Writing Obsessions

A friend from my grad school days was recently in town to do a reading from his new book, The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld (Graywolf Press). In this creative nonfiction memoir, Justin Hocking writes about his move to New York City after grad school and a difficult breakup, and how he becomes obsessed with surfing, the ocean, and Moby-Dick. It’s a fascinating mix, told with raw honesty and wry humor.

It was great seeing Justin and having the chance to catch up a little; it had been twelve years since we’d completed our MFAs and gone our separate ways. Reading Justin’s book has been a somewhat odd experience. The book is excellent. But it’s weird reading such a personal “story” about someone I know. When we were in writing workshops together, I recall some of Justin’s stories involved skateboarders and I knew he was heavy into skateboarding himself, but I never knew how much this sport dominated his life.

Justin’s book shows how skateboarding is replaced by surfing in New York. It gets him outside the suffocating city, and this new attachment with the ocean helps him overcome anxieties related to his dislocation. Surfing becomes an obsession and an escape. In fact, there are all kinds of obsessions in this book. It’s got me thinking about the role of obsession to writers in general. That is, is it necessary to have obsessions to be a writer? Or do writers write because they have obsessions they’re working through?