Interview With A. B. Funkhauser

A. B. Funkhauser was kind enough to stop by and answer some questions for us.

1. We have a country in common. Tell us where you are from?
I was born in Scarborough, a suburb of Toronto, but now live in Pickering, another suburb, albeit further east. Although I love to travel, Ontario is my home. Close proximity to Lake Ontario helps too. I love water.

2. Tell us your latest news?
Well, after an amazing summer outside, I kinda blew it over Labor Day Weekend by taking a tumble that put me into a cast. I broke my right foot and fractured a rib. Not bad for a day’s work! Lol. What could I do? I’ve made the most of my time on the couch hatching a new promo campaign in support of HEUER LOST AND FOUND while putting the finishing touches to my sophomore offering SCOOTER NATION. Next up, I’m scheduled to appear at a local Chapters book store with fellow Solstice Author Maighread MacKay.  That’s on October 11th followed by Bookapalooza in November. This is organized by the Writer’s Community of Durham Region to which I belong and it’s a really great event. Writers from Durham County and beyond will attend with every genre and literary form you could name.

3. When and why did you begin writing?
I began shortly after the death of a close friend. We were students and work colleagues together and had grown codependent. His death was unexpected and a complete shock, so I began a grief journal as a means of trying to make sense of everything. My friend and I both shared an off the wall kind of sense of humor that got us into trouble at school occasionally, so it didn’t take long for my journal to lapse into utter nonsense. It became a work of pure fiction. A writer friend told me it looked like a book and that I ought to keep going, so I did.

4. What inspired you to write your first book?
Thirty years of living and watching and waiting for a platform from which to launch my tropes; my ‘bones of contention.’ In no particular order they are as follows 1) nostalgia hurts more than it helps 2) kindness can be found in the oddest places 3)prying is a lousy thing 4) some questions don’t need answers 5)insular people will, sooner or later, give in to others because we are social 6)we must find and then let go of that thing we need so that we can keep it forever.

5. Do you have a specific writing style?
It’s not conscious; it just grew out of my interests and the music of words. I’m fond of old tymy classical Greek literature so omniscient narrators and a chorus made a lot of sense to me. Combined with modern vernacular and some gonzoid absurdities and you get pretty close to me…like an Aesop fable as told through eccentrics.
How did you come up with the title?
Heuer Lost and Found began as a much larger work—The Heuer Effect—which forms the majority portion of the third novel. In its original form, Heuer kept getting lost; the manuscript kept getting bigger and bigger and I fought constantly with side characters to hang on to him and keep him in the forefront. The idea to hive the manuscript into two separate works came from a third party who saw very clearly that this was a story of two lives lived in real time and then in memories. Once separated, the title for the new manuscript was clear. I’d lost him, then I found him.

6. Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
The past is a great place to visit, but don’t stay there too long.

7. How much of the book is based in some form of reality?
About seventy per cent, which is to say that the science references are accurate, as well as the details of day to day operations. The characters, however, are all mine!

8. Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
Every fiction is loosely based on a fact or observation. The funeral home, for example, is an amalgam of four separate businesses that no longer exist. The rooms I describe have been demolished and live on in memory alone. I love that I was able to preserve them in my own small way. Likewise, people. Some of my men friends believe that they are “Heuer” but they aren’t. There’s actually some of me in there… and a little Dean Martin.

9. What books have most influenced your life most?
Satire, poetry, biography and the  bible.

10. If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
Kurt Vonnegut, absolutely.

11. What book are you reading now?
Lawrence in Arabia by Scott Anderson. I’ve been reading history for over thirty years, and it’s only now that things are beginning make sense. For anyone interested in delving deeper into the history and politics of the mid east, this is definitely a go-to book. It makes the case beautifully that we are still heaving from the effects of the FIRST world war.

12. Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?
Rachael Stapleton, Marissa Campbell and David K. Bryant. Memoirs by Young Vol. 1,2,and 3, were eye popping as well. And there’s John DeBoer, Linda K. Seinkiewicz, Wren Michaels, Simone Salmon, Karen King. So many to mention.

13. Last words?
I’m still having a ball. This is not work for me, but a love story between my heart and my imagination. Come along if you like, but don’t forget to laugh.