An Interview with James Abbot

I am James Abbot, ‘Jim’ to my family and friends, and the author of The Burdens of Aeneas: A Son’s Memoir of Duty and Love, which was a finalist for a 2018 Georgia Author of the Year Award. I have a doctorate in classics and have written and taught courses on Latin poetry and Roman history. Born and raised in rural Georgia, I now live with my family in Brooklyn, where I dream about wild rivers and deep forests.

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

At earlier stages, I had titled my novel-in-stories Hope: A Fable and, later, Isle of Hope. But a friend who had been reading and editing my stories recommended that I make explicit my indebtedness to the famous Emily Dickinson poem that begins, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers.” Our decision to change ‘the’ to ‘a’ was deliberately made. As he put it to me, “a thing” leaves open the possibility that my novel is itself an embodiment of hope.

How did it feel when you first saw your book cover? Or when you first held your book in your hands?

Honestly, I was overwhelmed when I saw the cover art. It’s far-beyond-my-wildest-dreams perfect. I suppose I can give myself some credit for having provided Ronaldo and his team with helpful guidance and clear inspiration? In any case, so many people have told me how much they love what Atmosphere came up with. I do, too.

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

I was born into a literary family. Everybody read all the time! Quite possibly, that was an act of self-care on our part; after all, we lived in a rural region that offered children very little in the way of organized activities. I suppose it’s not inevitable that an avid reader is someone who also loves to write, but that’s how it worked for us. We read Faulkner and Turgenev, and then we thought, “This looks like fun. Let me see what I can do.”

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

I dropped out of law school after the first year to teach. I’ve never looked back. My first job was teaching Latin to — wait for it — students with learning challenges such as dyslexia. That’s right: I was teaching students who may never have succeeded in reading any book cover to cover about the ‘accusative case’ used for a ‘direct object’ of a ‘transitive verb.’ Hopefully, the experience of meeting my students where they were ultimately made me a better writer. I want to meet my readers where they are and then lead them places they never thought they could go.

What was the most rewarding/meaningful part of publishing your book?

I’ve had two books published. Both, in different ways, required a great deal of candor from me. I’m proud of the fact that I’ve been willing to make myself vulnerable, trusting that I would find some readers who would respect me for taking risks and who would respond in kind. Now, would I be thrilled to have a bestseller on my hands? Sure. But not at the cost of the messages I’ve had from people who’ve indicated in one way or another that my book enhanced their lives in some way.

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

Let’s just put all of the music by Katie Crutchfield, whose music project is known as Waxahatchee, on shuffle and be done with it.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from reading your book? How do you envision your perfect reader?

Someone posted this comment online, and I think it answers your question: “This book is exquisite — deeply grounded in the challenges of life, transcendent in how it leads the reader to understand hope and its sources. Both powerful and gentle. The characters come to life vividly. The stories weave together as if they were always meant to be. And the writing itself is beautiful. I found myself dog-earring page after page. I will certainly re-read and share this gift of a book.”

What creative projects are you currently working on?

I want to write a book about trees and forests. I just need the first sentence.

How was working with Atmosphere Press? What would you tell other writers who want to publish?

Atmosphere Press has been awesome. Awesome communication, awesome developmental and copy editing, awesome design inside and out. Atmosphere even took seriously a suggestion I made about copy editing and tweaked their process to incorporate the change. I couldn’t have asked for more.

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