An Interview with Writer N.J. Campbell

Transcriptions in Trouble

Last summer, when the Columbia, Ohio-based press Two Dollar Radio announced that it had acquired Found Radio, by N.J. Campbell, I knew I would read it as soon as it came out. The form of the novel consists of a series of transcribed recordings of an unnamed journalist talking about his search for the mythical “City of Dreams,” accompanied by commentary from an audio expert, who has since gone missing, along with other people who have handled the strange material. The book promised to take the reader from the Louisiana Bayou to the Mongolian desert, with stops in Hong Kong and Istanbul. 

Not only did Found Audio sound like a twisty Borgesian adventure story, but in the interview Two Dollar Radio posted with Campbell, he talked about his work of fiction as if it weren’t fiction at all. In deadpan answers, he explained how the transcriptions had come into his hands and discussed his anxiety about the consequences of publishing them. I loved how the dream-world of the novel already seemed to be invading the real world. As I should have suspected, this is exactly what it is about: the porousness between waking life and dreams and the breakdown of the barriers dividing them.

I read Found Audio in one sitting, a rarity for me. The voice of the novel—which is mostly the conversational voice of the mysterious journalist—is understated yet hypnotically vivid, making way for Campbell’s massive, Borgesian imagination. When I emailed him to begin discussing his novel, I told him I almost wanted to keep the ruse going with our interview, but that I was too curious about his creative process not to break down the wall between fact and fiction in my questions. He graciously obliged.

—Aaron Shulman

THE BELIEVER: What was the seed of this novel—that first spark—and how did it evolve into the book it became?

N.J. CAMPBELL: I have a metal box, and I put all of my story ideas in it. About four years ago, I had the idea to write a story about a bounty hunter that hunted snakes in the bayou. I got the idea from a short article online that announced a bounty hunting season for invasive snake species in the Everglades with prize money for the largest haul. I have no idea why I was researching anything remotely related to this, but then I often find myself looking into things that seem not even tangentially related to whatever I thought I was doing. That was the first “moment” I had with the story. I wrote down a few notes and put them away, as I was busy with...