Matt Walsh Has An Honest Conversation With Andrew Klavan: Making Conservative Art
22:05 Share

Americans are durable. We take pride in hard work and high quality. American Giant makes durable quality clothing right here in the USA because what we wear reflects who we are. When you buy American Giant, you're not just wearing the best clothes money can buy. You're helping keep jobs and pride in your own backyard. Premium clothing built to last decades like it should.

Get 20% off your first order at American-Giant.com with code RIGHTHERE24. Well, sitting here with someone you may have heard of, Andrew Klavan, this...

The set is way too nice for an interview with you, I guess. I think it is. I'm actually out of my league here. We stepped it up way too much. We've got to dial it back a little bit. So you have a book that just came out, A Woman Underground is what it's called. I wanted to talk to you about kind of the creative process, first of all, that goes into writing books, because I'm just fascinated by that, and then some other things. But before we get into that, so what...

And there's the book right there. Tell us about the book, first of all. Well, this is the fourth book in the Cameron Winter series. And it's kind of the crisis book. Cameron Winter's kind of unsteady mentally, is kind of cracking up. And he finds that the woman that he loved his whole life, this kind of flame that he's kept and he's lost track of her.

he starts to, he finds her. He realizes she's still around and he starts looking for her and as he starts looking for her, he realizes that a killer is looking for her at the same time and he has to see if he can find her before that. It also takes place in the midst of riots and extremist politics and kind of an America, like this America, but a little bit dialed up. So it's not a political novel, but it's a novel that has a lot of politics in it. So what the, so that book's probably, it's what, 280 pages or something? Yeah, it's close to 300, yeah.

And I've written a few books, none of them were very good, but nonfiction, and I want to talk about that too, because we're talking off air a little bit about nonfiction versus fiction. I can't even wrap my head around writing a novel, like writing a story. I can't, I just can't even, I wouldn't know where to begin. And you've written, how many novels have you written? Over 30, yeah. Yeah, so I don't even know how to ask the question exactly, but how do you organize your mind

to sit down and start writing that book? What's the actual process that ends with that book sitting there? Well, you start out a lot of times with a what if. You know, what if this happened? What if, you know, the only woman you ever loved came back in your life but was in trouble? What if you walked in to look at your baby and make sure she was okay and she was gone? You know, what if some wild thing just pops into your head? And you kind of let it just sit, you know, sometimes for years and

Until it finds the perfect person to be in the story, which is one of the interesting things about writing a series is you have to have stories that actually resonate with the character because you don't care if a guy solves a mystery. You only care if what happens to people internally. So for me, everything has to work as a character thing. So even if I have a fight scene or a chase scene or something, it has to be important to the guy personally.

internally, because it's a book, it's not a movie. It's like, you can't just watch something and think that's exciting. So as it unfolds, you think what would happen if this, you usually come up with some kind of ending and then you start to build the steps that go on. And it's always, it's always about the character and the story for me. It's always like, you know,

it's always, why is this hard for this guy to do? You know, not just why is it hard to do, but why is this, does it challenge this guy? And so Winter is a very psychologically oriented character. You know, he's kind of trying to fix his, he used to be a

a government assassin essentially. And now he's come back to the country and the country is kind of falling apart. It's corrupt. He starts to wonder what was I doing? You know, what was I fighting for? And it makes him unravel, you know, so you have to really be dealing with the guy from the inside out. And that's the way, that's the way it gets built over time. Do you outline it? I do. Yeah. A lot of people, a lot of people like just sit down and write, but I know everything I'm going to say before I say it. How long does it take you to write that?

This one, it takes about a year from start to finish. Including editing and all that? Yeah, yeah. Including various drafts, yeah. Yeah. And you've also written, of course, screenplays. Yep. Takes six weeks. And you get paid better. Yeah, so I assume it's a quicker process because there's a lot less writing that goes into it, but...

Is even like the creative, the way you think about it, is that different too? Are you also starting with a what if and building it out or is it a different? You do start with that. But first of all, the characters, the first film I ever did was called Shock Death System. It was based on a...

novel by Simon Brett and I I was a novelist so I wrote it like a novel I did long long character sketches and what was he gonna be like and what they hired Michael Caine to be in it and I saw the first day of rushes you know the first rough cut of it and my came from I thought what was I doing Michael Caine creates the characters gonna be Michael Caine you know it's gonna be whatever he says it's gonna be so it's much much easier it's kind of like building the frame to something and they the director and the actors all put it together and seriously if it takes you six weeks to

to write a screenplay, it's probably because you were busy doing something else. It's very few words. It is kind of, every word that appears on screen has to be great. So every line of dialogue has to be great. But the descriptions only have to convince people in Hollywood to buy it. They don't have to be that good, you know? So it's much easier. What drew you into novels, to writing novels to begin with? I just loved them as a kid. I just loved them. And like,

They formed a lot of my role models, like, you know, for what a guy was like, should be like. Like I started reading tough guy detective stories and Raymond Chandler, Philip Marlowe stories, The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. And those were the kind of guys who kind of spoke to me 'cause I was kind of living in this suburb, this leafy suburb and everything like this. And I thought, no, these are the guys who like never bend. They never bend. And like Raymond Chandler had this great essay about his character.

he invented the phrase mean streets. And he said, "Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean." And I must have been 15 when I read that. And I thought, bingo, that's what I want to be like. And so I just started creating stories about those kind of characters. I'm not like that, but I create stories about those characters. What do you think it takes to be a good writer?

What does it require? The first thing is some people have talent and some people don't. Yeah, you can just see it the minute you start reading, you know? And like, I always had a gift for it. I always had an ability to do it. And then I did stuff- If you don't have the talent, you think it's just-

There are some people you just don't have it and that's it? There are some people who have no talent except that they know how to build crappy stories that people will buy and they make a lot of money. And that's all good, but I can't get past page three because the minute I start reading, I think this is garbage, you know? I won't name them, but there are a lot of them on the bestsellers list, you know? Why won't you name them? Name one. No, I can't. Okay. I can't even name one. But they know who they are. Well...

I don't want to go off on a different tangent, but I think about this a lot too, about talent. Do you think, because this applies in many fields, especially any creative field. And I think I generally believe that it's like you either have it or you don't. And if you don't have it, you never will.

Or is it possible to, you don't have it and then to somehow gain it? No, you know, it's fine. I have this magic touch for, because I grew up, my father was a famous DJ and I grew up in radio and I have a magic ability to hear broadcasting talent. So,

So the first time I heard Shapiro on the air, I actually got in touch with him and I said, you know, you could have a big career. He was on some little, you know, LA station with doing three, a show with three people in it. And I said, they should take those other two people off the air. And, you know, you have it. Knowles can pretend to have it. I was just talking to Glenn Beck today. Glenn Beck is the greatest broadcaster alive, you know, like, and I was, before I went on the air, I was on the phone listening to his commercials and

And I was embarrassed that I ever went near a microphone just listening to Beck work because he just has this thing. It just comes across the mic. And look, you know, in your movie, I can see it. I can see that you have this way of communicating through the camera. It's just something people have or they don't have. You cannot buy that. You cannot buy it. You can hone it, you know, like Kevin Costner.

Doesn't work very hard. He strolls on and he's handsome. There are a lot of people these days having a fair amount of success in creative fields, even though they have no talent for them at all. They suck, yeah. Because we don't reward talent. People reward stuff that fits in with the narrative and all these things. And it's really interesting for me because the other thing now, after all these years, I can tell a good writer when I see one. And you can read one

And you just think, this is garbage. But it might have something that the audience is going to like. And it is a business. And if you sell copies, you sell copies. What tells you in one paragraph? So in one paragraph, you could tell someone's a good writer. Yeah. What are you looking for in a paragraph? It's not something you're looking for. It's a kind of magic that just comes across. The scene leaps to life. Yeah.

And one of the things that people keep saying about this is they start it and they can't finish it. That's because I'm good at what I do. And it's like you can see it immediately that I'm in the story. I see the things that they're describing and they kind of resonate with me. And then you can see somebody who's just phoning it in or working really hard but just doesn't have what it takes.

We were talking off air a little bit about nonfiction versus fiction. You were saying it's the challenges of not only writing fiction, but also getting people to read fiction. Wow, especially in the right, yeah. Yeah, and I'm totally, I'm a culprit here because I generally only read nonfiction. I'll go through weird phases. I went through a weird phase like eight years ago where I just got into Russian literature and I started reading Dostoevsky. Yeah, yeah.

And then I just, I'm not interested anymore. And then I go on to nonfiction. But I also recognize that that's a problem. I know that there's real value in reading fiction and this idea that you should only read nonfiction 'cause you're learning. Like you're learning about a thing that actually happened and there's only value in that. And I think that's kind of the thought process, especially if conservatives only read nonfiction. That's sort of my thought process, but I also recognize that that's not right.

What's the value of fiction? Fiction grows your life. There's just no question about it. If you read really good fiction, and it can be genre fiction, be fantasy, mysteries, all these things. If it's really good, it grows your life. You get to turn off all the things that you're...

that are usually on in life, your moral sense, your anxiety, your worries about things. All of a sudden, you just can observe the world and experience the world. Fiction is an experience. It's not an actual thought process. You read something and you live it. Somebody dies, you cry. Somebody murders somebody. You're afraid. You're horrified. So it's an actual experience. And then you have an experience that you would never have had in your life. And you get to live it without...

having to make decisions about it. And somehow, like I've read a lot of fiction, I've been reading it all my life, and somehow you just know life better afterwards. It's an amazing, amazing thing. And conservatives are very practical people a lot of times, and also very suspicious of

of people telling them, why are you telling me this if it's not true? And it's really interesting. And men read less fiction than women, and I'm kind of a man's writer. And so it really is a challenge. I've written a couple of nonfiction books, and you can get interviews on every conservative venue there is. They know who I am, they want to talk to me, and here I am talking about a subject, they have a book, they get that. But if you have a book that's fiction, a story,

They don't understand, unless it has a news hook, they don't understand what it's about.

There are few exceptions. Glenn Beck is one of them. Glenn Beck reads fiction, so when he talks to you, he actually knows what you're doing. Rush Limbaugh used to read a certain kind of fiction. But most conservative guys are like, you know, we're moralists. And so fiction is beyond morality. It's kind of a meta thing. The morality you get from it is understanding life better. And so that's a moral enterprise.

But fiction can have bad guys who win and good guys who lose and unfair things that happen and drives conservatives crazy. You know, we talk a big game about traditional values, but how many of us are actually walking the walk when it comes to prayer? Let's be honest with ourselves for a moment. Most of us are about as consistent with our prayer life as Congress is with

balancing the budget. We've all been there. Prayer feels so daunting to get started. We end up not doing it at all. Make excuses. I'm too busy. I don't know how. I'll do it tomorrow. The list goes on. Enter Howlow, the number one prayer and meditation app. And they're starting a new series called How to Pray. Here's the deal. Two weeks, daily sessions, no fluff, with guided prayers being led by guests like Mark Wahlberg and Jonathan Rumi.

You'll learn how you pray with scripture. We're getting familiar with prayers that have been around in church history for centuries. They've got everything from prayers to help your kids navigate the chaos of a new school year to prayers for athletes looking to up their mental game. Look, whether you're a prayer novice or a seasoned pro, Hallow's got something for you. Who knows? You might even become a slightly less annoying person to be around. That would be a bonus. So do yourself a favor.

Put down the remote, close Twitter, and download Halo at halo.com/mattwalsh for an exclusive three-month free trial. That's halo.com/mattwalsh for an exclusive three-month free trial of all 10,000 plus prayers and meditations. - What do you say to the argument that the novel has been replaced these days by shows and films and that's sort of our version of the novel? - Yeah, I think-- - Is that the same value?

No, there's nothing as intimate as the novel. There's nothing like, there's nothing at three o'clock in the morning when you're alone, you can actually connect with another mind in a novel and it's just incredibly direct. You know, Michael Caine creates a character, but now you're no longer reading me. I wrote what he said, but now you're getting it interpreted by Michael Caine where this, you're getting something direct. You're getting a vision of life direct. And it's a remark. It's a

When you pay attention and when it's done well, it's a remarkable experience. And people who love novels will tell you that you just get carried away in a way you don't anywhere else. And so the novel is now no longer what it was when I was a kid, which was the major form of entertainment. I mean, that's the movies. Actually, even when I was a kid, it was still the movies.

But it's still different. It's like theater, you know, theater is not the main form of entertainment, but there's nothing like going on and seeing a live play, seeing an actor work live. It's remarkable. And there's nothing like picking up a story that's going directly from one mind to another.

Do you think there are any television shows that have almost made it to the level of a novel in terms of the intimacy of the storytelling and the depth of it? Nothing is intimate, but there are some that have been as complex like The Sopranos, I think, was up there. When I watched The Sopranos, I knew I was watching a work of art. When I watched a couple of seasons of Game of Thrones, I thought that.

TV has just gotten so much better than it used to be. When you go back and look at television, it's amazing how bad it was. And it really has gotten better. But it still hasn't got that utter engagement that you get with a book, for me. Now, I hate to pay you a compliment, but you're a real writer. You're like an actual, you're a good writer. You're an actual writer, yeah. So you're an artist? Yes. There's not a lot of company. You don't have a lot of company on the right, especially among conservative people.

commentators, a lot of conservative commentators write books and 99% of them are just God awful, terrible. Why is that? Like why is it so rare? You know, actually this book is a good answer to this question. This is a book in which it's about American life now. And so it has to have politics in it, right? It has to have people on the right and people on the left and the kind of tensions that we're all living with now. You can't write about a...

Contemporary America without writing about politics, but the main character has no politics. He doesn't care He keeps it is one of the running gags if people keep trying to convince him of their politics and he just says I don't care I'm just looking for this girl, you know, I just want to find this girl to do that Takes a lot of discipline You really have to understand what the novel is about to not tell people what to think but to let the experience live and

And conservatives want to tell you what to think. And sort of leftists, you know, that's why so much left-wing art is crap. You know, it's like they want to preach to you about what's right and what's wrong. And I just want each character to sort of make his case in the story. I mean, this has a main character and you live in his head, but there are a lot of characters and they're very, very different. And every time one of them opens his mouth, you're getting an entirely different consciousness and an entirely different way of looking at the world. And that's not something like political people are very comfortable with.

I mean, it is the way I look at the world. Even when I'm talking about politics, I kind of look at the world like I understand there are people who disagree and see it from a different way and all that stuff. And they should be in prison, of course, but that's not the way I write a novel. When I write a novel, I put it all aside and just let the characters live in the story. It's hard to do. Yeah. I mean, and it's true that the extreme left has the same problem, which is why they make terrible art these days. But also, you don't have to go back that far to find a time when liberals were...

making great art. Yep. At least films and shows and even music. And it does just seem that like, only liberals were doing it. It's like almost all the great artists

Certainly in modern American culture have been liberals and probably if you go back historically all the great ones were liberal by their own standards Well, but liberal is different than leftist I think I think you're right that you have to be liberal in the sense that you allow each person to be himself and

You know, I don't know about you, but I always get these letters. How can I convince so-and-so to believe so-and-so? And I think, you know, just leave them alone, you know, just let it be who they are, which is what art is about in a lot of ways is letting people, you know, I don't think Shakespeare was a villain, but when he wrote Macbeth, he let Macbeth be this complete person who had motives for what he was doing and a reason for being in a way of looking at things. And so it is, you do have to be liberal in that sense.

But there are plenty of political conservatives, they keep their heads down, who have been great artists. I mean, Cormac McCarthy just died. I'm absolutely positive he was a conservative. And, you know, he never came out about it. I don't know if you saw that thing with Kubrick, Stanley Kubrick, where they were objecting to the fact that Donald Trump used full metal jacket in one of his ads. And Kubrick's daughter came out and said he voted for Reagan. He would have loved Trump, you know. And he just kept it quiet. So there are a lot more politically conservative artists.

But you can't be conservative in the sense that you believe there's only one way to live or that anybody who disagrees. I mean, for instance, I'm an ardent anti-feminist, but this book has a feminist in it who's an absolutely lovely person and who the hero, who's a very patriarchal guy, he loves her. He thinks she's a wonderful person, even though he can't stand anything she writes or says. You know, and that's kind of, you have to be liberal in that sense, I think, to create art.

Now we got to wrap it up, but what do you, how do you think we get conservatives more involved in art? Well, I've been banging this drum for 20 years. This is why I started talking about this because when I lived in England for a long time and I came back and found our culture so sickened and twisted that I was shocked. And so I started giving speeches to conservative groups saying, you know, this is about the movies. This is not about winning elections. This is about talking to people about what life is really like and showing them what life is like.

20 years ago when I started doing that, they looked at me like I was nuts. They kind of thought I was cute because I was working in Hollywood and I dressed all in black and they thought like, wow, this is cool, you know, Hollywood guy. But they had no idea what I was talking about. Today they do. Today they get it. They still think that what we need is more propaganda movies that'll sell, you know, conservatism. But

But it's starting to change. I mean, this place, look at this place. I mean, you made two cultural things. I know they're nonfiction, but they're still cultural works. Jeremy understands, obviously, that movies have to be created by people like us. That's the important thing. It's not that we write conservative things. It's that conservatives make stuff. So I think it's changing. And I think I would describe it as a field of ice with little sunflowers.

sprigs, you know, popping up through it. So I'm kind of hopeful about it. And I just think you got to keep explaining to conservatives what art is and the fact that conservative art is not like conservative life. You know, I live a conservative life. I'm a married man, a family man, a religious man. I love my country. That's the life I live. But that's not what art is about. Art is about like, you know, dramatic things that happen because of clashes of personality. And that's a very different thing. And it's like I said, it enlarges your life. The people who wrote

The Constitution and the Declaration read Shakespeare, they read, you know, Euripides, they read the Greeks, they read art, you know, that's why they had that broad way of looking at life that helped them to form a government. And if you read the Federalist Papers, those were written by people who understand what people are like, and people like that have read the arts, you know.

Where can people buy the book? Anywhere? Anywhere. If you get it, you can get it at our shop, the Daily Wire shop, so I should say that out of loyalty. If you get it on Amazon and move it up the list, that helps it a little bit. Good talking to you. It's always great talking to you. Have you met my wife? ♪♪♪