Lisa Unger's Blog, page 18

Great Books

Even with all my years as a reader, and as a writer, I wouldn’t claim to know what makes a book “great.” There have been many books touted as such that have left me cold, and others that have escaped any serious note, which have moved and seduced me. Even as my tenth novel DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND will find its way to shelves this August, and I have been reading voraciously since as long as I can remember, I only know what I like, what makes me feel, what transports me.

As a mother, books are an important part of my life with my daughter Ocean. We read every night, and we have literally since the day she was born. This year, her sixth year, our reading time has taken on a magical quality. She has made the shift from picture books to chapter books. And suddenly we are laughing together over stories; she is asking questions far beyond what I would have expected of her, making inferences, thinking about plots long after the book is closed. We recently finished Alice in Wonderland (A bit dark, I thought for a five year old. She seemed to enjoy it, though there has been quite a bit of anxiety about The Queen of Hearts. She’s not real. Right, Mommy?). But, by far, her favorite books have been the Ramona series and the Ralph the Mouse series, by the incomparable Beverly Cleary.

Maybe not coincidentally these books were also my favorites as a kid. I remember these stories with such clarity. As I read them to Ocean, they feel like memories -- such as when Ramona’s teacher tells her to “sit here for the present” and Ramona stays put for the whole day waiting for the mystery gift her teacher promised her, or Ralph’s nighttime ride through the hotel searching for an aspirin for the sick boy who gave him his beloved motorcycle. Often, I can’t remember the plot of a book I read last month, but these books have stayed with me my whole life.

So Beverly Cleary turns 95 tomorrow. Her books about children and family are simple, profound, funny, and rich with the emotions of her characters. They moved me as a young reader, and they are just as relevant and accessible to my daughter.

I loved this article in the New York Times today about this accomplished and beloved author

I still don’t know what makes a book great, but I have a feeling Beverly Cleary does.

Unlikely Friends

A long time ago I stopped thinking of characters as creations of my imagination, and started to understand that they are more like people who I’ve met along my colorful, complicated, ever-changing fictional journey. They come to me as they are, with their own names, personalities and spirits. Sometimes I love them, sometimes I endure them, and sometimes I pity them. Always, I try to treat each of them with compassion and respect.

There have been a few to whom I have connected in profound and important ways. Most recently, I have had this experience with Jones Cooper. He first showed up in FRAGILE, married to the character that is the centerpiece of that book. Maggie is the lynchpin in FRAGILE; she holds everyone together. But as the story wound on, Jones started to play a deeply significant role. And after the book was finished, he stayed with me. He had more to say to me. And I wasn’t ready to leave him.

This has happened to me before, of course, with Ridley Jones in BEAUTIFUL LIES and SLIVER OF TRUTH. (I know: What’s with the “Jones” thing? I don’t really understand it myself. Sometimes you just have to obey your subconscious and hope for the best.) But Ridley was a lot like me. She was a youngish writer. She had a white hot love affair with New York City. She was naïve, a little reckless, long on courage, somewhat short on common sense. I could relate to her, understand her. If we’d met in the real world, we’d be friends.

But Jones Cooper is a small town cop in his late forties. He has buried a terrible secret that he has carried since childhood, and it has influenced every decision he’s ever made about his life. He has a teenage son to whom he can’t connect, a marriage straining under the weight of deception, and he’s about to confront some ugly demons. By the end of FRAGILE, he’ll have to walk away from the only career he has ever had or wanted and find a second act, a new path forward. In other words, he and I have nothing in common at all.

And yet, I feel hugely connected to him. Enough so that I’ve had to go on with him into DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND (Crown/August 2011). At the end of FRAGILE, I left him so adrift, and with so many questions about his marriage and his future, that I just couldn’t stop thinking about him. And when that happens, I have no choice but to start writing.

I am having a similar experience with The Hollows, the fictional town where Jones and Maggie live. The Hollows is not unlike the kind of area where I grew up in New Jersey. But it’s not that place or any other place. It’s a fictional town, a character in and of itself. Again, this place is nothing like my current “bipolar” existence – I divide my time between a sleepy beach town in Florida and New York City. And it should be noted that growing up in a place quite similar to The Hollows, I absolutely loathed it. I simply could not wait to escape the semi-rural suburb so far removed energetically from New York City that it might as well have been on the moon.

Yet, oddly, in the fictional world I kind of like it. There’s something spooky about The Hollows, something just a few degrees lighter than darkness. There are forces there that encourage paths to cross, secrets to be revealed, demons to be confronted. It’s not supernatural, exactly. No, not quite. Let’s just say that, even though the surface appears peaceful and idyllic, there’s lot of potential for bad things to happen. And when those bad things happen, The Hollows is happy.

Dwelling in a town where I would never live by choice, exploring the life of a man with whom I have little in common, I couldn’t feel more at home. I understand and like Jones Cooper in a way that I can’t help but feel is special. He’s a little grouchy, somewhat (okay, deeply) cynical. He has a hero’s heart, can’t resist a damsel in distress. I find him endlessly amusing; he makes me laugh. He’s a good man at his core, but with a real connection – and an attraction – to the darkness within him, within everyone. “I guess,” said my editor, “that inside you there’s a middle-aged, retired cop waiting to get out.” Maybe so.

I hope you feel as connected to Jones Cooper as I do, and that you understand him, even though he’s a difficult man in some ways to know. In DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND there are dark tunnels to explore, a glimpse into the unexplained, secrets to be exhumed, and old friends to visit. In other words: Welcome back to The Hollows. The road is bound to be a rocky one – so buckle up.

It's Not Me, It's You

Like most writers, I’ve had my share of bad reviews. I’ve also had more than my share of glowing raves. Early in my career, there was so little attention to my work that the good reviews could make my day. And the bad ones could send me to bed. Over the years, after having experienced the full range of dizzying highs and crushing lows the writing life can offer, I have found more balance. Like a kayaker in big water, I stay centered and keep on paddling – rain or shine.

A few years ago, I read a book called The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. It changed my life. One of the agreements, maybe the most important for me was: Don’t take anything personally. No matter what anybody does or says to you, even if they should go so far as to walk up to you and put a bullet in your head, has anything whatsoever to do with you or who you are. It’s all about them, about their thoughts, ideas, prejudice, and view of the world. If people say they love you, it’s about them. If people say they hate you, well, that’s about them, too. If you learn and internalize this (which – PS – is not easy), it can be very illuminating – and freeing.

Most people only deal with this on a small scale. You have your friends, family, neighbors, business associates, and random encounters with strangers. Most of us know that some people are going to like us, and some people are not. Likewise, we won’t like everyone we encounter. Maybe your coworker reminds you of someone who bullied you in high school; you dislike her without even knowing why. That’s about you. Maybe you think your friend is cheap and it makes you angry. Another person might admire her for her frugality. It’s all about the opinions we bring to the table.

As a writer, I am fortunate that my novels have found a large number of readers. And, guess what? Some people love my books. And some people don’t. Some of those people keep their opinions to themselves, some of them post on the bookseller sites, write their opinions on Facebook, send me personal emails, or write reviews in major national magazines and newspapers. Luckily, most of the people who do this, have at least something nice to say about my books. But not always.

If you’re true to yourself, as a person, as a writer – if you don’t chase trends or seek to please, you are likely to attract at least some negativity. I have found this to be true in my personal and professional life. Of course, it’s never a good day when someone says something negative about your work, but you tuck in and keep paddling.

When I sit down at my keyboard to work on my novel, I am my truest and most centered self. I don’t seek to please; just to tell the best story I can, to the best of my ability. I know some people are going to love it, and some are not. The world is impossibly complicated, and opinions vary wildly. So no matter what reviewers write about my books, I try to remember that it’s about them as much as it is about me.

Closing the Door

There’s a village in my computer -- friends, fans, readers, and colleagues. It’s a populous, sometimes chaotic little burg always bustling with news, gossip, opinions and potential excitement. It’s very attractive to the writer, the quiet, semi-recluse who is often alone in her own head. When the words dry up and the blank page seems a mile long, this other world is a click away. In a heartbeat, I might be swept from solitude into the virtual current that is our modern world.

Of course, this is the last the thing I need. The business of writing a novel is a long meandering road into the self, into the imagination. And it’s a road the writer travels alone. In the quiet spaces, the empty moments of my life, the path often becomes the most clear. If my attention is too focused outward, rather than inward, I may lose the trail. I’ll have to redouble my efforts to find the way back.

As with all things, it’s a matter of balance. But the line I walk between the quiet and solitude I need to create, and the gregariousness necessary to promote my work can be particularly tricky. It’s very easy to get lured from the quiet into the hubbub. But it’s difficult to get back to where I need to be to write well. It requires effort to close the door and focus the mind again. A shift from Word to Mail or Safari, where suddenly I’m posting on Facebook or answering email can represent an hour-long distraction. One thing leads to another. Insidiously, these activities masquerade as work. I am productive, I can tell myself. I am writing! And maybe, in some sense, that’s true. I’m just not writing my novel.

And now the distractions are portable. Even exercising, my best personal blank space, where all narrative problems are solved, where inspiration often lives and breathes, I can check my email or log on to Facebook. If I am not mindful, I could fill every blank spot with something less significant than creative thought.

I love the village in my computer. There’s little validation in the day-to-day life of a writer; sometimes we ache for a connection. These days, the world is at our fingertips. The same instruments we use to create, allow us to connect in unprecedented ways. But as much as we sometimes want to join in village life, it’s the writer’s responsibility, most of the time, to remain in margins. Writers don’t belong in the town center; we’re not a part of the main stream. We have to stand apart to observe well, and we have to observe well to write well.

In one of my favorite books about the craft, On Writing, Stephen King says that writers have to write with “the door closed.” When the book first published, Mr. King probably didn’t even know how hard it would become for writers to do that. Sometimes it feels like a Herculean, though virtual, effort -- as though I’m pressing my body against a thumping door, the world outside clamoring to get in. Or maybe it’s me, clamoring to get out of my own head. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

When I sit down to write these days, I find it’s best if I turn off my access to the Internet. Because of the mommy factor, my time to write is limited and precious. I’ve removed certain applications from my phone to protect the blank spaces in my life. There’s no phone in my office. In the moments that are pregnant with thought, ideas, creative day dreaming, the real work is done; the actual placement of words on the page sometimes feels like the last 5% of the process. Of course, like all organic processes, there is an ebb and a flow to writing. One does not exist without the other. The writer needs to be vigilant in protecting both, confident in the knowledge that the village will be there when we choose, finally, to open the door.

Book Groups and Pajamas

I love book groups. What could be better than a gathering of smart, funny, engaged woman (well, it usually is all woman, and maybe a husband or two) talking about books? Generally, wine and snacks are involved. And I’m usually in my pajamas. It’s true -- a couple of times a month, sometimes every week, I join in book group discussions of my novels around the country. One evening it might be Seattle, another Minneapolis, the next night New Jersey or Pennsylvania. Of course, they’re doing all the wine drinking and snack eating. And I’m in my pajamas, usually in my office, chatting with them via speakerphone while my daughter sleeps.

I have a theory about book groups. Book groups don’t actually get together to talk about books. They get together to talk about something much more important. There’s a popular misconception that people turn to fiction because it provides an escapist pleasure from the mundane everyday. But most readers -- and writers -- know that’s not true. We turn to books not to escape from, but to understand life. And when we get together to talk about books, we’ve really come together to discuss our lives and the lives of the characters we met. Because a great story is a little slice of life – it shows us something, teaches us something. Story helps us to understand each other and ourselves better.

What I love the most about visiting with book groups (as opposed to book signings where most people are coming to get their copies and haven’t read yet) is that everyone has already read the book. They’re teeming with questions, and they are as involved with my characters as I am. We chat about process, the vector of my career, how I research, and the inner lives of my characters, often things that are not on the page. Of course, I don’t answer every question. Sometimes I leave people hanging. But that’s my job: to keep my readers in suspense!

I have a couple of local groups that I visit with every year in person. I do manage to get myself dressed for those, in case you were wondering. And that’s been a really lovely experience … to grow with my readers, to expand on a conversation that started with the last book, to be able to drink the wine and eat the snacks everyone else is always enjoying!

People think that the writing life is a solitary one -- and in many ways it is. But I have been blessed enough to be invited into the homes of fabulous people across the country to talk about my work. And that is one of the many gifts of my profession. I create alone. But I’m then allowed to share my stories with the world. And what better way to do that than one living room at a time?

If you’d like me to join your book club, write me a note here

NPR "Three Books" Article

I wrote a piece for NPR that is featured today in their "Three Books ..." section!

It's a bit of a departure for me, writing about books that helped me to clear my head and change my life. I hope you enjoy the post and that these books do as much for you as they did for me!

Click here to read the article, and please be sure to comment and recommend!

The Heart of the Story

Once upon a time, an editor I respected and from whom I had learned quite a bit suggested, as she turned down my novel, that I make some decisions about myself. In fact, what she said precisely was, “Lisa, you have to decide what you are. Are you a literary writer? Or are you a mystery writer?”

I was a little confused – because I didn’t really consider myself either one of those things. In fact, I had never endeavored to define myself as a writer of anything but story. Sure, I had dark leanings. My protagonist at the time was a true crime writer, and she got herself into a great deal of mayhem. As a reader, I had always loved crime fiction and thrillers. But it was also true that when it came to reading I had loved many other types of fiction and viewed myself more than anything as a literary omnivore.

When I began my first novel at the age of 19, I didn’t sit down to write a mystery novel or a literary novel. I was just writing what I wanted to write … and that was a story about a troubled woman who had chosen a dark profession to try to order the chaos she perceived in her life and in the world. There was a psychic healer, a former FBI agent, and a high body count. So, yes, I supposed when the book was done, it was in fact a mystery -- or a maybe a thriller. Possibly, it was crime fiction. The point is when my fingers were at the keyboard, the question of what space it would occupy on the bookshelf simply never occurred.

It took me ten years to finish and finally publish that novel. Good thing I had an early start. And then I published three more mystery novels under my maiden name Lisa Miscione. They were small books, based on an idea that I had when I was really too young to be writing books. Though they will always occupy a special place in my heart, I consider them the place where I cut my teeth, honed my craft, and became a better writer. I think you can still find them floating around in the used book ether.

Between the third and the fourth book in that series, I wrote Beautiful Lies. Again, even though I was a published writer, and had every right to believe that that book, too, would publish, I never worried that it was or wasn’t what it should be. It was just the story that welled up from an inner place. I wouldn’t have been able to stop it if I had tried. That book led me to a new place in my career, another publisher, and a new phase in my evolution as a writer.

Now, with eight novels on the shelves (well, four of them are still on the shelves), one about to be published, and my tenth nearing completion, I still don’t give too much thought to who I am as a writer, what kind of books I’m writing. I still write from that inner place and honor the voices in my head. Which is why I was about halfway through FRAGILE (Coming August 3, 2010) before I realized that it was different from what had come before it. And that it was the book that I had been trying to write, in one way or another, for more than twenty years.

This story has tried to find its way out in various partials over the years. Always with different voices and never quite succeeding to resolve itself. I was surprised when it surfaced in FRAGILE. And in writing this book I learned something truly interesting: one can have ambitions to write a story but not have the talent or the craft to tell it well. It took the writing of eight novels before I had the skills necessary to tell the story, to write the kind of book that had been simmering for decades.

Also, the subject matter of this novel was uniquely personal, based loosely on an event in the town where I grew up. A girl I knew, someone who attended my high school, was abducted and murdered. We were teenagers, growing up in a quiet, idyllic suburban town. Her gruesome death was terrifying and surreal, all at once. And it changed forever how I saw the world; though I am not sure I was aware of this until recently. I didn’t realize how it had stayed with me until I was metabolizing it on the page. This may be another reason it took so long for the story to find its way, to find the voices it needed to say what had to be said. In other words, maybe I needed to grow up a little to meet Maggie and Jones, the characters who have the most at stake in FRAGILE.

I was surprised by the reactions of my early readers and my publisher to FRAGILE. I am published in a place where people support the evolution of my writing, and who have never asked me to define myself or to change how and what I write. So when my wonderful editor said how different it was, it wasn’t followed (thankfully) by “We can’t publish this.” Still, the idea that it was “so different” caught me off guard. Was it? I still have dark leanings. There’s still a terrible crime. There is still a mystery, as in all novels, to be unraveled. It didn’t feel different when I was writing it. Though, I did have a sense that it was heftier in some ways, harder to manage. I felt the weight of it.

On the other hand, how could it not be different? How can every book not be different than the one that came before? I’m different – every year older with new experiences and (hopefully) more wisdom and insight into people and the world around me. How could the book I’m writing at 30 or 40, not be different from the one I was writing at 19? As far as I’m concerned, it had damn well better be.

But that’s the writer in me. With almost twenty years of publishing experience under my belt, not just as an author but also as a book publicist in my former life, I can put on the other hat, too. Where does this book belong in the store? What kind of jacket does it get? Who wants to read it? And after the book is done, I’m able to think about those things. They are important matters. After all, this is a business. And I’m not, as the romance of it all dictates, just writing for myself. I just don’t happen to think about this when I’m writing. Then, all I’m thinking about is the people that populate my novels – who are they? What motivates them? What are they going to do? And what are they trying to tell me?

So the idea that FRAGILE is a departure for me – a move away from one type of writing and into another, seems a little strange. I know there can be some snobbery in the industry. If you’re writing mystery or thriller or crime fiction, there’s a sense that you’re not writing as well as those who are writing “literary” or “general” fiction. But we have only to look to writers like Laura Lippman, Ruth Rendell, Dennis Lehane, Kate Atkinson and George Pelecanos to know better. I’d go so far as to say that some of the best people writing today are writing in crime fiction. And I think if you asked most writers what kind of books they write, most of them would pause. The answer they’d give might not be their own, or one that they feel quite fits. I certainly don’t claim to know the answer when I’m asked. I always nicely say, “Maybe you should read my books and tell me what you think they are.”

So, years later, I guess I’m still trying to decide what kind of writer I am. Or not. Maybe that’s up to the people who publish me, sell me and read me. Maybe I’ll just continue to follow the advice I give to my fellow writers when they are in a place of angst about genre, or publicity and promotion, or advertising and bestseller lists: Nose to the keyboard. Because, as writers, that’s where we’re at our best; it’s usually where we’re happiest. That’s where I was when I wrote FRAGILE and all my novels – whatever they wound up being when they were done.

As the publication date for FRAGILE approaches, I am in my usual place of nervousness. With my nose to the keyboard, I have all the control. As FRAGILE hits the shelves, I have none – my part is done. All I can do now is hope. I hope that my longtime readers will find everything they have come to expect – and a little bit more. I hope new readers will come to me because maybe I have more to offer than I did last year. And most of all, I hope that I have been true to the characters and situations at the heart of the story. Because, more than who I am as a writer or what they call me, that’s what matters.


What I’m reading:
ADRENALINE by Jeff Abbott/ (Publishes in July 2011 – yes, 2011.) I am, and always have been, a huge Jeff Abbott fan. But this book takes him to a whole new level. It’s killer.

Favorite Book for Ocean:
THE BUMPER BOOK OF NATURE by Stephen Moss. A loving guide to just being outdoors with your kids, what to do in every season, how to identify common birds, butterflies and trees. If your kid is a nature nut the way mine is, this book is a treasure trove. We LOVE it.

What I’m listening to:
LADY GAGA/ THE FAME. It’s fair to say that I am obsessed with Lady Gaga and listen to her constantly. Inappropriately, Ocean also really digs her.

Chance to win an iPad!

Pre-order FRAGILE now for a chance to win a 16G iPad with WiFi! See facebook/authorlisaunger for details.

Pre-Order FRAGILE

FRAGILE goes on sale August 3rd, click here to pre-order your copy today!

Writers Can Cook Too!

Last year, I was asked to contribute a recipe to a cookbook that the Brandeis National Committee Phoenix Chapter was creating. I thought it sounded like a fun project for a great cause, so I happily contributed a favorite recipe.

Today, I received a copy of the cookbook, and discovered that it's full of yummy recipes and hilarious anecdotes from some of my favorite fellow authors and good friends. Included are Harlan Coben, Lee Child, Greg Hurwitz, Karin Slaughter, Jodi Picoult and Jacquelyn Mitchard - just to name a few!

If you would like to pick up a copy, contact Merrill Kalman at mskbflo@aol.com. All proceeds from the sale of this cookbook will benefit the libraries and research at Brandeis University.

Enjoy,
L