Dean
Bakopoulos grew up in Livonia, went to school at the University
of Michigan, and graduated in 1997. His debut novel, Please Don’t
Come Back From The Moon, is a haunting, beautiful, and very funny
portrait of three young friends from a blue-collar Detroit suburb
and their stumbling transitions from boyhood into adult life. Bakopoulos,
who lives in Madison, Wisconsin, is about to hit the road on tour;
he recently spoke with The Ann Arbor Paper’s Davy Rothbart
about writing books, following your dream, and Vinnie Johnson.
Ann
Arbor Paper: When you were a kid, what did you want to
be when you grew up?
Dean Bakopoulos: I’ve wanted to be a writer
as long as I can remember. A writer, or quarterback for the Detroit
Lions. The first short story I ever wrote, when I was seven, was
about [former Detroit Pistons stars] Vinnie Johnson and Isiah Thomas.
My sister drew the pictures.
A2P:
Writing a novel is hard. My friend Brande Wix once said it’s
like trying to tackle a moose. How long did it take you to write
this book?
DB: The conceiving of it took four or five years—dreaming
up the characters, the mood, the tone of the thing. After a few
years, I had a hundred pages of jottings and scribblings. Then I
wrote the rest of it in one year of hard work.
A2P:
Had you tried to write other books and failed?
DB: Yeah, I wrote two that both died around page
two-hundred and fifty. They pretty much sucked.
A2P:
What was different this time around?
DB: Well, I think I had two factors working for
me—confidence and desperation. I’d written some short
stories that [Harcourt editor] Becky Saletan liked and thought could
be worked into a novel. She said my weaknesses as a short-story
writer could be strengths with a novel. Knowing there were good
folks in my corner, folks who believed in me, was a confidence-builder.
Around that time, my wife, Amanda, was laid off from her job, and
we were really broke. I knew I was either going to have to sell
a book or go back to working other jobs, and squeezing writing in
when I had time for it. I wrote the last hundred pages of this book
in six weeks, working twelve to sixteen hours a day. I finished
it on a Sunday night and sent it to my agent Monday morning.
A2P:
How long was it before the book got sold?
DB: Well, I didn’t even know if my agent
would like it or tell me it needed more work. But she said it was
ready to send around to editors, and we agreed to let Becky Saletan
have the first look. Becky liked it, and for a week they were negotiating.
It was the longest week of my life! That Friday afternoon, I heard
good news was imminent, and I went out for lunch with Amanda; we
waited there for three hours with my cell-phone on the table between
us. It never rang. Then, the next Monday, my agent called and said
we’d accepted an offer. It was crazy; I was so happy. That
night I had fifty friends over to my house to celebrate.
A2P:
Did you get shit-faced?
DB: Yes. Absolutely. I had to teach a class of
freshman comp the next morning. I explained the situation to my
students—the good news, and that I wasn’t fit to teach
that day—and I ordered pizza for everyone. A2P
Dean
Bakopoulos reads from his novel on Thursday, February 10, at 7 p.m.
at Shaman Drum Bookstore, 315 S. State St., (734) 662-7407. For
more info, see www.DeanBakopoulos.com
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