Review the Author - Troy Parfitt

Review the Author

A little background information to start with '"

A brief bio please:

I'm from Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. I graduated from the University of New Brunswick with a major in US history and a minor in Canadian political science and headed off to East Asia to teach English for a year or two, though that turned into nearly 13. More than 10 of those were spent in Taipei, Taiwan, where I studied Mandarin and taught at a private language institute and a couple of high schools. I also earned an English-teaching certificate from Cambridge University and wrote or co-wrote four English textbooks. I moved back to Canada to teach an English-as-second-language course at a university, but left after only a year. I currently live in my hometown of Saint John, though lately I've been wondering why.

How long have you been writing?

I've only been writing since 2004. I'd always read, and had always thought about writing a book of some sort, but it wasn't until 2004 that I started setting ideas down on paper. I started by writing about trips I'd taken to countries in East Asia. I then penned some stories about unusual events that occurred to me when living in Taipei, Taiwan. I sent them around to my co-workers, all English teachers, who said they enjoyed them and that I ought to try and write a book. So, I started working on one. It took about six months to get my writing up to what it had been as a university student '" as a history major, I had to turn in plenty of papers '" and it took another two years to write the book, which I called Notes from the Other China. Miraculously, it got published. I say miraculously because, looking back, it seems a pretty weak effort.

Why do you write?

As I say, I'd always thought about it. I've had lots of hobbies, but reading is the only one I've never abandoned, and it just occurred to me one day that writing fit the bill, that it was what I ought to be doing, or at least what I ought to be doing in my free time. I'm not the best speaker. Except when teaching, I tend to mumble and search for words, but not when I write. When I write, it just flows. Writing is also a great way to organize my thoughts, and it's cathartic, therapeutic.

Books you have written with brief synopsis of each:

Notes from the Other China deals with my decision to move to East Asia and my travels and experiences there. I report from South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, and Vietnam. Notes was meant to be humourous, but it's a bit fragmented. It's a memoir here, a travel narrative there -- . It lacks focus. Some people thought it was funny whereas others found it offensive. I suppose I was just trying to depict how unusual life can be when you move far away from home. I attempted to avoid traps young male writers tend to fall into when writing about the Orient, such as descriptions of red-light districts, but there's a dearth of maturity nonetheless and it's derivative, disjointed, and too cute. It's a good thing Notes from the Other China didn't succeed because I mightn't have evolved so quickly as a writer. I realized many things from that effort, including that if you want anyone to take you seriously, you have to be serious. I also stopped hiding my intellectual side behind sophomoric jokes, and I worked hard on improving my craft. I'm still not where I'd like to be, stylistically, but feel I could be there eventually if I keep working at it.

Why China Will Never Rule the World challenges what has become an assumption that China is going to dominate in the twenty-first century and beyond. Living in Taiwan gave me a front-row seat to China and a unique perspective. The Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People's Republic of China are arch enemies. China is featured in the news every day in Taiwan and its influence is often felt. Taiwan's is a superior society to China's. It's much more progressive and much richer '" at least in terms of GDP per capita, where it matters '" and it has the freest press in Asia. Taiwan is democratic and infinitely more stable and normal than China is. China wants Taiwan to return to the fold, slight of hand because the island-nation was never really part of China to begin with. Chinese culture in Taiwan thrives, yet 89 percent of citizens say they want nothing to do with China, that China has nothing to offer them. If China has nothing to offer a country that's only 160 kilometres away and shares a language and culture, what does it have to offer non-Chinese, non-Asian, and non-Confucian nation-states? Advocates of China's great rise are fond of saying it isn't just about economics, that just as China exports goods, it will soon be exporting its culture, mindset, education, business practices, value system, and so on. But I knew that was impossible. The West has been interacting with China for five centuries, yet there's virtually nothing it has borrowed in that time and there's a reason for that. I also knew that most Westerners know very little about China, and what they think they know is often wrong, so I set out on a kind of investigative journey to depict what China is and to put its recent economic rise into context. I crafted the book as a travel narrative as I figured that was the best way to get beyond the theoretical, to examine China from the ground up. I could then jump off into cultural commentary and historical asides as I saw fit. I wanted to strip away the myths and correct the misconceptions. The book is a thesis-driven travel narrative, the thesis being that China's quote-unquote ruling the world, or even its integrating in a sincere and responsible manner with the world, is highly unlikely, that being the big man on campus involves much more than liquidity or cash flow.

What do you find to be the most challenging part of writing?

Probably loneliness. You need hours of seclusion to write, yet you also need someone to tell if you if you're on the right track. Some days, you're sure you're onto something, whereas others you think you're way out in left field. Spending so much time alone can make you antisocial, aloof, and a bit weird. As a writer, you need to be on the outside looking in, but you've also got to incorporate normal activities into your life. Perhaps it's all the isolation that drives many writers to drink or makes them misanthropic. It's important to network with other writers, readers, and people in general. You need to get away from the computer.

What do you find to be the most rewarding part of writing?

Writing something that meets my standards and seeing that I'm improving. I'm not terribly proud of my first book, but my second one exceeded the bar I set for myself. That's another thing I learned from my first attempt: don't write to satisfy someone else, just write for yourself. Write the book that you think is missing from the bookstore shelf while choosing a subject that isn't so niche that no one will notice.

Do you edit as you write?

Sure. You have to constantly revise and you need to be ruthless in cutting excess. When your editor says, '˜This part is rubbish. Trash it,' don't argue. Just do it. Editing and revision are tough and suck a lot of fun out of writing. It's hard to get things just the way you want them. Style guides help. William Strunk's The Elements of Style is indispensible.

How do you develop your characters?

As a travel writer, my characters are all real. I usually bring them to life, so to speak, by noting some characteristic they exhibit. I then change their names to hide their identity. Characters are a cinch in travel literature. As Paul Theroux once wrote: they appear before your very eyes.

Do you ever get writer's block?

No, and that's another great thing about the travel literature genre. When you travel, there's almost always something happening, something to write about. And when there isn't, you can pen some background information on the place you're visiting or dust off an interesting bit of history. Usually, it's a matter of sifting through the bits, of picking out the pieces that are most arresting. And if nothing happens, you just keep moving, snooping, talking to people, and researching until it does.

Which book was the most difficult to write? Why?

Why China Will Never Rule the World was the most difficult. It's the result of years of research and effort. I couldn't have written it from my apartment in Taipei. I had to go to China and travel around. I had to take Mandarin classes, I had to read piles of books, and I had to think a great deal about the book's structure, or what cultural and historical themes to insert and where in order to make for consistency and linearity '" all while holding down a full-time job. Besides the writing process, my life was pretty much chaos at the time. Both my parents died, I had some other traumatic experiences, I moved back to Canada '" a huge readjustment after nearly 13 years in Asia '" and so on. My first book wasn't easy either. I spent nearly one month travelling through Vietnam, for example, which wasn't always fun. In fact, it was extremely dangerous. Slick TV shows can make travelling appear relaxing and breezy, but real travel is hard work. Spend ten hours on a rickety Vietnamese bus barreling through mountain passes with invisible guardrails, avoid thirty maniacal touts, pop another Imodium tablet, hope that rash on your leg goes away, and check into the local roach hotel at 11:00 p.m. to find your air conditioner does a sterling imitation of a British Spitfire and see how eager you are to take notes describing things you saw that day, or study up on a site you're going to visit tomorrow. Bill Bryson seems to have given up on travel writing. At the advanced age of 39, I think I can see why.

What do you do for fun?

Fun? What's that? I'm a bit of a workaholic these days, but I try to get out and do regular things. I go for walks, go to the gym, kick the soccer ball around. I like to watch hockey and soccer or the occasional movie. I still enjoy music and the odd social event. But mainly, I work, read, and watch the news. Ten years ago, I was up for anything. Nowadays, I'm quite boring.

Who are your favorite authors? Why?

Writers I like make up a long list, but the two I like best are Paul Theroux and Mordecai Richler. Theroux's the godfather of travel writing, certainly. I'm not familiar with his novels '" I haven't even read Mosquito Coast '" but I've read about eight of his travelogues. People say he's abrasive, but they're missing the point. He's only abrasive when warranted. He's intellectually gifted and a fine narrator. He's also a polymath and doesn't seem to be put off by anything. It takes a lot of stamina and guts to do what he does, and he seems tireless. He wrote a fantastic travel account called Ghost Train to the Eastern Star in his mid-sixties. The Great Railway Bazaar, The Happy Isles of Oceania, Kingdom by the Sea, and The Pillars of Hercules are all classics, and even the ones that aren't classics are really good. Richler is Canadian, so perhaps I'm a bit biased, but he's another excellent writer. You always hear about Margaret Atwood and Robertson Davies when you hear about Canadian literature, and they're great, I concur, but Richler had much more to say. Barney'sVersion is a gem, and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and The Incomparable Atuk, though lacking the intellectual energy and scope of later efforts like Solomon Gursky Was Here, are still great reads '" timeless. Mordecai Richler has to be the world's most underappreciated writer, though it was good to see Barney's Version made into a movie in 2011. Theroux and Richler actually have a lot in common. They're both the sons of immigrants, both had strained relationships with their mothers, both had sons who became television personalities, they're both curmudgeons, both social critics, both write across different genres, and they're both autodidacts with a staggering array of knowledge to bring to the creative process. They're also brutally honest and each has a wicked sense of humour, though Richler wins out in that regard. I should add that whereas Theroux is still writes, Richler died in 2001.

What's the one thing you've learned about yourself since you've been writing?

That's a tough question. Perhaps that I tend to thrive on adversity. When a few people became personally upset with me for some of the comments and observations I made in my first book, it spurred me on to write something better, and to strengthen such comments with sources and examples '" to not back down from scorn from the peanut gallery. When you write in a genre that requires you to supply an honest opinion, you have to have a thick skin.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to be a writer?

I'm not sure if I'm in any real position to sagely dispense with advice, but I have learned a couple of things. First of all: practise, practise, practise, and get feedback from some type of expert, someone not afraid to tell you you're not quite there yet. You also have to write something people will pay money for and you have to find a way to reach your audience. Moreover, as a writer, you've got to wear many hats.

Do you have any new books coming out soon?

I've written a manuscript about my return to Canada. After I came back to my estranged homeland, my dad died and I got depressed. My work situation wasn't exactly contributing to a positive frame of mind, so I left and drove across the country with a stack of notebooks. Originally, I just thought I'd get away '" travel around Atlantic Canada, where I'm from, and clear my head while getting in touch with my roots. But then I bought a Canada guidebook, a history of Canada, writing supplies, and a tent. I read the other Canada travel narratives out there and found them wanting. I realized nobody had ever travelled across the country in its entirety and written about it, so that's what I did. It took four months and gave me the framework for a decent book, if I ever have time to complete it. The working title is A Sort of Homecoming '" In Search of Canada. It could be my last book. I figure if I don't get any serious recognition by the third attempt, I'll have to put writing on the back burner for a while. If I do write a fourth, it'll be a novel or something I can do in the library. No more traipsing around gigantic countries.

Have you had any issues with publishers you would like to share?

I had a horrible experience with my first publisher in New York, Algora, as did other writers published by them. They were dishonest and hostile, but I've discovered they're like that to everybody. Call them, and they'll hang up on you. Book buyers who call them get hung up on, too, as one emailed to tell me. How they stay in business, I have no idea, but I do know I haven't gotten a cheque from them in two years. From their website you'd think they were a beacon of social justice, champions of the downtrodden, and all of that jazz, but they're really just bitter and sinister. I was also ripped off by a publicist in Texas called Phenix & Phenix. They negotiated a contract with me just before sacking their staff and filing for bankruptcy. Like any industry, the book industry seems to be made up of all types, from nobles to thieves. Oh, and toll collectors. Lots of them. The book world can seem a tough nut to crack.