Author Interview: Gabriel Boutros

The Aristocracy Should Leave Downton ... TOP Fiction Books This Week on The In...

Author Interview: Gabriel Boutros

GABRIEL BOUTROS

Welcome to a new series of Author Interviews, where Charlie Bray chats to a variety of Indie writers about their lives and their books.

If you would like to be interviewed, have your book reviewed, post a guest blog and see your website and blog showcased,

At the end of last month I was fortunate enough to review Gabriel Boutros’s novel, The Guilty, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The book represented a brilliant court room drama and was brought alive by the creative skill of a formidable new author, and glued by the fact that Gabriel Boutros actually practiced criminal law for twenty four years.

Having read the book, I jumped at the chance to interview the author:

Gabriel, tell us a bit about yourself.

I have lived most of my life in Montreal, where I practiced criminal law for 24 years. I’m married and have two sons. During our long, cold winters when I’m not working or writing I will be obsessing over the fate of the Montreal Canadiens hockey team. That’s pretty much obligatory if you live in this city.

When did you first start writing?

Before studying law my educational background was in journalism and creative writing, so I guess telling stories of some sort has always been in my blood. I’ve even been told that my passion for story-telling came in handy during my years as a defence attorney. During the time I was practicing law I occasionally wrote short stories. At first it was just for fun, in order to entertain myself. But, as time went on my interest, and my willingness to put in the time to improve what little writing skill I had, grew. I began getting a little more serious about my writing, and eventually managed to get two short stories published. I wrote several early drafts of my novel, The Guilty, a few years ago, and last year I decided to dust off the manuscript, give it a good revision and much–needed rewrite, before self-publishing it through CreateSpace at the beginning of 2013.

Tell us a bit about your novel, The Guilty.

The Guilty is the story of Robert Bratt; a very successful criminal lawyer in Montreal. He’s the kind of lawyer for whom the only thing that matters is victory in court, and he is quite happy to ignore the truth in order to succeed. Bratt’s cynical attitude is shaken up when his daughter’s best friend is raped by one of his former clients. He watches the man’s trial and sees how the defense lawyer manipulates the facts to put the blame on the victim, making her look like the aggressor, and he recognizes that this is a tactic he has used many times. His daughter hates him for the kind of work he does, and cuts off all ties with him, causing him to question his ethics. While he tries to deal with his misgivings about how he does his work, and attempts to reconcile with his daughter, he also has to prepare for a murder trial where he has serious doubts about his client’s alibi defense. He’s torn between his need to win at all costs and his own nagging conscience.

I’ve tried to use my years of professional experience to bring a certain amount of detail and realism to the depiction of the trial. But I also tried to write a story that was fast moving and entertaining. I know the last thing I would enjoy reading is something preachy, so I tried to avoid that, while giving the readers some realistic characters they could root for or against, in an exciting story. I hope I’ve succeeded, but that will be for others to decide.

Where did the story idea come from?

As an attorney I had the opportunity to observe human nature at its best and its worst, and it was just natural that I should put some of my observations into an interesting story. I’ve always wanted to write a courtroom drama, but I wanted the stakes to be about more than whether the accused was convicted or acquitted. I think that a conflicted lawyer, who may or may not be acting in his client’s best interest, ups the ante for the reader. This book was also an opportunity for me to have my characters argue issues of ethics and morality that lawyers often have to deal with, but don’t often talk about. Finally, I decided to base the facts surrounding the murder, as well as parts of the trial, on a case I was involved in earlier in my career. I think this helped me keep the courtroom scenes as realistic as possible; at least I hope I was successful in doing that.

What do you enjoy the most, and the least, about writing?

I love telling stories. The writing part actually takes more patience and discipline than I normally have, but there is nothing more satisfying than having someone read and enjoy something that I wrote. What I like least is the solitude. Writing is not a social activity. To do it with any degree of success I have to shut myself in my little office and ignore friends and family, as well as the rare warm days we get in Montreal. Every minute a writer spends enjoying his life with his friends and family is a minute he isn’t writing, which is when guilt and self-doubt begin to creep in. In that way, writing can become a sort of addiction that won’t leave you alone until you satisfy your needs.

Do you plan out your book beforehand, or just fly by the seat of your pants?

When writing a short story, I tend to let the words flow, with only the vaguest idea where the story is going to take me. For The Guilty, as well as the novel I’m presently working on, I do spend a lot more time on plotting and planning. That’s pretty much inevitable when you have certain plot points you have to take your story through and you’re going to be working on it for many, many months. Inevitably, though, the characters will still take the story in unexpected directions. At times like that, I trust that they will find a more interesting tale to tell.

And what are you working on now?

I’m presently suffering through a long period of writer’s block on my second novel, which is tentatively titled “A Crooked Little Man.” It will also tell the story of a defence attorney but, where my protagonist in The Guilty was a high-powered and successful lawyer, in my new novel the main character is barely scraping by, struggling to make his rent payments, without the competence to defend his few clients against even the simplest charges. He will get in over his head when he is hired by a homeless man who is accused of murder. What happens next remains to be seen. I wrote a little more than two hundred pages of the story and then had to step back to figure out where I want it to go.

Do you have any advice for new writers?

Although I’ve been writing, off and on, for close to two decades, I still consider myself a new writer, so I don’t know if I’m in any position to give advice. However I will repeat something I read somewhere: if you want to be a writer, you have to first read a lot, and then you have to write a lot. I don’t think it matters whether what you read or write is any good, as long as you learn from the bad and use it to improve your work.

Where can we find the Guilty?

It is available on Amazon, in Kindle and in paperback format, and is listed on many other book sites (including Indietribe, of course). I also have my own site where people can find out a bit more about me and read some of my other writing: http://storiesbygabrielboutros.weebly.com/. There is also a The Guilty Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/the.guilty.gabriel.boutros