PW: What was the genesis of Tijuana Straits?
I'm often intrigued by a place before I come up with a character. That was true in The Dogs of Winter, and in this case I got interested in the border between the U.S. and Mexico. Then I discovered the Tijuana Slough, which I renamed the Tijuana Straits for the book. There's an old surf break at the mouth of the Tijuana River, and it's what surfers call "mysto," or mysterious.
Your main character, Sam Fahey—ex-con, current worm farmer—is very much a part of that place. Where does he come from?
I don't really know where he came from; presumably it's from some place deep inside. As a writer, what you're always looking for is the key to your own experience, and when you hit on the right character, it gives you access to some place inside of yourself. But Fahey seems like the right kind of character for the Tijuana River Valley.
In his youth, Fahey was a good surfer. But unlike your previous novels, Tijuana Straits is less about surfing and more about border issues: factory conditions, corruption and environmental destruction.
Yes, I think the book has almost a political dimension to it, and I also wanted to write about the environment. I spent time with women in Tijuana and groups in San Diego concerned with the environment, and the murders of the women in Juarez was another starting point. There's this huge web of deceit and corruption in Mexico.
One Mexican character, Armando Santoya, is a seriously scary guy.
I wanted Armando to be frightening but also tragic. He's a product of the system in some way. And the violence in the book grows out of a violence that's been done to the culture, to the environment, to the people who work in these foreign-owned factories in Tijuana.
How do you categorize your work? What is the attraction of narrative for you?
I tend not to think about what kind of writer I am. I'd rather think about the story and the characters and how best to express myself. But I have to have some kind of narrative structure within which to work. Narrative is essential to life; it's the way we structure our lives and make sense of our selves.
Why do you think movies have not yet been made from your books?
Tapping the Source and The Dogs of Winter have both been bought by studios. My agent often gets calls to inquire about making a film of the first book, but Hollywood seems to think that if it involves surfing, it has to be a powder-puff movie with girls in bikinis. I think one of these days someone will make a good movie with a real story with the surfing milieu, and it'll be a big hit. I actually write a lot of scripts, though screenwriting and novels are two very different forms. A lot of the film work I've done is just a job, while the books are really labors of love.
Do surfers admire your work?
I think it's fun for any writer to connect with people for whom your work means something, and it's been nice for me that surfers have responded to the work. When I was researching this book, for example, I spent a few days in Mexico with Iron Mike Doyle [a surfing icon]—an old hero of mine who's a fan of my books. Quite a treat for me to be in the water with him, and certainly my surfing would never have given me access to someone like that!
