Mark and I wrote the below exchange via email in the fall of 2023, shortly after I finished reading an Advance Reader Copy of his big-hearted, puts-the-fun-in-profundity novel, Bunyan And Henry; Or, The Beautiful Destiny, (Pantheon, pub date: March 26, 2024).
Matthew Quick: Welcome, Mark. Having thoroughly enjoyed our chat on the Thoughtful Bro podcast, I appreciate the chance to reconnect and discuss your debut.
Mark Cecil: The pleasure is all mine. You know I’m a huge fan of yours.
MQ: I tore through Bunyan And Henry and found it both firmly rooted in the great storytelling traditions and unlike anything I had ever read before. It’s a Twainian cautionary tale about the dirty underbelly of the American dream, but it’s also a hopeful fairy tale for adults. At times, I felt your wonderfully imaginative world-building was almost Wes Anderson-esque. Sometimes your reimagined takes on the great American myths even made me think of Tarantino. Other times I was thinking Dickens. I kept trying to make comparisons and fit the book into some genre, but it was all Cecil in the end. That is a truly rare reading experience. One that I value highly. Huge congrats on the accomplishment.
MC: Well jeez! I can’t tell you how gratifying it is to hear that. Wes Anderson, Tarantino, Dickens; I’ve learned from all of them. Wes Anderson’s attention to the quirky, satirical detail. Tarantino’s love of outrageous action and spit-fire dialogue. Dickens’s richly drawn characters and passion for his country’s social plight.
One objective of mine was to make my novel a love letter to literature itself. We live in a world of social media, TV, movies, and games, and we are bombarded with infotainment from every nearby screen. I wanted to create a book for book lovers; a book that does all the things that only a book can do. Thus, my book contains maps, poems, riddles, and letters; it’s got grand settings and mythic monsters; and it also explores big philosophical and spiritual ideas about the American character and even the meaning of life. Only a book could roll all those things into one.
MQ: You wrote this in an email to me: “The seed of the book began as a bedtime story for my four young interracial children, and it grew over time into this literary work for adults.”
‘Part of raising a child well is telling them the right stories,’ said John Henry. ‘Stories are the stuff souls are made from.’
Mark Cecil, Bunyan And Henry
Why did you choose to bring this story out of your household and into the world? And how do your children feel about sharing their bedtime story with us?
MC: Telling bed time stories to my children is the very best instruction I’ve ever had on storytelling. If the kids are watching you intensely, you know you’re doing something right. But if they are looking away, or yawning, or falling asleep, you’ve lost the thread. Kids don’t know how to fake interest. I made up a lot of bedtime stories for them over the years, but the one about Paul Bunyan and John Henry was the one that they liked most. They still remembered bits of it, even years later. So I thought … maybe there’s something here.
There’s a storytelling technique I heard about at Pixar, where, if the screenwriter is having trouble figuring out their story, they boil it down to a fairy tale, and see if all the beats still makes sense. I sort of did that in reverse. It began as a fairy tale, and that fairy tale worked, so I simply built up from there. I had the assurance that if I ever got lost, I could always fall back on the basic structure of the original story my kids heard.
As for how my kids feel about it being published, well…the coolest part about it for them was that they got to see their name in the acknowledgements. Otherwise, books are just something their dad does (i.e….boring).
MQ: What do you think made you gravitate specifically to Paul Bunyan and John Henry? Why did you want to go back in time with this one? Why the fairy-tale framing? Why once upon a time in America?
MC: I’ve always loved myth, especially when those myths seem to be tied up with a nation’s founding or character. I’m thinking of the stories of King Arthur, Odysseus, Charlemagne, Aeneas, Moses. My understanding is that part of J.R.R. Tolkien’s conscious motivation for writing The Lord Of The Rings was to create a kind of national mythology for England. At one point I thought to myself: wait a second…why are there no such myths in America? We have culture heroes like Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Babe Ruth, and Sacajawea. But who are our true mythic heroes?
Another early spark for this story came from my love of the Epic of Gilgamesh. I could go on about Gilgamesh, but for me, it is the greatest story ever told. It is thousands of years old, but it has wit, brevity, warmth, passion, and a wonderful three-act structure. It’s also a great story for America right now. A lot of the myth/SFF canon is focused on war (LOTR, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, etc.), but we, in this generation, don’t have a huge, history-defining American war. Gilgamesh isn’t about war at all. It’s about one king’s quite personal adventures and his quest for eternal life. From there, it was an easy jump to pick two American folklore heroes, Bunyan and John Henry, and retell the friendship of Enkidu and Gilgamesh in America.
A further part of my inspiration was to tell a bedtime story to my kids that featured a white adult and a Black adult working well together, just like their (Black) mom and (white) dad. There are a lot of negative stories out there about race—and of course this is appropriate and necessary, as this nation reckons with the heretofore hidden and suppressed truths about its racial past. But there are far fewer stories about successful relationships across race boundaries. That’s the kind of story I wanted to tell. As the story grew from a bedtime tale into a work of mature literature, I found the setting and structure was perfect for exploring industrialism, capitalism, race, class, indigenous conquest—the whole vast, complicated, ugly and glorious foundation upon which our American culture is built.
MQ: More times than not, I scratch my head when it comes to cover choices. But I think yours is absolutely perfect. I loved it at first glance and it really looked like the book I was seeing in my mind while reading. What are your thoughts on the cover? Did you have to reject other covers to get to this one? Were you consulted at all?
MC: I’m so glad you like it! We had an amazing artist for the cover, Chris Wormell. We got the first version of it, and I loved it. But the sales team actually came back and asked for a change. The feedback was that the original cover read as too young adult. While it’s true that younger readers can enjoy the book—in fact a friend of mine recently read it to his own ten-year-old daughter—the book is indeed meant for older readers.
The final version of the cover used the original illustration but put that circle around it, and changed the fonts to be bolder. I particularly like the shade of the cover’s background, with that old, tea-stained parchment feel. I think the final version perfectly captures that it’s a book for and about adults, but which is also timeless and can be read by someone at any stage of life.
MQ: Did you make any interesting and/or important mistakes while writing Bunyan And Henry? If so, how did you cope? And what did you learn?
MC: How much time do you have? Yes, there were many mistakes. I had a huge group of writer friends who critiqued the book, many of them several times. I almost feel like this book was written by dozens of people, rather than just me. Half the ideas in it came out of brainstorming sessions.
Overall, I do enjoy getting feedback, and feel I am pretty good about figuring out what I should listen to. But even with all of that feedback, by the time my editor Anna Kaufman at Pantheon bought the book, it still had some major problems. There was a book-within-a-book device that had to be cut. John Henry entered the story way too late. The biggest problem of all, though, was with the climax.
I suppose I knew there was a problem with the climax of the book all along, but I sort of didn’t know how to solve it, so I simply let it be. But my editor Anna (who is a kind of genius) pushed me to consider changing both the race and gender of this one character at the end of the book. That kind of advice doesn’t always work, but in this case it kind of *made the book.* The moment I invented the character Bright Eyes, who appears only at the climax, the entire story clicked into place as never before. It really was that moment where you turn the key and the engine just roars to life. I still cringe at thinking of my old ending, before it changed. I just feel like I owe Anna so much for her instincts and vision.
MQ: Throughout the novel, Bunyan relies on something called the Gleam. It’s literally a guiding flash of light that appears at opportune moments, but it is also a sort of divination tool. The Gleam flickers throughout the tale, guiding Bunyan, usually right when his hope is almost depleted. This intuitive feeling-type writer zoomed right in on this detail. Often times my intuition lights up certain things in my world, making them shinier. And that has seen me through many a dark time. Does this happen for you? Do you experience a version of the Gleam when you write? Have you lived your life according to what is lit up by your soul?
MC: I’m so glad this resonated with you. In many ways this book is about my own life’s journey. I worked in the media for years doing various jobs, and had climbed up to a modestly high position (just like Bunyan had climbed up in Lump Town). I had always known I wanted to be a writer from a very young age. But the years kept passing, and I never took the steps I needed to.
Ultimately, I simply couldn’t take it anymore. I decided to quit my job and chase the dream of becoming a writer full time. It was absolutely terrifying. It was lonely. It was a struggle every single day for years…and it still is. But my journey is much like Bunyan’s journey, one of someone who decides, when it’s almost too late, to follow the instinct leading him to a higher kind of life. That instinct is the Gleam. We are often afraid of it, because we know it is asking us to change our life in a dramatic way. But ultimately, we must follow it to be fulfilled.
MQ: Early on, Bunyan meets a mythical creature know as the Chilali. It speaks in questions and references stories of heroes who did not stay safe, did not get rich, did not experience pleasure, did not know guaranteed success, but took the “Twisty Path” toward “The Beautiful Destiny” anyway.
The Chilali seems to function as Bunyan’s soul or an enlightened consciousness.
How would you briefly define The Beautiful Destiny? Would you say writing this book is you following the Twisty Path? If so, how? Have you followed the Twisty Path in any other ways? Do you have a real-life Chilali equivalent?
MC: I think all people, at all times, in at least one aspect of their life, are dissatisfied. It could be their job, their friendships, their marriage, their home, a certain project they are working on. In some way, we all are always being drawn toward a more powerful, poetic version of ourselves. The Twisty Path is a term that I think captures how truly strange, absurd and difficult the path to change can be.
Certainly when I decided to follow the Twisty Path toward the Beautiful Destiny of becoming a published author, I never would have guessed at the amount of setbacks, frustrations, and failures there would be. Nor would I have imagined the friendships, satisfaction, and ultimately triumph I would feel, in finally creating a work of art that met my ambitions.
MQ: One of the many things I love about this novel is your ability to examine some pretty big and important issues in America’s past and present—classism, racism, environmentalism, exploitation of workers, to name a few—without it feeling overly tribal. I don’t think the book is meant to be divisive, which I greatly appreciated.
In typical fairy-tale fashion, your villain, El Boffo, seems to be an amalgam of unchecked ego’s worst instincts. The cruel and money-grubbing El Boffo seems to represent America’s shadow. The curious and naive Paul Bunyan seems to represent America’s more youthful, open-hearted, hard-working potential—its light.
I began to think of El Boffo and Paul Bunyan as the two ends of a human potential spectrum. And that perhaps—at least psychologically—we would all probably do well to end up somewhere in the middle, integrating both the light and the shadow. Maybe a combo of El Boffo’s enterprising spirit with Paul Bunyan’s sense of fairness and love for others. A balance could contribute to the greater good.
I’ve been taught that a great fairy tale is usually about a single psyche. And all the characters in such a fairy tale are different potentials of that single psyche.
It’s a mistake to think that Beauty and The Beast are separate. Beauty and The Beast both exist as psychological potentials that we each have to integrate in order to be whole. The story helps us do that, which is why we feel a sense of relief when the Beast is transformed back into a loving man and the Beauty lives happily ever after with him. By experiencing the tale, the Beast in us is given the hope of a more human existence and the Beauty in us is given courage and ferocity to do the work of taming the beasts within. It’s the union or marriage of these two poles that ultimately creates psychological harmony. That is the medicine of fairy tales.
We are both Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. Dorothy Gale and the Wicked Witch. Paul Bunyan and El Boffo.
Throughout the book, El Boffo dangles a gold brick in front of just about everyone. He never seems to actually give the brick to anyone, but many chase it. Jungians often say there is gold in the shadows. They don’t mean literal gold, but the potential for transformation and psychological treasure. And Bunyan learns much by chasing after El Boffo’s literal and metaphorical gold. Bunyan is ultimately transformed. Without El Boffo promising gold and miraculous cures, there is no journey, no transformation, no becoming whole.
Does any of the above hit for you? How do you see El Boffo in relation to Paul Bunyan?
MC: This is just so utterly brilliantly, and so perfectly framed. Your question will almost certainly be better than my answer. I appreciate you realizing that El Boffo is not entirely evil. As the old writing advice says, “The antagonist should always have a point.” I think one of the great paradoxes of the book is that the toxic technology sought by El Boffo is also the technology that saves Bunyan’s wife. El Boffo is not so different than the fossil fuel industry in our own real world—it destroys the earth, but also makes human life immeasurably more livable. We have a kind of devil’s bargain with our planet, and El Boffo is merely profiting from it.
As for the book being, ultimately, the representation of a single psyche—so well put! It’s funny, some of my beta readers would suggest, “Could you give some more interiority for Bunyan?” But the way I felt was…this entire book is interiority!
This whole fantastical world of this novel is simply a symbolic rendering of my own complete psyche. In these characters, these settings, these supernatural beings, these loves, these struggles, you are seeing my own interior, cast forth into metaphor. Every word is emotional autobiography.
Regarding El Boffo specifically, someone once famously said about Milton’s Paradise Lost that Milton’s sympathy clearly was with Satan, who was so charismatic and had all the best lines. I sometimes think that El Boffo is such a memorable character in this book because that competitive, win-at-all-costs, heedless capitalist is buried inside me, too (and perhaps not too deeply).
I do agree with you, that there’s gold in those shadows.
As Rilke once said, “Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are just princesses, waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage.”
It’s a rule of storytelling that the protagonist will never rise to the level of his greatest potential, without the prodding of the antagonist. And typically, in some way, the protagonist must master the ways of the antagonist, before he can be whole.
MQ: At one point, Bunyan and Henry are pitted against each other in a fist fight that made me think of the opening pages of Ralph Ellison’s genius Invisible Man. The scenes are played differently, of course, and the resulting tones are not similar at all. But in both passages, there is this vulgar string-pulling that forces innocent human beings to hurt each other for the amusement of a crowd that lacks empathy.
The two fighters in your more hopeful story go on to help each other and even establish a brotherhood. There seems to be a feeling of mutual respect that begins in the ring, while Bunyan and Henry are taking each other’s punches. Each fights with as much honor and dignity as the situation allows.
This is all heightened by the fact that they are different races.
Can you talk a little about the symbolism of that scene?
MC: This scene traces back to Gilgamesh, too. Gilgamesh ends up fighting Enkidu when they first meet, and when neither can defeat the other, they decide to team up to go on adventures together. It’s one of so many profound, witty, and unforgettable scenes in that masterpiece.
For me, the reason the fight scene works in my book is because the two men seem to be enemies, but they are really on the same side. My book is filled with odd couples—people of different ages, races and backgrounds who bridge the divide to work together. This kind of bridging is what I believe we need to do as Americans to find the Beautiful Destiny for our own country.
(Lastly, I’ll add that I find any story of peace-making irresistible. I’m such a middle child.)
MQ: Bunyan has an axe. Henry has his hammer. What do you have? How do you use it?
MC: I have this laptop! It is, to borrow a phrase of my novel, my “Spirit Armor.” Writing is the activity in which I feel my own Gleam most powerfully. When I am writing, the chaos and hostility and arbitrariness of our universe do not seem so terrible. Instead, the world seems bright and astonishing, full of wonder and miracles.
MQ: Bunyan is fueled by his great love for Lucette, who falls ill early on in the novel, sending our hero in search of a cure. Tell us about the great love of your life. How did that love fuel the writing of this novel?
MC: Of course this would be my wonderful wife, Dede. I feel about her the way Axl feels about his true love Bright Eyes in my book, that he “could not find a better pairing in a thousand years of searching.” I say in the book’s dedication that it’s Dede who made this book possible. And it’s true. I think you and I share a similar story: A blind leap into the world of writing, supported by an incredible, patient partner, who sometimes keeps the faith that we ourselves forget.
MQ: On the Thoughtful Bro, you’ve interviewed some big-time names. George Saunders. Chuck Palahniuk. Nathan Hill. Robert McKee. To name a few. (I’ve listened to and highly recommend all of these fantastic exchanges.) What’s the most helpful writing advice you received while conducting Thoughtful Bro interviews? Did manning the podcast help you become a published novelist? If so, how exactly?
MC: The Thoughtful Bro podcast came about at the beginning of the pandemic, because I had a lot of friends who had their book tours cancelled. My friends and I formed an organization called A Mighty Blaze, which hosts many different author interview shows, to connect writers and readers virtually.
I think the Thoughtful Bro has been immeasurably helpful to my career in so many ways. For one, I love doing it. Reading a book and then interviewing the author, with free reign to ask whatever question I want, is basically a dream come true.
Imagine I’m a basketball player, who plays down at the local gym. One day, an NBA coach spots me and says, Hey, want to come practice with us? And I’m like, Yes please! The podcast is basically that. Over the last three years I’ve gotten to play one-on-one with the Michael Jordan, Steph Curry, and LeBron James of literature.
The show also helped me with practicalities: It’s how I found my agent and how I got blurbs for my book. I’ve made many writer friendships through it, as well.
As for the best advice I ever got…George Saunders said there are two qualities which, in his mind, determine whether a writer will be successful. (1) A willingness to revise. (2) An attention to causality in the story. Preach!
MQ: Many TWBM readers are hopeful unpublished writers. Imagine you are the Gleam, but instead of being shiny light, you can only fill the space below with words. What do you write to those hopeful unpublished fiction writers?
MC: I am happy to be the Chilali to fellow writers!
To continue with the basketball analogy, I was once listening to a lecture by the fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson. He said writing is a lot like playing basketball. To paraphrase: “If someone tells me that they have started playing basketball, I am not going to say to them, ‘Well, when are you going to get drafted into the NBA?’ I’m going to say, that sounds great. Basketball is fun, and good for your health, and you make friends, too.” I think this is a great way to think about it. Writing is, quite simply, a fun, rewarding, and even social activity. For me, it is actually the *most* fun thing in all of life.
So it is justifiable on those grounds alone.
Writing is also a completely majestic and ancient tradition. Anyone who writes enters the same hallowed arena as Homer and Shakespeare, Plato and St. Paul, Virginia Wolff and Toni Morrisson, Dr. Seuss and Sappho. I am humbled and thrilled to try to master this craft as these others have done before me.
The last piece of advice I will give is this: Don’t compare yourself to other people. Don’t think about what other people have already achieved, or how they are younger than you, luckier than you, or seem more gifted than you. Focus on yourself. Try to be a better writer than you were the day before. Comparison is the thief of joy. Make sure the work is improving—everything else is noise.
MQ: Thanks so much, Mark, for dropping by There Will Be Mistakes. I’ve really enjoyed reading your work and getting to know you a little better. Best wishes on everything.
MC: Thank you, Matthew! Always a pleasure to talk to a fellow thoughtful bro.
Buy Bunyan And Henry; Or, The Beautiful Destiny. (Seriously. Buy it right now. You will love it.)
Learn more about Mark Cecil.
