Courtesy of James Warner

A crowd packed into Café Royale this past weekend for the launch of San Francisco author James Warner’s debut novel “All Her Father’s Guns.” 

Warner has long been a fixture on the local literary scene, helping produce Litquake and co-founder of the InsideStoryTime Reading Series a monthly showcase for Bay Area literati.

I’ve known Warner through local writing circles for years, and I witnessed this novel develop from its beginnings – a rare treat for a fellow author.

“All Her Father’s Guns” is a hilarious satire of the right wing, but the book is also set in Berkeley, so there are plenty of lefty laughs too. I asked Warner about that, plus about being a transplanted Brit, and our mutual, surprising thrill with shooting stuff (note: no animals were harmed while conducting this interview).

The Bay Citizen: I first heard you read from this book in its infancy when you brought it as a work-in-progress to the San Francisco Writers Workshop for critique. Does that make me some sort of stepparent? Maybe a wet nurse?

James Warner: Success has many fathers, while failure is an orphan: therefore I encourage everyone to take credit for my novel.

TBC: Stealing credit for others’ success in publishing? I’ve never heard of such a thing.  (snicker) During the workshop I remember the other writers laughing out loud as you presented excerpts. Do you consider yourself to be a funny guy?

Warner: I think humor is my primary defense mechanism. Whereas Cal in “All Her Father's Guns” thinks his primary defense mechanism is a Glock 17.

TBC: Yes, the Glock. Guns are a big part of this novel. You're British by birth -- where they don't have many guns. Have you ever fired one? I have, and I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that it was exhilarating.

Warner: As part of my research, I went to a place in the Nevada desert where they give courses in firing submachine guns. I was surprised to discover that shooting alongside other people can be a real bonding experience. There's something involved there that's very emotionally intimate. That helped me understand why, in rural areas anyway, guns are emblematic of family and community. It's harder to feel that way if you live in a city, of course, and rural British people don't have as much political clout as rural Americans -- the closest thing Britain has to the NRA is maybe Prince Philip.

TBC: You satirize U.S. Republicans in the book, and you have some fun with the Berkeley progressives too. Is American politics really all that hilarious?

Warner: British politics is rather tame by comparison -- British politicians tend to have been to the same schools and share the same basic prejudices. U.S. politics is more phantasmagorical.

In “All Her Father's Guns,” Cal and his ex-wife Tabytha get into a no-holds-barred struggle over alimony that leads him to try and sabotage her Congressional campaign. Although Cal and Tabytha are both right wing, they never actually agree about anything. He's more Libertarian and she's a "big government" conservative, but for personal reasons, it's him who's pro-life and her who's pro-choice. She wants the U.S. to invade Iraq (the story's set in 2002) and he doesn't. Tabytha romanticizes the Confederacy and Cal idolizes John Brown; Tabytha reveres George W. Bush, whereas Cal hates Bush for expanding the government and the deficit, and so on. All along, what they're ultimately fighting about is what went wrong with their marriage.

A friend who read an early draft told me some of Tabytha's behavior originally seemed a bit over-the-top -- but that recent developments in the GOP have left my portrayal of Tabytha seeming naturalistic, even understated. Such is the satirist's plight.

TBC: This is your first published novel, but your work has appeared in an impressive number of literary journals. What has amazed me is your ability to approach so many different characters and situations so thoroughly and convincingly. You’ve tricked readers into believing that you’re everything from an Eastern European composer to an Amazonian jungle explorer. Where does this chameleon ability come from?

Warner: As I see it, to bring fictional characters to life, the writer has to share with them certain driving traits. In Cal's case, I can find in myself his defensiveness, his indignation, his hunger for simpler solutions, his paranoia on behalf of his daughter. Details of what it's like to be from another place or time, or of another class, can be gleaned from research -- but it's by identifying with the characters at a deeper level that one convinces the reader.

TBC: I don’t want to give away anything and ruin the book for readers, but “All Her Father’s Guns” has a remarkable twist that I did not see coming. As writers who constantly mull story arcs and plots, we think we know where every book is headed. And 99% of the time we’re right. But you got me. Bastard.

Warner: I like twisty plots. The ending of “All Her Father’s Guns” owes something to “A Handful of Dust” by Evelyn Waugh, who was my favorite novelist when I was a teenager. As Cal might put it, life throws a lot of curveballs.

TBC: You’ve been in San Francisco how many years?

Warner: Nearly nineteen years in the Bay Area now, about ten of them in San Francisco. Before you know it, I'll be an old-timer.

TBC: When you’re feeling nostalgic for home, where do you go in the Bay Area to get your fix of the UK?

Warner: I live near You Say Tomato, where I can re-experience the flavors of my childhood by buying a Yorkie bar or Crunchie. Selling imported British groceries in San Francisco is such a counter-intuitive business model, I would assume the place was a front for the British mafia, except that I don't think there is a British mafia. Maybe because of the lack of guns.

TBC: People who hear you speak often comment that you have the most unusual accent. I hear English, but there’s something else in there…

Warner: You're probably alluding to what researchers in the field of articulatory phonetics call "mumbling." I sound American to English people.

TBC: How has living in the Bay Area changed you?

Warner: I rarely drive on the left any more. Beyond that, I think one of the great local virtues is efficiency in the pursuit of craziness. Here, if you're committed to an activity -- be it naked bicycle rodeos or chocolate origami -- nobody will try to discourage you or say it's a dumb idea. This tolerance for even the most delusional forms of creative expression explains why we have such a thriving literary scene.