From Hibbing to Harlem: Raymond Strom Discusses Debut Novel, "Northern Lights"
By Eric Bilach
The following article was featured in the February 2020 edition of The Campus.
Ifyou major in theHumanities and the Arts here at City College, then you have likely heard of or know Raymond Strom. For starters, he isone of the division’s three academic advisors. On a daily basis, Strom isresponsible for ensuring that his students’ educational experiences on campusalign with their career aspirations and personal interests as closely aspossible. While Strom himself admits that “much of [his] job is purelyadministrative,” his greatest joys as an advisor have come from providingcurious students with recommendations for elective classes. He notes, “TheHumanities and the Arts are often overlooked these days, so it’s great to beable to share my love of literature and film with people.”
Typicallytucked away inside of his neat and orderly office in NAC 5/224, Strom hasbecome a key figure in the Humanities and the Art’s quest to promote“humanistic knowledge and creative expression” around campus. However, despitehis reputation with students as one of the best go-to people for academicguidance, there is much more to Strom thanmeets the eye.
Bornin Hibbing, Minnesota, Strom spent much of his adolescent life moving acrossthe American Midwest. His eventual decision to settle down in New York Cityfifteen years ago was, as he recalls, prompted by his desires to “write, seeplays, visit museums, and go to concerts.” Sincebecoming a resident New Yorker, Strom acknowledges that he has done what heoriginally set out to achieve. In his own words, “Well, here I am: writing inthe morning, trying to get people interested in books in the afternoon, andgoing out to see the city at night.”
Inaddition to his role as an academic advisor for the Division of the Humanitiesand the Arts, Strom is a 2009 MFA graduate of City College, as well as apublished author. In fact, his writing has appeared in notable literarymagazines such as Fiction, Tweed’s, and The New York Times.Moreover, this past February, after twenty-one years in the making, Strom’sperhaps most ambitious and captivating work, Northern Lights, hitbookshelves nationwide.
Bothpoignant and abrasive, Strom’s debut novel about a Midwestern teen searchingfor his long-lost mother has received widespread acclaim. In a review writtenby Jessie Chaffee, author of Florence in Ecstasy (2017), the book issaid to, “Cut with both violence and tenderness, Northern Lights deftlycaptures the knife-edge of addiction, the electricity of first love, and theinsatiable search for belonging.”
Publishedby Simon & Schuster, the novel follows Shane Stephenson, whose experiencesin the rural, drug-laden town of Holm, Minnesota force him to confront theawakening of his own sexual identity, his family’s sordid past, and a localescalation of white supremacy. When asked about the exigence behind NorthernLights, Strom shared that, although fictional, the setting and plot of thenovel are mostly inspired by true events (autobiographical or otherwise). As hedescribed it:
[Northern Lights] is a gritty story about a place where life is hard and people take out their frustration where they can -- sometimes on others, but usually on themselves. And while Shane’s story is not my story, I do have a similar one of my own that’s happier in some ways and sadder in some others.
Strom’sintimacy with Shane’s story is perhaps characterized by Northern Light’slengthy and arduous writing process. Strom revealed that he penned the novel’sopening line back in 1997. He subsequently resumed drafting in the years thatfollowed on two separate occasions: in 2005 during his first semester in theMFA program, and in 2014 after connecting with his then “soon-to-be” agent. Althoughwriting Northern Lights proved to be, on many occasions, quite aHerculean task, Strom held that, “Triumphs, it may seem strange, often gounnoticed. Any day I hit my writing quota (1,000 words) was considered atriumph -- it’s the consistent completion of small goals that lead to the bigpayoffs.”
Whilehaving a novel published is, for many authors, “a steppingstone into the publicspotlight,” Strom regards Northern Lights in its final form as the goalitself. Given that he has not attempted to capitalize on the success of hisnovel in any significant way, perhaps the act of seeing a project through frombeginning to completion is, for Strom, the true triumph.
AsNorthern Lights approaches its one-year anniversary, Strom explains thathe currently does not have a second full-length project in the works. However,he did disclose that he has some budding ideas for a novel set in New York, andthat “one of these days, something will click and [he‘ll] get back to writingfull-speed.” Until that day arrives, he has some words of advice for hisstudent artists:
For the most part, I say this to all of my student artists, whether they are painters, actors, musicians filmmakers, or creative writers: find a job you won’t mind doing for the rest of your life -- we all have bills to pay -- and use your spare time doing what you love.
