TRR photo by Mary Greene John Marchese on the stairs of his Route 97 home, the subject of his book “Renovations.” Marchese will present a reading from his book at the DVAA on June 8 at 7:30 p.m. (Click for larger image)

Renovating the spirit

An interview with John Marchese

By MARY GREENE

NARROWSBURG — Is writing at all like house construction?

“In some ways it is,” said author John Marchese, but “there is an infinite choice of words or phrases that a writer has to make choices from. There is really only one way to do the floor over.”

Marchese should know. He had the opportunity to re-do a lot of floors during the renovation of his Route 97 house, known by many as the old Floyd Campfield home.

Marchese has been a frequent contributor to publicatioins such as The New York Times, GQ, Rolling Stone, Outside and The Village Voice. Several years ago, Marchese said hebegan to lose his center in the glitzy publishing world of Manhattan. As a cure, he journeyed upstate to reconstruct a house, a world view, a career in doubt and a troubled relationship with his father.

The result of this endeavor is “Renovations: A Father and Son Rebuild a House and Rediscover Each Other,” published by Riverhead Books this year.

Marchese, originally from Scranton, purchased the Narrowsburg property and set out to renovate it with the help of his father and his Uncle Santino, who both still live in Scranton. A number of local tradesmen were recruited to assist, and the book is sprinkled with insightful tales into local personalities and the differences between “woodchucks” and weekenders. Marchese’s light touch and sure-footed prose make the book a quick and enjoyable read, as well as a perceptive and memorable account of one man’s journey back to his roots.

TRR: I loved the book. I’ve read it twice.

Marchese: Oh, thank you. You and my father are competing, then. My mother just called me this morning and said, ‘He’s reading the book again!’ Obviously, he loves it, although he would never tell me that.

Did you take notes while you were renovating the house?

In the early days, after we finished working, I would sit down and type up that day’s impressions. But I really wanted my father to be unselfconscious. I mean, he knew I had a book project—how else was I sitting out here for six months? But I stopped taking notes.

I have found that the important stuff that I write about, that is actually interesting, is stuff I will remember—what I tell people about if I am later recounting.

So, I took notes sporadically. It wasn’t a disciplined activity.

	TRR photo by Mary Greene Marchese at work, writing, not renovating. (Click for larger image)

Much of your book deals with duality—city life vs. country life, white collar vs. working class. I’m wondering how this sense of duality plays out in your life now?

Sunday night of last week I had dinner with a movie star and a Broadway show star. Then, within two days, I was out here trying to make my trees grow. And that just seems natural, now. I marvel at the difference between the two things.

The city stuff still often seems, to me, bizarre and unreal. Not phony—the people are doing the best they can—but there is a layer of socialness that’s not always real. So to get away from that, often, really works for me.

I have always been interested in urban life—the history of it, and the sociology of it. I lived in Philadelphia for 10 years, and I went from the business leaders in town to barbecues at the homes of cops. I hung out at a cop bar, and I played with salsa bands in the worst ghettos in the city, and hung out at those people’s houses. I had a range [of lifestyle] that, obviously, you can’t get anywhere but a city. Incredible diversity.

The whole thing does come down to the fact of having both chances, in two different places—Narrowsburg and the city—that’s just amazing. I wouldn’t want to trade it.

How have people in Scranton reacted to your book?

If you’re from Scranton, there’s a feeling that you can go to New York, you can be writing for The New York Times, and they don’t care. It’s like, so? You haven’t done anything here. What’s the big deal?

And, that’s true.

So, to be here in Narrowsburg, where it’s also no big deal, is great. You go to Peck’s, and you buy your stuff, and people say hello, and they’re friendly, as friendly to me as to whoever.

As a writer, do you worry about people’s reactions to what you write about them?

I have written a lot of profiles over the years, and have had both good and bad reactions, probably more bad than good. But the things people get upset about are just the weirdest little things. They’re never upset about the things you figure they’ll get upset about. Once, I wrote about this guy who was a famous restaurateur in Philadelphia. I described him wearing a shirt the color of something that would grow on beef. It was just this washed-out weird green.

That was the one thing he was upset about, and he actually sent me the exact same shirt. It was a Brooks Brothers shirt…

I’m finding as I get older that I am much more gentle with people than I used to be. Earlier, I was on the make, and I thought that was what you were supposed to do—make a little fun of people in your stories about them. I don’t feel the need to do that anymore.

How has this book affected your relationship to your father?

My father and I never had a big break, but there was definitely a feeling of estrangement. I probably felt it more than he did, but I certainly felt disconnected from him. And doing this project made that connection again.

As I look back, I did go through my entire life again with him in the two years it took to renovate the house—through adolescence, through my rebellion, through my hating him and then a new, mature acceptance that this is how he is. I’m not going to change him; he is 78 years old.

At one point, you do what you call entering your father’s world imaginatively. Can you talk about that?

Really, it happened almost out of desperation. I found out after a year and a half that the huggy-buggy idea of this—that somehow my father and I would be different people—wasn’t going to happen. We weren’t suddenly going to talk like some movie, or like we were on the Oprah show. So, I was going to have to deal with this in the best way I could, given my personality, and my father’s personality. I realized, okay, I am a writer; I can use my imagination to try and understand my father through understanding myself—how I would feel, as him.

Now, it’s something I want to do more of. I never particularly wanted to write fiction before. But, now I do.

The book is really funny in places. Can you talk about that?

I thought it had to be funny, and I like to write funny stuff.

I guess I’m at the tale end of the whole memoir movement. To write these books, man, it’s really self-indulgent, and—there are certainly self-indulgent parts of “Renovations,” but if I was making a point about something, I always tried to somehow laugh about it within the more serious parts.

Better that you should laugh about your problems.

Do you have plans for another book?

I just got a new book contract to write about building a violin. I found a violin maker in Brooklyn. No, I’m not going to build my own violin—I am going to watch him making a violin. It’s not “Renovations 2.”