In setting up an interview with author Garth Stein, it was suggested that we meet at a local dog park. Garth is after all a dog lover, often by the side of his Airedale, Comet. On second thought, though, a dog park might not be the place for a quiet, uninterrupted interview with the local writer of the NY Times bestselling novel, “The Art of Racing in the Rain.” A heart-wrenching yet deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope, “The Art of Racing in the Rain” is a captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life as only a dog could tell it.
Instead, we meet at Tutta Bella Neapolitan Pizzeria in Columbia City, above which is Garth’s office where he imagines his latest storylines and characters and answers phone calls from his mother about mysterious coffee pots.
Garth, quite possibly the quintessential Northwest author, is seamlessly at home in this quant, artsy neighborhood in the Rainier Valley area of southeast Seattle. After spending his childhood in Seattle and then living in New York City for 18 years, where he worked as a documentary filmmaker, Garth returned to Washington, where he lives with his wife and three sons; and don’t forget the family dog.
Q: People often talk about the differences between the west and east sides of Washington; what’s the difference between the east and west side of the U.S.?
A: There’s a whole different attitude. I loved the energy of New York, but you have to be on your game and have a strategy just to have a normal life. Here, you’re surrounded by the physical beauty of the environment and a pace that’s much more reasonable and enjoyable.
Q: What was life like growing up in Shoreline?
A: I used to spend a lot of time in Hidden Lake and Boeing Creek; me and my brothers would walk down the railroad tracks from Shoreline to Shilshole Bay to get clam chowder and then we would walk back and squash pennies on the tracks. When I was a kid, my mother would say be home by dinner, and I really enjoyed growing up that kind of “get lost” atmosphere.
Q: As a local writer, do you feel a commitment to set your stories in real places that you know and have visited?
A: I’ll never set a story in a generic time and place. I’m writing fiction, so I’m allowed to make things up for the purpose of the story, but I still want to have those physical things because readers, especially people in the Northwest, can relate.
Q: Like Spangle? How did you choose Spangle, a tiny farming town in Eastern Washington, as the birthplace of Enzo, the main character in “The Art of Racing in the Rain”?
A: One of my friends had gotten a dog at a farm there, and so my wife and I took a drive there. We got our dog Comet there, and I wanted to put it in the story because it meant something to me. My publisher suggested that I have Enzo come from a bigger town that has a bookstore. I’m all for marketing, but the story has to take precedence.
Q: Do you consider yourself a “dog person”?
A: I always had a dog when I was growing up. Mugs was our dog when I was kid; she was an Airedale and that’s why Enzo thinks that his father must have been an Airedale. Comet is seven and a half now and she’s a mixed breed; one might loosely call her a Labradoodle.
Q: Where did the idea for the book come from?
A: When I was making documentaries, I saw a film that was made in Mongolia about the belief that the next incarnation of their dogs would be as people. I thought that was a really cool idea. I didn’t really know what to do with it, so it sat dormant in my head for years until I saw Billy Collins speak at Seattle Arts and Lectures. He’s a great poet and a terrific reader. He read a poem, “The Revenant,” which is told from the point of view of a recently euthanized dog as he addresses his former master from heaven. It was a brilliant poem. I thought that’s my character; my story has to be written from a dog’s point of view.
Q: The main “human” character in the book is a racecar driver? Is that that something with which you have personal experience?
A: I have done some amateur racecar driving at Pacific Raceways (in Kent). My friends and I at the racetrack would say goofy theories like, “The car goes where your eyes go.” At one point, I turned to my friend, who worked at Car Tender on Capital Hill, and who I based the main character of Denny Swift on, and said that if we did everything in our daily lives that we’re supposed to do on the racetrack to be good racers, we’d be really good people. I thought, who could observe that except for a dog and that’s when it all came together.
Q: Your calendar is filled with readings at libraries and bookstores. Why have you made that such a priority?
A: I believe very strongly in supporting the local communities and community libraries. Bookstores in the Northwest really stand up for their local writers and will go out of their way to promote their books and generate word of mouth. There’s nothing more enjoyable to me than going back to the bookstores that supported me when nobody knew who I was and sell some books for them.
Q: What do you like to do when you’re not writing or touring to promote your latest novel?
A: We have a log cabin on Bainbridge Island and we like going there in the summer for a couple of weeks. I love going out driving, and one of the greatest bookstores in the state is A Book For All Seasons in Leavenworth, so I like to go to that area. When I was a kid we would go on camping trips to Lake Wenatchee. When I do go to Wenatchee, I like to take Highway 2 east toward Spokane; it’s just beautiful in a weird flatland way and there’s nobody on it.
Q: Readers might not know that “The Art of Racing in the Rain” isn’t your first book; there was also “Raven Stole the Moon” and “How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets.” What next?
A: I’m working on the edits for my new book right now. It’s a multi-generational saga ghost story. It starts in the late 1870s in Portland, Oregon and follows a logging family through Aberdeen, Washington and up into Seattle. They became very wealthy over the years through logging, but then lost everything except for this gigantic decrepit mansion on a bluff overlooking Puget Sound.
Q: After the success of “The Art of Racing in the Rain,” won’t your fans be expecting, or at least anticipating, another book about a dog?
A: I think there’s a rule: One dog book per writer per life.
