If you haven’t already, read the story now… and then read our short interview about the story!
“Believer” by Nick Rees Gardner
A thing about reading submissions is that sometimes there are stories that could have been made for me in a lab. Aaron read this one first and sent it my way for thoughts, and it took all of two lines to fall in love with Nick’s writing here. There are so many elements I adore: the chaos of healthcare shifts, messy family dynamics, and some truly lovely…
Jessica Dawn: We often start off the Q&As by asking about where the story came from, and I do want to hear about that but I’m specifically curious about the choice to set this story in a hospital during the pandemic. Can you talk a bit about why that felt like the right time and place for this story?
Nick Rees Gardner: Mags, the protagonist of this story, first came to me when I was working on my collection, Delinquents, which ends with the story “Drug Magic.” I kept overwriting that story. I loved the characters , Mags and her recovering brother, Abe, and I knew I wasn’t done with them. But “Believer” really started after I spent the last couple years thinking about belief. I’m a former evangelical Christian and have some background in cults and I really wanted to get to the bottom of what makes people believe things so strongly. Like there are beliefs we act on and ones we don’t. I have superstitions that I developed as a child, and, for example, even though I know I’m not gonna break my mother’s back if I step on a crack, I still avoid stepping on cracks. I also wanted to explore impossible events like the snake-handler fiasco in the story, because crazy stuff like this happens and it’s hard to decide if it comes from some higher power, if it’s a sign, or if it’s nothing at all.
But the pandemic really came into play because Mags works in a hospital. But then my own experiences came into play. At the beginning of 2022, I lived in a hotel in Columbus, Ohio with a friend undergoing treatment for a rare form of leukemia. He had no way to fight off diseases, so we couldn’t see any visitors. I had to drive him to the hospital for check-ins and treatments just about every day, so, really, my only experience of a hospital was during a pandemic. A couple times, I had to take him into the ER which was still so packed that they had people on folding chairs by the intake counter. Still, I didn’t want to make it a story about the pandemic. The pandemic is just in the background. It’s a catalyst for change, but also maybe not, because I don’t think it’s just the pandemic that makes Mags change. It’s more of a marker in her timeline that helps her make sense of the passage of time. I think it helps Mags with this battle between objectivity in her job and the subjective battle she narrates as she determines what beliefs are harmful and which ones are beneficial. Long story short, the pandemic did not feel as impactful in this story, but it is impactful to those who make it impactful.
This is really lovely context and I appreciate you sharing your experiences, and the link for another Mags story. It’s a lot of fun to read “Drug Magic” knowing where Abe and Mags will end up in “Believer.” Do you have more Mags stories that have been published or are in the works, or is it just these two?
It’s funny, I think Aaron and I said almost the exact same thing about it being a story with the pandemic in the background, that isn’t about the pandemic, and liking that element quite a bit. I’m fascinated with the dynamic of personal loss in the midst of a larger disaster and you did such a beautiful job of arranging recognizable world events in the background of very specific and personal struggles.
You have this great moment where Mags is talking to the patient from the building collapse and assumes his description of a migraine aura is a near death experience. I’m especially curious about how you thought about the conflict between her beliefs and her professional life while writing. You mentioned beliefs as harmful or beneficial, were you specifically exploring harm in healthcare or thinking more broadly?
As for other Mags stories, I’ve actually been working on a story from Abe’s point of view recently (like so recently that I’m not sure I can claim it’s more than a couple pages of notes so far). But I keep questioning myself as to whether I’m done or not with placing my stories in the same small town (Westinghouse, Ohio) and building characters from that town throughout successive stories. I keep asking, “Is this boring yet?” or “Am I done with Westinghouse?” and I’m really not bored yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are many more Mags stories in the future. I also wouldn’t be too surprised if I get sick of writing about the same place and completely switch to write about other people and other regions.
As far as Mags jumping to conclusions about the guy injured in a building collapse, there were a few things at work in her mind. One is that, as a lapsed Christian, I, like Mags, so often find myself still adhering to “Christian” values or, more specifically, reverting to Biblical stories without really thinking through what my actual beliefs are. For example, just yesterday, I referenced the camel going through the eye of a needle verse about it being near impossible for a rich person to get into heaven, but I don’t really believe in heaven. Being raised in the church and raised in a religion built on metaphors, it’s so easy to find a Bible story/verse that relates to just about any situation. In this specific case, though, Mags is, basically, trying to convince herself that miracles aren’t real, but she’s obsessing over them so much that she’s beginning to see them everywhere. She assumes that others, too, are looking for miracles. So, she’s admonishing the patient as a way to admonish herself. Or it’s something like that. It’s her confusion, though, mostly. I also think it would be very difficult, especially in a caregiving role, to separate your religion from work. As much as it would be frustrating to see a nurse or doctor impose their religion on your life by praying for you, I also think of the converse: A Christian nurse believes that it’s their duty to pray for the sick, so it would be equally as harmful to them personally to not pray for their patients, especially if they’re convinced that prayer can lead to miracles. (obviously, the key is to just not tell someone you’re going to pray for them) but I think that’s one of many instances where personal beliefs and work cannot be entirely separate, especially in a society where working 50-60 hours a week is normal so you don’t have much of a personal life anyhow.
Of course there are different levels to imposing your religion/belief on others. Austin Ross’s Gloria Patri, does such a good job of talking about that fine line between belief and obsession or the line between personal belief and imposing that belief on others. That’s definitely a line that QAnon has crossed. It’s one thing to hold a strong belief, to personalize it, but, as I think Mags realizes, it’s dangerous and annoying to impose your beliefs on others.
To shift gears a bit, I really love the way you almost play with language. There’s such a solid rhythm throughout this story, and you use all these little phrases that stopped me while reading (I’m still thinking about “six nails gunned into his skull”). I’m curious about process here, is this sort of a natural way of writing for you or do you do a lot of revising to really nail the voice?
I’ve always been obsessed with music. I used to record cassettes and make mix-tapes of the classical music station when I was like 10 years old (younger maybe?). I played violin and guitar but never got good enough to break out beyond the praise band at youth group. I wish I was a musician. I really wish I was a drummer. And what I’ve learned over the past few years is that I can take the rhythms already running through me and insert them into stories. I always read my stories aloud at some point in the process, and I always hear what I’m writing in my head. Sometimes I’ll cut an entire section because it doesn’t fit that rhythm (which also usually means it doesn’t fit the story too).
I think it was Lauren Groff who talked about how the point of writing is to make people see things in a new way, and that’s something constantly on my mind when I write. I like to picture, for instance, this guy coming into a hospital with nails in his head, but saying it just like that is too easy. It also would’ve taken a lot more space on the page to say that he was in a construction accident involving a nail gun. And then I’m like, oh, that word “gun” is so violent, so loaded. It carries more weight than “shot”. And once I put it on the page it made so much more sense to me. Usually phrases like this come up in a first or second draft. But in re-writes, I’ll often delete and rewrite whole paragraphs or pages to keep the same rhythm/voice of the story around it. I honestly think, though, that I’d rather read a story with great voice and music that didn’t make sense over a story with a cool plot and real basic writing.
I am really loving your answers and thoughts here. We have very different relationships and histories with religion, so I really appreciate your perspective on imposing belief / not imposing belief and the impossibility of keeping faith separate from such personal work. And it makes a lot of sense that music has been such an influence! I think it was Kazuo Ishiguro who started in songwriting, and I think music can have such a huge impact in thinking about voice so it’s fascinating to hear your musical aspirations.
To change gears a little again, you mention not having time for much of a life outside of a 60 hour healthcare work week and wanting to play drums. I’m curious, are there any other non-writing practices or skills that you feel like have had an influence on your writing, or that even compliment your writing?
Yeah! I definitely think music and writing are closely related, as are all arts, but there tends to be a specific kinship between language and music that’s always fascinated me.
Really, just about everything I do inspires my writing, but that’s the easy answer. I currently run a wine and beer store, Choice Wine & Beer, in Silver Spring, Maryland, and I love the work I do there. It’s stressful managing a 4 person team in a small business that’s barely scraping by in an economy that’s suffering and blah blah blah, but there’s this wonderful community around alcoholic beverages that has really supported me both monetarily and emotionally. I often catch flak for being a beer nerd. I have close to 100 bottles in my personal beer cellar from all over the world, some of which I’ve been saving for 8-10 years. And with wine I know enough to distinguish between regions, enough to be picky. I know the hype breweries and wine regions, and this knowledge does somewhat trickle into my writing. I have a few stories that take place around breweries and wineries. What’s weird is that I generally keep my alcohol-based proclivities separate from writing. Like maybe I’ll have a beer while I write, but I generally write sober. Even when I write with a beer beside me, I often forget about my beer when I’m really getting into a story. And, honestly, a lot of the artistic subtleties of beer and wine are pretty boring unless the reader is a sommelier or cicerone. I can’t really wax poetic about the minerality in a wine barrel aged saison to just anyone. So, I mostly keep that to myself.
I think the practice that’s carried over the most to writing is working on cars. I spent five years at a local car rental agency in Ohio and for a while was pretty much in charge of our 60-or-so vehicle fleet. I didn’t work on anything crazy like engines, but I’ve done my fair share of brake and rotor replacements, oil changes, and the like. My boss would walk me through certain repairs and would allow me to take cars apart in order to diagnose and repair problems. I think I’ve always had a curiosity about how things work, so I really do enjoy dismantling broken appliances and diagnosing their problems. This definitely carries over to my stories about Mags and Abe, but I think it’s also just a more physical expression of my curious nature. I mean, my stories too are about breaking down a character in a certain situation, seeing how they work, how they are broken, how they can be fixed. If you excuse the spot-on metaphor, I’d say that both my leanings towards repairing stuff and writing are at least partially a result of my super-curious nature.
A final thing, maybe not a “skill” or “hobby,” is driving. I love to drive around the country, especially in my home state of Ohio. And I’ve noticed that my characters are so often driving as a way to escape, or a way to quietly contemplate their issues, or just to go fast, to prove something. Driving does show up quite a bit in my writing and I’ve had so many aha! moments about my stories while I was driving.
I especially love driving as a thing that carries over or influences writing! I feel like walks get a lot of attention but there really is a special sort of zen while going for a drive.
I really could ask about a thousand more questions, but I’ll start wrapping things up by asking if you have any particular favorite lines or moments in “Believer,” parts that you’re especially proud of? I also want to give you the chance to expand on anything we may have touched on, or bring up anything we didn’t get into. Also, to try something a little beer nerd-y and silly (and maybe this won’t really land), what beer would you pair with this story? Feel free to get as poetic as you want with it!
It’s funny, as well as driving, I love walking, running, and cycling. I don’t run as much as I used to, but running and writing seem to often go hand in hand for so many people. But for me, running is usually an escape from writing, a way to clear my head, whereas writing is a way for me to make connections and, in general, work over my thoughts. Basically, writing is a thinking practice and running, for me, is more of a way to stop thinking so damn much.
So, one of my favorite things about writing is when I learn new things through my writing or when my characters teach me something new about themselves. I think “Believer” is a great example of this discovery through writing. Like, I already knew Mags as a character, but I definitely understand her better now that I’ve written a second story about her. But there were so many moments in this story that surprised me. For example, when Mags tells Abe that she’s ordering a pizza and they bicker about olives, I had no intention of writing that scene until it happened. But as I was writing it I was like, oh, Mags likes olives and Abe doesn’t and this is one of those low-stakes arguments that siblings carry on forever. It just sort of happened on the page and I was like, Oh, shit! That makes so much sense. It’s not the most vital part of the story, but it became one of my favorite parts of the story.
Louise was another surprise, actually. Very early on in the writing process, like draft #1, I had this idea for the Louise character, but I pulled her out of the story because she didn’t seem to fit as well with the discussion of religion and belief that the rest of the story focuses on. But each successive draft, I felt more and more like there was this Louise-shaped-hole in the story. I just kept writing and rewriting until she fit in perfectly. Somehow, she makes the story feel much more personal to me, like, she’s a stand-in for the kind of stalwart-though-suffering friends I’ve had throughout my life. I want to tell her to shut up and take the drugs and stop thinking about everyone else, but I also know Louise won’t listen.
There are also a bunch of little words and phrases that I loved being able to use. Using the word “junk” to describe Mags’ sleep schedule felt really good. I think I use the word “fart” at least twice. There is such a paucity of farts in literary fiction and I think that gap needs to be filled.
Sometimes I have to remind myself that writing a story is an opportunity to experiment and play. Nothing is off-limits in a first draft. Nothing’s too offensive or weird or contentious until someone else reads what I wrote. So I play with language. I write the type of stupid shit I would never say in public. I test out words and phrases and ideas. And I create characters and put obstacles in their way and watch how they maneuver the little world I’ve created for them. It’s a lot of fun for a nerd like me.
I’ve been thinking for a while about what beer would pair well with this story. Last year I started selling books at my beer and wine store. Mostly local authors and only small press stuff that I could get through Asterism since they’re willing to work with a very, very small book retailer. My plan was to offer pairings of books and beer/wine. My idea is that any store can be a bookstore. Books have a great profit margin (compared to booze) and they don’t take up much space. Plus they add a lot of character to any store and create conversations with customers. I carried, for example, Andrew Bertaina’s Autofocus book, THE BODY IS A TEMPORARY GATHERING PLACE, and paired it with a Greek white wine called “Semeli White Feast,” which seemed to fit so perfectly with the book.
As for “Believer,” I feel like Mags would be the type of person who drinks like Stella Artois if she’s drinking. She’d drink 19 Crimes wine. It’s not a story that’s so much about people who are already overwhelmed with their personal bullshit and don’t have much time or patience for craft beer. But then again, I could totally pair it with a nice classic Midwest brew, like Bell’s Two Hearted Ale (a perennial standby for me).
