Interview: Manny Torres

By Sebastian Vice & Manny Torres

Manny Torres’ Author Page

1. For those who don’t know you, tell readers a bit about yourself.

I’ve been writing for most of my life, and in the past few years I’ve had a few of my crime novels published.Between photography, filmmaking and painting, writing isthe one thing that sticks. It’s the one thing I have the most control over. What I write overlaps genres, but crime-noir has become my forte’. Most of my books are filled with criminals and low lives, thus they are classified as crime books. I’m originally from Brooklyn, New York but I’ve lived in Puerto Rico, and Florida, and for a short but unfortunate period, Baltimore. I’ve settled in Atlanta for now and perhaps I’ll retire to the Caribbean in a few years. I used to be a radio DJ in Florida on an experimental music show called Step Outside: Strange and Beautiful Music.That’s kind of where I got most of my musical education, aside from my mom, who was a musician. I’ve made a few short documentaries, in particular The Trespasser which is about my friend Derek who was a street busker in East Atlanta Village. After he passed away, I was able to write about him in my first published novel, Dead Dogs. That book became a springboard for all the other books which followed.

2. Your work is quite violent, but the violence is never glorified. Is this intentional? How do you view violence in fiction and film? In your opinion, who gets it right?

I use violence in my writing to exorcise myself of it. Violence is a part of human nature, and the impulse of the universe seems to be violence, so it’s part of existence. In my writing violence is a way for me to come to terms with the world. I’d love to be a tranquil Buddha sitting on a meditating stone, oblivious to things, but the world is far too ugly for me to find peace, so to counter itsrepugnance, I write violent things. Violent scenes should be honest.

I don’t think of violence as poetic or graceful. It’s blunt,sudden, and painful. I don’t like to suffer through a lot of violent scenes in movies or books, but I respect it when it happens. I prepare for its impact. Sometimes it’s gratuitous and silly. Often, it’s subtle and even more disturbing when you don’t see it. I’m a fan of grindhouse films, so I’m not going to knock gratuitous violence.Exposed viscera allows us to get a good glimpse at our inner-self.

Two stories come to mind with how violence is used in literature: the ending of Of Mice and Men, where they take Lenny away and you know what he’s in for. That’s a disturbing ending I haven’t quite gotten over since reading that book at 12. And you don’t see what happens to him which makes it more disturbing. The ending of the original comic book of The Crow ends in a way that inspired my own novel, Perras Malas. The villain crashes his car and is immobilized. The last panel shows The Crow walking towards him with a hammer. Subtle suggestions of a violent demise are necessary. Also, read the bible, the most violent book ever written. Tells you everything you’d want to know about violence, and describes in detail death by way of swords, stones, plagues, etc. Fans of violence or gore in books and movies are coming to terms with their mortality, which is perfectly okay to explore.

3. English is your second language. I’ve worked with ESL students, and noticed they are more sensitive to linguistic nuances. Is this true for you? Is writing in English more difficult than in Spanish?

Writing in any language is always a wrestling match for me. The obstacle I frequently encounter is having to flip the order of words around as they are different when spoken in different languages. I read books and poetry in Spanish and Italian, and the structure alone is poetic, and that flow often gets lost in translation. For example, to tell someone they’re a pain in the ass in Spanish, you must write a euphemism of how a gnat annoys a cow’s asshole. So, the story and poetry of that gets lost in translation. I’ve been fluent in English since the age of 9, so it is easier for me to write in English. But anyone who is trilingual will tell you there are always challenges.

4. Who are your influences and why?

I’ve spoken about my five most influential writers, whom I refer to as the Five B’s: Bradbury, Burroughs, Bukowski, Ballard, and Bowles. But also, Kathy Acker, Yoko Ono,and Patti Smith. John Steinbeck’s morality stories are set in stone inside me. Gabriel Garcia Marquez because he’s comical and helps me better understand language withhow his work is translated from Spanish to English. Juan Rulfo wrote one of the best novels of the 20^th Century, Pedro Paramo; this book ranks up there with The Stranger for greatness. Cormac McCarthy, the greatest living writer in the world, owes a lot to Pedro Paramo (in some ways The Crossing’s entire middle is taken right from that book). Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is like the Bukowski of science fiction because he can make you laugh and cry in the same paragraph. I also look at musicians as poets. I read John Lennon’s In His Own Write in high school and have since used a lot of humor in my writing. Listening toLou Reed and Bob Dylan as a teen taught me how to structure a sentence that painted images in the reader’shead, way before I read William S. Burroughs. Most of Lou Reed’s songs are miniature crime novels, i.e., when he’s singing about scoring dope, hanging out with druggies, death and murder, and the seedier parts of New York City, etc. Bob Dylan’s “novel” Tarantula fucked up my sense of what structure or chronology should be. Soon after, I read Naked Lunch, and nothing was ever the same. Patti Smith’s run-on sentences and imagery have inspired entire paragraphs I’ve written. Nick Cave has been a great influence over the past ten to fifteen years. Not only is he a magnificent, vaudevillian performer and brilliant composer and singer, he’s basically a novelist who moonlights as a lounge singer in Hell. I owe my crime writing career to Elmore Leonard and George V. Higgins;on more than one occasion my work has been compared to theirs. I’m a visual writer, perhaps because I am a painter and photographer. Planting words in the reader’s mind should create the images you envision.

5. Care to drop some writing wisdom?

My aphorism for any creative person is:

Write music by throwing pianos out the window, paint like you’re writing a book, write poems like you’re assembling masonry, write a novel like you’re an abstract painter, sing like you’re a diesel engine or a squeaky ceiling fan.

Don’t forget that art is a hammer (Bertolt Brecht said that).

Write and keep writing. Write everything you think you know. Discover your own lies. Shatter your illusions of what it should be. Read it over and over. Throw it away. Start over. Be aware of the rhythm of what you write, like poetry. It can have form, or it can be jagged. Don’t fear run-on sentences. The rhythm creates the pulse of your words. And that carries the reader where you want to take them. Edit, edit, and edit. That’s what forms the thing. And to be a fluent writer you must read. Read everything you get your hands on. Romance, horror, non-fiction, science fiction, crime, young adult, etc. Read ALL histories of all people and places. Read their cookbooks and eat their food. Visit strange places. Listen to conversations. Learn the rhythm of conversation. Read every novel ever written. Read the lyrics inside a music album. Read the classics. Ignore the classics.