The Greatest Interview of All Time
Aaron Burch in Conversation with Kevin Maloney and D.T. Robbins (w/ Special Guest Amber Frank)
In the summer of 2024, I was going through a divorce and living with my mother… which feels like the first line of one of my short stories, but my life tends to repeat itself and sometimes my stories come true, and that’s exactly what happened in the summer of 2024. I was going through a divorce and living with my mother and I needed to get out of town for a few days to get some fresh air, so I drove up to Tacoma to visit my buddy Aaron Burch and his girlfriend Amber, who were renting an AirBNB for the summer. We went walking on the waterfront and drank beer and made pizza and got drunk at a tiki bar. It was exactly what I needed.
At the time, Aaron and I were in the middle of a literary experiment, co-writing a novella with D.T. Robbins about the unfortunate fictitious death of our buddy Kyle Seibel—an experiment which inadvertently produced the greatest novel of all time, Kettlebell Friends Forever (we printed exactly 50 copies… if you own one, you are in possession of one of literature’s great treasures). When Aaron wasn’t working on Kettlebell, he was dashing off short stories, sometimes as frequently as one per day, texting D.T. and I: “Oh crazy! I wrote another one. Oh shit, here’s one more! Wait… just while I was texting you about that last one, I wrote another one. Oops!” (I’m paraphrasing).
D.T. and I were annoyed, but we agreed to read all of Aaron’s stories, mostly because we featured prominently as characters in them. *Pro tip: if you want your friends to read your fiction, make them prominent characters in said fiction. The stories were playful and fun and occasionally ridiculous, but they also captured a magical quality I’d caught a glimpse of while visiting Aaron and Amber in Tacoma—an optimism I thought I was projecting onto the landscape since I was going through a kind of rebirth at the time, but which is, I think, distinct to Puget Sound, and maybe was particularly unique to that summer. On a sunny day, with its boats and ferries and Mt. Rainier hovering in the distance, Tacoma is one of the most stunning places on earth.
Fast forward a few months, and suddenly Aaron had mashed all the stories together, producing a short novel, Tacoma, that is a love story about Tacoma, the city, and two people—Aaron and Amber—sharing a sweet summer together without any of the conflict and strife we’re used to encountering in novels that focus on relationships. It’s one of the best books to come out of our corner of indie lit… if not the wider literary world in years. You can read it in a single sitting (I read the whole thing in a single bath while sipping a hot toddy), and all I can say is: go buy it. You won’t regret it. What you may regret, however, is reading this interview between myself, D.T., and Aaron, which is both the greatest interview of all time and also extremely, delightfully stupid. Enjoy!
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Kevin / Aaron—you’ve done quite a few interviews promoting Tacoma, and in all of them, I noticed a common theme… you cite what a huge influence me and D.T. Robbins are on your work. You’ve gone as far as saying “those two are geniuses” and “my God, are they the best writers in America? Honestly, I think that’s an understatement.” Say more about that.
D.T. / Congrats on Tacoma, Aaron. To echo Kevin’s question, can you talk more about how you owe all of your recent creative and personal successes entirely to Kevin and me?
Burch / So, I haven’t really talked about this, and it feels a little awkward to do so in an interview with you two… but also fitting?
There’s kinda two impetuses for the book:
- As you note that I’ve been saying, I think you two are both geniuses and two of the best writers writing right now. I wanted more Maloney and Robbins! You two can’t write books fast enough for me to enjoy them, it turns out, so I wrote Tacoma in large part inspired by you both, and wherein you both make guest appearances, as an attempt to kind of gift myself (and, by doing so, others) a new Kevin Maloney novel, and also a new D.T. novel. But also…
- I’m also greedy, and as much as I wanted more writing by you both, and as great as you both are, I wanted that new, more writing from you both to be even better than anything you’d previously written. As very possibly the best writers in America right now, there was only really one way to level up from there: write it myself.
Kevin / Well, it’s all very annoying because the leveling up worked and now I have to write a book even better than Tacoma with guest appearances by you and D.T., which D.T. will have to level up on in his next book, with guest appearances by you and I. And god forbid Mike Nagel ever writes a book about us.
Speaking of writing a book about us—the Kevin in Tacoma sort of acts as this magical entity, like a genie, literally appearing out of nowhere, reminding everyone that nothing is real, and then vanishing. How much is that character based on me, the actual Kevin Maloney, and how much did he just sort of become his own thing (yes, this is another question about me)?
Burch / I’d actually be kinda curious to hear your answer to that! How much the Kevin in Tacoma feels recognizable, feels like you, feels true… vs. his own thing?
He’s obviously you. Like, maybe 100% “based on” you, the actual Kevin Maloney. But I feel like he’s also based on the Kevin Maloney in your writing, which is of course based on yourself but has also become his own thing? And then he gets fed through the lens of Tacoma and my own writing style and all that, so… he’s kinda like my fantastical cover version of your own artistic, absurdist rendering of yourself?
In that way, it almost felt more like I was borrowing a character from your fiction and using it in my own, as much if not even more than I was writing about “you”?
D.T. / I don’t want to throw the interview off or anything, but is this the part where we kiss? My pants feel so tight right now.
I agree—we are three of the best writers writing shit right now, and I feel like part of that is because of how we are always stoked to read/talk about/encourage each other’s writing. Moreover, it’s genuine. I don’t ever feel like when we send each other our shit, we’re just saying oh, cool, man just to say it or whatever. There’s sincere excitement/admiration for one another, and that’s been super influential for me, at least. Also, I already have ideas for how to incorporate both of you into my next novel!
Kevin’s and my novel characters are pretty close to our real-life characters because Kevin truly doesn’t think anything is real. He might actually be a hallucination or a memory of a mystic from another plane of existence that’s just never moved on, and I like drinking beer while doing/saying/writing weird shit, and I do get jealous when you guys have fun without me. Also, novel-me can be kind of a dick, and maybe real-life me is also kind of a dick? We all have blindspots! But I think the way you wrote us is really genuine and sweet, and it makes me grateful to have you guys as my friends, you know?
Burch / I was thinking a version of this even before you added that, D.T. (Which I note that you’ve been typing here in this google doc as “DT” but that you gave me shit for writing you as “DT” rather than “D.T.”), but there’s some nice echoes…
Not to speak for Kevin, but I feel like part of the fun for him writing autofiction is exaggerating himself—more of a fuck-up, more drugs, more of a hippie Portland wizard—and that exaggeration opens up fun fictional possibilities while also, through that same exaggeration, maybe getting even closer to the truth? I think a lot of the comments about my own writing in the last few years have been aimed at my earnestness and open-heartedness, and how I write about joy and having fun. I think all those are true to myself as well… but maybe become even more exaggerated on the page? In ways that I think have made my writing even better? And so, you know, not to get even more earnest and open-hearted here, but I also feel grateful to have you both as my friends, and my feelings about you both are pretty genuine and sweet… and I think writing into that has made my writing even stronger and also more unique. It is weird talking about your own strengths as a writer, but I think capturing you both on the page in the ways that you both feel flattered by and feel like are pretty close your real life selves is part of what makes Tacoma so uniquely a Burch book?
Kevin / Okay, I kind of want to barf about what a love fest this is, but also it’s totally true. Also… I happen to have attended an arts lecture last night about the concept of “cringe” by Portland artists Jaydra Johnson and Ashley Yang-Thompson, and the big takeaway was that cringe in art can actually be a really good thing, because, as artists, we’re often taught to avoid gross displays of sincerity, but this sincerity can also lead us to rawness and vulnerability, which are essential ingredients in great art. So… let the love fest continue.
On that note… in a different group chat I’m in with you Aaron (that D.T. isn’t a part of), we were talking about whether or not conflict is essential in a short story or novel. Our buddy Patrick Wensink is of the opinion that it’s absolutely essential, and you said he’ll probably hate Tacoma then because there’s almost no conflict. It does, however, have a quest. I know you’ve spoken quite a bit about the book’s positivity and optimism, but I’m curious if you can say more about writing a book without a lot of conflict. Did that concern you? Did any of your early readers suggest that it needed a bank robbery or a car chase?
D.T. / Wait. You guys have a group chat without me?!
Kevin / Ummmm.
Burch / I almost mentioned that groupchat earlier, and something Derrick said in it, but then didn’t because I knew D.T. would feel left out and get jealous.
No, the lack of conflict never really concerned me… until I sent it to some early readers, and then I did kind of wonder if they might make note of that, but none ever did. I think the book very much knows what it is, and lets the reader pretty early on know what it is, and so, with that groundwork set, it can maybe be more free to be itself?
I knew I wanted it to be a “hangout novel.” Movies like Dazed and Confused and Everybody Wants Some! and even Clerks and Mallrats are some of my favorite movies. That isn’t always what I want from a movie, but is def one of my fave genres. And so I was definitely trying to write into that genre. I think part of it, too, is its length. I knew pretty early on, if not straight up from the outset, that it felt like it would be a ~20k word short book. I think its brevity lets it get away with some things that might not work if tried to stretch over 3 or 4x that?
I talk about this a lot, but my favorite piece of writing about craft (maybe the only one I even really like? almost definitely the only one I ever actually find myself thinking about) is George Saunders’ “Rise, Baby, Rise.” There’s lots of smart stuff in it, but it has two subsection headers—“A Story is Made of Things That Fling Our Little Car Forward” and “Ending is Stopping Without Sucking”—and those basically capture everything there is to telling/writing a good story?
Maybe the main knock on “literary fiction” is that “nothing really happens” and that is an oversimplification, but I think can be true. It certainly can be for me, at times. We’ve talked about this, but I (and you!) kinda love a story where “nothing really happens.” That said, I think a lot of writers can excuse their own lack of plot/conflict/etc. by saying some version of “that isn’t how life works,” and they get caught up in the beauty of sentences, or whatever… but they don’t actually then think enough about what else is going to “fling the little car (the reader) forward”?
Maybe this is obnoxiously self-congratulatory (I’m not like those other writers!) but I did and do try to think a good amount about flinging the car forward. Sometimes that might be surprisingly cringey sincerity, or a ramping up of the fantastical, or “Kevin” or “D.T.” arriving in the story!
Kevin / There is a sort of plot device or motif (look at me using English teacher words) in Tacoma involving fictional “Aaron’s” relationship to his surrounding environment where things keep shifting around and changing on him every time he goes for a walk. It felt like a metaphor for returning to your home town as an adult where everything is sort of the same, but also sort of different in a way you can never quite pin down. It also reminded me a bit of Denis Johnson’s “Emergency” where Fuckhead and Georgie stumble upon a drive-in movie theater during a blizzard and later accidentally kill a bunch of baby bunnies (spoiler alert!), but then the narrator breaks in and says, “Or maybe that wasn’t the time it snowed. Maybe it was the time we slept in the truck and I rolled over on the bunnies and flattened them. It doesn’t matter.” Suddenly, the entire story’s truth gets thrown into question by an extremely unreliable narrator. I’m curious—why the shifting, unreliable landscape in Tacoma?
Burch / Most of these elements happened pretty early, and really as outgrowths of my favorite writing prompt: “what if?” I think the first fantastical element came from me and Amber actually going on a walk in Tacoma and noticing something we hadn’t noticed on a previous day’s walk. I don’t remember if it was something we commented on or if it just happened later, when I was writing, but there was some kind of “what if it actually hadn’t been there yesterday?” And that uncertainness became literalized in Tacoma’s shifting, unreliable landscape.
It’s funny, doing a few of these interviews, and reading some responses to and summaries of the book, it is being highlighted to me that the speculative elements in the book—the city of Aaron’s youth literally changing around him, there being a hidden tunnel in the mall he went to growing up that literally time travels back to his youth—are pretty on-the-nose metaphors. I think (hope!) what makes them work (?) is that they weren’t intended as such. I think, if they were, they’d probably come across as heavy-handed or cheesy. Maybe some readers would say they are! But I think they happened more organically and honestly. I was never looking for metaphors for growing up or revisiting the home of your youth or anything, but instead was always just trying to have fun on the page—What if…? What would be fun to write about? What might make my friends laugh? What could fling this little car forward? I’m trying to surprise my reader on the page, and that starts by trying to allow myself to be surprised while writing. There’s that writing maxim, “surprising yet inevitable.” I think a lot of the literalized shifting, unreliable landscape came out of just trying to entertain myself on the page and surprise both myself and the reader… but, of course, a lot of it feels inevitable because my obsessions—in general, but especially in writing—are nostalgia and growing up and male friendship and storytelling, and so those are the very ideas that end up becoming literalized through the more speculative or fantastical elements.
D.T. / Speaking of things changing, I’m sorry if I’m a little slow to respond. I’m part of this new group chat with sooooo many awesome people! Like, you guys wouldn’t believe how many really cool, awesome, beautiful, desirable people are in this group chat. They asked me if I wanted to join because they said I was also cool and awesome and beautiful and desirable. At first, I was like, IDK, I’m really busy with this interview right now, but they kept begging me. Like, “PlZ D.T., you’re the best and we totally need you so bad!” Finally, I was like, yeah, cool, I guess. Seriously, the best group chat ever.
Anyway, you guys probably wouldn’t know any of them. They go to a different school.
Burch / Does this mean we can (finally) just fully offload you onto them?
D.T. / As long as Amber and I can stay friends, totally fine with this!
Kevin / Speaking of Amber, I know how D.T. and I felt about being written about in Tacoma (wish we had bigger roles, but appreciate our centrality to the plot), but I’m curious about Amber’s response when she read Tacoma. What did she say when she read the manuscript for the first time?
Burch / Do you want to answer that, Amber, or want me to answer for you?
Amber / I just thought it was cute, especially how we found each other in every lifetime.
Burch / You also were excited that you were going to be “book famous.”
Amber / (laughs) Yeah, that, too. I also only really cared about the parts that I’m in.
Burch / I think D.T. has still only read the parts that he is in. He’s too busy with his new groupchat friends who we wouldn’t know, they go to a different school. I bet he’s read all their books!
Amber / Even before I read it, the first time you told me about it, and how it ends, I teared up. Also, I did actually like all the parts. I’m reading it again now! Also, add in that I did see a whale that day. Cause I did!
Kevin / I have tentatively, humbly, titled this interview The Greatest Interview of All Time, which it clearly is, but before it goes totally off the rails, and so D.T. can get back to his new, cooler group chat, I have one final question. Tacoma clearly has all the markings of a Hollywood movie and will almost certainly be optioned and made into an Oscar-winning cinematic masterpiece. With this in mind, if you have any say over casting, who do you think should play me in the adaptation? Who should play you? And—are there any actors you’d assign the unfortunate task of playing D.T., or would you just have to cast D.T. as D.T. because no actor could quite capture his grumpy, adorable Teddy Bear-ness?
D.T. / We made Kevin mad.
Burch / A fun question! I never think about this until prompted. Do you guys?
I was trying to think of actors who are tall and could bring some good “Maloney” energy. I thought of Harris Dickinson. I thought he was especially great as Fangs in Murder at the End of the World. Feel like that could be fun. But he’s 29 and Tacoma feels pretty middle age to me?
I just googled “tall actors” and Vince Vaughn popped up. His energy is different from yours, and would be different, but feel like he could whirlwind into the story for a couple of chapters, rant about how life isn’t real, and then disappear?
I’d never think of Owen Wilson as myself, or vice versa, but maybe a fun opportunity to pair them together again?
Or, wait. Maybe Luke Wilson, and then make Will Ferrell D.T., and run back Old School, as dumb, bro-y hijinks, but 20 years later, a little more nostalgic and beat down by life, and maybe a little sweeter, too?
Kevin / I actually don’t ever think about actors playing characters in my book. I don’t know why I asked that. Movies aren’t even real. Mostly, I was just hoping you’d say that I would be played by Ryan Gossling, but you screwed up. Anyhow, I’d just like to conclude this interview by saying thank you for being part of the greatest interview of all time, even though interviews aren’t real. Books aren’t real, but people should still buy Tacoma, out now from Autofocus, especially since money isn’t real. And buy Horse Girl Fever and Leasing while you’re at it. XOXO
- The Greatest Interview of All Time - March 3, 2026
* This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are producs of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
