DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, HOST:
Daytona Teddy Riggs might be unemployed. He might be estranged from his wealthy parents. He might be living with his grandma in Corpus Christi, but he is laser-focused on a singular goal.
DREW BUXTON: (Reading) People always whine about the heat on the coast, the humidity. You start sweating as soon as you step outside, but I love that. As soon as I step outside, I'm getting warmed up, getting my body hot and loose. I've got a lot of equipment out here, so I don't have to go to the gym twice a day, like before. I grab some light stones and do overhead presses. I grab a bigger one and carry it back and forth, shield-carry style, hugging it against my chest.
(Reading) I do my visualizations. I've been telling the universe, I'm going to win Gulf's Strongest Man. The universe has been responding. I said it for months. Then they announced it's going to be in Houston, where the Pat Dupree seminar is going to be the same week. It's all lined up for me. This seminar is what I spent the last of my trust payment on when my parents cut me off - $3,000 - but it's going to be worth every penny.
KURTZLEBEN: Unfortunately, Teddy Riggs can't help but get in his own way. "Daytona Teddy Riggs" is a story about 100 bad decisions - some comedic, some pathetic, most entirely avoidable. And it's Drew Buxton's debut novel. Drew, welcome to the program.
BUXTON: Appreciate you having me. So happy to be here.
KURTZLEBEN: So let's start with the basic premise of your book. Teddy is our main character. He's 24. How did he get that nickname of Daytona?
BUXTON: So they call him Daytona in Corpus because he's the fastest on the road in his big truck driving around, and he was the fastest on the field. He was a former high school star football player.
KURTZLEBEN: What he is dead set on is winning this strongest man competition. And I'm wondering, why? What is he trying to prove?
BUXTON: Yeah, I think part of it is just trying to fulfill his sort of athletic promise. You know, he went to a D1 college to play football, and that - it didn't work out because of his, you know, decisions and his attitude. And then partly out of spite, people tell him he can't do it. At one point in the book, he says, no one can deny the world's strongest man. So I feel on some level, he thinks it's going to get his parents' approval and love.
KURTZLEBEN: You know, he's doing all of this power lifting. He's a big guy, and he's trying to bulk up, so he's just eating all the time. And the descriptions of the food he eats are memorable, evocative, maybe are the words for it.
BUXTON: Right.
KURTZLEBEN: Could you list the types of things he's eating in a typical day?
BUXTON: Yeah, so he tries to get his 10,000 calories in a day. That's his minimum. So he starts off with a dozen eggs. You know, Granny cooks some eggs in the morning with lots of toast. His favorite place to eat is Whataburger. It's a kind of famous chain. It was actually started in Corpus Christi, but - fast food chain in Texas. A lot of Church's Chicken - he's really trying to just find the cheap, super calorie-rich food wherever he can.
KURTZLEBEN: And on top of that, he's using steroids, which might account for the fights he gets into or his poor decision making. At one point, he steals a donation jar for St. Jude's Hospital from a grocery store in broad daylight. There's also a road rage incident. He gets kicked out of his gym. I just want to ask you point blank. What is Teddy's problem here? Is it just the steroids, or is it more complicated?
BUXTON: I think it's more complicated. The steroids certainly don't help. He's very impulsive to begin with, but I think he comes from a privileged family, oil gas family, and he was also a star football player. So he has never really been held to any consequences until he's in his 20s in the book, and he's - all this is starting to catch up to him as his behavior spirals. But we even see in the beginning of the book, he knows one of the police officers. They played high school football together. And he sort of gets off with a slap on the wrist so hasn't really faced many consequences before.
KURTZLEBEN: I read that you're a former social worker. I'm curious, what got you into that line of work, and why did you leave it?
BUXTON: Yeah, I was a psychology major in college and then thought I wanted to be a therapist, but that didn't work out, so I went into social work. I think just my understanding that dealing with mental illness myself and my family dealing with it and coming from a fairly privileged background, how much, I guess, just having money has made a difference for us. And then thinking about people with similar issues but without that safety net - so wanting to sort of give back in that way.
KURTZLEBEN: There's a lot of discussion lately about what healthy and unhealthy masculinity are. Was that on your mind when you were writing this book?
BUXTON: So I never start with, like, a theme or, you know, a message or anything. I just - I'm generally more interested in story, but it came out pretty quickly, you know, following Teddy, that the version of masculine that he sort of ascribes to is not helping him. The book is set in the '90s, but I do think there's some relevance today where men are feeling unsatisfied or lonely, and they see this kind of new hypermasculinity as a possible answer. And I think that's - on some level, it's more appealing because it's easier than, you know, introspection and, you know, self-reflection.
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah, I mean, as I was reading, I was thinking about lookmaxxers and the manosphere, all of that. Is there a line you can draw from Teddy Riggs to those people? It sounds like the answer is yes.
BUXTON: Yeah, I think so. I think - I like to think if he was in his 20s now, he wouldn't get sucked into that 'cause he's all about performance, you know? But he has that same struggle of, does he turn inward for answers, or does he just power through, you know...
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah.
BUXTON: ...Without thinking? And I think that's kind of a struggle that men face.
KURTZLEBEN: He's such a well-drawn character, and I found myself thinking about him so much since I finished the book because I had a lot of empathy for him as I read it. He's earnest. He's not malicious. My heart kind of ached for him. But I found him hard to like at the same time. He just doesn't seem to learn. He's very frustrating. I'm wondering, why did you want to write about that kind of person? And do you like Teddy?
BUXTON: I've had friends where they're sort of a lot of fun to be around in that you never kind of know what's going to happen next, and I think Teddy's like that. I did want him to be ultimately endearing on some level. I thought a lot about - we're getting this first person, his point of view, so we understand that he's struggling with his mental health. And if this were in the third person or, like, just a movie, seeing him from the outside, I think there'd be less empathy, but I think seeing his struggle makes him a little more lovable.
KURTZLEBEN: You know, this story - it takes place over about a month or two. I'm wondering, where would Daytona Teddy Riggs be when he's, say, 40?
BUXTON: I've thought about this a lot. I do think ultimately, Teddy is always going to need something to really latch onto and believe in. He could become, you know, quite religious. I could see that as well. It's interesting - just the early reactions to the book, different people's opinions about sort of what's next for him. I'm not sure. I don't have a set idea. It's not hopeless, I'll say that.
KURTZLEBEN: When people have those reactions to your character like that or try to, I don't know, see into your character's future, how do you feel about that? I mean, he's your creation. Do you feel possessive of Teddy, or are you interested in how these other people are projecting out for him?
BUXTON: No, I think - I mean, it's really a great feeling because ultimately, you know, fiction works when it has that, you know, spark of real life. But when people begin to see him as a real person and being invested in his future, that means that they've really connected with the book. So yeah, it's - it feels great.
KURTZLEBEN: That's Drew Buxton. His debut novel is "Daytona Teddy Riggs." Drew, thank you so much for talking with us about it.
BUXTON: Thank you so much for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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