{"id":12917,"date":"2023-09-27T10:52:45","date_gmt":"2023-09-27T14:52:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/?page_id=12917"},"modified":"2023-09-27T10:52:48","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T14:52:48","slug":"christopher-hebert","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/christopher-hebert\/","title":{"rendered":"Christopher Hebert"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

At the start of every semester, my students and I introduce ourselves to one another, and when they hear I\u2019m from New York, they instantly think they know what that means. I live in Tennessee now, and the majority of my students are from the South and Southeast. Around here New York evokes images of Wall Street traders and supermodels and expensive restaurants and everything fancy. But no, I have to tell them, I\u2019m not from that<\/em> New York. I\u2019m from the other one, the part where people drive pickup trucks and listen to country music and the only celebrities are the local news anchors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As different from one another as my novels have been, they all in one way or another come back to my experience growing up in a place that I only ever knew as being in the process of disappearing. This was Syracuse, NY, a spot on the same latitudinal line, more or less, as Buffalo and Cleveland and Detroit. Syracuse\u2019s story is the familiar Rust-Belt narrative. By the time I was a teenager, it had gone from being a major manufacturing hub to one of America\u2019s most rapidly shrinking cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My father had grown up in Syracuse, too, and when I was a kid he enjoyed playing tour guide to the city\u2019s former prosperity, pointing out landmarks of the not-yet-erased past: the empty plant where General Electric once built its TVs; the shuttered complex where Carrier\u2014the world\u2019s largest air-conditioning manufacturer\u2014used to have its headquarters. So too Stickley Furniture, Allied Chemical, General Motors, Chrysler, Smith-Corona, and on and on, all of them reduced to weedy lots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my main inheritances from this upbringing\u2014and consequently one of my preoccupations as a novelist\u2014is an interest in characters who are living on the margins and wind up in over the heads. In The Boiling Season<\/em>, my first novel, which is set on a small, turbulent Caribbean island, that character is Alexandre, a poor shopkeeper\u2019s son who dreams of escaping the poverty and violence that surround him. In my second novel, Angels of Detroit<\/em>, it\u2019s a bunch of misfits trying to figure out how to go on living in a place the world has given up on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delivery<\/em> is my most autobiographical novel. Strangely, though, my path for writing it began not with my own life but with Homer\u2019s Odyssey<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few years ago I was reading Emily Wilson\u2019s new (at the time) translation. I\u2019d read the Odyssey<\/em> at least a couple times before. I thought I knew it pretty well. But Wilson\u2019s translation was a kind of revelation. Rather than the elevated, heroic prose that has been the default of previous translations, Wilson concentrates on capturing the syntax and diction of the source material. The result is a story that feels more contemporary, more plainspoken. As a result, Odysseus occupies the page less as some fantastical legend than like someone sitting next to you on a plane. It\u2019s startling, the difference that makes. Suddenly I found myself rethinking a lot of the stuff I\u2019d always taken for granted. For instance, the idea of Odysseus\u2014as I\u2019d always heard him described\u2014as the innocent victim of vengeful gods and mythical creatures. A guy at the mercy of hostile winds. Reading Emily Wilson, I just didn\u2019t see it any more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider the sequence of events after the fall of Troy. Regarded with even a little bit of skepticism, they reveal something interesting: all Odysseus\u2019s misfortunes are set in motion by his own poor choices. His or his crewmates\u2019. It\u2019s a team effort. Unprovoked, they pillage, they steal, they avenge old grievances. They\u2019re not victims. Virtually everything that happens during their plagued return home is nobody\u2019s fault but theirs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These days we call this kind of thing self-sabotage. And there\u2019s so much of it in the book that after a while it becomes hard not to wonder, is it maybe possible that Odysseus doesn\u2019t actually want to get home after all? Could it be he\u2019s really just stalling?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s a guy about whom songs are sung. A guy who\u2019s joined the pantheon of heroes. A guy the gods know by name. And now he\u2019s just supposed to set all that aside and go back home and be a farmer? No wonder he\u2019s dragging his heels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I thought: I know what that\u2019s like. Who hasn\u2019t felt that way? Rudderless. Confused. Terrified. Doing stupid stuff so as to avoid having to face the hard stuff you don\u2019t know how to deal with. For me that was called being a teenager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s how I started writing Delivery<\/em>. Whether or not Emily Wilson or any other respectable classicist would sanction my particular reading of Odysseus, who knows. Artistic liberties are one of the privileges of writing fiction. So I decided to diagnose Odysseus with toxic masculinity and turn him into a star high school baseball player.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I say this is an autobiographical novel, but alas I was at best a mediocre high school baseball player. I was never in any danger of getting drafted by anyone. But baseball was my life back then, and when I got injured (the same injury I gave my character), that was that. Suddenly that part of my life was over, and I was left with a pile of complicated feelings I didn\u2019t know how to deal with. So I availed myself of that avoidance strategy certain men have been indulging in apparently since the time of Homer: I procrastinated. My diversion was an after-school job delivering pizzas. It was the early 90s. We had CB radios instead of cell phones. Your employer couldn\u2019t track your every move. My car was a piece of junk, and I drove and I drove and I tried to lose myself. But as they say, wherever you go, there you are. Still, every night was an odyssey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christopher Hebert is the author of the novels The Boiling Season<\/em> (HarperCollins), Angels of Detroit<\/em> (Bloomsbury), and Delivery<\/em> (forthcoming, Regal). He\u2019s co-editor of Stories of Nation: Fictions, Politics, and the American Experience<\/em> (UT Press). Among his other peregrinations have been stints in scholarly and trade publishing, teaching English in Mexico, and fork-lift skiing on 2x4s at a discount lumberyard. New England born, Rust-Belt bred, transplanted to Appalachia, he\u2019s a professor of English in the creative writing program at the University of Tennessee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the start of every semester, my students and I introduce ourselves to one another, and when they hear I\u2019m from New York, they instantly think they know what that means. I live in Tennessee now, and the majority of my students are from the South and Southeast. Around here New York evokes images of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":{"0":"post-12917","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","5":"entry"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P9DpGh-3ml","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":14769,"url":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/nomi-eve\/","url_meta":{"origin":12917,"position":0},"title":"Nomi Eve","author":"Jaynie","date":"April 30, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"photo credit: James Kerns Photography Nomi Eve is the author of\u00a0Henna House\u00a0(Scribner) and\u00a0The Family Orchard\u00a0(Knopf) and has two forthcoming novels :\u00a0Girl of the Cave\u00a0(Running Wild Press) and\u00a0The Flood Lines\u00a0(Regal House Publishing). Along the way, she\u2019s been a Book of the Month Cub pick, a National Jewish Book Council featured author\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Nomi Eve","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Nomi-Green-Painting-Laughingbw-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Nomi-Green-Painting-Laughingbw-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Nomi-Green-Painting-Laughingbw-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Nomi-Green-Painting-Laughingbw-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Nomi-Green-Painting-Laughingbw-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Nomi-Green-Painting-Laughingbw-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9432,"url":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/judith-lindbergh\/","url_meta":{"origin":12917,"position":1},"title":"Judith Lindbergh","author":"Jaynie","date":"May 5, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Though writing was an early passion, I always joked that, \u201cI will write when I\u2019m old!\u201d because I fell in love, first and forever, with dance.\u00a0After sweating, starving, moving to New York City and dancing professionally for seven years, I turned to theater where I spent a few more years\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Judith-Lindbergh-SQ-1-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Judith-Lindbergh-SQ-1-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Judith-Lindbergh-SQ-1-1.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":13008,"url":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/megan-schikora\/","url_meta":{"origin":12917,"position":2},"title":"Megan A. Schikora","author":"Jaynie","date":"January 3, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Megan A. Schikora grew up filling notebooks and devouring novels.\u00a0\u00a0She earned a B.A. in English from the University of Michigan and a M.A. in English with a creative writing concentration from Wayne State University.\u00a0\u00a0After working for several years in the mental health field, she became a writing instructor, all the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Megan A. Schikora","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Schikora-Author-Photobw-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Schikora-Author-Photobw-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Schikora-Author-Photobw-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Schikora-Author-Photobw-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Schikora-Author-Photobw-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Schikora-Author-Photobw-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12728,"url":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/miriam-gershow\/","url_meta":{"origin":12917,"position":3},"title":"Miriam Gershow","author":"Jaynie","date":"May 8, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"When Miriam Gershow was in second grade, she wrote her first fan letter - to Judy Blume (her second would be to Brooke Shields) - which set her on the lifelong path of voracious reader, and soon after, voracious writer. She scribbled stories as a child and kept writing through\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/officialbw-scaled.jpg?fit=800%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/officialbw-scaled.jpg?fit=800%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/officialbw-scaled.jpg?fit=800%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/officialbw-scaled.jpg?fit=800%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":14710,"url":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/christine-hemp\/","url_meta":{"origin":12917,"position":4},"title":"Christine Hemp","author":"Jaynie","date":"April 13, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Winner of the 2026 Terry J. Cox Poetry Award Christine Hemp\u2019s career has been braided from two strands: 1) writing \u2013 poetry, essays, a memoir \u2013 and 2) helping countless students, of all ages, experience the joy of that endeavor. Her work has aired on National Public Radio's \u201cMorning Edition\u201d\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Bio-Photo-2MB.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Bio-Photo-2MB.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Bio-Photo-2MB.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Bio-Photo-2MB.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Bio-Photo-2MB.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Bio-Photo-2MB.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":14491,"url":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/kevin-clouther\/","url_meta":{"origin":12917,"position":5},"title":"Kevin Clouther","author":"Jaynie","date":"December 1, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"First, I wanted to make things. I drew maps of made-up islands. I drew cartoons. I started a newspaper, breaking stories on neighborhood dogs. I remember working hard to turn a cardboard box into a vending machine. To deliver what? I don\u2019t recall. I wanted to discover something. I lived\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Kevin Clouther","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Clouther-Headshotbw-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Clouther-Headshotbw-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Clouther-Headshotbw-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Clouther-Headshotbw-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Clouther-Headshotbw-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Clouther-Headshotbw-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12917"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12919,"href":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12917\/revisions\/12919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}