Recently in Books: Interviews Category

One of the perks of being a book blogger is the free books. The drawback is the guilt one sometimes feels at not being able to read and review all the books that find their way to you. There is often, for me at least, a sneaking suspicion that some gems are in that stack of books, but you only have so much time. The joy comes from the surprises; the books you are sent that allow you to find a book or author that you really enjoy but wouldn't likely have found without the publicist.

I had this experience recently. The good folks at St. Martin's sent me Keith Dixon's soon to be released The Art of Losing. I will post a review here soon, but the jacket copy certainly piqued my interest:

Michael Jacobs, a talented but obscure New York City filmmaker, has just watched his third film flop at the box office. With few options available, Jacobs is tempted by the prospect of easy cash when Sebby Laslo, his producer, makes a one-time offer. With the help of a corrupt jockey, Laslo plans to fix a horse race, but his gambling debts have left him untouchable and he needs someone he can trust to be the public face of the operation. Though Laslo is known for taking risks, Jacobs, hoping to repay an old favor to his friend, agrees to help.

Jacobs soon meets two Atlantic City bookmakers: Nikos Popolosikc, a quietly menacing restaurateur known for breaking hands; and Lad Keegan, a soft-spoken bar owner whose superstitions are bad for his clients’ health. When Laslo’s plan fails, Jacobs, heavily in debt, is ensnared by a violent underworld he neither knows nor understands. In the inevitable reckoning, Jacobs and Laslo become hunted men—and only one of them will escape.

Keith Dixon’s second novel is a morality tale of stunning resonance and breathtaking symmetry. Hard-boiled yet deeply contemplative, allegorical yet starkly realistic, The Art of Losing divines the corrosive nature of greed, the terrible power of recklessness, and the consequences that erupt when those forces meet.

"Hard-boiled yet deeply contemplative, allegorical yet starkly realistic" sounded like my kind of book so I moved it up the TBR pile and read it. It turned out to be one of those gems I noted above, an enjoyable and entertaining read that also makes you think; an author that leaves you wanting to read more.

Seemed like an excellent candidate for a Collected Miscellany Q&A. Luckily, Keith was gracious enough to agree to answer a few questions. The interview that follows was conducted via email.

One side note: the book jacket describes the author thus:

Keith Dixon is an editor for The New York Times. His first novel, Ghostfires, was named one of the five best first novels of 2004 by Poets & Writers magazine. He lives in New York City with his wife, Jessica.

As you will see below, I was under the impression that "editor at the New York Times" meant editing text. That turns out not to be the case. I could have edited the questions and answers to avoid looking slightly silly, but I don't think it unduly marred the proceedings so I left it in. After all blogs are supposed to be more immediate and honest, right?

The questions and answers are below.

Sometime ago I saw this article and thought: hey, that sounds like fun! So I slowly went about getting the equipment and software necessary. Soon I had all the tools to attempt my own podcast. But I was a little nervous about entering the territory of Bat Segundo and other masters of the form. Much time passed.

Eventually I summoned up the courage to try it. Inspired by an Brock Clarke's essay in the Virginia Quarterly, The Novel is Dead, Long Live the Novel, I decided to venture into this uncharted territory. So I sent Brock an email.

He graciously agreed to be my guinea pig and we went about setting a date. Murphy's Law intervened and as the date approached for our conversation I started having problems with my broadband connection at home. Rather than risk my connection futzing out in the middle of the interview I decided to add another layer of complexity to the whole thing. I actually conducted the interview at a local coffee house. So here I was talking on the phone and recording my first ever podcast using a free Wi-Fi connection on my laptop.

As I mention in the introduction, I would ask for your patience and charity as I attempt to get the hang of this new format. I have no real expertize or experience in this kind of thing so there is bound to be technical and aesthetic issues. My hope is that these will not overshadow the conversation with Brock. As always, feel free to send suggestions and comments my way.

By way of introduction, let me say that the conversation largely centers on Brock's essay noted above which is in itself partly a reaction to Rachel Donadio's NYTBR essay from last year entitled Truth Is Stronger Than Fiction. We also discuss a book that plays a prominent role in the essay Heidi Julavits’s 2003 book, The Effect of Living Backwards.

So without further ado, here is the first ever Collected Miscellany Podcast: Click on the graphic below to listen to a conversation with Brock Clarke.

This interview originally appeared in my free monthly writing newsletter WRITING UP A STORM last year after I met Harley Jane Kozak at the Malice Domestic conference in Arlington, Virginia. I hope you'll enjoy it!

Gayle

Gayle Trent
http://www.graceabraham.com
Guest Blogger for Kevin (8-12 - 8-19)

Frances Hardinge is the author of Fly By Night, a novel I described as "an imaginative and creative adventure story with an interesting philosophical/historical question weaved in." The bio on her official web page is a little vague:

Frances Hardinge is a writer who wears a black hat. Notoriously unphotographable, she is rumoured to be made entirely out of velvet. Sources close to Frances who prefer not to be named suggest that she has an Evil Twin who wears white and is hatless. This cannot be confirmed.

The folks at Harper Collins help fill in the blanks a bit:

Frances Hardinge spent her childhood rambling around in a huge, isolated old house in Kent that "wuthered" when the wind blew and that inspired her to write strange, magical stories from an early age. She studied English at Oxford University, where she was a founding member of a writer's workshop and won a magazine short-story competition. She recently returned from a yearlong round-the-world odyssey. Fly by Night is her first novel.

Fascinated by the blending of ideas and story in a young adult book, I thought it would be interesting to ask Hardinge a few questions. Via the magic of email I was able to do just that and she graciously answered them. They are reproduced below with my questions in bold.

1. This is your first novel. How did Fly By Night (FBN) come about? Did you get an agent, make a proposal, and sign a contract, etc. or something different?

The way in which I acquired a contract was a bit more eccentric than that, and certainly came as a surprise to me. One of my best friends is the children's author Rhiannon Lassiter. When I had written the first five chapters of Fly by Night, she told me that they were good enough to show to an editor.

I, however, was convinced that they were better suited to burial in an unmarked grave. Rhiannon became understandably tired of my spinelessness and took matters into her own hands. She kidnapped my chapters, refused to give them back, and marched off with them to her own editor. A week later, to my astonishment, I had a book contract offer.

2. Have you always seen yourself as a writer/author? Was writing a novel always something you thought you would do?

I can't remember a time when I didn't want intend to become an author. I still occasionally stumble across my first literary efforts, many of which tend decidedly towards the grotesque.

Jeremy Lott is a writer, editor, and blogger and author of the recently released In Defense of Hypocrisy. With the release of his first book and its controversial - or perhaps counter intuitive - nature, I thought it might be fun to send a few questions his way. He was nice enough to answer them, so they follow below. As usual, my questions are in bold.

1) This is your first book. How did it come about? Did you get an
agent, write a proposal, shop it, etc.? Or did someone approach you?

I'd done some work for Nelson Current and associate publisher Joel Miller
asked if I had any book ideas. I thought about it and gave him a list of
possible proposals. Of those, he thought a book defending hypocrisy was
the most promising, so I wrote that proposal. Both the editing and
publishing boards then had to approve it. To my mild shock, they said yes.

2) How would you describe the process once you had a contract
(writing, editing, cover art, publication, publicity, etc.): smooth,
painful, educational, all of the above?

Good writing is always hard and I think that's especially true of your
first book. It helped that I was able to go back to my hometown of Lynden,
Washington for three months. The air is better there and there are fewer
distractions and the bartenders at the Nut House -- bless them -- never
objected when I brought my laptop into the bar and typed for hours.

I was constantly rewriting as I went, mostly in response to my test
audience. I sent sections out to maybe a dozen readers who helped to
"prescreen" the manuscript. They told me when they didn't understand
something, or when I had overdone it, and they corrected errors. Because
of them, the editing went pretty smoothly once I got it into Nelson
Current.

The cover art was the publisher's doing but I had something like veto
power. I was skeptical but when Joel sent the cover they wanted to use, I
was blown away. I was also a little bit upset, because I knew that I'd
have to write a better book to earn it. It's just beautiful. In Defense of
Hypocrisy is one of the most attractive books I've ever held in my hands.

The publicity end of things has been interesting and a little bit
frustrating. But I'm learning a lot that will come in handy for the second
book and beyond.

I have mentioned this before, but if any one asked me to name the best thing to come out of this blog I would have to put the ability to correspond with authors high on the list. Richard Brookhiser was one of the first authors I ever "interviewed" and by interview I mean a Q&A conducted via email. He continues to be one of my favorite authors/writers. He is knowledgeable about history, careful with his words, and pithy and witty and the same time. Inexplicably, he continues to answer my emails.

When What Would the Founders Do was released I thought it a great chance to do another Q&A. Mr. Brookhiser graciously agreed. The result follows below with questions in bold.

1) Why are we still arguing about the Founders? Why do they still matter?

This is a relatively new country. Many of the institutions and arguments that preoccupy us go back to the founders. Much of their thinking was pitched at a level of generality that will make it perennially relevant.

2) In what areas do you think the Founder’s world is most similar to ours? Most different?

The founders lived among superpowers and world wars. They saw the beginnings of modern media, modern economics, democratic politics and even (in the French Revolution) totalitarian ideology.

Slavery is gone from this country. Preoccupation with the self, which in their day occurred only in a few diaries and novels, is now a spectator sport.

Ramesh Ponnuru is a senior editor at National Review and the author of The Party of Death recently published by Regnery. He is a graduate of Princeton University and has covered politics for more than a decade. In addition to his work with National Review, he has written for the Wall Street Journal, Newsday, the Washington Times, the Weekly Standard, and Financial Times.

With the recent publication of his book and the debate that is sure to spring up around it, Ramesh was kind enough to agree to answer some questions vial email. What follows is the result. My questions in bold, Ramesh's answers below.

You claim in the book that: “Everything you think you know about Roe is a lie.” What do you mean by that?

Most people believe that Roe v. Wade was a more limited decision than it was: They don’t realize that it created a right to abortion at any stage of pregnancy for any reason, which is more extreme than any other developed country’s abortion policy. Many people mistakenly believe that overturning Roe would amount to criminalizing abortion nationwide. Most people are under the impression that the country was headed toward liberal abortion laws even before Roe. That’s not true either. Finally, they think that women were dying in large numbers from illegal abortions before Roe. Again, that’s false. Even after 33 years, there are a lot of myths about Roe that haven’t really been challenged—myths that the media continue to spread. Even many pro-lifers believe some of the things I just mentioned.

J.D. Hayworth represents Arizona’s Fifth Congressional District. First elected in 1994, he is serving his sixth two-year term in Congress.

The Congressman is also the author of the recently released Whatever It Takes: Illegal Immigration, Border Security, and the War on Terror. A passionate and powerful call to action on this increasingly pressing issue.

Given the storm over the ports issue and focus on national security in general, this seems like a perfect moment to talk about illegal immigration and border security. To help with that, and to introduce readers to the issue and the book, Congressman Hayworth was kind enough to answer a few of my questions. The Q&A session is below (questions in bold, answers below). Look for a review of Whatever It Takes on Friday.

Henry Kisor is the book editor and literary columnist of the Chicago Sun-Times as well as the author of three nonfiction books and two mystery novels. He is also the co-author of one children's book.

He is the author of What's That Pig Outdoors: A Memoir of Deafness, Zephyr: Tracking a Dream Across America, and Flight of the Gin Fizz: Midlife at 4,500 Feet.

His most recent books are two mystery novels, A Venture into Murder (2005) and Season's Revenge (2003).

He has been the book review editor and literary critic of the Chicago Sun-Times since 1978, after five years in the same position with the old Chicago Daily News.

Mr. Kisor was gracious enough to answer my questions on the release of Season's Revenge, so I thought it would be fun to ask him some questions on the release of his latest mystery. He was again kind enough to reply. The questions and answers are below.

What was the hardest part about writing a sequel?

Keeping the facts and details straight between the two books. I discovered a number of times while writing Venture that I'd unconsciously moved an event or a location to a different place or time from Season's Revenge. Mystery readers care about this stuff and they have long memories.

What was the most enjoyable?

Discovering what happens to the characters as time goes on. After the first book they became real to me, not just figments of my imagination. Sitting down at the computer every morning to work on the book was like hanging out with old friends. They kept me from feeling lonely. Writing is a very solitary occupation and having imaginary buddies around helps one keep one's sanity. I found myself talking aloud to them as if they really existed. (This helped with the dialogue, by the way.)

Where do you buy your books? At your favorite bookstores? Online? Wherever it's most convenient? If convenience is the primary motivator, you may have contributed to the closing of your favorite bookstore.

I'm under the impression several independent booksellers have had rough times lately, and convenience may be a major culprit. That's what I heard when I talked to Danielle Hargis, owner of Books Never Ending in Ringgold, GA. She said online ordering and discount stores were skimming off her sales of those top-selling books which have drawn a good bit of publicity. Stores like Walmart and Target have even been able to offer books before the publisher's release date, effectively undercutting a bookstore's sales.

Ms. Hargis said she has called many of her regular customers to let them know their book has come in, but heard that they have picked up the book recently while shopping at The American Dream and Yogurt Super Emporium. They don't think of the purchase as not buying it from their favorite bookstore. They think of it as convenient. Little by little, such convenience is making independent bookselling an unsustainable business.