Mark Rubinstein's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"
Writing. Inborn or learned? Part 1
It's the old nature versus nurture question: are some things (talents of many kinds) inborn or can they be learned.
No one has a quick or easy answer to this. For sure, a writer must have certain verbal abilities and love words, whether spoken or written. Such ability comes naturally to some people and there's little doubt that "nature" is involved.
That being said, I'm reminded of Stephen King's excellent book, "On Writing," where he says, "If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot."
Aside from mastering the fundamentals of language and the basics of writing fiction, reading fiction (if you want to write it) is crucial.
I'll have much more to say about this in my next blog.
No one has a quick or easy answer to this. For sure, a writer must have certain verbal abilities and love words, whether spoken or written. Such ability comes naturally to some people and there's little doubt that "nature" is involved.
That being said, I'm reminded of Stephen King's excellent book, "On Writing," where he says, "If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot."
Aside from mastering the fundamentals of language and the basics of writing fiction, reading fiction (if you want to write it) is crucial.
I'll have much more to say about this in my next blog.
More About Dialogue
Picking up where I left off in my last post, there is something else about dialogue that can be tricky--the use of "tags."
When I began writing fiction, I used tags frequently, and learned from my editor that they were completely unnecessary.
An example of a "tag" is, "Don't go there," Mary said angrily.
Generally, they're descriptive terms such as "angrily" or "sadly" or other such adverbs that are unnecessary if the dialogue is powerful and well done.
Another way of saying this is: Let the dialogue speak for itself.
If Mary is angry or sad, let those feelings come through in the words themselves or in the physical description of Mary as she utters the words. There's really no need to append the adverb to the description of Mary's words. Often, in a back-and-forth conversataion between two characters, there's little need to add, "she said" (another form of tag) since the reader can follow who is saying what to whom.
A good deal of dialogue in a novel is self-explanatory, and it can be written as though it's a play. You don't have to feed the reader the feelings; they should be evident based on the situation and words themselves.
When I began writing fiction, I used tags frequently, and learned from my editor that they were completely unnecessary.
An example of a "tag" is, "Don't go there," Mary said angrily.
Generally, they're descriptive terms such as "angrily" or "sadly" or other such adverbs that are unnecessary if the dialogue is powerful and well done.
Another way of saying this is: Let the dialogue speak for itself.
If Mary is angry or sad, let those feelings come through in the words themselves or in the physical description of Mary as she utters the words. There's really no need to append the adverb to the description of Mary's words. Often, in a back-and-forth conversataion between two characters, there's little need to add, "she said" (another form of tag) since the reader can follow who is saying what to whom.
A good deal of dialogue in a novel is self-explanatory, and it can be written as though it's a play. You don't have to feed the reader the feelings; they should be evident based on the situation and words themselves.
Character is Destiny
People often talk about a novel being plot-driven or character-driven. For me, that can be an artificial distinction. For my taste, the best novels -- those that capture me and make me feel sorry the read is coming to an end -- are those driven by both plot and by the protagonist's character or personality.
I've always felt the most engaging novels are those whose narrative drives involve conflict and uncertainty. They're novels whose plot -- along with other attributes -- makes me wonder what's going to happen next. In essence, I've always believed a good story is quite disturbing or plumbs a deep truth -- one that's either obvious (think of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl) or draws me on some level of which I may be unaware (think of Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent or Jane Hamilton's A Map of the World). In my view, a novel's plot is vital for it to be compelling.
For a novel to be really enjoyable, you must also care about the main character. Plot twists and conflictual situations can be engrossing, but for the novel to really work, the reader must feel for and identify on some level with the protagonist.
All situations about people involve three components: thinking, feeling and behavior. A really good novel -- using various devices of the craft -- draws the reader into the protagonist's thoughts and feelings (emotionally and bodily). These elements often derive from the character's past and inform his or her behavior as the plot unfolds.
In a sense, the protagonist's character drives the novel's momentum. Think of Seymour Levov in Philip Roth's American Pastoral; Tom Wingo in Pat Conroy's The Prince of Tides; Sherman McCoy in Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities; and Stingo, Nathan or Sophie in William Styron's Sophie's Choice. Or, Ahab in Moby Dick. These wonderfully drawn characters' inner conflicts thrust the narrative flow in compelling directions. A great plotline with a poorly defined protagonist renders the novel anemic, hollow, and unsatisfying.
A compelling plot creates the potential for a great read. And, a vividly drawn character adds to the novel's power and lure. In a real way, character is destiny. It gives a story muscle, guts and soul. The protagonist's character forms the tissue holding the plot together and propels it in one or another direction. Plot and character go hand-in-hand. A richly depicted character negotiating the rigors of a compelling plot provides a great read.
I've always felt the most engaging novels are those whose narrative drives involve conflict and uncertainty. They're novels whose plot -- along with other attributes -- makes me wonder what's going to happen next. In essence, I've always believed a good story is quite disturbing or plumbs a deep truth -- one that's either obvious (think of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl) or draws me on some level of which I may be unaware (think of Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent or Jane Hamilton's A Map of the World). In my view, a novel's plot is vital for it to be compelling.
For a novel to be really enjoyable, you must also care about the main character. Plot twists and conflictual situations can be engrossing, but for the novel to really work, the reader must feel for and identify on some level with the protagonist.
All situations about people involve three components: thinking, feeling and behavior. A really good novel -- using various devices of the craft -- draws the reader into the protagonist's thoughts and feelings (emotionally and bodily). These elements often derive from the character's past and inform his or her behavior as the plot unfolds.
In a sense, the protagonist's character drives the novel's momentum. Think of Seymour Levov in Philip Roth's American Pastoral; Tom Wingo in Pat Conroy's The Prince of Tides; Sherman McCoy in Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities; and Stingo, Nathan or Sophie in William Styron's Sophie's Choice. Or, Ahab in Moby Dick. These wonderfully drawn characters' inner conflicts thrust the narrative flow in compelling directions. A great plotline with a poorly defined protagonist renders the novel anemic, hollow, and unsatisfying.
A compelling plot creates the potential for a great read. And, a vividly drawn character adds to the novel's power and lure. In a real way, character is destiny. It gives a story muscle, guts and soul. The protagonist's character forms the tissue holding the plot together and propels it in one or another direction. Plot and character go hand-in-hand. A richly depicted character negotiating the rigors of a compelling plot provides a great read.
"The Golem of Hollywood" A Talk with Jonathan & Jesse Kellerman
Jonathan Kellerman has written 43 books. Thirty seven of them have been novels; all have been bestsellers. Twenty nine of the novels have featured Alex Delaware, a child psychologist who is a consultant to the LAPD.
Jesse Kellerman, Jonathan’s son, has written five novels. Two of them have been international bestsellers. He is also an award-winning playwright. Jonathan and Jesse have co-authored The Golem of Hollywood, a crime novel with elements of myth and the supernatural.
In The Golem of Hollywood, burned-out LAPD detective Jacob Lev, for reasons having nothing to do with his detection skills, is assigned a gruesome case. A severed head is found in an abandoned house high in the Hollywood Hills. There is no body, no blood, and the Hebrew word for “Justice” has been burned into a kitchen countertop. As Jacob investigates this bizarre case, mysterious occurrences abound, and the novel combines chillingly fantastic events—past and present—with up-to-the-minute details of forensic crime investigation.
What prompted the co-authorship of The Golem of Hollywood?
Jonathan: I visited Prague and was taken by how pervasive the golem myth is on the culture. I wanted to write about it, and knew it had a preponderance of supernatural elements. But, I’m basically a crime novelist and was swamped with two other novels I was writing. One day, Jesse came over to the house and I asked him if he would like to write this one with me. He agreed.
It’s been a wonderful experience, and I think sometimes the best books derive from ventures that seem like they’ll be great fun. Then of course, the serious work begins: outlining, discussions, the crafting of the novel. It took a long time to get this book structured because there’s so much going on. Jesse, is that accurate?
Jesse: It’s accurate. When my dad shared the premise with me, it wasn’t originally for the sake of bringing me on. It was to share this cool idea he had while he was in Prague. My father’s enthusiasm is very infectious. I encouraged him to write the novel, but the conversation drifted toward the idea of collaborating. At first, I think we looked at it as a lark. It was the Kellerman adult equivalent of going into the garage and building a go-cart. We were also motivated to do this because we enjoy each other’s company. I had some trepidation about working with someone else, especially a family member. You don’t want work to affect your personal relationship. But, it was a seamless process. We were both able to subjugate our egos and create something better than the sum of its parts.
Jonathan: I must say, I couldn’t have suggested this to Jesse had he not had tremendous success as a writer with some internationally bestselling novels. I knew he was a fine writer, but wondered what collaboration would be like. I expected there might be a few dust-ups. I guess there would be more drama if I could say arguments happened, but they didn’t. We each have a good work ethic. We get in the office, and write.
How did you go about the mechanics of co-writing this novel?
Jonathan: It involved my doing a draft; sending it to Jesse; he would make revisions and send it back. We’d keep sending it back and forth. The only experience I’d had with collaborating was with Faye. Earlier on in our careers, we collaborated on two novellas. Even though we were both working from home, Faye and I chose not to meet face-to-face to discuss the work. Instead, we e-mailed everything back and forth. When I write my own novels, I’m very proprietary about them. They’re almost like my children, and I get really protective about them. When collaborating, you have to have a different mind-set. I’m not typically a collaborative writer, but writing with Jesse was great fun.
Jesse: I had some experience writing collaboratively when I wrote for the theater. But what made this collaboration so effortless was that I’d seen how my parents write; and their work ethic is all about getting your butt in the chair every day and writing. It was also striking how Dad and I often anticipated each other’s changes as we went along. The more we worked on it, the more we came into alignment. It’s something like marriage: you have to pick your partner wisely.
Does the novel reflect one or the other of your writing styles?
Jesse: I think it’s a true synthesis of our styles. When I was writing, I had my dad’s voice in my head. All writers start out mimicking other writers. I’ve never relinquished that. I have a good ear for speech and writing patterns. I was able to sit there with my dad in my head, and ask myself how he would write this. My dad’s style is a little more staccato, while mine is a little more grandiloquent. We tugged each other slightly toward one another. We ended up with this interesting hybrid.
Jonathan: Because I’d never done a book with supernatural elements, I called Stephen King and asked him if he could find the time to read the novel and give me his thoughts. Steve is a great guy, and is very supportive of fellow writers. Three days later, I heard from him. He said, ‘I know your work and I know Jesse’s work, and this is truly a synthesis.’
I like working with people, despite my having a solitary profession as a writer. For years, I worked as a psychologist with a team of professionals at a hospital and enjoyed being a harmonious leader. In this case, I wasn’t a leader; I was a partner.
Jesse, as a playwright and novelist, will you talk about the differences between writing novels and stage plays?
The most significant difference between the two is when you’re writing plays, you’re collaborating. The final product in a play is not just the written word. It’s the production, the performance. The script is, of course, a very important piece; but it’s only one element. Ultimately, yours is one of several voices. People can change your work in a play for better or worse. I’ve been fortunate because most of my scripts have been elevated by other people: actors, directors and so forth.
When you’re writing a novel, there’s no safety net. You are the director. You are the lighting technician, the set designer. You are everything. There’s both freedom and responsibility that comes with that. From a technical standpoint, with a play, you have much less to work with—you only have dialogue. It’s the director’s responsibility to create the picture, the visual elements in a play. As a novelist, I get to tell the reader what the city of Prague looks like. And most significantly, in a novel, the characters have an internal life, whereas in a play, the characters don’t, at least not one that’s readily available. To me, writing a novel is one-hundred times harder than writing a play. You’re juggling so many more things in a novel than in a play.
Jonathan, will you talk a bit about writing dialogue?
Dialogue is something I didn’t think I was that good at when I first started writing. It took me a long time to get published as a novelist. I felt dialogue was a weakness of mine, so I really paid attention to it. The key with dialogue is not to write the way people actually speak, because it’s boring. There are many pauses and repetitions. The key is to create this fiction that resembles what readers sense people sound like when they talk. I look at some of the best writers of dialogue—Elmore Leonard and others—and my wife, Faye. From her very first novel, she was able to nail dialogue. She’s a great mimic. She could have gone on stage and been the female Rich Little. She can imitate; she has perfect pitch and has a golden ear for dialogue. I really paid attention and learned from her. As a psychologist, I got to do a lot of listening, which helped me pick up the nuances of speech. But you know, there’s a lot of rewriting. From early on in my career, dialogue is something I’ve really worked on.
Many members of your family are writers. Is it nature, nurture, or both?
Jonathan: It’s always an interaction of both. At the age of three, Jesse would say, ‘I have a story I want to tell you. Write it down’ His first novel was Apple of Danger. I wrote it down and read it back to him. And he changed some of the words. The sequel was Pear of Danger. He was just a toddler. Part of what was fascinating to me was that neither Faye nor I was writing at the time. So, I think there’s a strong genetic component. Jesse’s sisters are fine writers, as well. It’s the same situation with Stephen King. His wife’s a great writer and both his sons are fine writers. These things are not coincidental. The nurture part in our family is the kids grew up seeing both parents writing.
What has surprised each of you about writing fiction?
Jonathan: The surprise to me is that I’ve been able to make a living at it. I was trained in psychology and was heavily into academic medicine, and saw my identity as such. But I loved to write. But I never saw it as a way to make a living. But When the Bough Breaks became a bestseller, it changed everything. Now, I’ve been writing professionally for thirty five years, far longer than my involvement in psychology. I think it’s the greatest job in the world. People sometimes like to think of the ‘tortured writer,” but that’s not the case with me. I’ve never been depressed in my life. I’ve been very lucky not to have the mood issues some creative people can have.
Jesse: Very little about the business of writing has surprised me because I grew up from age six or seven, witnessing what the actual business of writing entailed. From a craft perspective, I’ve been really surprised that writing gets harder as you go on. You would think it should get easier because you get more practice. But, you’re trying desperately not to repeat yourself, even though most writers really write one book and write the same thing over and over again. It’s just a question of how well they disguise it. You end up wondering, Have I made that analogy before? Have I said this before? When I describe an emotion, am I always looking at it through the same lens?
The other thing that’s surprising is that if you’re serious about your craft, you’re always trying to improve. And the better you get at writing, the better able you are to see your flaws and shortcomings. So, the growing challenge of writing has been a surprise to me. But, I must say, that’s part of the pleasure of writing, because it never gets boring.
Jonathan: I agree completely. The more books you write, the tougher it gets. With every book, I do the same thing I did with the first one: I sit down and try to write the best book possible. That does make it tougher. I have to have enough in the book that people are comfortable with because it’s the same character, but I want to be original all over again.
What do you love about being a writer?
Jonathan: It beats honest labor (Group laughter). My life as a psychologist was very structured. As a writer, I have the freedom to make my own day and create something.
Jesse: I love that every day is a surprise.
If you could have dinner with any four or five people, writers or historical figures, living or dead, who would they be?
Jonathan: I think King Solomon is a very interesting guy. I would love to meet Freud. I’d want to have dinner with anyone who changed the world in a landmark way. Lord Byron’s daughter would be a guest. She invented the computer back in the 1800s. She was a brilliant mathematician, but because she was a woman, she really wasn’t heard from. I spent a little time with Gorbachev, who was very interesting. I’d like to spend more time with him.
Jesse: Darwin would be on that list for me. Rabbi Akiva would be there. I think they’d have an interesting conversation. Nabokov, though he’d be extremely grumpy. Magic Johnson would be there. And, no kidding, my dad would be there.
I understand The Golem of Paris is coming next. Will it feature Detective Jacob Lev in another case?
Jesse: Yes, this is a series about Jacob and the Lev family.
Congratulations on penning The Golem of Hollywood, a collaborative novel that transcends genres and was a fascinating read from start to finish.
Jesse Kellerman, Jonathan’s son, has written five novels. Two of them have been international bestsellers. He is also an award-winning playwright. Jonathan and Jesse have co-authored The Golem of Hollywood, a crime novel with elements of myth and the supernatural.
In The Golem of Hollywood, burned-out LAPD detective Jacob Lev, for reasons having nothing to do with his detection skills, is assigned a gruesome case. A severed head is found in an abandoned house high in the Hollywood Hills. There is no body, no blood, and the Hebrew word for “Justice” has been burned into a kitchen countertop. As Jacob investigates this bizarre case, mysterious occurrences abound, and the novel combines chillingly fantastic events—past and present—with up-to-the-minute details of forensic crime investigation.
What prompted the co-authorship of The Golem of Hollywood?
Jonathan: I visited Prague and was taken by how pervasive the golem myth is on the culture. I wanted to write about it, and knew it had a preponderance of supernatural elements. But, I’m basically a crime novelist and was swamped with two other novels I was writing. One day, Jesse came over to the house and I asked him if he would like to write this one with me. He agreed.
It’s been a wonderful experience, and I think sometimes the best books derive from ventures that seem like they’ll be great fun. Then of course, the serious work begins: outlining, discussions, the crafting of the novel. It took a long time to get this book structured because there’s so much going on. Jesse, is that accurate?
Jesse: It’s accurate. When my dad shared the premise with me, it wasn’t originally for the sake of bringing me on. It was to share this cool idea he had while he was in Prague. My father’s enthusiasm is very infectious. I encouraged him to write the novel, but the conversation drifted toward the idea of collaborating. At first, I think we looked at it as a lark. It was the Kellerman adult equivalent of going into the garage and building a go-cart. We were also motivated to do this because we enjoy each other’s company. I had some trepidation about working with someone else, especially a family member. You don’t want work to affect your personal relationship. But, it was a seamless process. We were both able to subjugate our egos and create something better than the sum of its parts.
Jonathan: I must say, I couldn’t have suggested this to Jesse had he not had tremendous success as a writer with some internationally bestselling novels. I knew he was a fine writer, but wondered what collaboration would be like. I expected there might be a few dust-ups. I guess there would be more drama if I could say arguments happened, but they didn’t. We each have a good work ethic. We get in the office, and write.
How did you go about the mechanics of co-writing this novel?
Jonathan: It involved my doing a draft; sending it to Jesse; he would make revisions and send it back. We’d keep sending it back and forth. The only experience I’d had with collaborating was with Faye. Earlier on in our careers, we collaborated on two novellas. Even though we were both working from home, Faye and I chose not to meet face-to-face to discuss the work. Instead, we e-mailed everything back and forth. When I write my own novels, I’m very proprietary about them. They’re almost like my children, and I get really protective about them. When collaborating, you have to have a different mind-set. I’m not typically a collaborative writer, but writing with Jesse was great fun.
Jesse: I had some experience writing collaboratively when I wrote for the theater. But what made this collaboration so effortless was that I’d seen how my parents write; and their work ethic is all about getting your butt in the chair every day and writing. It was also striking how Dad and I often anticipated each other’s changes as we went along. The more we worked on it, the more we came into alignment. It’s something like marriage: you have to pick your partner wisely.
Does the novel reflect one or the other of your writing styles?
Jesse: I think it’s a true synthesis of our styles. When I was writing, I had my dad’s voice in my head. All writers start out mimicking other writers. I’ve never relinquished that. I have a good ear for speech and writing patterns. I was able to sit there with my dad in my head, and ask myself how he would write this. My dad’s style is a little more staccato, while mine is a little more grandiloquent. We tugged each other slightly toward one another. We ended up with this interesting hybrid.
Jonathan: Because I’d never done a book with supernatural elements, I called Stephen King and asked him if he could find the time to read the novel and give me his thoughts. Steve is a great guy, and is very supportive of fellow writers. Three days later, I heard from him. He said, ‘I know your work and I know Jesse’s work, and this is truly a synthesis.’
I like working with people, despite my having a solitary profession as a writer. For years, I worked as a psychologist with a team of professionals at a hospital and enjoyed being a harmonious leader. In this case, I wasn’t a leader; I was a partner.
Jesse, as a playwright and novelist, will you talk about the differences between writing novels and stage plays?
The most significant difference between the two is when you’re writing plays, you’re collaborating. The final product in a play is not just the written word. It’s the production, the performance. The script is, of course, a very important piece; but it’s only one element. Ultimately, yours is one of several voices. People can change your work in a play for better or worse. I’ve been fortunate because most of my scripts have been elevated by other people: actors, directors and so forth.
When you’re writing a novel, there’s no safety net. You are the director. You are the lighting technician, the set designer. You are everything. There’s both freedom and responsibility that comes with that. From a technical standpoint, with a play, you have much less to work with—you only have dialogue. It’s the director’s responsibility to create the picture, the visual elements in a play. As a novelist, I get to tell the reader what the city of Prague looks like. And most significantly, in a novel, the characters have an internal life, whereas in a play, the characters don’t, at least not one that’s readily available. To me, writing a novel is one-hundred times harder than writing a play. You’re juggling so many more things in a novel than in a play.
Jonathan, will you talk a bit about writing dialogue?
Dialogue is something I didn’t think I was that good at when I first started writing. It took me a long time to get published as a novelist. I felt dialogue was a weakness of mine, so I really paid attention to it. The key with dialogue is not to write the way people actually speak, because it’s boring. There are many pauses and repetitions. The key is to create this fiction that resembles what readers sense people sound like when they talk. I look at some of the best writers of dialogue—Elmore Leonard and others—and my wife, Faye. From her very first novel, she was able to nail dialogue. She’s a great mimic. She could have gone on stage and been the female Rich Little. She can imitate; she has perfect pitch and has a golden ear for dialogue. I really paid attention and learned from her. As a psychologist, I got to do a lot of listening, which helped me pick up the nuances of speech. But you know, there’s a lot of rewriting. From early on in my career, dialogue is something I’ve really worked on.
Many members of your family are writers. Is it nature, nurture, or both?
Jonathan: It’s always an interaction of both. At the age of three, Jesse would say, ‘I have a story I want to tell you. Write it down’ His first novel was Apple of Danger. I wrote it down and read it back to him. And he changed some of the words. The sequel was Pear of Danger. He was just a toddler. Part of what was fascinating to me was that neither Faye nor I was writing at the time. So, I think there’s a strong genetic component. Jesse’s sisters are fine writers, as well. It’s the same situation with Stephen King. His wife’s a great writer and both his sons are fine writers. These things are not coincidental. The nurture part in our family is the kids grew up seeing both parents writing.
What has surprised each of you about writing fiction?
Jonathan: The surprise to me is that I’ve been able to make a living at it. I was trained in psychology and was heavily into academic medicine, and saw my identity as such. But I loved to write. But I never saw it as a way to make a living. But When the Bough Breaks became a bestseller, it changed everything. Now, I’ve been writing professionally for thirty five years, far longer than my involvement in psychology. I think it’s the greatest job in the world. People sometimes like to think of the ‘tortured writer,” but that’s not the case with me. I’ve never been depressed in my life. I’ve been very lucky not to have the mood issues some creative people can have.
Jesse: Very little about the business of writing has surprised me because I grew up from age six or seven, witnessing what the actual business of writing entailed. From a craft perspective, I’ve been really surprised that writing gets harder as you go on. You would think it should get easier because you get more practice. But, you’re trying desperately not to repeat yourself, even though most writers really write one book and write the same thing over and over again. It’s just a question of how well they disguise it. You end up wondering, Have I made that analogy before? Have I said this before? When I describe an emotion, am I always looking at it through the same lens?
The other thing that’s surprising is that if you’re serious about your craft, you’re always trying to improve. And the better you get at writing, the better able you are to see your flaws and shortcomings. So, the growing challenge of writing has been a surprise to me. But, I must say, that’s part of the pleasure of writing, because it never gets boring.
Jonathan: I agree completely. The more books you write, the tougher it gets. With every book, I do the same thing I did with the first one: I sit down and try to write the best book possible. That does make it tougher. I have to have enough in the book that people are comfortable with because it’s the same character, but I want to be original all over again.
What do you love about being a writer?
Jonathan: It beats honest labor (Group laughter). My life as a psychologist was very structured. As a writer, I have the freedom to make my own day and create something.
Jesse: I love that every day is a surprise.
If you could have dinner with any four or five people, writers or historical figures, living or dead, who would they be?
Jonathan: I think King Solomon is a very interesting guy. I would love to meet Freud. I’d want to have dinner with anyone who changed the world in a landmark way. Lord Byron’s daughter would be a guest. She invented the computer back in the 1800s. She was a brilliant mathematician, but because she was a woman, she really wasn’t heard from. I spent a little time with Gorbachev, who was very interesting. I’d like to spend more time with him.
Jesse: Darwin would be on that list for me. Rabbi Akiva would be there. I think they’d have an interesting conversation. Nabokov, though he’d be extremely grumpy. Magic Johnson would be there. And, no kidding, my dad would be there.
I understand The Golem of Paris is coming next. Will it feature Detective Jacob Lev in another case?
Jesse: Yes, this is a series about Jacob and the Lev family.
Congratulations on penning The Golem of Hollywood, a collaborative novel that transcends genres and was a fascinating read from start to finish.
'World Gone By' A Conversation with Dennis Lehane
Dennis Lehane is known to millions of readers. His novels Mystic River, Gone, Baby, Gone, and Shutter Island became blockbuster movies, with the most recent film being The Drop, which is based on his short story, Animal Rescue.
A Drink Before the War won the Shamus Award. Mystic River won both the Anthony and the Barry Awards for Best Novel, and the Massachusetts Award in Fiction. Live by Night won the Edgar Award for Best Novel, and the Florida Book Award Gold Medal for Fiction.
World Gone By continues the saga of Joe Coughlin, who made his debut in The Given Day, and returned in Live by Night. It’s now the height of World War II. Having lost his wife in a hail of gunfire ten years earlier, Joe is consigliore to the Bartolo crime family in Tampa. He lives peacefully with his son, Tomas, and moves easily among the various underworld figures of the time. Joe finds out someone has mysteriously placed a contract on his life. Trying to learn more, Joe goes on a chilling journey through the black, white, and Cuban underworlds where he crosses paths with the Lansky-Luciano mob, Tampa’s social elite; and also with the mob-backed Cuban government of Fulgencio Batista.
You once said you knew with the publication of A Drink Before the War, you would be labelled a genre writer. You said, "And there's no way out of that, so let's just go all the way. And I'm so glad I did. It's been the greatest accident of my life." Will you talk about that?
I don’t know if it’s still true of me, now, but it was certainly true when I came out of graduate school in 1993. The genre was very much ghettoized. Sometimes it was for good reasons; in some cases it was unfair. What I and others were rebelling against was the notion that literary fiction was literature. It was its own ghettoized genre, or should have been, according to that kind of thinking. I was growing very tired of what a writer once referred to as ‘stories about the vaguely dissatisfied in Connecticut.’ At the time, it was dominating literary fiction. I became enamored of writing about what Cormack McCarthy called ‘fiction of mortal events.’ That’s why I drifted into crime fiction. I think crime fiction has social value, and I was very interested in writing about social issues such as race, class—you know, the haves and have-nots in American society. It seemed like a natural fit with the crime novel.
Now, twenty years later, while we may not have knocked the genre gate down, we’ve stormed it. Some lines of distinction between so-called literature and crime fiction have become a bit blurred. Now, some crime fiction is allowed into the club. (Laughter).
Tell us about the Irish-American storytelling culture in which you grew up.
My parents came from Ireland and moved to a section of Boston where they were surrounded by their siblings and in-laws. We grew up with all our uncles and aunts nearby. They gathered every Friday and Saturday at one or another’s house. They would sit around and just tell stories. My brother and I began noticing every six or seven weeks, the same story would come back into the rotation. But, it was tweaked. We began to understand—whether consciously or not—a good story wasn’t necessarily concerned with facts. It was concerned with a basic truth. As an adult, I realize what my parents, uncles and aunts were doing by telling these stories again and again—all about the old country. They were trying to make sense of the diaspora; to make sense of having left the place they loved.
Do you think they romanticized the old country?
Oh, of course. When I went to Ireland, I expected to step back into the 1930s. You know, nobody got divorced; no one ever said a cuss word; and everything was just perfect. That image was calcified in my home in Boston. But in Ireland, time had moved on. They were living their lives.
When I was in graduate school, my mentor would describe storytelling as ‘the lie that tells the truth.’
Many of your novels, including World Gone By, are filled with moral ambiguity. Tell us about that.
The vast majority of what we call morality is simply fear of being caught. Just look at any comment section in articles on the Internet, where people remain anonymous and say whatever they think. Or, watch people when they’re driving their cars. Maybe a small percentage of us with moral fiber will categorically not do certain things, even if we’re not being watched, but with the vast majority, all bets are off.
I don’t know too many really bad people; and I don’t know too many saints. I think most people fall in-between. And, that’s what I write about. Bad people don’t wake up each morning thinking ‘I’m a bad person.” They think, ‘I’m a good person in my heart, even if I have to do some bad things.’ That’s true of bankers, and it’s true of stockbrokers who short stock. And that’s true of gangsters, who short people (Laughter).
In 2001, Mystic River was your first novel outside the Kenzie-Gennaro series. It wasn’t until 2010, when you brought the duo back in Moonlight Mile. Did you get pressure from fans to return to that series?
I didn’t really get pressure; I got wishes. Fans continue to show up at nearly every signing and want to know if Patrick and Angela will ever come back. My answer is, ‘I don’t know.’ I haven’t retired them. They’ve sort of taken these longer and longer vacations from me.
It seems to me you’ve taken a more expansive path in the last few years. Is that a fair statement?
Yes. I would say that path began after Mystic River. For the first time in my life, I became aware of other people’s expectation about what I would do next. I didn’t respond well to that pressure. It wasn’t why I got into writing in the first place. So, I made a conscious choice to zig when everyone thought I would zag. That’s when I wrote Shutter Island. Writing that book was really fun. I was able to do what I’d wanted to do for a very long time, which was to write about the Boston police strike. I’ve stayed on that independent path, despite knowing I’ve lost some fans along the way, but that’s okay.
So, Mystic River changed your writing life?
Yes. It changed the perception of me as a writer—almost overnight. Suddenly, I was viewed as a literary writer. Until that point, people thought, ‘He produces really well-written genre novels.’ That was my label. So, after Mystic River, I was suddenly writing literature. A lot of debates began after that. It was a strange and wonderful place to be.
So, you’re right, it led me to decide to follow a more idiosyncratic path.
I saw the film Mystic River and then read the novel. As fine as the film was, the book was even more powerful. Did the film have an impact on your writing life?
No. I don’t ever, ever, ever think of films when I write. To me, writing a book is a very intimate conversation I’m having with an imagined reader. It’s not a film script. A film script is just a blueprint—like an architectural diagram.
You once said, ‘Character is action. It’s the oldest law of writing. It goes back to Aristotle. Plot is just a vehicle in which your characters act.’ Will you amplify that?
I think a book is a journey by which a main character, or several characters, ultimately reach a reckoning with themselves. The plot is just the car driving them down the road on that journey. I don’t need a spectacular car. I just need one that’s serviceable. I’m not a car guy. With the exception of Shutter Island, I never wrote an original plot. All I do is make the plot serviceable, like the car. I work really hard on a plot, because you need to work hardest at the things that don’t come naturally. I don’t work hard at dialogue. It just flows. I barely rewrite it. Plot takes up the majority of my worry when I write a book because it’s the last thing I consider.
What has surprised you about the writing life?
That it’s as cool as I hoped it would be. (Laughter). You know, one of my favorite movies is Broadcast News. One scene describes my own life. There’s an interchange where William Hurt says to Albert Brooks, ‘What do you do when your reality exceeds your dreams?’ Albert Brooks say, ‘Keep it to yourself.’
That’s where I find myself. I go on book tours; I’m interviewed by people; and it gets put in newspapers. Even twenty years down the line, it still seems surreal to me. Surreal in a wonderful way. You know, last night at a book signing, someone asked me if I’d sign a paperback. I said, ‘Of course.’ And he said, ‘Some authors don’t sign them.’ I said, ‘What the hell did they get into writing for?’ I mean, there was a time when you were a complete nobody, and in your fantasy life you thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if somebody actually wanted me to sign one of my books?’ I still live in that place—where it all seems like a fantasy.
The thing is: I get paid to make shit up. I’d be doing it for free. I walk around thinking, ‘These lunatics actually pay me to do this.’ If a planeload of money was dumped on me, I’d continue doing what I do.
I was going to ask what you love about the writing life, but you’ve already answered that.
They pay me to make shit up and I can keep my own hours. (Laughter).
If you weren’t writing, what would you be doing?
Everybody has some fantasy about this kind of thing. I’m thinking I would be a carpenter. There’s no reason for me to think that since I’ve never shown I can do anything with my hands. But I feel that’s what I’d like to do if I wasn’t writing.
You would certainly see the results of your labor.
Yes. I need to see the results of anything I do, whether it’s a book or a cabinet.
If you could have five people to a dinner party, from any walk of life, living or dead, who would they be?
First, I’d have Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I’d also invite FDR and Bill Murray. And then…Keith Richards. I would also like to have dinner with Joan of Arc.
What would you be talking about?
With that group? What a party it would be. There would be no problem with conversation.
Congratulations on writing World Gone By, described by Kirkus as “a multilayered, morally ambiguous novel of family, blood and betrayal.” And I agree completely with that assessment.
A Drink Before the War won the Shamus Award. Mystic River won both the Anthony and the Barry Awards for Best Novel, and the Massachusetts Award in Fiction. Live by Night won the Edgar Award for Best Novel, and the Florida Book Award Gold Medal for Fiction.
World Gone By continues the saga of Joe Coughlin, who made his debut in The Given Day, and returned in Live by Night. It’s now the height of World War II. Having lost his wife in a hail of gunfire ten years earlier, Joe is consigliore to the Bartolo crime family in Tampa. He lives peacefully with his son, Tomas, and moves easily among the various underworld figures of the time. Joe finds out someone has mysteriously placed a contract on his life. Trying to learn more, Joe goes on a chilling journey through the black, white, and Cuban underworlds where he crosses paths with the Lansky-Luciano mob, Tampa’s social elite; and also with the mob-backed Cuban government of Fulgencio Batista.
You once said you knew with the publication of A Drink Before the War, you would be labelled a genre writer. You said, "And there's no way out of that, so let's just go all the way. And I'm so glad I did. It's been the greatest accident of my life." Will you talk about that?
I don’t know if it’s still true of me, now, but it was certainly true when I came out of graduate school in 1993. The genre was very much ghettoized. Sometimes it was for good reasons; in some cases it was unfair. What I and others were rebelling against was the notion that literary fiction was literature. It was its own ghettoized genre, or should have been, according to that kind of thinking. I was growing very tired of what a writer once referred to as ‘stories about the vaguely dissatisfied in Connecticut.’ At the time, it was dominating literary fiction. I became enamored of writing about what Cormack McCarthy called ‘fiction of mortal events.’ That’s why I drifted into crime fiction. I think crime fiction has social value, and I was very interested in writing about social issues such as race, class—you know, the haves and have-nots in American society. It seemed like a natural fit with the crime novel.
Now, twenty years later, while we may not have knocked the genre gate down, we’ve stormed it. Some lines of distinction between so-called literature and crime fiction have become a bit blurred. Now, some crime fiction is allowed into the club. (Laughter).
Tell us about the Irish-American storytelling culture in which you grew up.
My parents came from Ireland and moved to a section of Boston where they were surrounded by their siblings and in-laws. We grew up with all our uncles and aunts nearby. They gathered every Friday and Saturday at one or another’s house. They would sit around and just tell stories. My brother and I began noticing every six or seven weeks, the same story would come back into the rotation. But, it was tweaked. We began to understand—whether consciously or not—a good story wasn’t necessarily concerned with facts. It was concerned with a basic truth. As an adult, I realize what my parents, uncles and aunts were doing by telling these stories again and again—all about the old country. They were trying to make sense of the diaspora; to make sense of having left the place they loved.
Do you think they romanticized the old country?
Oh, of course. When I went to Ireland, I expected to step back into the 1930s. You know, nobody got divorced; no one ever said a cuss word; and everything was just perfect. That image was calcified in my home in Boston. But in Ireland, time had moved on. They were living their lives.
When I was in graduate school, my mentor would describe storytelling as ‘the lie that tells the truth.’
Many of your novels, including World Gone By, are filled with moral ambiguity. Tell us about that.
The vast majority of what we call morality is simply fear of being caught. Just look at any comment section in articles on the Internet, where people remain anonymous and say whatever they think. Or, watch people when they’re driving their cars. Maybe a small percentage of us with moral fiber will categorically not do certain things, even if we’re not being watched, but with the vast majority, all bets are off.
I don’t know too many really bad people; and I don’t know too many saints. I think most people fall in-between. And, that’s what I write about. Bad people don’t wake up each morning thinking ‘I’m a bad person.” They think, ‘I’m a good person in my heart, even if I have to do some bad things.’ That’s true of bankers, and it’s true of stockbrokers who short stock. And that’s true of gangsters, who short people (Laughter).
In 2001, Mystic River was your first novel outside the Kenzie-Gennaro series. It wasn’t until 2010, when you brought the duo back in Moonlight Mile. Did you get pressure from fans to return to that series?
I didn’t really get pressure; I got wishes. Fans continue to show up at nearly every signing and want to know if Patrick and Angela will ever come back. My answer is, ‘I don’t know.’ I haven’t retired them. They’ve sort of taken these longer and longer vacations from me.
It seems to me you’ve taken a more expansive path in the last few years. Is that a fair statement?
Yes. I would say that path began after Mystic River. For the first time in my life, I became aware of other people’s expectation about what I would do next. I didn’t respond well to that pressure. It wasn’t why I got into writing in the first place. So, I made a conscious choice to zig when everyone thought I would zag. That’s when I wrote Shutter Island. Writing that book was really fun. I was able to do what I’d wanted to do for a very long time, which was to write about the Boston police strike. I’ve stayed on that independent path, despite knowing I’ve lost some fans along the way, but that’s okay.
So, Mystic River changed your writing life?
Yes. It changed the perception of me as a writer—almost overnight. Suddenly, I was viewed as a literary writer. Until that point, people thought, ‘He produces really well-written genre novels.’ That was my label. So, after Mystic River, I was suddenly writing literature. A lot of debates began after that. It was a strange and wonderful place to be.
So, you’re right, it led me to decide to follow a more idiosyncratic path.
I saw the film Mystic River and then read the novel. As fine as the film was, the book was even more powerful. Did the film have an impact on your writing life?
No. I don’t ever, ever, ever think of films when I write. To me, writing a book is a very intimate conversation I’m having with an imagined reader. It’s not a film script. A film script is just a blueprint—like an architectural diagram.
You once said, ‘Character is action. It’s the oldest law of writing. It goes back to Aristotle. Plot is just a vehicle in which your characters act.’ Will you amplify that?
I think a book is a journey by which a main character, or several characters, ultimately reach a reckoning with themselves. The plot is just the car driving them down the road on that journey. I don’t need a spectacular car. I just need one that’s serviceable. I’m not a car guy. With the exception of Shutter Island, I never wrote an original plot. All I do is make the plot serviceable, like the car. I work really hard on a plot, because you need to work hardest at the things that don’t come naturally. I don’t work hard at dialogue. It just flows. I barely rewrite it. Plot takes up the majority of my worry when I write a book because it’s the last thing I consider.
What has surprised you about the writing life?
That it’s as cool as I hoped it would be. (Laughter). You know, one of my favorite movies is Broadcast News. One scene describes my own life. There’s an interchange where William Hurt says to Albert Brooks, ‘What do you do when your reality exceeds your dreams?’ Albert Brooks say, ‘Keep it to yourself.’
That’s where I find myself. I go on book tours; I’m interviewed by people; and it gets put in newspapers. Even twenty years down the line, it still seems surreal to me. Surreal in a wonderful way. You know, last night at a book signing, someone asked me if I’d sign a paperback. I said, ‘Of course.’ And he said, ‘Some authors don’t sign them.’ I said, ‘What the hell did they get into writing for?’ I mean, there was a time when you were a complete nobody, and in your fantasy life you thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if somebody actually wanted me to sign one of my books?’ I still live in that place—where it all seems like a fantasy.
The thing is: I get paid to make shit up. I’d be doing it for free. I walk around thinking, ‘These lunatics actually pay me to do this.’ If a planeload of money was dumped on me, I’d continue doing what I do.
I was going to ask what you love about the writing life, but you’ve already answered that.
They pay me to make shit up and I can keep my own hours. (Laughter).
If you weren’t writing, what would you be doing?
Everybody has some fantasy about this kind of thing. I’m thinking I would be a carpenter. There’s no reason for me to think that since I’ve never shown I can do anything with my hands. But I feel that’s what I’d like to do if I wasn’t writing.
You would certainly see the results of your labor.
Yes. I need to see the results of anything I do, whether it’s a book or a cabinet.
If you could have five people to a dinner party, from any walk of life, living or dead, who would they be?
First, I’d have Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I’d also invite FDR and Bill Murray. And then…Keith Richards. I would also like to have dinner with Joan of Arc.
What would you be talking about?
With that group? What a party it would be. There would be no problem with conversation.
Congratulations on writing World Gone By, described by Kirkus as “a multilayered, morally ambiguous novel of family, blood and betrayal.” And I agree completely with that assessment.
