fiction International, Best Online Fiction, and elsewhere. MacLean is a recipient of the Frederick Exley Award for Short Fiction and a multiple Pushcart Prize nominee. He holds a Doctor of Arts from the University at Albany, SUNY, and teaches at Grub Street in Boston.

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Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

So many, starting with Curious George books and the Hardy Boys mysteries, and extending to Kurt Vonnegut and Flannery O’Connor and Gertrude Stein and Italo Calvino and William Faulkner, to name a few.

What inspired you to start writing this book?

The memory of real-life DJ Dierdre O’Donoghue, and the podcast Bent By Nature that was done to honor her legacy. It got me thinking about her again, and how she was an enormous influence on the evolution of my musical taste, and a huge part of my twenties in Los Angeles. Then, somehow, there was the idea, in the middle of a night, that the voice of this iconic DJ starts cutting in on car radios in the California desert.

Tell us the story of your book’s title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

With most of my books, the title took forever. FOR. EVER. This one, Ghost Radio, was clear to me from the earliest days, although I would refer to the book as “the Ghost Radio Project,” as if to keep me from jinxing it.

If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?

But it does! “Stop the World and Let Me Off,” by John Doe and the Sadies; “The Magic Number,” by De la Soul; “Big Red Sun Blues,” by Lucinda Williams; “Jockey Full of Bourbon,” by Tom Waits; “I Kicked a Boy,” by The Sundays, and (literally) hundreds more.

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

Journalist, advertising copywriter (ugh), typesetter, gas station attendant, golf caddy. That last may explain what some consider my irrational disdain for golf.

What books did you read (for research or comfort) throughout your writing process?

Strangers to Ourselves by Rachel Aviv and Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost were both essential for inspiration and sustenance. Lee Smolin’s The Trouble with Physics is a standout in research. And Vonnegut, early and often, for comfort. Especially Breakfast of Champions.

What advice would you give your past self at the start of your writing journey?

Oh, kid, you have no idea how challenging – or how rewarding – it’s going to be.

What’s one thing you hope sticks with readers after they finish your book?

How what we love connects us to one another, and how music can inspire. And yes, that’s one thing.

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