CONTRIBUTOR SPOTLIGHT:
Interview with Jacob Strunk

Rappahannock Review Fiction Editors: In “Train to Trastevere,” we’re horrified (in a good way) by how Eve’s hunger for relationships manifests as a desire for human flesh. In terms of symbolism and theme, what did you want your readers to take away from that?

Jacob Strunk: Genre work gifts the author freedom to manifest themes out of whole cloth, be they specters sulking across the moonlit moors or the pitter-patter of impossible feet in a locked attic or men becoming beasts; it’s not always subtle. The hunger for love—not just sex or even companionship, but validation, a shared history, feeling a part of something larger than oneself—is universal. Who hasn’t felt the near panic of loneliness, of isolation, or the animal desire to consume what we crave, to own it, to take it with us? To fill us up.

RR: At the beginning, Eve presents the facade of an altruistic passerby before you give the reader a peek behind it in the first flashback. How did you decide when to show this first hint of her true self?

JS: Fiction should surprise us, but I’m not necessarily interested in shock for shock’s sake or big twist endings. Reading a story or watching a film, I want to lose myself in the world, in the characters, and learn about them (and dare I say about myself?) through their actions. Small subversions of expectations draw me in and make me believe it’s real. If we care about characters and then learn things that complicate them, I’d like to think it encourages us to lean in a little closer, to try to peer around the corners, to dig deeper into the world. The slow reveal and subsequent revelation always gets me.

RR: We love the homoerotic tension between Eve and Ali and their mutual descent into their desires. What do you see as Ali’s role in what happens?

JS: Love finds you when you least expect it, as the cliché goes, and it can change the world.

RR: Aside from writing short stories, you’re also a filmmaker. Does your filmography explore similar themes of craving as “Train to Trastevere” or was this new territory for you?

JS: My films tend to mine similar depths, but it’s an entirely different palette. The desire for humans to connect despite the machinations of a world hellbent on keeping them apart, that’s been the engine driving my work for twenty years. How do we push through myriad obstacles thrown in front of us by others, by ourselves, and towards what most of us want: peaceful fulfillment and community?

Every story is a love story, and every love story has gruesome bits.

RR: What made you choose to set this piece in Trastevere? Have you been to Italy and if so, was there a specific experience that shaped this piece?

JS: The setting was absolutely inspired by a trip to Rome to visit my old friend and mentor, the author Richard Horan, and his wife Mary, a popular singer, in their adopted neighborhood of Trastevere during a period of reflection on my own creative and professional life here in Los Angeles. Walking through thousand-year-old piazzas with a camera and an Aperol spritz, watching jazz and drinking wine, dodging tourists and pickpockets—what better place, I thought, to reset one’s expectations; not running away from anything, but running toward and giving oneself over to an unknown, trusting that whatever magic was once there surely remains, flows freely just out of sight like the ancient aqueducts still feeding Rome’s ubiquitous fountains, long buried but ever present. Maybe, if you’re willing to let go, you can tap into that. 

Hell, it’s worth a shot.