In Defense of Vicarious Cruelty

In the world of mystery writing, I suppose we authors do indulge in some vicarious cruelty, in that we might kill off people who remind us of people we don't like. It doesn't hurt anyone, because it's fictional.

To my surprise, though, this doesn't only happen in the world of books. Today my children earned some Playstation time by doing some morning chores; imagine my surprise when I heard my husband, in the next room, say, "It's not nice to torture, son." Wow. I don't think my parents ever had to share that particular wisdom with me. Mind you, these are PG games, but I guess Graham was given the option to do something bad to a "bad guy." He's bad, therefore it's okay. Hmmmm . . .

On another occasion my older son was playing an educational computer game. He's actually learning things about history, including terms like serf, vassal, fiefdom, tariff. He is the lord of his own kingdom, and the way that he is able to build and expand his empire is, of course, by taxing his people. However, he was given the choice of being a benevolent or a cruel ruler. He was able to choose "no tax," "mild tax," or "severe tax." Naturally, my son chose "severe tax," and one of his serfs knelt in front of him begging him not to do so. I intervened here, suggesting that he NOT tax his people into lives of misery, but he just chuckled and told me that he needed to build a bridge, and this would fund it.

I suppose this would prepare him nicely for a career in politics, but I'd prefer to think of him as a compassionate boy. Still, who am I to judge? I spend my evenings trying to think of someone to kill, and then daydreaming about who would be most likely to kill him. Perhaps sometimes this vicarious cruelty lets us work out that ol' original sin and then allows us to be nicer in real life.

Or so I would like to think. :)

(image:http://www.pelnet.com/perso/gallinet/Meluzine/Images/vassal.jpg)

Remembrance of Libraries Past

I recently asked my 8-year-old son if he had remembered to return his library book at school.

"Yup," he said.

"Did you get a new one?"

"Yup. My Father's Dragon. We have to take out chapter books now," he said with studied casualness.

But I could hear the pride beneath the words--chapter books! Such a big boy endeavor. Graham had been furious when his older brother learned to read. He, at five, still couldn't, and it frustrated him beyond belief. I doubt he remembers that frustration now, but his joy in being able to interpret what were once inscrutable symbols is evident.

It made me remember my own grade school library--just a tiny place, and for many years my mother was a volunteer librarian there. When my class would march down for library time, then, my mom had already selected several volumes she thought would interest me (and she was always right). Through that teensy library I discovered, of course, Nancy Drew, but also Cherry Ames, Student Nurse, and Trixie Belden, and some series I can't remember about three stewardesses living in an apartment together and doing wonderfully independent things while enjoying the city. (I don't remember what city).

I discovered P.G. Wodehouse through a book for children called Mike at Wrykyn, and I never gave P.G. up after that; I also discovered a delightful book called Andrew, The Big Deal,by Barbara Brooks Wallace, which I found recently in a vintage book shop and bought at once, and I read it to my children now (but would read it to myself just for the pleasure).

The more I read, though, the more I read mysteries, and that was thanks to the wonderful plenitude of books by people like Mary Stewart, Phyllis Whitney, Victoria Holt, Velda Johnston. That genre helped me discover people like M.M. Kaye, P.D. James, Martha Grimes, Patricia Moyes. And on and on.

My mom and I still have book exchanges. When I handed her my entire Boucheron sample bag she was in heaven.

And my sons, hopefully, will have book exchanges with me. :)

(image:http://www.ywgs.edu.hk/~library/images/mainLibrary.jpg)

Lev Raphael on Identity, Social Commentary, Civil Rights, Jesus, and Keith Carradine

Lev, thank you for agreeing to chat on my blog.

First, I must say that you have a terrific name. Did you always have a sense that it would look great on the spine of a book?
You know, I thought less of my name on a book than of some book of mine being on a shelf with other books in a library, part of the great conversation. I felt this way as far back as second or third grade when I started writing fiction and was endlessly borrowing books from our local library which was a turn-of-the-century Gothic-style building and awed me every time I walked in.

Your website tells me that you are “widely sought after as a keynote speaker, panelist, moderator, and conference speaker.” Which is your favorite? And when you are sought, are you found?
There’s something special about keynoting, because you help set the mood for what follows. It’s an honor, and quite a responsibility. But I recently did an after dinner speech for a literacy foundation and that was a whole new challenge—and exciting. What I like best, I guess, at this point after having done hundreds of talks and readings, etc., is something I haven’t done before--if possible! As for being found—most requests come via email through my web site, and I always reply, even if I won’t be able to do the event due to scheduling or some other reason.

You have your own radio show and have been a commentator for NPR. How did you get involved in radio?
I actually gave up the show because it was too much work, but it was wonderful to do while it lasted. I got to interview authors like Salman Rushdie, Erica Jong, Julian Barnes, Linda Fairstein. Now I understand why there’s a lot of burnout in radio, which I started in as a reviewer for a show in Ann Arbor. That got syndicated by NPR and then I also did work for two public radio shows in the Lansing, MI area, one of which was interested in my doing a weekly book show. It was fun and I think the authors enjoyed being interviewed by an author who had actually read their books and done research. Because I wanted to make sure the interview reflected me and the author correctly, I did the production, too, and that was sometimes mind-numbing, sitting there editing the tracks, timing everything, listening to some bits over and over. And then there were the occasional technical problems I had no control over--

Aside from seven Nick Hoffmann mysteries, you’ve authored fiction and non-fiction, and your “stories and essays are on university syllabi around the U.S. and in Canada; [your] fiction has been analyzed in books, scholarly journals and at scholarly conferences, including MLA.” Do you have a work that you consider your best? Or do you have an “I don’t love one child more than another” philosophy?
Because I write so many different kinds of things, I have lots of favorites. I think the new mystery,Hot Rocks, has the best plot. I think the story “The Tanteh” in my collection Secret Anniversaries of the Heart is my best story. I’ve done hundreds of reviews, and I know the one I did of an Alan Furst book, a very long one, for Boston Review, was my best. Then there’s the literary historical novel I recently finished that really still blows me away—I never expected to work in that genre, but when the idea hit me last April, it wouldn’t let me go. I’ve never written anything this complex, and it’s definitely the strongest novel I’ve done.

You have written some critically acclaimed works about the Holocaust, including your book of short stories called Dancing on Tisha B'Av. As the son of Holocaust survivors, did you always feel it was your destiny to write about this event in history?
I came to that late, that is, in my twenties, when I started claiming a positive Jewish identity since I’d grown up without one, and realized that I had something special to share with people as the son of survivors. I started with teaching, then writing about it. But that’s just one side of my work, as you know. I see the mysteries as offering entertainment, and then there’s my best-selling children’s book, which has been translated into a dozen languages, which focuses on self-esteem. Everything’s written for some kind of purpose or other.

Did your parents’ survival story tend to inspire you as a young person, or did it make you sad? Or angry, perhaps? And did those feelings compel you to write, or would you have become a writer regardless of your family history?
I sought refuge in books from my angry, unhappy family, and loved the myriad worlds I discovered there. But even in a different family, I would have been a writer because I loved storytelling from a very early age. I still do. Or I wouldn’t be writing.

Let’s go back to Nick Hoffmann. What drew you (and continues to draw you) to the Mystery genre?
I love the mix of crime, puzzle, and social commentary. Mysteries these days are a lot about exposing some kind of corruption in tandem with the exploration of the what and why of the crime, and they take us into different worlds. As for the series, I love coming back to some familiar characters in between working on other books in other genres—it’s like a vacation for me at an all-inclusive resort. I actually set my previous mystery, Tropic of Murder, at a Club Med, because I’d attended a mystery conference at one, and done research at another, and thought it would be a perfect setting for crime. Both trips were paid for, by the way, in a lucky turn of events. Leaving Michigan in mid-winter for the Caribbean was lovely.

I'll bet. What is the premise of Hot Rocks, your new book?
Nick is at his palatial health club and discovers a body in the steam room. He’s a prime suspect, of course, and driven to find the murderer, he discovers a whole web of secrecy and deceit among members and employees of the club. It’s got sex,fitness, and conspicuous consumption.


Oh, and as Henslowe says in Shakespeare in Love, “and a bit with a dog.”

Dogs sell. :) There’s a beautiful piece on your website called “Writing a Jewish Life,” which was both a published article and a keynote address that you gave not long after September 11th. It details some of the confusing emotions of your childhood as the child of Holocaust survivors, then your struggle to emerge as a young man and a young writer in college. You wrote, poignantly, that writing is “a hazardous enterprise at best, an arena of life where it would be best to inject your self-esteem with novocaine if such a thing were possible.” Wow, what a great way of putting it. After all the acclaim, do you still feel this way?
I don’t think rejection ever stops stinging. I don’t think you ever forget the lost opportunities or the most savage reviews. The pain fades with good news, but failure and false starts are wounds that can start throbbing quite easily. Between my first and second published short stories I lived through a blizzard of rejections that lasted over five years.

That stays with you. And then there are further disappointments of all kinds. To be a writer, you need more than just patience on top of your talent, you need a high tolerance for hard knocks.

Now, I've had a lot of great things happen in my career, like one book selling over 250,000 copies; getting two European book tours; winning a prize where the contest was judged by D.M. Thomas who wrote The White Hotel; having people teach my work in colleges and universities; getting invited to places like Oxford University and the 92nd St. Y. But I've also had a lot of terrible things happen in my career, like when one publisher purged all its mystery authors and I found out via email rumor, or another publisher canceled a contract the day before Thanksgiving. The list could go on. That's the reality of a writer's life.

You also quoted Janet Malcolm, who said, “Art is theft. Art is armed robbery. Art is not pleasing your mother.” Again, that seems to be a universal truth. Did your mother come around in terms of your writing career?
I think it’s a Hallmark Card fantasy that our parents will like what we write—why should they? In my life specifically, my mother fell ill before she could read my mysteries, a genre she loved. That’s very sad to me.

What are you reading now?
A book about the Spanish Civil War; a mystery set in 1947 Egypt about the Nag Hammadi Gnostic Gospels; and The Utility of Force by a British general writing about the nature of war vs. insurgencies. I didn’t used to read more than one book at a time, but now I find it almost impossible to stick to just one, unless it’s riveting. Or short!

I’m also reading a few German language guides because I’m doing a two-week book tour in Germany next month for my third book published in German and I need the brush-up.

Sounds exciting! You have an M.F.A in Creative Writing and a Ph.D. in American Studies; you once taught, but left academia to write full time. When were you busier—then or now?
I left almost twenty years ago, which amazes me. I loved teaching, but knew I could never do more than publish stories and articles because I only had summers off and that wasn't enough time to do a book. I suppose it’s a different kind of busy now, perhaps? When you teach writing, for instance, you’re bombarded by all those different student voices, not of your own choice (as opposed to when you pick your reading material). You have endless grading to do, and student conferences, and lessons to plan (plus meetings to attend). I didn’t write as much then, because I didn’t have the time. I’ve been much busier as a writer and reviewer since I quit teaching.

You need a tremendous amount of time around the time you write, so to speak, time to not feel pushed and pulled. And then writing doesn’t just happen at the computer or wherever—the subconscious is always working. I frequently have ideas or work tangles out in something while I’m walking the dogs, working out, grocery shopping, showering, falling asleep.

So you're busy writing without looking like you're busy writing. And when I was reviewing, sometimes I'd have to read 3-5 books a week just to keep up, so the ten years I did that were truly hectic.

Wow. You are in Michigan, and you credit the finding of your Jewish identity to the fact that you left New York and moved to Michigan. Is this because Michigan is a Jewish place, or because it’s not?
The latter, but then writers often find themselves away from home. It worked for James Baldwin when he left Harlem for Paris. He saw himself and America much more clearly. Leaving New York helped me develop a better sense of my audience and what I had to say in my fiction, at least to begin with, and it broke the dry spell I spoke about earlier.

Do people ever tell you that you resemble Jesus?
I wish those twelve guys would stop following me around. It’s embarrassing.

I have in the past been taken for Keith Carradine, which is more fun. Especially if I was flying first class. Or in New York when staying at a ritzy hotel and my hair was cut a certain way.

Well, I would think that Jesus would get his room comped. But I suppose Keith Carradine is a more likely sighting. :)

You married your partner in Canada. Do you think America will ever re-define its notion of marriage? Perhaps to encompass the “marriage of two minds” rather than only of two genders?
I hope so, though I don’t care what it’s called. Western Europe has moved that way, even South Africa! Who would have thought the U.S. would be behind the former apartheid state in a question of civil rights?

One last plug: should people start with your first mystery, or should they buy Hot Rocks and work backwards?
Read something, anything, I need a new toaster!

Seriously, I’ve written the series so that it can be picked up anywhere, though Nick does change over time. People should approach the series however they like to read a series: obliquely, from behind, ambush, whatever works.

Good advice. I need a new toaster, too--I don't think they make them as sturdy today as they once made them.

Lev, thank you so much for talking with me. Now that I’ve read the beautiful pieces on your website I will certainly be seeking out your mysteries.

The Next Best Thing

The booksigning I spoke of in the last post was a gathering of The Outfit, or those writers who blog together under that name: Sean Chercover, Barb D'Amato,and Libby Hellman, (the picture above) and Kevin Guilfoile, Michael Dymmoch, and Markus Sakey (pictured below). I went to hear them speak, which was very entertaining, and naturally I wanted to get some books signed. At the beginning of the event, Augie Aleksy announced that Sara Paretsky had been unable to attend, and sent her apologies.

An elderly woman in the front row didn't hear him, and asked, "Who is it that's not here?"
"Sara Paretsky," he replied.
"Oh, she's the one I came to see," she said in consternation, as six writers sat before her smiling graciously.
She consulted her notes. "What about Barbara D'Amato? Is she here?"
Several hands pointed to Barbara, who humbly raised her hand. "Well, I guess that's the next best thing," said the woman.
I was impressed by her ability to insult so many people at the same time, but she seemed immune to her own talents in this area. I felt partial sympathy with her, because as a reader I would be disappointed if my favorite writer were not present at a signing; still, as a writer, I felt once again what an odd business promotion is, especially when one is promoting something as personal as writing.
You can be a real sport about being willing to come out and greet fans and potential readers, and yet no matter how good your writing is, or how famous you have become in SOME circles, there will always be someone to take you down a peg.

In any case, it was a great signing; these people aren't just good writers, but fun people, and funny people to boot. There was much laughter, starting with Markus Sakey introducing himself as Sara Paretsky (although this did not placate the woman in the front row). I accidentally cut off Markus's book in the picture above, but I doubt it will affect his sales.

In the final picture is local author Donald G. Evans, who wrote the much-acclaimed Good Money After Bad, a book about Chicago's gambling community.

If nothing else, it's nice to see that writers come out for each other. That, too, is the next best thing.

A Nice Little Surprise

Last Sunday I went to a signing (more about that later), and the bookseller said, "Oh, Julia, I'm still reading your galley copy."

"My what?" I asked.

"Your galley," he said, holding up a copy of Madeline Mann, which I did not know existed yet in book form. That was a lovely little surprise to appear at someone else's signing! So I took a picture of it.
Isn't she cute? She still doesn't come out for many months, but it's wonderful to see the book in bound form at long last.

John Dandola Chats About The Vikings, Scaramouche, and Beautiful, Beautiful Lindisfarne

Hi, John. Thanks for chatting with me.

Thanks to my perusal of your website, I know that you are a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the author of six mystery novels. [You have] also written a biography, four children's histories, three non-fiction books, various magazine articles, and [are] a recipient of several writing awards. [You are] the editor of an additional four titles and the ghost-writer of seven more, and your photographs and illustrations have been published both here and abroad. You are also a member of the Writers Guild of America as a screenwriter. Wow! Do you have free time?
What’s free time? Actually, in the ten years that I’ve been married, my wife has forced me to have free time–which is a very good thing. I used to work pretty much non-stop and my writing hours were usually through the night which I found to be the most quiet. I’m the oldest of five children and for solitude and concentration I struck on those hours very early on. Since I’m married, those work hours have now changed. I work days like a real human being. Nowadays, my office is not in the house but in a separate building on my property so my wife can pretty much stand in front of the door and say, “No, you are not going back to work. RELAX!” She’s very sensible. But there are always legal pads around to jot down ideas or dialogue or entire scenes no matter what the time. Did I mention that my wife is also very tolerant?

You are a historian as well as a mystery writer, and you are an expert in the Medieval world, especially the Vikings. So let me get this straight: they were known as the Normans, the Norsemen AND the Vikings?
Vikings were known by a variety of names: Norsemen, Northmen, Danes which were given to them by the monks and scribes who wrote of their ravages on European settlements. The names did not differentiate which of the present-day Scandinavian countries was the home of any particular raiding party. At the time, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland shared a common culture, religion, and language (present-day Icelandic is very, very close to the way the Vikings spoke).The origin of the word “viking” is unclear. “Vik” in the Old Norse language means bay, harbor, or inlet. The leap has been made that since that is where ships where sheltered that “to go viking” or “to go a-viking” conveys some sort of idiom suggesting “to go raiding.” Because not all Scandinavians were raiders–they were farmers and traders, the most popular theory is that raiding came about because of over-population and a shortage of land to support it–the word Norse stipulates all Scandinavians at the time. Vikings were merely the raiding faction. Normans, on the other hand, were the descendants of Vikings who raided then settled in what is now called the French region of Normandy.


You’ve lived in many locations, but you’ve noted that the most memorable was Lindisfarne. Where is this? Why is it such a memorable place? Is it related to the Vikings?

Lindisfarne is a small island off the coast of Northumberland just opposite Berwick-Upon-Tweed, the last village in England. Lindisfarne is one of the Farne islands. Lindisfarne is considered the cradle of Christianity in Britain. A monastery was founded there in the mid-seventh century by St. Aidan. It rose to prominence under St. Cuthbert during the late-seventh century. Circa 700 A.D., the illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels were penned there. Because of the monastery, the island was referred to as The Holy Island of Lindisfarne. Now it is simply called Holy Island. It is a tidal island and it can be reached by car or bus at low tide. With the incoming tide, the road and mud flats flood over. This usually happens so quickly that many a vehicle has been stranded and hence several refuge shelters were built on stilts along the road so marooned motorists could wait out the hours until the tide recedes. The island itself supports a village of a few hundred fishermen, pretty stone cottages, two old hotels, a few pubs (of course), and the Lindisfarne Mead Factory (a.k.a. St. Aidan’s Winery). Some of the old fishing sheds have been converted into vacation homes. It has its own small fortress, sixteenth-century Lindisfarne Castle, which rises above the entire island like something out of a fairy tale. It was built as a harbor defense during the Scottish border raids. The centerpiece of the village is the eerie sandstone ruin of a twelfth-century Benedictine monastery. The first monastery was sacked and burned by the Vikings in their first recorded raid in 793 A.D. You can just feel the history which hangs over the place. The surrounding Farne islands are stipulated as bird sanctuaries and birds chirp everywhere. The North Sea glistens all around met by white beaches and emerald green pastures. It’s it’s own little world and it’s heaven. It was also the setting for my first sold screenplay even though the movie never got made.


That’s the damnable thing about writing for movies. You do the job and get paid but so very few screenplays ever get produced due to a million unpredictable, unforeseeable, uncontrollable reasons, that your work never gets seen. What I got out of it was the gift of spending time on Lindisfarne.

You have undertaken an adaptation of Scaramouche for Wolf Productions in Copenhagen. A few questions: How did you get involved with Wolf Productions? Who was Scaramouche? Why did Queen sing that line “Scaramouche, scaramouche, will you do the fandango?”
I met Annette Wolf when we were both living in Los Angeles. She was directing plays and we both managed to be used and abused by the same egotistical actor-turned-producer. Annette’s daughter is a well-known Hollywood publicist. In due time, both Annette and I left L.A. She returned to her native Denmark and continued her theatrical career; I came back to the east coast and continued my writing career. The Scaramouche connection goes as follows (the small details are to the best of my recollection): When Annette was a young girl, her uncle was some sort of Danish diplomat stationed in England. The 1952 M.G.M. screen version starring Stewart Granger had recently premiered and during a reception, she actually met the actor. He was everything a young girl would have expected of a swashbuckler–all charm and polish and kindness and good looks.

Needless to say, the occasion was memorable for her. When Annette and I met, the movie came up in conversation and we both agreed it was among each of our favorites in that genre. She asked what I thought about doing a remake. I’m always hesitant about remakes especially when the original was such a hit but I did know from having read the novel (by Rafael Sabatini who also wrote Captain Blood) that a great deal of censorship had to be applied in the previous two screen adaptations (one had been an M.G.M. silent film). I set out to craft a more complex, less censored screenplay but I also appreciated and respected the work of the 1952 screenwriters so I stipulated that their work was to be taken into account and fully credited. All a moot point since it’s another project which has yet to be produced.

Scaramouche is the name of a character in Commedia dell’arte which was a popular form of theatre for the European masses during the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries in which specific characters wore specific masks and costumes as a form of shorthand so that audiences automatically knew what their roles represented. Theatre Majors study about it in college but the best feeling and rendition of how it was played can be seen in the 1952 M.G.M. film in which a swordsman masquerades as the Scaramouche character to elude the French authorities.

Somehow, Queen was struck by the character and added him to the lyric in “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Who knows? Maybe Freddie Mercury was taken by the character’s costume–white leotards with thick black wavy stripes.

You spent the summer of 2003 “adapting the English mystery novel, A Wisp of Smoke, which is intended as the pilot for a British television series based on the Arnold Landon Mysteries by Roy Lewis. The nineteen (and counting) novels feature an amateur historian in present-day Northumberland.” What drew you to this project? Why do you love Northumberland?
A screenwriter friend sent me one of Roy Lewis’ books because it involved a Viking element and Roy’s style of writing is similar to my own. I liked what I read and tracked down his other books–all of which have medieval overtones and frequent archaeological digs. I saw some of myself in the Landon character and I thought I could bring out something special in the novels if I was the one to adapt them. They had, at that point, been optioned who knows how many times and the options were all allowed to lapse without anyone ever having attempted writing a script. That’s the amazing thing about the modern movie-making mentality, a producer shells out a sizeable amount of money to option a novel or series of novels but doesn’t hire someone who specializes in adaptations to take a look at the book. They just pass the novel around and if it isn’t apparent exactly how to make heads or tails of the way to proceed, they let the options lapse. Roy and I communicated for the better part of a year and then I took on the project. It’s still making the rounds but I will continue to adapt as many of the novels as possible so that they’re ready to go. I’m at work on another two as we speak.

Why do I love Northumberland? Because it’s all wrapped up in the history that I love, set against a landscape that I love, with the style of architecture that I love. It’s home to Bamburgh Castle, the Roman Wall, Holy Island. It reeks of the Dark Ages. It has wide sweeping terrain checkered with a green and yellow patchwork of farmland (the yellow is a crop called “rape” which is raised for feed and the color is positively luminescent in the sunlight). Even in summer, there’s always that bit of nip in the air which exhilarates me. It’s like an extension of Ireland. I’m half Irish–-my wife corrects that I’m all Irish, since my Irish grandmother had a hand in my upbringing (the Italian half is from Northern Italy, which doesn’t seem to count for much here in America).

I need to live in places where I can identify with the local heritage. I’m not big on our Civil War, so our South holds no interest for me. Cowboys and the Old West can only preoccupy me for so long. Our northeast has colonial roots which appeals to me but except for small pockets most of that has been built over and lost. In Britain, you can still see how things might have been and feel how things might have been. That’s why Northumberland.


You just debuted a stage adaptation of G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown Mysteries. Are you a fan of Chesterton’s mysteries?
I’m a fan of one of my former college theatre professors, who asked me to do the adaptation. He likes my mystery novels and thought that my doing the adaptation would be a good marriage of adaptor to material. He was correct. I hadn’t ever read any of the Father Brown short stories, but what was supposed to happen in a good adaptation happened: I immediately got a visual sense of the material and I was in tune with Chesterton’s writing style. Even though these stories were written in the 1910's when authors tended to be verbose, the edits to dialogue and dramaturgy were so second nature that it was a breeze to complete. We did it as a radio play live on stage, sound effects and all. There are plans to record it and there’s talk from the G. K. Chesterton Institute (who co-sponsored this production) of doing several more. If I was born forty years earlier, I could have made a name for myself writing radio drama and loved every minute of it.

Despite all of your lovely British connections, you live in West Orange, New Jersey. Is there also an interesting history of West Orange?
I live in a house built for my family in 1923 by the grandfather of a high school classmate. I’ve stayed in town because of some family obligations. My Dead mystery novels use 1940's West Orange as a backdrop and a springboard.

West Orange has a very interesting history with seventeenth-century roots even though it wasn’t christened “West Orange” until the 1860's. During the last seventy-five years, I’m the only one who has written any accurate, in-depth, down-to-the-present histories of the town. No one else seems to know how to research or write anything historical without fabricating and exaggerating things for political gain.

My family has lived here for more that two-hundred-and-fifty years. My wife’s family arrived here from Ireland about one-hundred-and-twenty years ago. West Orange used to be a town like that; people stayed, families stayed. Now it’s over-built and over-taxed. People and families are no longer staying. We’ve got a mayor who double-dips as a state legislator. First, he raises municipal taxes through the roof, then he co-sponsors a state bill for tax relief. That’s the God’s honest truth. I write fiction and I couldn’t ask my readers to believe that if I made it up.

The town’s biggest claim to fame is that Thomas Alva Edison lived and worked here for the last fifty years of his life. My grandfather worked as one of Edison’s personal messenger boys running from his laboratory to the different buildings of his factory. West Orange is the unlikely home of the world’s first motion picture studio and it’s where M.G.M. held the World Premiere of Edison, the Man starring Spencer Tracy in 1940.

None of your mysteries is set in the present. How do you research your books?
Actually, my series of Wind novels are set in present-day New England with flashbacks to the past. For the Wind series, I develop an historical fiction premise and intertwine it with present-day happenings. Because the premise is historical fiction, I have enough latitude in making the pieces fit together. When it comes to research, I am dogged. I just seem to have that extra bone in my head which makes me question everything I should be questioning and making sure I find real and true historical facts to back up my premise. My Dead series is much more difficult to research and those novels take much longer to write because I establish a timeline in the telling and I go out of my way to make sure what was happening on that day both locally and globally. Mystery Scene Magazine recently said when it comes to such elements, my approach “melds them seamlessly.” I take great pride in having accomplished that.

Tell us about Dead at the Box Office and Dead in Their Sights. Were these your first two mysteries? What was appealing about the 1940's as a setting?

My first mystery novel was Dead at the Box Office. My second was Wind of Time.

I wrote Dead at the Box Office at the urging of the late Orson Welles, who found my family connection to Edison fascinating. A murder mystery was set against the World Premiere of Edison, the Man in West Orange, the novel debuted in time for the fiftieth anniversary of that event. I had considered it a one-shot deal but the novel went through several printings, had its movie rights optioned several times (I wrote the script), and amazingly got enough fan mail to make me consider writing a sequel. Dead in Their Sights deals with potential World War II sabotage of the Edison factory which was a very real concern at the time. Sights fared just as well as Box Office and a series was born. Dead by All Appearances will be the third novel.

As for why I find the 1940's appealing, as I said previously, I was born at the wrong time. Having said that, I must give the following explanation: as an historian, I know full-well that considering life in another time, people more often than not tend to forget about daily mundane factors such as lack of hygiene, lack of medical and dental treatments, harshness of living conditions, etc. I do not. But the 1930's and 1940's offer such things close to our own standards even though current medical breakthroughs make it seem as though those decades are removed from ours by light years. Another stipulation I must make is that styles in music, fashion, cars, and architecture are not really determined by precise decades. They usually follow from halfway point to halfway point (1935-1945, 1945-1955, 1955-1965, etc.) Recently, we’ve lost sight of that and we attribute styles and mindsets to decades which often provides glaring errors in soundtracks and designs for period movies (i.e. the hippie movement didn’t take up until the late 1960's, the first half of that decade was just a run-on of the 1950's).

As for 1935-1950 or so, I just like the styles of pretty much everything. In architecture, the old still survived along side the new. Women’s clothes were gorgeous and flattering; I need to like the way women look in their attire when I write about them. Since my Dead mysteries employ a movie-hook, the Studio System of the time was a factory environment which made clear-cut sense. You knew who was in charge of what, unlike the movie business today. It was a period just on the edge of becoming modern and high tech yet there were societal amenities and niceties. People actually spoke to one another; read books; went to movies in real theatres with big screens; socialized in a much less hectic way. Things were just fast enough but not too fast. People took the time to do things because they had no other choice and they learned to enjoy or at least to tolerate the process. As far as the dramaturgy of a mystery novel is concerned, it gives an author much more leeway. Having a character find a telephone booth and work at getting the correct change to place a phone call is much more tense and dramatic and obstacle-driven than just having a character snap open a cell phone. Having characters talk and conjecture and trick and spy is much more interesting and ingenious than having them jump onto the internet. It’s a time period in which I can employ the intricacies of puzzle-solving with limited technology yet still be in the twentieth century so that the reader can identify with what is being talked about but, at the same time, it doesn’t just hand the solutions to the reader.

This is a little off-topic but it also is tied in. The oddest question I am repeatedly asked (and it’s always asked by women readers) goes along these lines: Why did I chose to have women as half of my mystery-solving teams and, being a man, what do I have to do to prepare myself to write for woman characters? This is a question which would never have been asked years ago. It is a part of the modern mindset in which women are perceived by both sexes as oddly different. I don’t and won’t ever get into any of that discussion. I will say that I have always been surrounded by strong, independent, intelligent women who also happened to be damn good mothers and grandmothers and aunts. I like women. I find them extraordinarily interesting. In many ways, I think they often make better choices in situations than men. Creating a pairing to solve mysteries gives an author two sides of a coin. One partner tempers the other. It doesn’t matter if the pairing is comprised of the same sex or if it is comprised of opposite sexes. What matters is that the pairing has to work within the parameters of the author’s intentions. As a writer, I write about people and personalities (of both genders) whom I know and understand. If that resonates with readers, it’s because I’ve created well-rounded characters with strengths and weaknesses and foibles that are clearly understood. It has nothing to do with mind-reading or role-playing or the current political-correctness on my part.

Your Wind novels sound fascinating. How did you come up with the plot for Wind of Time?

Wind of Time came about because of a screenplay I had written based on someone else’s novel. The novel didn’t lend itself well to a direct adaptation and I had to disassemble and reassemble the chapters and elements to make it work for the screen. In doing so, I had to invent a great many of my own original scenes and elements to make it blend. I write in a similar fashion as movies are shot and edited; which is to say that, once I set my premise, I often write scenes completely out-of-sequence and then fit them together later. By the time I had finished the screenplay in question, I had entire files of original scenes and elements left over. They were what I considered good and very original scenes and elements and they were entirely of my own creation. I set them aside.

A few years later, I visited a quirky historic site on my way to vacation on a small island off the coast of New England. I like small islands (personally, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and Block Island are too large to give me that insulated feeling I need on an island). I think well in the isolation of a small island–especially on the beach lulled by the surf–and pieces for a story started to come together in my head. Historic facts and mysteries and speculations entered the mix along with those good and very original scenes and elements I had written a few years before. I topped it all off by using the small island as a setting with the characters making jaunts back and forth to the mainland. I know it sounds odd but that’s how Wind of Time evolved. It even got optioned for a motion picture and, once again, I wrote the script.

Do you spend most of your time writing or researching, or do you spend some time on promotion?
I’m always writing something; often several things simultaneously. Research is done as needed. I love to do it, so I have to guard myself that I’m not getting so hooked I might be going off on too many tangents and not focusing on the work at hand. A necessary evil of a writing career is, of course, promotion. I know how to go about it and I do it quite willingly, but it’s a double-edged sword, since I’m never sure I like being that much the center of attention. Writing is something one does alone and behind closed doors; sometimes it’s difficult getting past that...

What are you writing now?
I’m trying desperately to finish the third Dead mystery so I can get to work on the fourth Wind mystery (preliminary scenes for which are already written). The third Wind manuscript has been turned in to my publisher. To clear my head, I always start tinkering with another Arnold Landon script or an occasional stage play.

Aside from historical texts, what do you like to read?
I find that the worst part about being a novelist is that I don’t read as much fiction as I once did because I’m afraid of being too influenced. That said, I always eagerly await the next Spenser novel by Robert B. Parker and the next Arnold Landon mystery by Roy Lewis. I make time to read those.

How can readers and history lovers find out more about you and your work?
Thankfully, my name pops up all over the internet but the most direct route is to go to my web site (www.JohnDandola.com) which is always kept updated. I also can be contacted through the e-mail link on my site and I love hearing from readers.

Thanks for chatting with me, John, and for sharing these beautiful photographs!

Looking Back, Looking Forward

It was a lovely Christmas after all; the children (eleven in all four families) put on a pageant at the end of the day. Pamela is dressed as St. Lucia, complete with candles in her crown, and she offers her hospitality in the form of chocolate chip cookies. My kind of saint.

Many of the kiddies read poems or Christmas prayers, one read a story; Anna played a haunting Christmas song on the flute, Thomas played the recorder, and Daniel played something called a "pipe dream" which is sort of like a xylophone made out of pipes. Very neat.

Now to the New Year: Love is Murder is just around the corner, and while I work on regaining my strength for that fine event, I shall do a few more wonderful interviews with the people who write the best books in the world: MYSTERIES.

Most Common Resolutions for Mystery Writers

A quick perusal of the web tells me that the most common New Year's resolutions, year after year, have to do with weight loss, quitting smoking, spending quality time with family, getting out of debt, blah blah. Very predictable (even if a lot of them are the ones I made--AGAIN).

But mystery writers have a whole different set of resolutions that they make, I think, in their hearts. And that list would look something like this:

1. Write a new novel, and make sure this one is a bestseller.

2. Find John Grisham, befriend him, and then get a blurb from him.

3. Fawn over everyone in power in the publishing world.

4. Go to conferences and sparkle this time. Sparkle!

5. Arrange for a joint blog with Sue Grafton.

and finally:

6. Be realistic.

That's not too much to ask, is it?