Michael Chessler

Michael Chessler was born and raised in Los Angeles. He graduated from Harvard College with a degree in English and American literature, and also studied Italian literature at the Università di Firenze. After working various odd jobs in the entertainment industry—perhaps the oddest being a short stint as a motion picture literary agent—he began a career writing, producing, and directing television. Chessler has developed pilots for all the major networks, and has been a showrunner, producer, director and writer on a number of TV series.

His new novel is Mess.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

My one-word title Mess does a good job of encapsulating my novel, which is about a personal organizer whose life’s work is tackling physical messes, yet is woefully inept at trying to organize her own internal messes—the tangles of negative thoughts and the overstuffed boxes of suppressed emotions.

What's in a name?

I chose the name Jane Brown for my protagonist because I think you’d expect someone named Jane Brown to be brisk and efficient. Also, the name “Jane” has always been a favorite of mine, certainly influenced by the associations with one of my favorite 19th century novelists, Jane Austen, as well as one of my favorite 19th century novels, Jane Eyre.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

My teenage self would not be terribly surprised by Mess, in fact, I think he’d be stoked! I’ve always gravitated towards perceptive characters with lots of internal conflicts who are also blithely unaware of their own contradictions. Two very LA novels with vivid, almost grotesque characters were baked into my psyche at a young age: Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust and Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One, and I hope their profound influence is manifested in Mess in some way.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

In this case, definitely the ending. A lot of this has to do with the fact that Mess began as a short story. Early readers asked me if it was the beginning of a novel, and even though I hadn’t conceived of it as such, once asked, I immediately envisioned how the novel would unfold and knew what I wanted the culmination of the romantic arc to be. While I had an end point, this ending needed to be earned. I wanted it to be surprising but seem inevitable at the same time, so mapping out the journey from the beginning to what I hope is a satisfying ending required lots of adjustments and fine tuning.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Those closest to me would probably say I’m very neat and organized, yet I’m also probably inordinately preoccupied with what I perceive to be my organizing failures, especially the one project I have been putting off forever: going though my old papers and digitizing those I want to keep. So like Jane, I am a type-A perfectionist whose constant struggle to live up to impossible ideals creates a lot of unhelpful noise in my head.

Visit Michael Chessler's website.

The Page 69 Test: Mess.

--Marshal Zeringue