Author of 'The Lights,' 'Desire, a Novel', 'Hemlock Grove' (and creator of the Netflix series of the same name as well as 'The Son'), bibliophile, philomath, autodidact, smart ass. Pennsylvania born in an equally secular and religious home, brilliant novelist, screenwriter and Star Wars soundtrack enthusiast.
(Who also stands by his day-old airport packaged sushi as his favorite travel snack.)
1. Tell us your name, where you were born, and your first memory you have from where you began!
My name is Brian McGreevy and I was born at Magee Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I’ve given a lot to the question of my first memory, bearing in mind the elusive nature of memory itself – the issue being (and I apologize if I’m already being annoying) that you don’t technically remember events, you remember your most recent memory of a given event, and the more times you remember it the more corrupted the memory becomes, especially vis a vis childhood when you are prone to perceptual distortions in the first place. (I repeat: Sorry!)
That said, I think my earliest conscious memory is a fairly traumatic one of my parents fighting from when I would have been about five (they separated shortly after that). But I don’t know if this is actually my earliest memory or I’ve just recalled it enough times that it’s low-hanging and potentially untrustworthy fruit. Either way, let’s go ahead and lay all my personal shortcomings on this one and call it a day!
2. What were the overlaying cultural themes in your family? How did that align or differ to the communities you were surrounded by?
So, one of the key issues that drove my parents apart was that my father was a profoundly anti-authoritarian Irish Catholic who ran as far away from the church as early as he could, so it really did a number on him when his homemaker wife and mother of two young boys announced she had heard “the Call” – which is to clergy what “the Bug” is to actors.
So on one the hand I had a secular wise-ass father doing fairly little of the parental heavy-lifting after they split and a single mother putting herself through seminary and ultimately becoming a minister (Disciples of Christ initially, then Presbyterian, both being fairly liberal and progressive denominations as far as they go – people’s minds tend to immediately leap to Southern Baptist when they find out you’re a P.K., i.e. Preacher’s Kid).
Short answer being, I came of age within the church, while also being continually exposed to the greatest possible skepticism towards religious institutions.
3. What did you like least about where you grew up? What did you like most?
I mostly grew up in a Rust Belt valley community equidistant from Pittsburgh and West Virginia. What I liked least is frankly what I value most in hindsight: I really really really didn’t fit in. Right now you’d call the region MAGA country, and while that descriptor didn’t exist then the ethos was still very much there. And being an artistic and intellectually curious temperament I really just scanned as “queer” (to employ the local vernacular) to the larger social structure, which meant at a young age I pretty much had to decide if they were right (there’s something fundamentally wrong with me) or I was (there’s a world out there where it’s okay to be me, and this ain’t it).
This inculcated in my that thing social psychologists jerk off all over they call “grit” that is more a form of existential autonomy – if the collective expects things from you it doesn’t make them wrong per se (the injunction not to murder after careful inspection seems to hold up) but always always question whether these expectations are making you smaller than you are.
I should give a caveat here that while school sucked my parents were highly liberal and tolerant, up to and including when I dropped out of high school in the ninth grade. I don’t have the data on this in front of me, but I’d speculate a supportive home is worth much more than an accepting social environment in terms of cultivating a sense of individual worth.
The other advantage this background has given me as someone who, as an adult, has mostly lived in godless liberal “superstar” (ugh) cities, is that I don’t have the ability to other-ize people with whom I disagree on key issues. Growing up around poor, disenfranchised white folk who were as a rule fairly racist, sexist, and homophobic, I could easily see how this was a product of ignorance and not malice. I get into trouble with my progressive friends constantly on this issue (Trump supporters might actually have some redeeming qualities as opposed to simply one lump mass of hateful knuckle-dragging troglodytes), but hey, I’m a P.K. after all and I suppose “Love the sinner, hate the sin” strikes me as reasonable life advice.
Also, not for nothing, if we’re talking positives – southwestern Pennylvania is as beautiful as a fairy tale. At least the five months of the year the sun shines.
4. What was the first big idea you ever had? Did it come to fruition in some sense?
In first grade I was little prick announcing “I’m going to be a writer when I grow up.” So I suppose that one.
5. Who influenced your taste in expression as a child? How so?
I fucking love learning. I’m doing it all the time, and consider it fairly insane we live in a culture that compartmentalizes learning to school, which mostly sucks and makes people hate it, then ends when you’re still a kid really.
But you want to talk about real privilege? While a minister’s salary is not much to write home about, I grew up in a house of full of books. They say that this is the single greatest predictor of success later in life
. But that’s within a market economy. If you want to expand the definition of success to “a rich inner experience defined by curiosity and empathy” I’d say it’s also a fairly good bet.
That said, I was raised before the era of podcasts and I suspect that form is having a rather seismic impact on general intellectual development that has yet to be properly understood – especially in poorer environments where books may be harder to come by and are potentially stigmatized, but phones are still fairly ubiquitous.
6. What was the first full album you purchased/found and couldn’t get enough of? What did it make you feel?
Oh boy, well, form an orderly queue, ladies, but it was definitely the re-mastered Star Wars soundtracks from when the original trilogy was re-released into theaters in 1997 when I was 14. I will say, while those films don’t really do a lot for me anymore beyond some sentimental value, the music remains some of the great pop art of the last century – absolutely Wagnerian in its mythic scope and ability to induce chills. Also the CDs were super rad – they were done up to look like the Death Star. So to hell with it, for everyone who found a Patti Smith album at a vintage record store or whatever, I’m standing by this one!
7. What hobbies, sports, events, arts, were you drawn to before the age of 10? Do you feel like you’re still interacting with these same genres in your current time in life? Do you miss any of them?
In no particular order: reading and watching movies. It was all I cared about then, and all I care about now.
8. Who was your first best friend? What is your most vivid memory of your friendship?
An imaginary wolf named Woofy Toofy. We still keep in touch.
9. Where do you go to find your peace?
Sometimes I put on an eye mask and listen to shit like alpha waves or Solfeggio frequencies and refer to it as my Imaginarium. So, there.
10. What is a lifelong goal you can’t wait to start? What is it about it that brings you to life?
I achieved my lifelong goal (publishing a novel) fairly young. Which is a blessing and a curse, in that I learned the chimerical nature of goals. I have subsequently replaced this goal with a more vague one of living a full life. Will have to keep you posted on the results…
11. Where do you wish to travel to that you have never been? Why?
Japan. The total fusion of aesthetics and philosophy in that cultural tradition increasingly compels me.
12. How do you connect best with other people?
Generally through work. My inner Protestant rebels against unstructured and objectiveless socializing. I am fundamentally more comfortable making things, and relate best to people who share this trait.
13. Favorite song of the moment?
Tom Waits, “I Don’t Wanna Grow up.” But that’s something of a perennial.
14. What are you most proud of at this exact moment in time?
Actually opening up this email and working on this. Like most professional writers, each and every time I overcome my own tendency towards procrastination is VE Day.
15. What is the thing you are most shy about? What is the worst that could happen if you did it?
Pass!
16. What are the qualities that you value most in a friend today?
Shared sense of humor. Especially if you find really weird shit funny. It’s the biggest language barrier I know.
17. How do you find your calm in tumultuous times?
Imaginarium. Kidding! Ish.
The answer is, I don’t. I read slash listen to a fair amount of Buddhist/Hindu self help and there are moments when I can observe my own feelings of anxiety or general dread and to some extent decouple my physiological reaction to troubleshoot that feedback loop. But it’s exceptionally hard and I’m not that good at it.
18. What is your current greatest fear?
Our inability to meaningfully communicate. Everything else – climate change, nuclear proliferation, the evolution of cyberterrorism or bioweapons or whatever else dreadful thing could keep you up at night – is solvable if we learn how to really talk to each other. Which is to say if we learn how to listen to each other.
I have a pet theory that the majority of the time that what is being framed as differences of ideology really comes down to differences of semantics, but I’ll spare you that three thousand words.
19. What is your current greatest strength?
Hydrating.
20. What brings you the most joy?
Laughing with friends at the weird, random shit we find funny in our shared language.
21. How does your current line of work support your core values?
Working on it!
22. What advice would you give your 10 year old self?
Avoid processed carbohydrates.
23. What advice would your 10 year old self give you?
He would be speechless at my good fortune, which would make me feel like a real ninny for how much energy I waste worrying about things that are out of my hands instead of appreciating what I have.
24. What projects are you working on now that you are most excited about? Why are they so valuable to you?
The issue of communication for Project Human. Everyone wants the world to be a better place, this is a universal. Some people get a little addled in their conception of what that looks like, but that’s where the work comes in!
25. Who would you have coffee with dead or alive? Why?
Vladimir Putin. He knows why.
26. Who do you find most inspiring at this current time in your life?
Charles Eisenberg.
27. Do you have a morning or night routine? If so, why are they important to you?
Like 99.9 per cent of writers, I write in the morning. It’s when you’re clearest of cobwebs.
At night I avoid anything anxiety-inducing. No news, no emails, no inter-personal conflict. There’s work to be done, and you need to be rested for it.
28. How do you best honor yourself?
Hydrating.
29. What is the craziest thing you want to do?
Have hope.
30. What is your favorite meal to cook when you need something fast, and when you are ready to invest in the kitchen?
Ethically and sustainably sourced steak, rare plus.
31. What is your favorite question to ask others?
What are you reading?
32. What are your favorite travel tips?
If you have to check a bag, you’ve packed wrong.
33. And of course, what is your go-to travel snack?
I’d love to say it’s not gross, pre-packaged airport sushi. But it’s gross, pre-packaged airport sushi.
Brian currently resides in New York City. He Can be found *sometimes at www.brianmcgreevy.net , as well as by searching his interviews on the World Wide Web. I recommend this. You won't be disappointed.
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