Victor Ladis Schultz is joining us today to talk about his novel, The Book of the Jaguar. Here’s the publisher’s description:
The legions of New Serraña have a sacred custom: when a legionnaire falls in battle, a member of their company must bear the body home to the dead soldier’s family. Álbaro Ceynos is the only surviving member of his company. He’d been garrisoned at Presidio Los Primos, known as the realm’s safest assignment, until a fabled monster emerged from legend, crept down from the mountains, and laid waste to the old fortress.
Now, with one horse, one wagon, one sword, and all his slain brethren, Álbaro the bonebearer roams a decaying empire, bringing home his comrades’ remains. As he meets an array of mourners who move him to question past choices and future commitments, he’ll reveal how the tragedy unfolded, death by death, and how it is that he yet lives.
What’s Victor’s favorite bit?
I’ll get to my debut novel, The Book of the Jaguar, in a minute, but first I need to talk about my good friend John Honkala. Our literary bromance goes way back: we’ve been first readers for each other since we were teenagers, cheered each other’s writing successes at every turn, and spent countless hours talking craft, talking books, talking trash.
Many years ago, John told me how he wanted to write a short story called “Bleed Like You Mean It” but had no story to go with it. We laughed about the great title, although in truth I figured this hypothetical title would be no different from so many others we’d idly bandied about over the years. “That’d be a good short story title” was practically a catch phrase for us in those days
Instead, over the subsequent months and years, John tried to do that hardest thing—write a short story from the title alone. Periodically, between his other projects, I’d hear about different false starts and dead ends with each new attempt at “Bleed Like You Mean It.” Eventually, with a deep sigh, he told me he was letting it go. All writers have abandoned projects, of course, but somehow this one saddened us more than most.
Fast-forward several years. I’m revising the manuscript that will become The Book of the Jaguar, which follows a soldier, the only surviving member of his company, as he chronicles his journey bringing home the bones of his fellows. It’s not a cheerful premise, but I try to lighten the mood in places, like the chapter where our narrator, Álbaro, brings home his buddy Calistro in a box only to find the family hosting an epic rager complete with costumes, music, dancing, water sports, a live pig on a palanquin, and substance use of every variety.
Álbaro enters the house party looking for whoever’s in charge here, then promptly trips on a man’s (live) body only to be caught by a pair of curious partygoers. A confusing conversation ensues, during one point of which I included this sentence:
In the background a woman shouted, “Xxxxxxxxxx!”
It doesn’t matter what Xxxxxxxxxx was; I tried out a number of non sequiturs and none of them were landing. Why did I need a woman shouting a non sequitur? Because we’re at the kind of party where a woman shouts a non sequitur in the background. To omit such a detail would be gross negligence of a writer’s sacred duty to the reader.
The manuscript required a few more rounds of revision. Every time I came to the party scene, and the woman shouting, I’d try to fix the line. Some attempts were better than others. Some were funny. Some were intriguing. All were wrong.
Finally, as my revisions neared completion and I continued brainstorming the right thing for the woman to shout, the clouds parted. An idea came to me, likely in the shower, where my few good ideas usually occur to me. I grabbed my phone and texted John. Well, first I got dressed. Then I texted John:
dude. “bleed like you mean it”—any chance you might still use that? if not i’d like to swipe it to use in my novel. only w yr permission tho. think of it as a tribute
John’s reply (Lol nah I’m done with it, go for it) cleared the way for me and tidily removed the thorn from my side. The line reads thus in the published version of the scene:
In the background a woman shouted, “Bleed like you mean it!”
A few months later John read the manuscript. When he hit this scene I got a text from him with a picture of the line:
Yes! I love that this lives here!
I do too, John. I do too.
LINKS:
BIO:
Victor Ladis Schultz has published short stories in various magazines, including McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Chicago Quarterly Review, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and Chiricú: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures. He lives with his family in the Chicago area, where he serves as a Daily Editor at the Chicago Review of Books. The Book of the Jaguar is his first novel.
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