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Love Warps the Mind a Little has 192 characters, and every one of them is looking for answers. So is the novel's author, John Dufresne. That's why he writes. Setting down a cup of cappuccino, he says, "I write about what I don't understand -- love and death. Everything else is extra."
Lafayette Proulx, the hero of Love is also a writer, but with a career less stellar than his creator's. In addition, Laf's marriage is unraveling, his girlfriend Judi has been diagnosed with cancer, his whole world is spiraling out of control. He feels "like I've quietly lost my life" but clings to his work, writing stories "to find out how they'll end." The difference between fiction and life, Lafayette observes, "is that fiction makes sense."
Behind his round glasses, Dufresne's eyes look sleepy, but his hands are active, whipping his long hair back from his face. Also author of The Way That Water Enters Stone and Louisiana Power & Light, Dufresne admits to more than a few similarities between himself and Lafayette. He has set his new novel in Worcester, Massachusetts, his home town, but what the author really prizes is the book's emotional truth. That's also why he prizes the act of writing. "When you write, you have to be honest with yourself, with your obsessions, with what keeps you up at night. Often it involves exploring pain and loss -- or maybe that's just me," he says and gives a wry smile.
Love Warps the Mind a Little turned out to be as much a journey of discovery for the author as it is for his characters. Dufresne meant the book to be "about a guy who went back to his wife," but Laf is at a crossroads, torn between the habit of loving his wife and captivated by Judi, who began as a minor character but wouldn't let go. "Surprises happen," says Dufresne, who also teaches creative writing at Florida International University. Both he and Lafayette became intrigued with Judi, whom the author calls "goofy but interesting," and in the end, Judi became pivotal to the story.
Navigating Lafayette, Judi, and their 190 friends through more than 300 pages would be a plotting nightmare for many writers, but it delighted Dufresne who possesses "a curiosity about people." The novel brims with Dufresne's quirky humor as well as his fascination with "the human spirit." Nothing illuminates it better, he believes, than storytelling. But he may be biased. "As a child, story time was my favorite part of the day and I wanted to hear the same stories over and over again. My son Tristan is the same way. The qualities of stories make us who we are. They should show us what it's like to be human, show us this is how it feels."
Lest he come across as touchy-feely and New Agey as his character, Judi, Dufresne admits one of life and literature's great ironies. Although he strives for emotional honesty in his writing, "I'm not always as forthcoming in person." The detachment he finds necessary to write "must piss everyone off."
Although he renders Lafayette's life pretty funny even in the midst of chaos, Dufresne takes life and literature seriously. Even with a degree of reverence. He is drawn to the mystery inherent in living just as Lafayette is drawn to the mysticism of Catholicism. "The mystery had once meant something to me. Now the Mass is all so clear, so forthright, so shared, so rote, and all the mystery is gone."
In a similar way, some part of Dufresne doesn't want to reach ultimate understanding, is afraid to see the soul laid bare. Fortunately for his readers, the human spirit is endlessly complex, giving Dufresne something to keep writing about. In fact, he's already at it, working away at novel number three, another multicharactered story.
"Yeah, it's love and death again," says Dufresne with a laugh, but a true sense of wonder shimmers beneath that. "I mean, what else is there? We're here to die," he says with a shrug. "So what we do while we're alive is important. I want readers to sense the nobility of the struggle, the importance of love in our lives. And hope. I want them to see goodness even in the most desperate circumstances."
Ellen Kanner is a freelance writer in Miami.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.