Peter Geye (B.A. ’00) does not appear to suffer from writer’s block. He produces novels at a steady pace, and they are not superficial reads. He digs deep and writes long and takes readers on unforgettable journeys that linger long in the mind. He explains how the University helped shape his writing life and where he plans to take readers next.

You’ve said that with A Lesser Light you started with the lighthouse as you had been driving by Split Rock your whole life.
I started and stopped more with A Lesser Light than just about any novel I’ve written. Part of that stumbling had to do with the pandemic and how I wanted to spend those days, but there were also plenty of things I didn’t know about the story. It’s a big book, with lots of characters and subjects, and at the outset it just felt like there were too many things up in the air and I couldn’t juggle them all. Eventually I learned that Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata would be central to the story, and as soon as I had that first thread woven into the fabric of the story, the others got easier to see. And weave. For all the times I’d visited Split Rock, and for all the times I’d driven by, I’d never seen the light on the water. This happened while my family was on a camping trip at Split Rock State Park in the summer of 2020. One minute we were sitting around the campfire, and the next the light was suddenly strobing across the cove. It felt like a beckoning. An invitation. And though it would take a little while to find my footing, I knew then I simply had to find my way to the story.

Did you have a professor who inspired you to pursue literature?
I had so many excellent teachers at the University of Minnesota, but two stand like giants in my development as a writer. The first was Göran Stockenström, who was a professor in the Scandinavian Studies program. He taught me more about reading and the power of literature than anyone, and he encouraged my own creative writing as well. The second was Patricia Hampl. I only had one class with her as an undergrad, but she taught me about point of view, and her encouragement and counsel led me to pursue my M.F.A.

You’ve said that A Farewell to Arms had a profound influence on you.
I have vivid memories of readingA Farewell to Arms for the first time. I was a high school student at Minneapolis South in Dave Beenken’s English class. Until then, I’d not been a very good student. But Dave challenged me to go home and read carefully, which I did. The emotional wallop of that story, the sense of the world becoming so much larger and more interesting, those things opened something up in me and before I even finished the book, I knew some part of me wanted to try to elicit the same feelings through the same means.

Hemingway said he likes to stop writing each day while in the midst of a good flow so he has a place to pick up the next day. Do you follow any writing rituals?
I do something similar when I’m deep in writing a novel, which is to try to find the first line of the next day before I fall asleep. This allows me to jump back into the story with a definite starting point each morning. I think the most important thing I learned from Hemingway’s practices is the importance of showing up for the work each day. I think this is at once the easiest and hardest thing to do. Easy in the sense it requires no skill, only commitment. And hard because the work doesn’t always give back. And it’s almost always easier to stay in bed than it is to get up at five in the morning. But getting up at that hour is how I’ve written the last three and a half novels.

You’ve said that you are a lifer when it comes to writing about families. Are you at work on your next one?
A Lesser Light is the first book in a planned extended cycle of novels that go back and forth through the history of the settlement of Minnesota and Lake Superior. I’m writing the second of them now, and it’s no surprise that family life is central. It’s the story of the first ship ever built on Lake Superior in 1734, the shipwright who constructs it, and the wives and children who live in his absence. He also has a Jesuit priest for a nephew. These lives all intersect in Quebec and on and around Lake Superior. It’s some of the most fun I’ve ever had writing fiction, bringing this family to life.

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