The Invisible Spectrum
By: Rick Kleffel | May 3, 2009 | Under: Articles, Interviews
Turn the dial and the years go by. One moment, we’re tapping tables and raising ghosts. The next, we’re dropping the bomb on Hiroshima. And all at the behest of invisible spirits, all in the name of that which we will never be able to see with our own two eyes.
And how often does it come to pass that even those things we do see with our own two eyes are not recognized? How often can we look at our children and refuse to see what stands in front of us?
Keith Donohue is a master at rendering the invisible visible, at drawing back the cloak from the world we live in to show the world behind our lives, to draw out the invisible powers of love, hatred, hope and fear. I had the chance to talk with Donohue about the invisible spectrum at KQED earlier this month, and about his new novel, ‘Angels of Destruction.’
Keith Donohue writes from that place where the invisible lives with us. He’s a master craftsman of prose that is compelling and gripping, yet dense and packed with omens and conjurations of the beyond. One of the most interesting aspects of speaking with writers is the wide variance of their approaches to writing. Donohue writes fantastically detailed narratives that unfold in an achingly beautiful world we know. His characters and their histories and their locations and lives integrate themselves seamlessly into the readers’ reality.
But Donohue is at heart a fantasist, and he imagines this world of ours so that he can explore the invisible spectrum of our perceptions and evoke the fantastic world that lies beyond. You can’t call his work genre fiction in any typical, that is, sales-oriented sense, but all the parts are there. They’re just re-ordered by a mind that approaches writing much more like I imagine an artist would approach painting. And in fact, in my interview with him, he talks about the art that helped inspire his latest novel. For readers and writers alike, this conversation is filled with insights that illuminate his latest work without really every talking too directly about the plot. You can hear our conversation by following the invisible path of this link to the audio file.