A Single Shot

people you’ve been marooned on an island with and then they’re all rescued and go their separate ways into new lives. So each book, you’re with a new group of people, and even if you’re on the same island (i.e., writing about the same locale, which I often do), it’s through these new people’s eyes and perspectives. Or, looked at in a different way, each book is an exploration of the same world through a different writer’s viewpoint. The Cooter Farm had a unique impact on me not only because it was my first published book (after a long struggle) but because in the weeks leading up to its publication my wife gave birth to our first and only child and shortly after that my father died after a long, excruciating illness. So, I was dealing with all these conflicting emotions. And when it came out it seemed like half the people in the town I grew up in saw themselves (in a good or bad light) in it. In retrospect, I could see why some of them thought so, though no character in it (or in any of my novels) is based on any one particular person.

Have any of your working experiences had an influence in the events depicted in A Single Shot?

Well, I grew up working on dairy and horse farms and did so for many years, so I have a very close understanding of that way of life. And for a few years I practiced law in the rural upstate New York town I grew up in, which is very much the town I modeled the town in a A Single Shot after. A small- town lawyer specializing in criminal and family law can’t but help, to a certain extent, to have their finger on the pulse of the community or be attuned to the intimate details of his or her clients’ lives. And being a criminal defense lawyer—there, and in a larger city for a time—I learned a lot about criminals. And I learned the difference between people who choose, as a way of life, to be criminals (and how they think or look at the world) and people (such as, in my view, John Moon) who are basically good people who for a myriad of reasons end up committing criminal acts.

In giving interviews or answering questions in front of readers, are you surprised by the frequency of any of the topics that come up—both about your work in general and A Single Shot in particular?

Oftentimes a reader will wonder if I intended a specific passage or event in one of my novels to have a particular symbolic meaning they’ve attributed to it. Usually, once it’s pointed out to me, I see exactly why they would think so. But those sorts of thoughts never cross my mind when I’m writing; all I’m thinking about is creating the best story I can. In relation to A Single Shot, I’m probably asked most often about the ending, and why I chose the one I did. And my answer always is, I didn’t choose it, the writing of it did—and sometimes I wish it had come out a different way for John.

What would you have done in Moon’s shoes? Would you have followed the same path as Moon throughout the course of A Single Shot’s events?

That’s the question hopefully every reader of the book asks—or will ask—of him-or herself. What would he or she have done had it been them? And I don’t think that any of us can do more than speculate on the answer. Based on what I know about myself and how I think I view the world, I can guess—or hope—I would have reacted one way or another. But without being in that actual moment—in the immediate wake of having fired that single shot (and in John’s particular circumstances)—I can’t know for sure what I would have done. I’ve long suspected—and maybe it comes across in A Single Shot—that only in the most dire circumstances—when one’s back is to the wall, so to speak—does one truly get to know oneself.

What books, music, and art inspire you? What are you reading and listening to right now?

Art that inspires me most—through whatever medium—creates for me characters or scenes so indelible that I’m drawn to know more about them the way I’m drawn to know more about a new person—or stranger—I meet who in some way (often indefinable to me) sparks my interest. In the visual arts I find this most in certain photographs (often black and white) of people in their everyday surroundings or in the best Impressionist paintings that magically ignite my imagination to see a world and story well beyond what is on the canvas. Great blues music (from the pioneers of it up through today’s masters) inspires me in the same way. I spend far more time and money than I care to admit searching for, collecting, and making blues playlists to exercise or mellow out to. The newest one combines cuts from, among others, R. L. Burnside, Odetta, James Blood Ulmer, Otis Taylor, John Lee Hooker, Son House, Big Mama Thornton. And on my nightstand right now are two books I’m a ways into: James M. Cain’s Mildred Pierce (it doesn’t, in my opinion, measure up to Postman, but few novels do) and The Snow Leopard (a great piece of nature writing by Peter Matthiessen about a trip he took into the Himalayas in the 1970s in search of the elusive snow leopard, but that is about so much more than that).

Questions and topics for discussion

John Moon does much of what he does in A Single Shot because of a sense of obligation—either to the girl he has killed, or to his wife and young son. Do you find Moon to be a moral man? If so, why? If no, why not?

Is there anything about Moon’s decisions or behavior that, if done differently, might change the way you feel about him?

Do you think it’s okay for Moon to poach game when destitute and desperately in need of food to live on?

Moon is presented with a long series of difficult decisions throughout A Single Shot—whether to follow the deer he has been illegally hunting into the woods, whether to fire into the brush, what to do with the body of the girl he has killed, what to do with the money that could change his life, and how to make things right once they begin to go horribly wrong. Reading A Single Shot, were there any particular decisions that struck you as foolish or poorly thought out? If so, do you understand Moon’s reasons for acting the way he did regardless?

If you were in Moon’s shoes, do you think you would have acted differently? If so, where and when in the story? If not, how does this affect your reading of the novel?

6. Given the same skill set as Moon, would you have taken the shot against Waylon that saved Abbie from death, torture, or disfigurement? If so, why? If no, why not?

Is Moon a better man for having pulled the trigger and killed Waylon? Is this death more excusable than the one that opens the novel? Why or why not?

Does Moon’s success at saving Abbie justify the risk he took in firing his weapon?

Did the ending of A Single Shot surprise you? If so, why? If not, why not?

Is Moon right to turn down Nobie’s offer to work for him? Clearly the decision has to do with pride, as the land he would be working used to belong to the Moon household. Does this decision to turn away money honorably earned affect your opinion of how Moon handles the money he has unlawfully obtained? What would you do?

When A Single Shot begins, Moon and his wife, Moira, have already separated, though we experience snippets of their time together in Moon’s many vivid flashbacks. It’s clear that Moon cares deeply for Moira, even though she wishes to end their marriage. Do you accept Moon’s reasoning for why she wants to leave him? Is she right to seek a divorce? Who do you sympathize with more, Moon or Moira?

When Moon holds his little boy seemingly for the first time after he has broken into Moira’s apartment, he discovers he is less capable of comforting the child than the babysitter who has made a wreck of the place and invited a man over as Moon’s child sleeps in the next room. Do you think this is evidence enough to show whether Moon would have made a good father to his son? Do you think Moon, like his father before him, would have been viewed as a disappointment to the generation he raises?

Daggard Pitt, Moon’s lawyer, appears at first to be on Moon’s side. Later, Moon finds out he has been representing the interests of the thieves who have come after Moon at the same time. Do you find this to be moral behavior? How much does Pitt’s job as defender of the accused affect how you view the nature of his decisions?

What do you make of the many hallucinations Moon experiences of the woman he has killed? Particularly, do