Though he may not have planned for it, Victor LaValle ’94 is quickly following in the footsteps of past generations of famed Cornell authors, knocking at the doorstep of literary greats like E.B. White, Kurt Vonnegut, Toni Morrison and Thomas Pynchon.

The Big Machine, LaValle’s newest book, topped lists for the best fiction work of 2009 at The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and Publisher’s Weekly.

It was a stunningly successful follow-up to his debut novel, The Ecstatic, which was a finalist for the 2003 PEN/Faulkner Award for best American fiction. The Ecstatic even inspired the title of acclaimed rapper Mos Def’s most recent album.

A fantastical novel, The Big Machine tells the story of a janitor, Ricky Rice, as he works to join the Unlikely Scholars, a secret society of fellow African-American ex-convicts and drug addicts in Vermont; and foil the plot of an army comprised of San Francisco’s homeless to blow up the Bay Area. Believe it or not, the plot gets even stranger from there.

LaValle described his style as “Mythic Realism” –– a term he came up with on the spot –– and listed Ishmael Reed and Phillip Roth as important influences.

The Post’s Elizabeth Hand called The Big Machine “a modern horror novel” that is part of a “reinvent[ion of] literary conventions, particularly the ghettos of genre and ethnicity that long divided serious literature from popular fiction.” She likened the book to the works of another popular Cornell grad, Junot Diaz MFA ’95.

But The Big Machine, and the rest of LaValle’s work, was very close to never happening. In the fall of his senior year of high school, LaValle planned to join the Marines and marry his high school sweetheart.

Yet one day LaValle got off the school bus and was called over by a friend.

“You should apply to at least one college,” his friend said. “Why not see what happens?”

LaValle laughed. “Sure,” he responded. “You name one school and I’ll apply to it, what the hell?”

His friend thought for a minute before saying “Cornell,” and so LaValle applied.

“This guy saved my life,” LaValle said. His girlfriend would break up with him a few years later.

At the University, LaValle spent long hours serving pastries at Robert Purcell Union –– a job which LaValle said was “not good” for his expanding waistline.

According to an essay he wrote called “Big Time,” LaValle swelled to 350 pounds by his senior year and only lost the weight when he was told a picture of him would be going on the back of his first published work.

“Living as an obtrusive, ungainly mess was one thing, but having it photographed, preserved, was another,” he wrote in the essay.

One job LaValle did benefit from, however, was working as a security guard at the front desk of Uris Library one summer. He said that the lax responsibilities of the job allowed him to grow as a writer.

“I guess you were supposed to run out and tackle people who were stealing books,” LaValle joked. During this job he wrote three of the short stories included in his acclaimed short story collection, Slapboxing with Jesus.

LaValle lived in Dickson his freshman year before moving to Ujamaa and then Collegetown. Although he now realizes that he “loved” his time at Cornell, he lamented not appreciating it then.

“Going up to the dairy farm [and] putting my hand up a cow’s ass,” LaValle said. “I really wish I had done that now.”

Although he has not written about Cornell yet, LaValle is currently working on a college novel. LaValle said he’s working hard to not make the story “just a list of stupid little college exploits,” but still make it a fun read for a Cornell student.

His final words of wisdom are to enjoy stupid college exploits.

“Appreciate those sheets of pizza and hot wings at two in the morning,” LaValle concluded. “As much as they tell you not to really enjoy getting drunk, do it.”