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Eliza Borné

Mystery & SuspenseMystery

Owen Laukkanen

Interview by Eliza Borné

Owen Laukkanen’s debut novel, The Professionals, has a clever concept and a breakneck pace. Four recent grads, unsatisfied with the job market, have started kidnapping businessmen to pay the bills; their ringleader is Arthur Pender. To avoid getting caught, they do their research and ask for low ransoms from executives who can afford it. When they accidentally kidnap a man connected to the Mafia, though, their plans are shattered and they must run for their lives, pursued by the mob and the law in the form of Minnesota state investigator Kirk Stevens and FBI agent Carla Windermere.

The first in a series starring Stevens and Windermere, The Professionals is a page-turner from an exciting new talent—who, turns out, has an interesting (not illegal) work history of his own. BookPage talked to Laukkanen about bad guys, professional crime and what a college grad can do to get a paycheck . . . besides kidnapping.

You were previously a poker journalist, and now you work as a commercial fisherman—in addition to writing your thriller series. What’s the riskiest career option: playing poker, fishing or writing fiction?
Great question! Fishing, writing and card playing are all tough ways to make a living, but with writing, at least, the money tends to dwindle, rather than flat-out disappear. In poker and fishing, there's always the chance that luck will lay a beating on you, and in those instances it's very easy to lose tremendous sums of money very, very quickly.

Fishing, meanwhile, combines those high financial stakes with the very real possibility that you'll injure yourself, or, well, die. It's riskier than poker, but a heck of a lot more fun than hanging out in a casino, and you can take plenty of time off to write.

Who do you personally consider the “bad guys” in your novel—the mafia, the kidnappers, the rich guys who get kidnapped . . . or the FBI?
I wrote The Professionals with Arthur Pender and his gang as my de facto protagonists, and though I knew they would tangle with law enforcement sooner or later, I wanted someone a bit darker and more malevolent to act as the true antagonist. I think D'Antonio (the mafia hitman) is the bad guy. The rich guys whom Pender kidnaps aren't bad, I don't think, though from where Pender's standing they sure seem like the enemy.

Pender’s attached to the idea of being a professional criminal because the professionals don’t get caught.

What career advice would you give a group of recent college graduates who are frustrated with the job market?
Learn a trade. There's this idea that every smart kid in the world needs to go to college to succeed at life, but I really don't see any shame in becoming a plumber or a pipefitter or anything like that. Where I live, at least, there are still plenty of jobs for skilled tradespeople.

For those of us dead set on our arts degrees, though, I think an open mind and a willingness to relocate are pretty important. There are still a lot of fun jobs out there; they might just be in Alaska or Texas and not down the street.

I would not advise anyone to turn to crime, particularly kidnapping!

What is the most interesting thing you learned in your research for this novel?
That's another great question, and I'm not sure there's any one thing that stands out as particularly mind-blowing. I quite enjoyed the research aspect of the book; my Google searches on any given day could range from offshore banking regulations to Miami Beach hotels to the various model variations of a TEC-9 machine pistol. It was eclectic and all of it pretty fascinating.

I was also reading David Simon's incredible nonfiction book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets as I wrote The Professionals. It chronicles one year in the life of the Baltimore PD homicide division, and as a primer for anyone interested in police work, it's indispensible. I leaned on it pretty heavily when it came time to capture the mindset of my cops in, say, an interrogation scene.

Who are your favorite suspense authors? Why were you attracted to write in this genre?
I'll admit to approaching this book with a pretty dim understanding of the ins and outs of crime fiction as a genre. I knew that I liked writers like James Ellroy, Cormac McCarthy and Nelson DeMille, and especially Raymond Chandler and Ian Fleming, but I wouldn't have known how to categorize them, and I wouldn't say I write like them, either.

Really, it was as much movies as it was books that attracted me to the genre. I watched a lot of movies growing up, and I wanted to write something action-packed and fast-moving and stylish, like the films I loved as a teenager.

So action movies and, in all seriousness, gangster rap, led me to write crime.

Nowadays, I read a lot more suspense fiction. I really admire Lee Child's facility with language, and I think Alafair Burke is almost criminally underrated. I also really, really like John McFetridge's stuff; he's a Toronto writer whose books don't really qualify as suspense fiction, but they're great crime sagas nonetheless.

Which of your four main characters—Pender, Sawyer, Mouse or Marie—do you most identify with?
I can see a lot of myself in Pender's character, especially the neurotic side that keeps him up late worrying about what it means to be a professional. Pender's also a dreamer, and he's willing to take risks to turn those dreams into reality. I'm not about to kidnap anybody, but I'm not averse to taking chances to seek out the kind of life I want to lead.

What does it mean to be a “professional” criminal, and why is Pender so attached to this idea?
I think Pender's attached to the idea of being a professional criminal because the professionals don't get caught. In Pender's mind, a professional is patient and fastidious; greed and carelessness end careers in his line of work.

Professional criminals, in Pender's mind, are also able to follow the logical course at all times—emotions and circumstance be damned. He's a human being, though, and it's the struggle between logic and emotion that really starts to test him as the book progresses.

What’s next for Stevens and Windermere?
Plenty, I hope! As I write this, I've just sent my editor a round of revisions for the second Stevens and Windermere novel, which takes place a year after the Pender case, and finds our two heroes having fallen largely out of contact. A bank robbery with an unlikely villain brings them together again, while threatening to plunge the Twin Cities into terror and mayhem. We spend a lot more time with Windermere and kind of peel back her veneer of invincibility; I had a lot of fun revisiting her character and expanding her personality beyond the enigmatic young hotshot we see in The Professionals.

And with book two nearing completion, I'm drafting a third Stevens and Windermere novel that will see them back on the road chasing still more bad guys. With any luck I'll be writing about my two Minnesota cops for years to come.

Owen Laukkanen’s debut novel, The Professionals, has a clever concept and a breakneck pace. Four recent grads, unsatisfied with the job market, have started kidnapping businessmen to pay the bills; their ringleader is Arthur Pender. To avoid getting caught, they do their research and ask for low ransoms from executives who can afford it. When […]
Fiction

Behind Adriana Trigiani’s “artistic obsession”

Interview by Eliza Borné

Adriana Trigiani’s The Shoemaker’s Wife is a gorgeous, epic story about two people who are meant to be together: Enza Ravanelli, a seamstress, and Ciro Lazzari, a shoemaker. They meet as teenagers in Schilpario, Italy, but fate brings them to America at different times. Ciro works in Little Italy, and Enza earns a position at the Metropolitan Opera. Eventually their paths cross again and they are unable to deny their connection. In a Q&A with BookPage, beloved author Trigiani explains the familial inspiration for this story and why she loves librarians and her fans.

Your novel is based on your grandparents’ story; your grandfather was a shoemaker and your grandmother adored the music of Enrico Caruso. What in The Shoemaker’s Wife is fictionalized? Did your grandmother really work at the Metropolitan Opera? Did they face many obstacles in coming together as a couple?
For the longest time, I noodled with the timeline of my grandparents’ love story. The historical facts of their lives were clear and documented. My grandfather Carlo emigrated in February 1912 just weeks before the Titanic met its fate; my grandmother, a seamstress, left Italy a year later, intending to stay only to make enough money to build a house for her family in Schilpario, then planned to return home to her family.

My grandfather joined the Army and became a soldier in World War I—so you see, I had immovable dates in the timeline, but then, empowered by the emotions I imagined they had, I built the story like a garment. For example, I could take you inside the Metropolitan Opera House in the days of Caruso, a character I found so compelling. I wondered what it would have been like had my grandmother met her musical idol and become his seamstress, making his costumes. Everything is fictionalized in a novel, so I let my imagination loose with the details of the research.

When I was a child and first heard my grandparents’ love story, I remember thinking it was very sad—my grandfather died so young, and they loved one another so deeply. They had such a sense of honor, and a deep set of immovable principals. Even today, I think how rare it is to love so deeply.

“Somewhere deep down, my young self told me that I needed some years on my soul to write this story in the best manner possible.”

Your novel is told from both Enza and Ciro’s point of view, but it’s called The Shoemaker’s Wife. Do you consider this to be more of Enza’s story?
No, I think it’s got scope in the third person. You get the story from all points of view, and also the touches of the authorial voice, all of which was new for me. The title comes from the name my grandmother was called when she first moved to Minnesota. To be a man’s wife means something, and I wanted to honor that.

I loved how you captured the longing so many people feel for the place they came from. As Enza says, “Any small thing that reminds me of home is a treasure.” Do you feel this way about Virginia—or Italy, the home of your ancestors?
I do. Places conjure such emotion in me. The colors, scents and small details ignite memory and therefore imagination. I can actually revisit the feelings I had as a child in a very real way when I go home. We once stopped at a fruit stand with my daughter in Pennsylvania, and I remembered having been there when I was four years old. The world we walk in holds the action of our lives—it’s very important, and in a novel it sets the stage for the action. When I return home to Italy, it’s always very emotional. I always wonder what would have happened had my grandparents never left. Where would our family be?

Ciro and Enza’s paths cross many times before they finally make a commitment to each other, and some of their meetings are truly accidents—like when they meet in the hospital or outside of the opera house. Like Ciro, are you personally intrigued by the mystery of our connections? Do you think accidents happen for a reason?
Always remember that we are not humans having a spiritual experience, we are spirits having a human experience. There are no accidents. We do some choosing, but once set in motion, life unfolds without our choosing. This is why art is so important—it expresses emotion, the power of the unseen. Anything we do to connect emotionally to one another, to bridge differences and create understanding clears the path to love. That, ultimately, is what intrigues me and keeps me working long hours. I’m trying, like everyone else, to figure it all out.

Enza makes professional sacrifices to be with Ciro, although she remains independent and headstrong, developing the family’s business after she becomes a wife and mother. Do you think that she embodies the typical woman of the 1920s, or is she ahead of her time?
Women historically, do what they have to do to take care of their families. All mothers work, inside the home, and most of the time, outside the home. Sometimes we go in and out of the working-for-hire world. The 1920s were mod, progressive, and boundaries were loosed and crossed in terms of the role of women in a productive society. My grandmother, like every mother we know, figures out what works for her and for her family. We’re all in this together, frankly.

You have many devoted fans, and this year you are going on an extensive book tour. What is the best part about meeting your readers?
Now you’re getting to the absolute best part of my job. I love my readers and can’t wait to meet them. When I was a girl, I never met an author, and imagine, growing up and meeting so many, and being thrilled at the opportunity. Whenever I read to my daughter, we always read the author’s name, so she might understand that an artist provided her with the story she is about to read, or that I am reading aloud to her. I can’t believe I have the gift of meeting my readers and talking to them. I love all the forms of social media—a reader can reach out to me instantly and ask me a question. I Skype to book clubs a few times a week—to libraries too.

In 2010, you were honored with a RUSA Award (from the ALA’s Reference and User Services Division). How have librarians supported you as an author?
I had the first and best librarian support me, my mother Ida. Her twin sister Irma was also a librarian, and I was so proud of them always. They were professional educators. In my home, teachers, professors and librarians were revered. I only gain more reverence for them as life goes on. When I am invited to a library, I always try to show up—and imagine receiving such an honor from a group that I idolize. It’s a very big deal! I loved my town library and the bookmobile. It’s funny, I even remember the first library I ever set foot inside—in Bangor, Pennsylvania. That little library is still hallowed ground to me. At Saint Mary’s College, I loved our library with its alcoves, soft reading chairs and low lamps. I’d do anything for our libraries.

Ciro and Enza both believe in the “better life” that America can provide to immigrants. As you write, “Better meant American. Better meant safe, clean, honest, and true. Dreams of every size and description lulled them into restful sleep at night and fueled them through their backbreaking days.” Even with high unemployment numbers and a tough economy in America of 2012, do you think that newcomers to this country can find a better life?
Absolutely. And, we should welcome them—as we were allowed to enter and thrive, the laws should honor that debt and pay it forward.

You spent more than 20 years working on The Shoemaker’s Wife and say that it has been your “artistic obsession.” Why did it take so long for you to finish telling the story?
My artistic life never ceases to surprise me. Sometimes, I feel an urgency to a story and sit down and work until I’m finished, and it takes a year. The Shoemaker’s Wife took me 20 years—somewhere deep down, my young self told me that I needed some years on my soul to write this story in the best manner possible.

You wonderfully evoke the feeling of Italy, from the beauty of the Italian Alps to the taste of homemade gnocchi. How do you get in the mood to write such lovely descriptive passages? (Cook? Listen to music? Visit Italy?)
My imagination has never let me down. I walk in the world and remember to take it in. I wish I could hold moments, but knowing that’s impossible, I try to remember, reframe them and put them on the page, hoping they won’t be lost in the noise of the present. I do know, and can share this with your readers. Love and support, kindness and enthusiasm from my readers sustains me and pushes me to work harder for them. I am grateful every time I sit down to write, knowing that it is made possible by readers who are seeking enlightenment on some level, entertainment on another, romance when it’s delish, and the possibility of travel. Books can take you anywhere. I haven’t left the factory really. I’m sitting here making something for my reader. I want her to love it, hold it and share it, like all the best things in life. A good story can release us from our grief, and point us in the direction of our dreams. Nothing better than that.

RELATED CONTENT
Read a review of A Shoemaker’s Wife.

A novel that emphasizes the all-importance of family and love, of hard work and determination, The Shoemaker’s Wife is a treat for fans of sweeping love stories and against-the-odds success.
Fiction

Robert Goolrick

Interview by Eliza Borné

Readers who loved A Reliable Wife, the bestseller that titillated book clubs across the country, might be surprised to learn that Robert Goolrick’s warm second novel has a lush Southern setting—and is based entirely on a true story.

“Essentially, in every way, the story is true,” Goolrick says while sitting in BookPage’s office in Nashville. He is in town to preview the novel at Parnassus Books, author Ann Patchett’s new bookstore. “When I heard this story, I thought to myself, this is actually—absolutely—the best story I’ve ever heard,” Goolrick recalls. “There was something about it that fascinated me.”

Goolrick, who is 63, heard the story after college, when he lived on a remote Greek island. In Heading Out to Wonderful, the setting has been changed to the town of Brownsburg, in the Valley of Virginia. But everything else—from the main character’s profession to the gasp-inducing climax—is the same.

The novel opens in 1948, when Charlie Beale wanders into Brownsburg with nothing but a suitcase full of money and a set of fine knives. Brownsburg is a quiet town with a population of 538, a place where “no crime had ever been committed,” people believed in God, doors were never locked and “where the terrible American wanting hadn’t touched yet, where most people lived a simple life without yearning for things they couldn’t have.”

Charlie soon finds work at Will Haislett’s butcher shop and is welcomed into his family. He becomes almost like a second father to Sam, Will’s five-year-old son, and grows attached to the Virginia countryside, which “just stole his heart at every turn of the road.” When a piece of land “made his heart beat in a certain way,” he would buy it, paying in cash.

A Reliable Wife was something of a sleeper hit for Goolrick. His first book, a memoir called The End of the World as We Know It, met with positive reviews and modest sales. But his novel, about a woman who answers a wealthy man’s personal ad in rural Wisconsin in 1909, has sold more than a million copies.

After he realized that “there was going to be a fuss made about A Reliable Wife,” Goolrick left his home in New York and moved to Virginia, where he was born. “I didn’t want to be one of those people who does nothing but go to literary cocktail parties all the time,” he says. Now he lives in an old farmhouse in White Stone, a town that’s home to fewer people than one floor of his New York apartment building.

The author calls Heading Out to Wonderful his “love letter to Virginia,” and it vividly evokes the wild and gentle landscape that comforts Charlie’s soul. However, Charlie’s desire to own land stems from more than just a love of dirt and creeks. He is obsessed with a married woman, and he buys it all for her.

As fans of A Reliable Wife will remember, Goolrick is skilled at portraying passionate, encompassing love—and lust. Those skills are on display again when Charlie first sets eyes on Sylvan, the young and beautiful wife of Boaty Glass. Rich and fat, Boaty is despised by his fellow townsmen, not least of all because he purchased Sylvan by giving her hillbilly father $3,000 and a tractor. Sylvan reinvents herself as Boaty’s wife, commissioning fine clothing and longing for the kind of romantic love she sees in the movies. She finds that love with Charlie, but she realizes the reality of love is not the same as her fantasy. Their precarious relationship sets in motion the drama of the story and provides a sense of foreboding.

To the people of Brownsburg, Charlie is a kind person. He butchers animals with humanity, agrees to coach a boys’ baseball team, gives Sam attention and love. But those good instincts are paralyzed in the presence of Sylvan, especially when Charlie decides to bring young Sam along for their secret liaisons, then swears him to secrecy.

A reader once asked Goolrick if he thought love could make men crazy. The author responded, “Are you kidding me? It’s the number one thing.” And indeed, Charlie is helpless in front of Sylvan. Goolrick explains, “If you have that kind of passion and that kind of love, then all of the governors that you put on your behavior kind of fly away.”

As much as Heading Out to Wonderful is a novel about a love affair, it is also a novel about childhood. One of Goolrick’s beliefs is that writers have an “essential truth they’re trying to get across in their work.” For him, that truth is “something about the nature of goodness and kindness and something about the nature of the innocence of childhood and how easily lost that is.”

The author is reverent when he speaks about this tender part of life, which he calls “the most dangerous place of all.” For readers familiar with The End of the World as We Know It, which details the history of abuse in Goolrick’s family, this deep feeling for “the predicaments of childhood” will not come as a surprise. The new novel’s most painful passages concern Sam’s abrupt loss of innocence.

Though there are obvious differences between A Reliable Wife and Heading Out to Wonderful—including setting and time period—Goolrick describes the most fundamental difference in simple terms: “A Reliable Wife was a novel about bad people to whom good things happen, and Heading Out to Wonderful is about good people who happen to have bad things happen to them.”

It is also about the search for home and the beauty of the Shenandoah Valley, which Goolrick calls “heaven on earth.” Told in his lyrical prose, Heading Out to Wonderful is a pleasure to read—heartbreaking but inspiring and unforgettable.

Readers who loved A Reliable Wife, the bestseller that titillated book clubs across the country, might be surprised to learn that Robert Goolrick’s warm second novel has a lush Southern setting—and is based entirely on a true story. “Essentially, in every way, the story is true,” Goolrick says while sitting in BookPage’s office in Nashville. […]
Mystery & SuspenseMystery

Jon Steele

Interview by Eliza Borné

Set in Lausanne, Switzerland, Jon Steele's debut novel is a haunting and suspenseful thriller about an American call girl, a British private eye and Marc Rochat, the bell ringer at the city's cathedral. The characters' lives intersect after a series of murders in Lausanne . . . and it turns out the villain may not be of this earth. The novel is the first in a trilogy.

Steele, who is also the author of War Junkie, a memoir about working as a cameraman in combat zones, answered questions about his journalism background and the fun of writing minor characters.

Your autobiography, War Junkie, is about your experiences as a cameraman in war zones. What is more challenging for you: Writing fiction or memoir? What is more rewarding?
Someone asked me, why did you write War Junkie? I said, “It was either that or jump off a bridge.” I wasn’t kidding. WJ was about redemption. Watching people suffer and die in a lens and not doing a damn thing to help is a terrible sin. It was also my job. There was a price. I am not normal. I live with ghosts. I’m just this side of sane and alive.

“Tough to categorize’’ is an expression I hear a lot. I take it as a compliment. I love thinking a reader can open The Watchers and set out on a journey of imagination without a roadmap.

I don’t think about what’s more challenging. I won’t do memoirs again. I confessed once.

But the search for redemption, the thing that drove me to write WJ, drives me still. The Watchers is about ghosts, good angels, bad angels, the innocent and the dead. It’s about me looking at the world, with my “once a Catholic, always a Catholic” eyes.

The only reward is me inventing a world that helps me keep the ghosts in the closet. Evil is real, and it stalks the world in the forms of men. 

How have your experiences observing combat informed your fiction?
You know, you’re the first person to ask me this question, so I never thought about it. And these days I try not to think about things I’ve seen from the backend of a camera. Once in awhile I get asked to talk about it. The last time was for a documentary called Under Fire: Journalist in Combat. I was a wreck for almost a year after. The film was shortlisted for the 2011 Academy Awards. I still haven’t seen it.

But here’s the deal. I did my job and risked my life, time and again, because I believed in the nobility of journalism. I had a camera, I was one of the good guys. How that informs my fiction is as plain as the title. In the Hebrew Bible, angels—the creatures from another place sent to protect the creation—are called Watchers.

Cameraman . . . Watchers. Bingo.

It was easy to take the mind-bending conflict of a cameraman watching innocent people die, for the greater good of getting the truth onscreen and into the world, and injecting it into angels . . . letting innocent people die for the greater good of saving all that’s left of paradise.

Me and the angels were the same. We both wanted to save the world.

The distinction is that I did it because I chose to believe it was the right thing to do. Angels, as extensions of another’s will, do it because they have no choice. Blurring that distinction is the spiritual core of The Watchers.

Your novel is tough to categorize. There are elements of fantasy, thriller, noir. Did you set out to write in any particular genre? What do you personally like to read?
“Tough to categorize’’ is an expression I hear a lot. I take it as a compliment. I love thinking a reader can open The Watchers and set out on a journey of imagination without a roadmap.

Did I start out with a genre in mind? Not really. I knew I’d play to the obvious connection between a man who calls the hour in Lausanne (for real, in the 21st century) and Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame (once upon a time, in a far away land)—meaning I wanted to mine Hugo’s classic for all it was worth. That meant incorporating similar elements of adventure, violence, romance religion, mysticism . . . come to think of it, Hunchback of Notre Dame is hard to categorize. So it’s all Hugo’s fault.

What do I read? I assume that means books I go back to over and over again. Raymond Chandler, Grahame Greene, Jack London, George Orwell, Shakespeare, William Faulkner, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Hans Fallada, Mario Vargas Llosa, Tolstoy, Dickens, P.G. Wodehouse, Jane Austin. I read poetry a lot, old stuff. As you can see, I live in a different time.

Which of your three main characters (Marc Rochat, the bell ringer; Katherine Taylor, the call girl; or Jay Harper, the private eye) was the most fun to write?
Impossible to answer. I don’t know how to answer it without spilling the beans about the story. The three main characters are reflections of my own personality, as much as they are their own beings. I defined limits within which the characters could “live.” They were free to do and say as they wished. There was only one rule: They could not escape their fate. Sometimes, one of three would try to pull the wool over my eyes, and I’d have to herd them back into the plot.  

I remember my wife reading the manuscript. She came to the end and threw it at me, all 547 pages of it. She cried and yelled, “No! You can’t do this! Change it, please!” I knew I had it right, because in truth, my wife knew what was coming . . . but when it happened, it was still a shock.

To be honest, I had the most fun with the minor characters. The oddballs, junkies and ghosts who appeared now and then to guide the three main characters along their journey. There’s one in particular. He’s called Saxophoneman. Marc Rochat crosses his path in the halls of the Lausanne train station. Saxophoneman delivers one of my favorite lines in The Watchers: “Ain’t nothing sadder than an angel in nowtimes, little dude.” I liked him so much I’ve brought him back in the next book of the trilogy.

Your novel is described as “Hunchback of Notre Dame meets The Silence of the Lambs, as told by Justin Cronin.” That’s quite a promise! What kind of reader do you think will enjoy your book?
Like I said, anyone who wants to take a journey without a roadmap.

The Watchers is the first book in a trilogy. What comes next?
Angel City is next, then The Way of Sorrows. It’s taking longer than I thought it would, but that’s what happens when you set out without a roadmap. I already know the last line of the third book. It’s just a matter of getting there. And that’s all I’m going to say about it.

Set in Lausanne, Switzerland, Jon Steele's debut novel is a haunting and suspenseful thriller about an American call girl, a British private eye and Marc Rochat, the bell ringer at the city's cathedral. The characters' lives intersect after a series of murders in Lausanne . . . and it turns out the villain may not […]
RomanceContemporary Romance

Sylvia Day

Interview by Eliza Borné

A veteran author of historical and paranormal romance novels, Sylvia Day woke up to find her latest book was a New York Times bestseller—before it came out in print. Bared to You, which was self-published in April before being reissued by the Penguin Group, tells the story of Eva, a young woman making her way in New York City, and Gideon, the billionaire entrepreneur who pursues her. Though both characters have painful pasts and are wary of starting a new relationship, their magnetic attraction is undeniable—and their love scenes are scorchers. In a Q&A with BookPage, Day answers questions about the similarities between her novel and Fifty Shades of Grey; the popularity of erotic romance; and creating sexual chemistry on the page.

Before Penguin bought the English rights to Bared to You, your novel was self-published. What is the greatest advantage of traditional publishing versus self-publishing? Do you think you’ll ever self-publish again?
The biggest and most obvious advantage to traditional publishing is the print run and distribution for Bared to You. There’s no way I would’ve come anywhere near 500,000 print copies, nor would Bared have ever been found in Walmart, Target, Costco, BJs, Kroger, etc. as a self-published book. Penguin brought to the table a dedicated, enthusiastic team of individuals with a broad network of connections, which far outweigh what I was capable of doing at home alone.

That said, I’m a veteran of this industry. I’m well aware that the breadth of support for Bared to You is rare. For many projects that don’t have the prospect of widespread appeal, self-publishing can be the best option because it increases the profit margin by a massive degree. I’m certain I’ll have future projects that are best served by self-publishing, just as I’m certain that I’ll have future projects best suited for traditional publishing.

In today’s publishing landscape, I think authors should be considering a career portfolio that includes traditional publishing, self-publishing and digital-first publishing. Every project is unique and the best way of disseminating a work can vary depending on a variety of factors.

Why do you think readers are already responding so positively to this love story? Any theories as to why erotic romance is suddenly tearing up the bestseller lists?
I think Bared to You can remind readers of personal experiences with hopeless romance. The angst and regret inherent in a troubled relationship never leave us, and Bared taps into that. Eva and Gideon are so messed up in so many ways and their coping mechanisms often trigger each other negatively. How do you choose between long-adopted survival strategies and the love of your life, both of which you can't live without, and yet cannot co-exist together?

For many of my characters, they lack the ability to communicate effectively verbally, so they show how they feel through sexual interaction.

As for erotic romance hitting bestseller lists, there’s really nothing sudden about it. Erotic romance has routinely appeared on the national lists for many years. Look at the Berkley Heat stable of authors (Heat is Berkley’s erotic romance imprint) and you’ll find Lora Leigh, Lauren Dane, Jaci Burton, Shayla Black, Jory Strong, Maya Banks, Anya Bast . . .  all New York Times bestselling authors.

Frankly, I think the recent hype over erotic fiction for women is just an example of the media being very slow to catch on to a longtime trend.

How do you sustain such explosive chemistry between Gideon and Eva for hundreds of pages? Is there a secret to writing sex scenes that continue to excite (rather than bore) readers over the span of a novel?
Emotional resonance—it’s absolutely necessary to writing erotic romance. Sex for sex’s sake is porn. Reading “Tab-A into Slot-B” scenes would be boring and repetitive. Each sexual scene has to further the story and character arcs. There has to be a goal to the interaction and a resolution (aside from physical climax!). For many of my characters, they lack the ability to communicate effectively verbally, so they show how they feel through sexual interaction. There’s a story in the way they communicate with their bodies and that’s what makes the sex hot.

What was your inspiration for writing this story? In your Acknowledgments, you write, “To E.L. James, who wrote a story that captivated readers and created a hunger for more.” Was Bared to You directly inspired by 50 Shades of Grey, or was there some other artistic influence (or life experience) that led you to create Gideon and Eva?
My inspiration for Bared to You was one of my own works, Seven Years to Sin, which follows a couple with abusive pasts. In Seven, the characters’ histories brought them together, but I wondered later what it would be like to explore a relationship in which the characters’ pasts pushed them apart instead. What if the defining trauma of your life impeded your ability to connect with the person you love? Can two abuse survivors have a functional and healthy romantic relationship? That’s the core question of the Crossfire series.

I gave a nod to E.L. James in the reissued edition of Bared to You because there’s no doubt that the success of her series contributed to the success of mine. It was readers of Fifty Shades who drove sales of Bared to You with their recommendations. It’s the least I can do to acknowledge E.L. James for her part in that. I’m grateful.

If readers have discovered and loved Bared to You but are new to the romance and erotica genres—what other books would you recommend they read next?
The Fifth Favor by Shelby Reed; Sweet Persuasion by Maya Banks; and Laid Bare by Lauren Dane.

You also write paranormal and historical romance, as well as contemporaries. Which subgenre is the most fun for you to write?
Honestly, I love them all equally. My focus is always on the story. The setting and time period are mutable depending on the story I want to tell.

Do you have a favorite line (or scene) from Bared to You?
Gideon to Eva: “I must’ve wished for you so hard and so often you had no choice but to come true.”

The sequel to Bared to You is called Deeper in You. Can you give us a sneak preview?
In Deeper in You, we see Gideon and Eva struggling to mesh who they are as individuals with their joint identity as a couple. Trying to blend “his” life with “her” life into “our” life brings all sorts of new problems. Eva is close to her family; Gideon is estranged from his. Eva is a social creature whose network of friends expands as she settles into New York; Gideon is fiercely private and contained. As much as they have in common, they have a lot of differences, too, and they continue to trigger each other’s defense mechanisms in unexpected—and sometimes painful—ways.

 

A veteran author of historical and paranormal romance novels, Sylvia Day woke up to find her latest book was a New York Times bestseller—before it came out in print. Bared to You, which was self-published in April before being reissued by the Penguin Group, tells the story of Eva, a young woman making her way in […]
Fiction

Ben Fountain

Interview by Eliza Borné

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is a sly first novel about a squad of soldiers who spend a day with the Dallas Cowboys. In a review of the novel for BookPage, Harvey Freedenberg praises how author Ben Fountain “employs his ample satiric gifts to depict how flag-waving patriotism merges with our worship of professional football in a single manic event.”

Here, the author describes the televised event that inspired his book—and explains why he’d “rather die” than attend a professional football game.

I understand that you first got the idea for this book when you saw the halftime show at a Cowboys’ game in 2004, when Destiny’s Child actually performed alongside soldiers. Can you describe the thoughts that went through your head during that performance?
I thought it was the nuttiest thing I’d ever seen, but maybe that was because I’d had a couple of martinis. Or maybe the martinis had peeled the scales from my eyes and I was seeing the show for what it was, this surreal blowup of pop music, softcore porn choreography, five or six marching bands, a hundred or so flag girls, a company’s worth of ROTCs, a U.S. Army drill team doing close-order drill—and flags, lots and lots and lots of American flags.

It was almost like those bondage clubs you hear about? Where authority and sex get all mashed up together in this overheated psycho-sexual stew, except this was primetime on Thanksgiving Day, in a stadium with 70,000 people looking on and a TV viewing audience of 40 million. I think the ultimate clincher for me was that everyone seemed okay with it, the commentators in the booth, the fans in the stands, the people taking part, everyone seemed to accept this sort of hysterical yoking of sex and patriotism as perfectly normal.

"On Thanksgiving Day, in a stadium with 70,000 people looking on, everyone seemed to accept this sort of hysterical yoking of sex and patriotism as perfectly normal."

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk takes place over the course of a few hours. It is unusual for a novel to take place in “real time.” Why did you decide to tell your story in this way?
As I was messing around with various scenarios, it began to seem corny to do it any other way. I sketched out a number of extended flashbacks that took place in Iraq, and considered starting the book in Iraq, or early in the “Victory Tour,” or even following the Bravos back to Iraq. But in the end, those alternatives just began to seem flat and predictable to me, especially the long set pieces in Iraq. I suppose that’s the way they’d tell you to do it in a mediocre sort of MFA program—show don’t tell blah blah blah. That kind of writing-by-numbers is just so damn tedious. I finally just went with my instinct, which was to hit that one day hard, the Bravos’ day at Texas Stadium, and then get out. And if certain things are never made clear—what exactly happened in the battle at the Al Ansakar Canal, for instance, or what happens to Billy and the Bravos when they return to Iraq, that’s fine. I didn’t feel the need or the desire to explain everything.

Your novel is filled with (often hilarious) dialogue, which you obviously have a knack for writing. How do you capture conversation so well? Did you go to a Cowboys’ game and eavesdrop?
I’ve reached the point where I’d rather die than go to a pro football game, especially one at Cowboys Stadium. It’s mainly advertising—that damn seven-story Jumbotron is hanging there over the field, staring you right in the face and blaring commercials during all those interminable pauses between the actual football plays. I did do a tour of the stadium while I was writing the book, and the guide informed us that the stadium contains no fewer than 4,000 televisions. What does that tell you? To me it indicates that all those people trek out to the stadium and end up watching the game on TV, just like the rest of us schmos at home. So I had my doubts as to whether investing the time and money to attend a game would be an edifying experience. My guess is that I would’ve drunk three or four beers out of sheer desperate boredom, and fallen asleep. Go team go!

The dialogue came from the same place that most of the rest of the book came from, i.e., whatever experience and imagination I could summon from within myself that might make a particular scene genuine and real.

"I’d rather die than go to a pro football game."

In early July, the New York Times ran an op-ed from Thomas E. Ricks titled “Let’s Draft Our Kids.” He was echoing General Stanley A. McChrystal’s opinion that the United States should reinstate a draft so that “everybody has skin in the game.” What are your feelings on reinstating a national draft?
I can see the logic in it. It may well be that war doesn’t truly become real for us unless we, or people extremely close to us, are threatened directly and personally by the war. In some ways war is more present to Americans at home than ever, thanks to technology—we can view the most graphic, horrifying images of death and destruction in our dens, on our big-screen TVs, in high definition, no less. But unless we have that urgent emotional connection to what’s going on—unless we love someone who’s involved and at risk—then I think our understanding of the true cost of war is going to be superficial at best.

"It may well be that war doesn’t truly become real for us unless we, or people extremely close to us, are threatened directly and personally by the war."

So, yeah, reinstating the draft would be one way of making sure everyone has skin in the game. Or, let’s put it bluntly—a way of making sure the middle and upper classes are putting in skin. But I also think it’s a somewhat crude and lazy mechanism for getting the citizenry to pay attention to what our leaders are doing with their power to wage war. If we were paying attention, holding our leaders to account, there wouldn’t be the need for a draft as a consciousness-raising tool. But maybe that’s what it would take, that kind of hammer to the head.

What is your favorite scene in Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk?
I had a good time writing the scene where Billy and Mango go into the Cowboys Select store and start beating on each other. The scene where Billy and Faison make out behind the stage backdrop, that was fun. Turning Billy loose, so to speak. Seeing him make that connection with Faison, I enjoyed that.

Is there any one book or author who’s had the most profound influence on your writing?
It depends on who’s in my head on any particular day. The writers who seem to be in regular rotation include García Márquez, Walker Percy, Hemingway, Joan Didion, Mailer, Robert Stone. I sure like the Haitian writer René Depestre a lot—if he were to win the Nobel Prize before he dies, then my happiness would be complete.

What can you tell us about your next project?
I’m working on some short stories right now. As for a novel, my thoughts seem to be leading me south, toward the Caribbean. That’s one of the great things about doing this kind of work, you get to follow wherever your interest leads you. I highly recommend it.

RELATED CONTENT
Read a review of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk.

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is a sly first novel about a squad of soldiers who spend a day with the Dallas Cowboys. In a review of the novel for BookPage, Harvey Freedenberg praises how author Ben Fountain “employs his ample satiric gifts to depict how flag-waving patriotism merges with our worship of professional football in a single manic event.”

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Rebecca Stead

Interview by Eliza Borné

Rebecca Stead, the Newbery-winning author of When You Reach Me, has written another heartfelt and funny novel set in New York City. In Liar & Spy, an awkward seventh grader, Georges, moves to a new apartment building and is recruited to join the Spy Club, run by a mysterious boy named Safer. Along with his little sister, Candy, Safer shows Georges that everything in life is not as it seems.

In a Q&A with BookPage, Stead shares the top qualities in a spy—and tells us if lying is ever okay.

Were you nervous about living up to high expectations for your work after you won the Newbery? How did you prepare yourself for writing again?
The bitter truth is that writing always makes me nervous, because to write well I have to expose my innermost self while simultaneously trying to entertain people. It’s a little like dancing in public, without music. Newbery attention makes it harder only because more people are watching.

And I don’t ever prepare myself to write. I have no writing routine. What I do is walk around feeling frustrated that I am not writing, and that frustration builds until finally I start writing. Reading something wonderful is usually what allows me to begin. Something that opens me up and makes me think “oh, what the heck. I may as well go for it.”

Which character do you most identify with in Liar & Spy?
Probably Candy. She is a watcher. And she feels responsible for the people she loves. But if you ask me again tomorrow, I might have a different answer.

What are the most useful qualities in a spy?
An observant personality, the ability to work alone and a good sense of direction.  The sense of direction would be my downfall.

Is it ever okay to tell a lie?
Yes. To be kind, for instance, or to save your life. But I believe that most people probably lie for lesser reasons, almost every day.

Have you ever been tempted to spy on someone or ever caught a glimpse of someone surreptitiously?
Not deliberately. But I live in New York City, where there are a lot of lit windows at night.

A spy needs to have an observant personality, the ability to work alone and a good sense of direction.

When you start writing a book, do you know how it will end? There are twists and turns in your novel, but they feel so natural once the reader figures out what’s going on.
I know very little at the beginning. I have a sense of what I want to get at, but few clear ideas about how I’m going to get there. I write slowly. I don’t think about plot because when I think about plot my mind goes blank and I feel desperate. Instead I think about which characters attract my interest, because where there is interest, there is potential for emotion, and where there is emotion, there is plot. Sometimes I just stop writing for a while, and wait for ideas to bubble up. That’s nerve-wracking. And most people would say it’s the wrong way to go about it.

You have a lot of fun with words and messages in this book, from Georges’ notes with Scrabble tiles to wacky fortune cookie fortunes. Does this interest extend to your real life?
Well, I don’t have the patience for Scrabble, most days. I like Bananagrams. My notes are boring and practical. But I love thinking about why things are the way they are, and how they might be different. I guess you could say that I love to question the premise, especially when I’m writing.

When you were in middle school, where did you sit in the cafeteria? Like Georges, did you ever have to remind yourself to look at the big picture and realize that social awkwardness will (hopefully) pass?
I can’t even remember what my middle-school cafeteria looked like. We mostly went out for lunch. But middle school was the only time in my life when I was regularly called names—names that had to do with how I looked, or what I wore, or who my friends were. I remember the feeling of walking down the hall and not knowing when some verbal or physical jab might be thrown at me. But I was lucky—I had one good friend. So I was always basically okay.

Safer and Candy are allowed to name themselves. If your parents had let you name yourself, what would you have chosen?
Probably something awful. I don’t have a middle name, and when I was little I used to try to think of good ones. For a while I decided my middle name was Mario, pronounced ma-REE-oh. And when I was about six, my middle name was Amanda, because I was trying desperately to please a girl named Amanda. I remember eating Chap-Stik when she asked me to. Apparently I would do anything for her.

What’s the last book you read that you really want to recommend to someone else?
The Orphan Master’s Son, by Adam Johnson. It’s a beautifully written, amazing (and fictional) story about one man’s life in North Korea. World-building at its best.

RELATED CONTENT
Read a review of Liar & Spy.

Rebecca Stead, the Newbery-winning author of When You Reach Me, has written another heartfelt and funny novel set in New York City. In Liar & Spy, an awkward seventh grader, Georges, moves to a new apartment building and is recruited to join the Spy Club, run by a mysterious boy named Safer. Along with his […]
RomanceContemporary Romance

Beth Kery

Interview by Eliza Borné

Have you already torn through Fifty Shades of Grey and Bared to You? Starting on July 31, 2012, you can enter the world of another love story with sizzling sexual content—although this novel has a twist. Beth Kery’s Because You Are Mine will be published in eight installments; a new part will come out every Tuesday until September 18, 2012. The parts are available exclusively as eBooks.

This steamy tale follows Francesca, an artist, and Ian, a businessman. Francesca is commissioned to create a painting for the lobby of Ian’s building, and sparks start to fly once they get to know each other better.

Kery chatted with BookPage about erotic romance, art and sexy heroes.

Erotic romance is more popular than ever. Why do you think so many readers are attracted to this genre?
I think the genre was growing before Fifty Shades of Grey became such a publishing juggernaut. Once that happened, however, it really hurtled the genre into the spotlight. It’s hard to pick apart the elements of a sensation. There are so many factors, plus a little bit of incalculable magic.

Once romance readers were exposed to higher sensuality and sexual content, they came to crave more. Even romance that isn’t considered to be “erotic” is hotter nowadays, and readers expect it. There’s a trend for more sexual content, more graphic sexual description and more honesty about what happens in the bedroom in romance novels.

What is unique about the relationship between Francesca and Ian?
What’s unique is their ability to give just what the other needs to grow. Ian is the experienced, worldly one, both sexually and in general. He teaches Francesca so many things: about the power of her sexuality and beauty; how to better manage her somewhat haphazard, hand-to-mouth existence; how to take the reins of her life and take control. He’s a little weary of life, however, of always having to be in ultimate control. Ian never really had a childhood. Francesca teaches him how to let go, live in the moment and be spontaneous.

That’s what’s beautiful about their relationship. Each holds the key for the other’s transformation.

Readers want "more sexual content, more graphic sexual description and more honesty about what happens in the bedroom."

What do you think makes for a sexy, memorable hero?
Oh, so many things. He’s a protector of the heroine, even if he doesn’t start out with the intention to be so. He’s the epitome of strength, but there has to be something about him—some crack that only the heroine can access, something that opens this seemingly impenetrable male to the experience of love. A sexy, memorable hero has to have enough depth and layers that the reader ends up “getting him” completely and falling in love with him, despite his imperfections.

Francesca is an artist. Ian, a businessman, commissions her to create a painting for his new skyscraper. Do you have a particular interest in art and architecture?
I definitely do. I’m a lover of the arts—although a terrible artist myself. You’ll often see artists or art motifs showing up in my books. I’m a longtime member of the Art Institute here in Chicago. Francesca actually holds degrees both in art and architecture, and I’m a huge admirer of architecture as well as art.

One of the first misunderstandings between Francesca and Ian is when she mistakenly believes he just awarded her the commission because of a “love of a straight line” versus her immense artistry. You’d have to be a very special person to be both an architect and a painter.

Were there any challenges specific to writing a serialized novel?
Yes, it was a fun challenge, but a huge one. For instance, while I was working on Part VIII, I had just finished copyedits for Parts III to V. I was worried about content specifics from Part I-III, because those are edited and sent off . . . but what about slight changes I’ve made in the story? Any author will tell you that she constantly goes back to tweak in the earlier stages because of something she wrote later that wasn’t necessarily planned. The Berkley staff was so supportive about going back and making small content changes in blurbs and even the copyedited manuscript.

How will you hold readers’ interest in the characters over eight installments of the book?
Hopefully, each installment will pique interest in the characters’ growth and romance. I’m curious to hear what the experience will be like for readers. I hope it’ll be positive, sort of like watching a television show and anticipating the next episode. I think the small wait—the parts come out weekly every Tuesday—will help to build excitement and deepen an awareness of Ian and Francesca’s love story.

Can you tell us about your next project?
My next project will actually be another serial for Berkley! It’s due to come out in January of 2013 and will take place in Ian’s and Francesca’s “world.” I have three other books due out from Berkley between 2013 and 2014.

Have you already torn through Fifty Shades of Grey and Bared to You? Starting on July 31, 2012, you can enter the world of another love story with sizzling sexual content—although this novel has a twist. Beth Kery’s Because You Are Mine will be published in eight installments; a new part will come out every […]
FictionDebut Fiction

Carol Rifka Brunt

Interview by Eliza Borné

Tell the Wolves I’m Home is a coming-of-age story that may be one of the best books of the year. In it, 14-year-old June grieves after her Uncle Finn dies of AIDS. In BookPage, Stephenie Harrison writes, “The narrative is as tender and raw as an exposed nerve, pulsing with the sharpest agonies and ecstasies of the human condition.”

Debut author Carol Rifka Brunt explains why an emotional connection with readers is so important.

What was the inspiration for Tell the Wolves I’m Home? I know you worked on the novel over the course of several years. Did the characters, plot or setting come first?
For me, stories always start with the language, the voice. Until I can hear the voice, I’m lost. I can start to write, but the words feel flat. The first line: “My sister Greta and I were having our portrait painted by our uncle Finn that afternoon because he knew he was dying” is pretty much the first line of Tell the Wolves I’m Home I wrote. Over three and a half years, this line stayed the same.

Before that I just had an idea of an uncle painting a final portrait of his niece. I was working on a few short stories at the time and this scenario just came to me one day. I didn’t know what he was dying of or what the relationship between the two was like. I just knew that he was making the painting as a last ditch attempt at leaving something in the world, forging a final relationship that would outlast him. Once I had June’s voice I could start to feel my way into the story.

Much later—like maybe two years into the process—I realized that part of the inspiration for the AIDS aspect of the story very likely came from an experience surrounding my eighth grade English teacher. He was an exchange teacher from England, very well-liked. He left to return to London at the end of the year and a few months later we heard that he’d died. He was only in his 30s, so this was really shocking. Not long after that we heard that he’d had AIDS. With all the confusion and fear around AIDS at that time, this seemed almost unreal. It was the first time AIDS had entered our lives and it made a big impression. It feels strange that I didn’t see the connection between that teacher and this story. My physical descriptions of Toby in Tell the Wolves could just as easily be descriptions of that teacher. So similar. And yet I didn’t even notice.

My book about a friendship between a teenager and a man dying of AIDS was getting attention from multiple editors at big houses? Not what I was expecting at all.

What was your reaction when you found out your first novel would be published?
Stunned? Elated? I was actually on a writers retreat in a big old country house in rural England with a group of people I’d never met when it all started happening. My agent had submitted the novel on a Friday and by Monday we had a couple editors interested.  My book about a friendship between a teenager and a man dying of AIDS was getting attention from multiple editors at big houses? Not what I was expecting at all.  I sequestered the library and spoke to editor after editor about the book. That alone was an amazing experience. Just hearing editorial ideas, having people who seemed passionate about my work, was wonderful.

An auction was scheduled and I actually left the retreat for a day so I could deal with whatever was about to happen. I was home alone when I heard that we had sold to Dial Press (Random House) and I remember just jumping up and down in my kitchen like a maniac. After three and a half years of writing and revising, five months of submitting to agents with a collection of about 50 agent rejections over that time, I just couldn’t quite believe it was all really happening.

Your main character, June, is 14 when the novel begins. Can you describe your life at that age? Did anything significant happen to you then that led you to write June as a teenager?
You know, I really tried to avoid falling into the “autobiographical first novel” trap. I would have loved for this story not to have been set in Westchester in the late '80s where I grew up, but that setting just worked so well for the story. I seem to have a very clear memory of my 14-year-old mindset. Maybe too clear! I gave June a lot of the geeky preoccupations I had at her age—a romantic notion of the Middle Ages, a collection of Choose Your Own Adventure books, a love of escapist period movies—and also maybe the sense of trying to figure out my place in the world. Like June, I remember a strong sense of viewing things from the outside, of not really being part of things that were going on around me, of feeling like a watcher rather than a participant.

Having said all that, the story itself isn’t autobiographical at all. There was no charismatic uncle in the city and the relationship between June and Greta is very different from my relationship with my own sister. Even June’s parents are nothing like my own.

For June, the Middle Ages are her happy place—where she imagines herself when she wants comfort. Do you have something that gives you the same kind of solace in your imagination?
I think looking to another place or time to give you happiness is really the wrong way to go about it. I think it’s something that’s appealing when the here and now isn’t a particularly fulfilling place or when you can’t really see where you fit in the world. In Tell the Wolves there’s June with her feeling that she would be more at home in an earlier time and the quite nerdy Ben who is immersed in Dungeons & Dragons. Both of those pursuits seem to speak to a desire to reinvent oneself as more important or more powerful somehow. So, to answer the question, at this point in my life I don’t really look to escape as a way to feel comfortable. I try to live my real life in a way that gives me the things I need.

On the other hand, maybe writing is the most escapist pursuit of all. Hour after hour spent dreaming up other places and lives. Maybe that’s my way of removing myself.

How do you make emotions feel so real on the page?
I think writing in first person is a big help with really getting into the emotions of your characters. Writing first person is almost like being an actor. You’re directly voicing somebody else. I think I was often feeling what June was feeling when I was writing.

Also, like so much in novel writing, emotion is tied in closely with other elements. Robert Olen Butler, in his book From Where You Dream, talks about the importance of the sense of yearning in a work. Once you have an understanding of what your character yearns for, her deepest longing (and this might be something she’s not even aware she wants), I think you immediately set up a situation where anything affecting that has a certain power. From page one the reader can see how much June loves her Uncle Finn. She loses him quite early in the book, but he’s still there on every page. You feel her winning him and losing him again and again over the course of the book. I think that the evocation of emotion isn’t about the poignant events, but about that character with that particular yearning encountering those events. The job of the writer is to frontload the situation.

One final thing about this: I figured out at some point in the writing that the emotional arc of the story and even of each scene was as important, if not more important, than the arc of the plot. The event happens and then the emotional response to that is where the story really lies. The whole story is in the reaction. If you shortchange the reader of the character’s full reaction to an event you lose the emotional pull of the story.

Did you have to do any research in preparing to write this novel?
I did quite a bit of reading around AIDS—the timeline for availability of blood tests and AZT and the attitudes and atmosphere of the time—but I also relied a lot on my own memories of the late '80s. Since the book is narrated by a 14-year-old, I had the luxury of not including things she wouldn’t have known.

I had a look at Ryan White’s autobiography, which contained a few helpful nuggets. I also looked around for essays written at the time and came across John Weir’s piece “AIDS Stories,” which appeared in Harper’s close to the time the book is set. Weir writes about running a writing workshop for men with/dying from AIDS. That essay really gave me a window on the feeling of helplessness that many people must have felt around that time.

As a writer, do you have a personal mission statement or purpose?
I’ve been reading a lot of truly excellent narrative nonfiction over the last few years. While writing Wolves I found myself wondering what the novel could bring to the table that nonfiction couldn’t. I’ll admit that it was a hard question to answer. The nonfiction I’d been reading—and none of it was memoir, but rather general narrative nonfiction—was gripping and filled with compelling characters, plus it had the added bonus of revealing something of the real world. So if there were all these amazing true stories, what was the point of writing about invented characters and situations?

After much thought, I concluded that the gift of the novel lies in the emotional connection it can provide. A novel has the ability to put the reader right inside a character, to let the reader understand the way another person thinks and feels. So, that’s my mission as a novelist—to use the novel to emotionally connect with readers. If I want to make an intellectual argument or explore an issue or examine something political, I’d do it through nonfiction. Story and connection are the only goals I have for novel writing.

What’s next for you?
I’m working on several short stories and the beginnings of a new novel at the moment. I would love to talk about the new novel idea, but I have an irrational fear of jinxing it if I reveal anything too soon. Plus, I have only a small amount of faith that I’ll be able to pull off what I’d like to do.

RELATED CONTENT
Read a review of Tell the Wolves I'm Home.

Tell the Wolves I’m Home is a coming-of-age story that may be one of the best books of the year. In it, 14-year-old June grieves after her Uncle Finn dies of AIDS. In BookPage, Stephenie Harrison writes, “The narrative is as tender and raw as an exposed nerve, pulsing with the sharpest agonies and ecstasies […]
FictionHistorical FictionDebut Fiction

David R. Gillham

Interview by Eliza Borné

Sigrid, the main character of City of Women, has a secret: Rather than worry over her husband who is on the front line in World War II, she dreams of her Jewish lover—and eventually faces a stark choice.

This impressive debut novel reads like a thriller—one that’s “full of sharp twists, sex, muddy morals and a Berlin that breathes,” writes BookPage reviewer Sheri Bodoh. In a Q&A, debut author David R. Gillham tells us about inspiring fictional heroines and shares how he so vividly captured war-era Berlin.

World War II fiction (in the form of novels and movies) is perennially popular. What is unique about City of Women?
While there have been countless novels and films about World War II Berlin, I can’t recall many that tell their story from the point of view of an ordinary woman. It’s 1943 at the height of the war. The men are at the front, and Berlin has become a “city of women.” The reader follows my protagonist, Sigrid, who is a strong, passionate woman, trapped in a dismal existence on the Home Front. There are many twists and turns and sub-plots woven together by a host of characters, but the essential core of the book is Sigrid’s story, as she breaks free of her oppressive existence, and re-invents herself.

Why are you drawn to write about the lives of women? As a male writer, do you think there are distinct challenges to writing from a woman’s point of view?
When I’m writing, I never think, what would a woman do? I think about what the character would do. But having said that, I am always so pleased when readers think I’ve done an effective job of writing from a female character’s perspective—or when they’re surprised to find that City of Women was written by a man. Certainly, when I was a stay-at-home parent for three years, there were very few other men at the playgrounds, or the sing-alongs, or the libraries, and I often found myself immersed in my own sort of “city of women.” So, maybe that helped.

“I am always so pleased when readers are surprised to find that City of Women was written by a man.”

On your website, you write that your “connection to history has always been palpable, especially to certain times and places.” Do you have any personal connection to World War II Berlin?
I have no personal connection in my background to wartime Berlin, but I have always been intensely interested in the drama of history, and by that I mean its dramatic possibilities. Reliving history through fiction is especially rewarding for me, because it allows me create a world built on historical detail, but populated with characters of my own invention, who then pursue their own adventures or misadventures against as realistic a backdrop as I can manage to create.  

As a writer of historical fiction, when do you know that you’ve done enough research? Was there a particular source that you found especially instructive in writing City of Women?
I continue to do research while I’m writing, and don’t stop till the manuscript is sent to the printer’s. But I began City of Women by using my Baedeker’s Berlin travel guide from the 1920’s as a blueprint of the city, and then combed the history books, memoirs and documentaries for every detail that I could use to create a mood, build a character or enrich the action. I always attempt to avoid long history lessons in heavily descriptive passages, and depend, instead, on the evocative details of daily existence to draw the dramatic backdrop for me. Some examples of this from the book are the apartment windows taped up against the bombing, the acrid stink of Mother Schröder’s ersatz cigarettes ground from acorns or the songs on the wireless suddenly interrupted by the staccato warning signaling an impending air raid.

Sigrid is a memorable heroine, and I imagine that book clubs will soon enjoy discussing her choices and motivations. Are there any fictional heroines who have made a strong impact on you?
Sophie from William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice comes to mind immediately. Sophie was another ordinary person, faced with such a horrific choice, that, in the end, she couldn’t live with her decision. Also, there’s a touch of Madame Bovary in Sigrid’s unapologetically boundless desire, and the sort of evolving strength and self-realization that is a part of the heroine’s journey in almost any Margaret Atwood novel you’d care to mention.  

Name one book you think everyone should read, and why.
Sophie’s Choice still fills that bill for me. It’s a testament to the human condition, the limits of survival, and continued pursuit of redemption even in the face of insurmountable odds. It’s a beautifully crafted novel, though there’s also no denying that it contains a heavy dose of darkness. So, if the reader is not quite in the right frame of mind for it, I’d recommend Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres for many of the same reasons. It’s a stunningly brilliant retelling of the Lear myth from the daughter’s point of view, set in the modern American heartland. 

What was your reaction when you found out your first novel would be published?
I’m not sure there’s a word in the English language that would capture that moment.  “Ecstatic” seems too pale a description. Even the German falls short; Verzückt! Perhaps, I’ll have to ask my wife to find a word in Bulgarian.

What can you tell us about your next project?
Well, I’m working hard on the next book, but it’s still at too fragile a stage to expose it to the open air. All I can reveal at this point is that it’s set in both post-war Amsterdam and 1950’s New York.

Read our review of City of Women.

Sigrid, the main character of City of Women, has a secret: Rather than worry over her husband who is on the front line in World War II, she dreams of her Jewish lover—and eventually faces a stark choice. This impressive debut novel reads like a thriller—one that’s “full of sharp twists, sex, muddy morals and […]
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

J.T. Ellison

Interview by Eliza Borné

On a blustery Sunday during Nashville’s Southern Festival of Books, local thriller author J.T. Ellison sits down to talk about Dr. Samantha Owens, the heroine in her new series about a medical examiner with a painful past. Owens will be familiar to Ellison’s many fans. She’s the best friend of homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson, the star of Ellison’s seven previous books. Sam was even a point-of-view character in 2011’s Where All the Dead Lie, which was nominated for a RITA Award for Best Romantic Suspense.

Before Ellison could start a new series about the intelligent and intense medical examiner, though, she had to figure out a single crucial detail: She had to kill off Sam’s husband and two kids. (When the author invented Sam as a character in the Taylor Jackson books, she didn’t know that the medical examiner would eventually get her own series.)

“I fought against that,” says Ellison, who describes Sam as “the woman I’d want to take care of me.” (“Taylor is the chick I’d want to go get a drink with,” she quips.) But she wanted a clean break for Sam as she stepped forward as a main character. Ultimately, Ellison did not want her encumbered with a family. She wanted Sam to be broken at the beginning of A Deeper Darkness, the first book in the series, in order for her to be able to grow and develop as a character.

When the novel starts, we find out that Sam’s husband and children died in Nashville’s flood of May 2010, an event that was personal to Ellison, as she and her husband live in the city’s Bellevue neighborhood, which was majorly affected by the rising waters. The flood has terrible repercussions for Sam, who becomes convinced that her family members’ deaths were all her fault, and she develops Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in her grieving.

At the beginning of A Deeper Darkness, Sam is in this guilt-ridden emotional state when she gets a call from an ex-boyfriend’s mother in Washington, D.C. Eddie Donovan, her former love, has been murdered. His mom would like for Sam to perform a second autopsy, and she reluctantly agrees. Thanks to her astute observation in the D.C. morgue, it becomes obvious that Eddie’s death was not merely the result of a random hit-and-run. Sam gets drawn into a D.C. detective’s investigation of the murder, which blossoms into an investigation of several different murders of former military men, all members of Eddie’s Company in the 75th Ranger Regiment. Are the deaths connected?

If one of Ellison’s goals is to accurately portray the lives of medical examiners or homicide lieutenants, she also wants to raise awareness of issues that are important to her.

Sam’s search races across the nation’s capital and even to a creepy off-the-grid cabin. Fans of the medical thriller genre will relish this fast-paced and emotional read, which is bolstered by Ellison’s thorough research.

For her Taylor Jackson books, Ellison went on ride-alongs with the Metro Nashville Police Department in order to make her scenes as real as possible. For A Deeper Darkness, she consulted with both soldiers and a medical examiner—and she even did autopsies on four bodies at a facility in Nashville. (When prodded to share the most surprising thing about the process, she says: “That I didn’t pass out!”)

At the book festival, Ellison jumps up from her chair to demonstrate how far she was from the bodies when she walked into the morgue—about 10 or so feet. But by the end of that day, she says, “I had my head in a chest cavity.” The author describes this very hands-on research trip as a “spiritual experience,” especially after it became so obvious that “we’re all exactly alike inside.”

If one of Ellison’s goals as an author is to accurately portray the lives of medical examiners or homicide lieutenants, she also wants to raise awareness of issues that are important to her. In the case of A Deeper Darkness, that would be the problem of fratricide and rape in the U.S. military. Instances of both horrific events are integral to the novel’s plot, and the book is dedicated to David H. Sharrett II, a real-life Private First Class who was killed in Iraq in 2008 as a victim of friendly fire. He was the son of Ellison’s favorite teacher in high school.

A Deeper Darkness is, indeed, a very dark book, but Edge of Black—its follow-up, which comes out in November 2012—has “lots of humor.” Ellison says that the “Sam books” are funnier than the “Taylor books,” and this second installment is gentler than A Deeper Darkness. Luckily for fans, the author recently signed a contract to write three more books in the series, so there will be much more of Dr. Samantha Owens to look forward to. Next year, Ellison’s fans can anticipate her new collaboration with best-selling romantic suspense author Catherine Coulter, with whom she is writing a series of thrillers called “A Brit in the FBI.” The first book in the series, Jewel of the Lion, is currently slated to come out in late summer of 2013.

When asked what scenes she looks forward to writing the most in her books, Ellison says without hesitating, “You want every scene you write to be something you look forward to.” Otherwise, she explains, readers won’t want to read them. And in fact, readers will happily devour Sam’s new series. A story of hope—with breakneck chase scenes, to boot—it is an exciting introduction to a new heroine of the forensic thriller genre.

On a blustery Sunday during Nashville’s Southern Festival of Books, local thriller author J.T. Ellison sits down to talk about Dr. Samantha Owens, the heroine in her new series about a medical examiner with a painful past. Owens will be familiar to Ellison’s many fans. She’s the best friend of homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson, the […]
RomanceContemporary Romance

Christie Ridgway

Interview by Eliza Borné

Picture this: Colorful cottages nestled on pristine white sand. Palm trees and bougainvillea. Bluffs rise above the beach, and at 5 o'clock every day, someone blows in a conch shell to mark the coming of happy hour. Welcome to Crescent Cove, California.

Focus your attention on Beach House No. 9, a beautiful place that veteran romance author Christie Ridgway invented for “two yearning hearts” to fall in love, as she tells me by phone from her home in Southern California. She lives about an hour south of the beachfront community that inspired fictional Crescent Cove, the idyllic setting introduced in an eBook novella, Beach House Beginnings.

Now, readers can journey from the slush and snow of winter to summertime in SoCal in a back-to-back trilogy: Beach House No. 9 (January 29), Bungalow Nights (February 26) and The Love Shack (March 26).

A lifelong Californian, the author believes that two people can fall in love anywhere, but she also thinks “some palm trees and some coconut-scented oil in the breeze might help things along a little.” That’s exactly what happens in the Beach House books, though the path to happily ever after is never easy.

Ridgway, who has written 40 novels and is BookPage’s own romance columnist, based her setting on the real-life Crystal Cove in Orange County, which was once a location for silent films and is now a state park. Her research trips sound like something out of a dream: lunch at a beachside restaurant, trips to avocado groves and gourd farms.

Reality check: It must be noted that the research trips weren’t always totally dream-like, since Ridgway was laid up with a broken leg from a fall for much of the writing of Bungalow Nights, and her “wonderful, loving, loyal” husband drove her around to see the settings for the trilogy while she was on crutches. Still, Ridgway is sunny about the less-than-ideal experience. “I couldn’t put any weight on my leg for three months. So I remember thinking to myself, this is kind of a bummer—but I could take myself away every day and go write about Crescent Cove, which I’m sure was very helpful.”

Ridgway is especially adept at writing the sort of snappy banter that showcases the confidence and brains of heroines.

In Beach House No. 9, the first full-length book in the trilogy, we meet Jane Pearson, a buttoned-up book doctor (with a weakness for shoes) who has been recruited to work with Griffin Lowell, a war journalist under contract to write a memoir about his harrowing experience in Afghanistan. Griffin is by all appearances a (handsome) wild man, turning Beach House No. 9, where he’s staying for the month of June, into Party Central. Jane can hardly get him to speak of his time embedded with American troops, let alone commit to putting his memories down on paper.

In spite of Griffin’s impenetrable façade—he’s either playing the tough guy or the partier, or closing up completely—it eventually becomes clear that he’s suffering from PTSD. Jane, patient and kind, seems to be the only person who can get him to face his demons and show his true personality. It doesn’t hurt that the two share an electric connection and just can’t keep their hands off each other. Parallel to this plotline is a tender and wrenching story about Griffin’s sister, Tess, and her husband, David, who have reached a bit of a stalemate in their marriage.

Though Ridgway’s books are packed with witty dialogue, sexy love scenes and a setting that will have readers fantasizing about margaritas and suntans, the stories are much more than easy, breezy reads. They pack an emotional punch, dealing with forgiveness in relationships, second chances and the trust we must have in the people we love.

“A lot of the situations in the Beach House trilogy are really about the differences between men and women, and how they yearn for the same things,” Ridgway says. “I’m fascinated by that because I feel like men are not naturally emotional, and yet they still put themselves out there. They want to be with these women that open their hearts.”

Ridgway knows this from personal experience. Beach House No. 9 is dedicated to her husband; her brother and her brother-in-law; and her two sons, 20 and 23. The dedication reads: “I’ve seen what’s underneath those all-guy exteriors—deep family bonds and strong yet tender hearts that are reflected by every hero in my stories.”

In addition to those guys, Ridgway turned to military men for inspiration, including her father-in-law, a retired Naval aviator. She also did a lot of reading on PTSD, coming to the conclusion that “all service people—the people who are carrying weapons, people who are journalists or doctors and nurses—everybody is affected by what they see and what they experience.”

The other books in the series focus on other couples from Griffin’s circle and the community of Crescent Cove—like the combat medic who stays in No. 9 in July and falls for the daughter of a fallen officer; or Griffin’s photojournalist twin brother, who has kept up an old-fashioned letter correspondence with the rental property manager of the beach houses.

Each of these relationships, though distinct, is marked by believable romantic chemistry—an authentic attraction that Ridgway conveys by describing “the great attention to detail that two people have for each other,” she says. Ridgway is especially adept at writing the sort of snappy (and sometimes silly) banter that showcases the confidence and brains of her heroines—like Jane, who is all business, until she just can’t resist Griffin’s charms.

Perhaps it was fate that a woman who was supposed to be born on Valentine’s Day (she was actually born on February 4), and who grew up reading love stories, would one day become a romance novelist. The way Ridgway talks, it seems like writing romance must be the best work in the world.

She almost squeals when I ask about her favorite part of the job. “I’m just such a lover of reading romance novels,” she gushes. “It’s so fun to create the kinds of books that have given me so much joy. I never tire of them.”

Picture this: Colorful cottages nestled on pristine white sand. Palm trees and bougainvillea. Bluffs rise above the beach, and at 5 o'clock every day, someone blows in a conch shell to mark the coming of happy hour. Welcome to Crescent Cove, California. Focus your attention on Beach House No. 9, a beautiful place that veteran […]
Fiction

Jonathan Dee

Interview by Eliza Borné

In Jonathan Dee’s sixth novel, A Thousand Pardons, a stay-at-home mother goes back to work after her husband’s dramatic breakdown. In her new role, she cultivates her gift for convincing powerful men to apologize on a grand scale. Dee likens this act to an ancient religious ritual.

Helen is forced to return to the workforce after her husband’s breakdown, and discovers an aptitude for PR—specifically crisis management. What would you do if you weren’t a novelist? Do you think you have an untapped talent for another line of work?

I’m always jealous of fiction writers who have a second marketable skill, who chose writing over some other career at which they might have been, or were, equally proficient. Sometime in my late 20s it became frighteningly clear to me that all my eggs were in one basket, career-wise, and that I had no talent whatsoever for anything but writing. So I am relieved not to have failed at it. If I had, I doubt I ever would have strayed too far from the world of books: a teacher, maybe, or an editor, or an eccentric small-town librarian . . .

One of Helen’s specialties is the art of the apology. Why do her tactics work so well? Do people fundamentally want to forgive public figures who have made mistakes?

Yes, we do. But we demand something in return, which is that the transgressor must (as Helen says) make an offering of him—or herself, must confess sin without condition, must give up anything and everything that is private or hidden. It’s a ritual that’s religious in nature, but that’s now been transferred to the secular, public sphere—like a kind of ghostly outline of what “public” life in America used to be. That notion of the old, religious vessel filled with modern, secular content is what got me interested in writing this novel in the first place. Helen, in part because of her own upbringing, understands that religious connection instinctively—so instinctively that she doesn’t even know she knows it.

Scandals related to high-powered American men are a dime a dozen, from Tiger Woods to General Petraeus. Was there any particular news story that led to your interest in the repercussions of public scandals?

They happen regularly—so regularly that you have to assume they’re satisfying some sort of cultural hunger. Just in the last few weeks we’ve had Lance Armstrong (a textbook example of how not to do it, by the way), Manti Te’o (whose phenomenal lack of guile might just redeem him in the end) . . . I remember I was particularly interested in the Tiger Woods scandal, because at one point early on he made a sort of plea for privacy—this is about my marriage, I have two small children, please let us resolve this out of the spotlight—which was perfectly reasonable but had absolutely no chance of being granted. The world essentially replied, “We will let you know when we are done extracting what we need from you.”

What sort of research did you do into the world of corporate law and high-stakes public relations?

People who work in crisis management love to write about what they do; the fact that they usually can’t give up the names of their clients just helps keep the focus on themselves. I read a stack of memoirs, insider accounts, autobiographies, etc., written by various legends of the industry. Most of my research, for any book, consists of reading. It has to be first-person material, because what I’m after, when a novel is in its R&D phase, is not so much facts (though those too) but a subculture’s particular tone of voice.

One of your secondary characters, Hamilton Barth, is a moody movie star in need of Helen’s PR magic. Where do you fall on the spectrum of the Hollywood obsessed? (From TMZ devotee to “never heard of Bradley Cooper.”) In real life, are you curious about the inner feelings and desires of celebrities?

I’m interested in the commodification of their “inner” feelings and desires, which of course are not inner at all if millions of people like me know about them. As for where I fall on the obsession spectrum, would it be useful to say that I know there are multiple Kardashians but I couldn’t tell you which was which?

Another main character is Sara, Helen’s angsty 12-year-old daughter with a penchant for torturing her mother. Is it challenging to inhabit a character who is in such a different life stage from yourself? Or, did Sara’s voice come as easily to you—or with as much difficulty, as the case may be—as any other character?

I am a stay-at-home father, a part-time teacher, a youth soccer coach, and I have the naturally nosy observational powers of any fiction writer; so let’s just say that the voice of today’s young person is not all that exotic to me. I had a blast writing Sara. Some readers find her a little unforgiving, but I will defend her to the death.

Like many Americans, are you fascinated—even secretly delighted—when our movie stars suffer a fall from grace? Why or why not?

I wouldn’t say “delighted”—I don’t get any particular kick out of seeing the high brought low. But the cultural mechanics of the fall from grace do fascinate me, largely because they are so ritualized. You might even say that the reason the culture manufactures celebrities in the first place is in order to feed the ritual.

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Read our review of A Thousand Pardons.

In Jonathan Dee’s sixth novel, A Thousand Pardons, a stay-at-home mother goes back to work after her husband’s dramatic breakdown. In her new role, she cultivates her gift for convincing powerful men to apologize on a grand scale. Dee likens this act to an ancient religious ritual. Helen is forced to return to the workforce […]

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