12 Questions for a Writer: Mac Caltrider
Mac Caltrider is a writer, teacher, and journalist. Before, he was a Marine and a police officer. His memoir Doubleknot is an exceptional piece of writing built of essays that call upon it all.
Who are you, what have you written, and why?
I’m Mac. I served in the Marine Corps as a rifleman from 2009-2014. Now I teach English to high schoolers. Between those jobs, I went to college, bartended, and worked as a reporter for Coffee or Die Magazine. Double Knot is my first book. It’s about my time in Afghanistan, but rather than just recount what those deployments were like, I tried to weave snapshots of my experience overseas into stories of life after service. I’ve been writing my whole life but this project has been on my mind since the day I left active service.
What is it that draws you to writing?
Reading came before writing. Good writing has a way of making you feel connected to the human race like no other medium can. The more good books I read, the more I wanted to be able to harness that magic myself. Initially, I just wrote for myself, but that led to sharing a few stories. The positive feedback convinced me to take writing a step further and I eventually landed a full-time job at a magazine. The editors and writers there crushed my ego (thank God) and gave me the necessary tools to turn poorly worded gibberish into something worth other people’s time.
Tell us about the process you undertook to write this book.
It was a long road to get this book across the finish line. I started writing the bones of some of these stories more than a decade ago. At one point I’d even completed a full-length memoir that detailed my single enlistment chronologically. But the more I picked away at it the more I recognized it was a bloated mess. I realized that what I wanted to say hit hardest if most of what I’d initially written was left out. I also found myself drawn more and more to essay collections instead of memoirs. That’s when it clicked that I should take what I had, chop the fat off, and polish what was left into something sharper.
What did you learn in the process and what surprised you?
I learned that less is more. If I included every bit of drama, it diluted the book’s potency. No one needed to hear about bootcamp, or every patrol and significant event from Afghanistan. Instead, I think the bits I included in the book worked best when buffered by stories of life after the military.
Would you do it again?
Yes. I’m already working on the next one.
What do you want people to take away from this book?
I hope this book lands differently with different audiences. For readers who never served in the military, I hope they find this book eye-opening and approachable. I don’t want it to be on the same shelf as action-packed combat memoirs. There are plenty of those out there that are worth reading, but this isn’t that kind of book. For veterans — specifically GWOT vets — I hope this book is relatable. I hope they see themselves in some of the stories and recognize that their experiences matter. You don’t have to be a Medal of Honor recipient to be proud of your service, and, conversely, you don’t have to be dragging trauma around like a badge of honor. The war happened and it’s ok to move on. It’s also ok to remember.
What advice do you have for aspiring authors?
Don’t try and shape your story or voice to mirror someone else’s. Your perspective is what will make your story compelling. Be very strict with yourself about staying true to your perspective. If you do that, your writing will be worth reading. Some more practical advice would be to try and land a reporting job or some freelance work. That’s where you’ll get the necessary reps to sharpen your skills.
What is your favorite book and why?
I hate this question. Naming a single book is impossible. But I’m currently loving Hanif Abdurraqib’s Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes On A Tribe Called Quest. Before that, I was blown away by Claire Keegan’s Foster. Matterhorn, The Lord of the Rings, and Moby Dick are three books I revisit almost every year because each time you crack them open you pull something new out of them.
This book does a really beautiful job of tying in your current life with that of yours as a young infantryman. For me that revealed the persistence of war in the psyche of the participant. I don’t think that has to mean someone is broken or stuck in the past, just that war is such a significant event that it shadows everything else in some way, even if that shadow is the palest of gray. Am I getting that right? Or did you have a separate purpose?
I appreciate you saying it doesn’t have to mean you're stuck in the past. That’s what I was striving for. For most people, combat (especially when experienced as a teenager) is a significant event. It was for me. It certainly gave me a new lens through which to view the world. But while I think about those experiences often, they don’t overshadow everything that’s come since. My goal with Double Knot was to convey how combat sometimes still shapes the way I see things, but it hasn’t interrupted my life or held me back. If anything, it’s made me more patient and appreciative of all the wonderful things I’ve been lucky enough to experience. There’s an unfortunate tendency among some veterans to make trauma their identity. That’s unhealthy. There’s also a tendency to tell those same veterans to stop dwelling on their past. I think there’s a middle ground. You can hold onto those experiences without letting them dictate your life. I have a hunch that most veterans fall in that middle area, somewhere between being stuck in the past and intentionally burying their military experiences. They just aren’t the ones being loud.
You came from a relatively middle class, perhaps elite, background that included a prep school. Why the Marine Corps? Why be a cop? And why did you leave those things?
I still wince at “elite” but I was certainly privileged. While I was growing up I was hyper-aware, even self-conscious of being afforded so many opportunities. That led to me transferring to public school, forgoing college, and enlisting in the Marines. I wanted to prove to myself that I could thrive in the mud with the grunts. Serving in the infantry gave me everything I hoped it would. As for my brief stint as a cop, I kind of fell into that. In short - they got back to me before the Fire Department. The longer version is when I was nearing the end of college I needed a job that could provide for my family and I convinced myself that a police officer was halfway between grunt and social worker. On paper, I thought it might be a good fit.
Like many of my favorite writers, you clearly crave experiences over finances. What drives that?
Seeking out new experiences gives you more material to work with when it comes to writing. More importantly, it’s good for your soul. Like any creative outlet — be it writing, making music, painting, whatever — if you’re doing it just to earn money you’re missing the point of making art. That said, I’m a father and a husband so I can’t completely trade finances for experiences. I still have to work.
What have I not asked that I should have?
What books influenced the way you structured and styled Double Knot? These are some, but not all: No Joy by David Rose, Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan, Impossible Owls By Brian Phillips, A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, Dispatches by Michael Herr, and The Nasty Bits by Anthony Bourdain.
Mac is a writer to keep an eye on in the years to come.