Interview with Brad Smith, author of The Goliath Run

All Lit Up: Congratulations on the recent publication of your book The Goliath Run! Can you tell us a little about the novel? Were there any books that influenced your writing when you were working on it?Brad Smith: The book deals with a school shooting which then becomes fodder for an immoral TV talking head who intends to run for office. A woman, grieving over the loss of her goddaughter, intends to stop him. Were there books that influenced me? Not really. For this book I depended more on current events, talk radio (both right and left wing), daily newspapers and the nightly news. I don’t know of any other fiction that has addressed this problems in this manner.ALU: You tackle a difficult subject in your novel – namely a mass schoolyard shooting and its devastating aftermath – but manage to refrain from making it exploitive. How did you remain thoughtful when writing about an unspeakable tragedy that’s inspired by an actual event? BS: It was tough to do…tougher than I anticipated. I wanted to write about a school shooting without sensationalizing it. So I attempted to keep the actual details of the shooting to a bare minimum…and focus on the aftermath instead.ALU: Can you tell us what it was like to write a character like Jo who takes extreme measures against a right-wing extremist like Sam? Was there anything cathartic about writing her?BS: Yes, there absolutely was. I imagined Jo as somebody who grief was so overwhelming that she eventually HAD to do something. And Sam Jackson was the obvious target. If not for his nightly ravings – maybe Jo would have grieved silently forever. But not in this case.ALU: Do you have another story in the works? What is the most challenging thing about writing a novel?BS: I’m working on a book that takes place in the U.S. south during the Depression. It’s about the connection between moonshiner runners and the early stock car racers. The most challenging thing – I discovered many years ago – is to develop the self-discipline to do it. It’s not like a “regular” job, where you are required to show up and punch a clock every day. With writing, you have to punch your own clock!ALU: What are you reading now?BS: Just finished two books I’ve been asked to blurb and will now return to David W. Blight’s excellent biography of Frederick Douglass.

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Brad Smith, writer born and raised in the hamlet of Canfield, in southern Ontario, a couple of hours from Toronto. After high school, he worked for the signal department of the Canadian National Railway for three years, and then got a chance to work on a rail project in South Africa. Upon returning from Africa, Smith worked all over the place – Alberta, British Columbia, Texas – at a variety of jobs. Farmer, signalman, insulator, truck driver, bartender, schoolteacher, maintenance mechanic, roofer, and so on. He became a carpenter and built custom homes in Canada. He still works as a carpenter when not writing. He now lives in an eighty-year-old farmhouse near the north shore of Lake Erie. His books have been published by Penguin Canada, Doubleday Canada, Simon & Schuster Canada and his forthcoming novel will be published by At Bay Press.

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Thank you to At Bay Press and to Brad Smith for joining us on the All Lit Up blog.Grab your copy of The Goliath Run >>