The esteemed Plutzik Reading Series, one of the longest-running reading series in the country, hosted by the University invited author Gabriel Bump to speak on campus on Saturday. Reading from his forthcoming novel, Bump gave voice to a man pondering his upbringing and parental figures.
The beginning of the book centers around the main character’s relationship with his father, how it morphs from friendship to betrayal, and consequently, how this shift affects his life and his parenting style.
Bump creates his characters by drawing on his own emotions. The emotions feel autobiographical in each individual he writes: he puts a part of himself into each of them.
Bump, a dad himself, explored his relationship with his parents while writing this book. He spoke about how his parents were extremely hardworking, but sometimes absent. This relationship influenced his parenting style to his son.
During the Q&A, Bump explained how settings have played a vital role in his writing process. He chooses locations and situations that he is familiar with, which help him visualize the landscape as he writes. His first novel takes place in the neighborhood he grew up in Chicago, his second in his college home of Massachusetts, and his new book moves between multiple cities which he visited or lived for much of his life. In the section he read from, Bump describes winter in Buffalo, the city he currently resides in, and all of its snow.
“I’m here. I’m up. I’m alive.”
About his second book “The New Naturals,” Bump said he chose the title before writing. He wanted to explore a utopia, a society that was naturally set up. Bump believes that today’s societies are set up unnaturally with complex political and government systems; however, in this novel, the society the characters create has become new. The characters develop an egalitarian system, which Bump says is more natural because it focuses on people’s needs and equality rather than money and status.
One of the final questions Bump answered was about his new book. In it, he writes the phrase, “When my grief went gentle.” He explained that through horrors, one can still see beauty and love. Instead of his grief making him harder, it made him more gentle. Much of the forthcoming novel explores how grief can soften over time.
The Plutzik Reading Series will return on May 3 with poet Maureen N. McLane.
