55
author interviews
www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM
WBM Someone told us you have an
interest in comic books, comic book
characters?
MB I love comic books. I’ve devoured
them. At one point my dad banned them.
Then he read somewhere that it was a bad
idea to discourage our kids from reading. I
remember reading those comic books and
thinking, “These would just make such
amazing movies.” And
I’m sure George Lucas
had the same idea. Look
where he is, just because
they were fantastic
stories.
WBM When you interview
people is there a
surprising moment,
the thing the person
said that you weren’t
expecting that surprised
you?
MB Yes. In fact, I would
say that one of the
essential elements of
journalism is that you
are surprised. If you
already understood the
world, if you already
understood the story
that you were about to
do, then you’re never
going to find out anything
that surprises you.
Likewise, when you start
working on a story and
everything just seems
to be flowing according
to a script, you’re not
doing enough work.
You’ve got to find
something that’s new
to you. That kind of
defines what journalism is.
I’m thinking right now of going to
Hawaii and interviewing the father of
that lieutenant that gets killed Vanity
Fair, December 2011, “Echoes From a
Distant Battlefield”. He was telling me
how when his son came home to visit
from Afghanistan he was, as he talked
to him, unaware of what was going on.
He was kind of mortified by what he
was finding out. I asked, “What mortified
you?” He said, “Well, we had seen
these pictures that he emailed to us and
I’d seen Sebastian Junger’s documentary,
‘Restrepo,’ and there was this one picture
I remember seeing that really just shocked
me. It kind of crystallized a problem that
I had.” I said, “Really, what picture was
that?” He found it for me and showed
me the picture. I could see exactly: It was
a picture of his son in a meeting with all
these village elders. His son is 23 years
old. He’s got his high-and-tight haircut
and he’s wearing his fashionable sunglasses,
and his camp gear, six months out
of ROTC. He’s sitting down with these
guys who are the same age as Colonel
Brostrom, who are in their 50s and 60s,
who have lived in this place their entire
life, these wizened old figures. And this is
his kid. Now, anybody who’s a parent sees
their kid, grown up as they are, they’re still
kids. It’s like that great commercial on TV
where the guy is giving
his keys to his teenage
daughter, only he sees
her as three years old. As
a father he’s looking at
his son and he’s thinking,
“This is Johnny, and
Johnny is negotiating
with these guys. These
guys are going to take
him for all he’s worth.
He’s out of his element
here — totally out of his
element.” And that image
really conveyed a lot to
me of understanding how
he felt and why he felt
the way he did and also
the circumstances his son
found himself in.
WBM What do you enjoy
most about your work?
MB Well, as you see I
enjoy all of it. I like writing
best. As much as I
enjoy the reporting and
traveling, to me the most
fun always is when you
sit down and start to
write a story. That was
the original motivation
for me, anyway, was to
be a writer. Composing
and telling a story, figuring
out how to tell it in a
compelling way, working on the writing,
trying to make my writing better, that’s
what I like. I can see, now that I’m getting
older, getting out of the reporting and
writing fiction, just because I love to write.
I’m kind of getting tired of constantly
gathering information.
Ben Bowden, Daniel Bowden, Gail
and Mark Bowden.