June 5

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

June 5, 1919: Richard Scarry born.

Q&A with James H. Lewis

 

 

James H. Lewis is the author of the new novel Novak's Quest. His other books include the novel Novak's Mission. A former journalist, he lives in Pittsburgh.

 

Q: This is your second novel featuring your character Karol Novak—do you think he's changed at all from his previous appearance in Novak's Mission?

 

A: In the first book, readers discover that Novak had suffered abuse at the hands of a predator priest in his youth, an experience that shaped his life and alienated him from the church.

 

In Novak's Quest, he forms an alliance with a priest that will carry forward into the next book in the series. He also adapts to a role he detests. When he sees a threat to his hard work to restore public confidence in this scandal-plagued police force, he learns the art of playing politics.

 

Q: What inspired the plot of Novak's Quest?

 

A: When we moved to Pittsburgh six years ago, I was struck by the uneven approach to law enforcement in this patchwork of municipalities. So I created a fictional borough where I could address the consequences of this fragmentation.

 

After I published Novak's Mission, locals began telling me stories about unsolved murder cases in the community. One captivated me, and I fictionalized it for Novak's Quest. The parallel mystery, which serves to develop one of the supporting characters, is based on another Pittsburgh crime.

 

Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?

 

A: I'm a "plotter" rather than a "pantser," so I had a good idea where this story was going as I began writing it. As I outlined it, however, I didn't know where it would lead. While working through the scenes and developing the characters, a new idea occurred to me. I wrote a synopsis incorporating this ending, finished the outline, and began writing.

 

As I wrote, the characters changed elements of the story. This always happens. When I wrote Novak's Mission, one character made me change the mystery's resolution. When readers tell me they didn't see it coming, I respond, "Neither did I." I begin with a plan but let the characters take the novel in new directions.

Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

 

A: I research local crimes and fictionalize them. For the law enforcement background, I studied the structures of various Pittsburgh-area police departments.

 

Andrew Schurman, an inspector with the Allegheny County Police Department, told me that because of the myriad approaches among cities, boroughs, and townships, I could structure my fictional department any way I cared to, "and you won't be far wrong."

 

I study law enforcement techniques and practices, but some of my best information comes from talking to police officers—ordinary men and women on the beat. Most are happy to discuss their work.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: After three years of work, I have finished a World War II historical novel, The Quadrant Conspiracy. It is based on an incident that occurred when President Franklin Roosevelt went fishing in Ontario on the eve of a pivotal Allied conference in the summer of 1943.

 

As Philip Padgett recounts in his excellent history, Advocating Overlord, FDR planned to return along the scenic Ottawa River, but his security detail scrapped the plan because a German prisoner of war had escaped near the route his train was to take. The resulting security alert derailed the president's travel plan.

 

The one paragraph in which Padgett tells this story made me ask, "What if?" Phil, whom you interviewed for his book, provided me with hundreds of pages of research. I owe him a great debt.

 

I'm also working on a family drama centered on a genealogical mystery. And, of course, I plan another Novak. 

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: All my novels deal with underlying themes. They're ultimately about something larger than the plot. My first book, Sins of Omission, was a mystery, but its message was about racism. My second centered on the declining health of local journalism. While I've hinted here about the themes in the Novak series, I'll leave it to readers to identify them for themselves.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with James H. Lewis.

Q&A with Eileen Brill

 

Photo by Lauren Suchenski

 

 

Eileen Brill is the author of the new novel A Letter in the Wall. She is also a painter and sign language interpreter, and she has written for the commercial real estate, hotel, and restaurant industries. She lives in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania.

 

Q: You write that the inspiration for A Letter in the Wall comes from an actual letter found in the wall of your house, written by a woman named Joan. How did that discovery lead to this novel?

 

A: The cryptic nature of the undated letter prompted me to want to know more about Joan and her relationship to the New Jersey boy to whom the letter was written. What I immediately found out, sadly, was that Joan was murdered in 1971 in Oklahoma.

 

So, my initial goal was to try to piece together a biography of this woman, who had been raised in the Quaker tradition but who seemed to have strayed far from her ancestral and geographic roots.

 

Public records supplied the basic “skeleton” of her life – her multiple marriages, divorces, the births of her children, the death of her mother and other family members, and her various addresses – but they could not answer the whys. And that’s when I decided that my imagination could fill in the blanks and make Joan into a fully-formed person.

 

Q: Can you say more about how you researched the life of the actual Joan, and what did you see as the right blend of fiction and history as you worked on the novel?

 

A: Initially, I used public records from Ancestry.com to give me a framework of timelines and events, and some of that information figured into how I envisioned Joan’s psychological profile (e.g., how her mother’s death during the flu epidemic may have affected 3-year old Joan).

 

I also found articles on Newspapers.com which revealed bits and pieces about her family and even some things about Joan herself (e.g., an article following her murder had a quote from the sheriff who did, in fact, call her “pugnacious”).

 

There was so much I could not find out about Joan on the internet, however, so I extended my research.

 

I visited the archivist at the private high school she attended, and though we were able to find yearbook photos of her two cousins, there were no photos of Joan. There was even an old index card for Joan in the school’s file of student records, on which was written “exited in 1935” with no further explanation.

 

Joan continued to elude me. Most of what I was able to uncover still did not provide explanations for why Joan’s life unfolded as it did. Creating a psychological profile of her helped me to answer questions which no amount of research could do.

 

When my imagination took over, I fabricated characters, events, and rationales for how Joan made decisions and what transpired.

Q: Author Jessica Levine called the book “a fascinating story about a relatable character that reminds us of the ways in which women's choices are shaped either by the expectations placed upon them or their rebellion against those expectations.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Well, first off, I was pleased that Jessica found Joan to be relatable. Even if a reader doesn’t always like Joan or the decisions she makes, I want there to be some empathy and insight.

 

I think most of us struggle at times with meeting the expectations of our families, our cultures, and society in general. It’s easy to judge someone’s decisions as “bad” when we know very little about what informed those decisions.

 

And I do agree that, in Joan’s case, she is always pushing back – sometimes in ways which were considered inappropriate for the time, which is why some would label her as “rebellious” or “difficult.”

 

As a teenager, she tries to explain to her father how she sees her future, but her wishes are dismissed and she gets married, still hoping to have some autonomy. As a young wife and mother, Joan, yet again, makes her desires known to her husband and he is also dismissive. So she rebels.

 

In many cases throughout her life, whenever she feels minimized or challenged, a confrontational side of her emerges. And Joan also has a low tolerance for frustration, so when she is met with resistance, her pushback can be unpleasant.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?

 

A: I’m fascinated with how people make life choices -- nature vs. nurture, what is within our control and what is not, etc. – and how one misstep can lead us down a different road.

 

How might Joan’s have turned out if she had mailed that letter to the boy in New Jersey? Or if Franklin had allowed her to be involved with the business once they were married? Were her life challenges more the result of following other people’s expectations, or because she struggled with her own internal conflicts which she was unable to resolve?

 

I want people to view Joan as a complex and multi-faceted person who has some redeeming qualities and who, in her own way and on her own terms, evolves from shy, insecure little girl into a confident woman who no longer agonizes over meeting other people’s expectations.

 

In a way, she’s an anti-heroine who, in the end, earned the validation and respect she always craved.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: A book of short stories linked by a common thread. That’s all I’ll say!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I’ve often been asked if I tried contacting any of the real Joan’s family members. I did not. A Letter in the Wall is not a biography, and I want it to stand on its own, despite the fact that it was inspired by a real letter.

 

I also realize that it could be a sensitive subject for her remaining family members since Joan was murdered and the case was unsolved. My understanding is that just one of her children is still alive, and she is close to 80.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

June 4

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

June 4, 1928: Ruth Westheimer born.

Q&A with Robert Crane

 

 

 

Robert Crane is a contributor to the new anthology Beyond Where the Buses Run: Stories. The book is edited by Theresa Griffin Kennedy. Crane's other books include Crane: Sex, Celebrity, and My Father's Unsolved Murder, which focuses on his father, actor Bob Crane.

 

Q: How did this collection come together and how was the book's title chosen?

 

A: I met author/editor Theresa Griffin Kennedy online (as we meet many people nowadays). I was aware of her short story collection - Burnside Field Lizard - which was nominated for an Indie Press award.

 

We traded short stories - Theresa sent me "Busing Home to the Crows" and "Ravens of Ruby Road" and I sent her "Wingding." That was in 2020. We enjoyed each other's work.

 

Theresa, by the way, writes fiction (long and short), poetry, nonfiction, reportage. She is a multi-talented writer. We discussed, what now?

 

I approached Christopher Fryer, with whom I've written three books (Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, and Crane: Sex, Celebrity, and My Father's Unsolved Murder). He turned in Hunting License, a tense, realistic piece.

 

Then, as many of us did during Covid, I cleaned out closets with my wife, Leslie, and came upon a box containing many stories by my late wife, Kari Hildebrand. She was an artist, writer, and landscape designer who died of metastatic breast cancer at 41.

 

We then approached a wonderful actor/writer, Joe Coyle, who contributed to my book Boom! The Baby Boomers Album, an across the board collection of life stories. Joe contributed "Just Outside Lisbon" to Beyond Where the Buses Run: Stories.

 

I wrote an opinion piece about my dreaded word "closure" and placed it in Medium.com and a young writer named Meagan Bejar wrote a strong rebuttal which we use to close Beyond....

 

Theresa and I noticed a mood, theme, running through all the stories, characters who were off the beaten path, trying to be good citizens of the world, some succeeding, some not, angst, disappointment, unique people, some lonely, living lives of "quiet desperation" as writer Joe Atkins said.

 

The title appeared to us after collecting and reading all the stories.

 

Q: What inspired your contribution, "Wingding," and how did you create your character Tom?

 

A: My father's (actor Bob Crane) murder in 1978, my attraction to a talented, beautiful woman I met in film school at USC, and writer Tom McGuane's work inspired my contribution, "Wingding," and Tom's (the main character) angst is based on me while his naturalness and improvisation is based on cool actors I admired, such as Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, and Sam Shepard.

 

Main characters from McGuane's Nobody's Angel and Ninety-two in the Shade also inspired "Wingding."

 

Q: The author Edward J. Delaney said of the collection, "Beyond Where the Buses Run: Stories gives voice to people often voiceless, explores the small turns on which lives change hugely, and illuminates family and community dynamics in places far from the brightly-lit cities." What do you think of that description?

 

A: I think writer Ted Delaney's blurb for the book is spot on - we offer an outlet to often voiceless characters who you see on the bus or subway and witness "small turns" where the characters are affected or affect other people and all the stories contain characters who are not big city people.

 

Most of the characters live "small" lives where a minor change can become huge in a moment.

 

These characters take life day-by-day and when a bump occurs, the characters change/adapt with some success or none at all. Their changes seem to also affect at least one other person near them. They're seeking peace, truth, and trust.

 

Q: Did you know how "Wingding" would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?

 

A: My story, "Wingding," is 30-plus years in the making. When my father was murdered, I lived a life of rage and disbelief for many years. I transferred those emotions to the main character, Tom, who can be his own worst enemy.

 

I kept writing the story, changing characters, tweaking dialogue, not knowing exactly where it was going to end. Of course, it had to end with Tom's father getting killed and Tom stepping into the unknown, having to figure life out on his own.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Christopher Fryer and I have written a script - Three-Cornered Circle - about a magazine writer, his landscape-designing wife, and actor John Candy, who the writer goes to work for, disrupting his life with his wife. It's got laughs, drama, and, I'm afraid, cancer.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Beyond Where the Buses Run: Stories is a two-year journey bringing together strong-willed writers - Theresa Griffin Kennedy, Christopher Fryer, Meagan Bejar, Joe Coyle, Kari Hildebrand, and yours truly - with unique voices, points of view, who do not settle for easy choices.

 

Rewriting, tweaking occurred until the last second when the final draft was locked.

 

As a bonus, contributor Joe Coyle took the perfect photograph (in Ohio) for the cover and usually large-scale artist John Cerney illustrated a lonely, past its prime bus stop for the back cover.

 

I dislike the word "organic" but all the writers, artists, and designer Jeff Cosloy assembled in a relatively easy, fluid manner.

 

This collection of stories reminds me of my record album-playing days - short cuts, medium cuts, long cut with a drum solo, quiet, loud, strings, guitars. I hope readers will hop on board and spend some time with us.

 

The book is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and your local bookstore online.

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with Rebekah Anderson

 

 

 

Rebekah Anderson is the author of the new historical novel The Grand Promise. She lives in Seattle.

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Grand Promise, and how did you create your cast of characters?

 

A: On a road trip with my mom, we went to see her family's homestead and the town where my grandfather was born. She told me the story of how the town was now under the reservoir from the Grand Coulee Dam, which is 100 miles away. I was fascinated by this and after some research, started writing.

 

Some of the characters are based on family members. The other characters allowed me to show the various perspectives about the project and capture the spirit of the time.

 

Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

 

A: I relied on several historical resources that I list in the acknowledgements. There were many fun discoveries along the way and I included many of them if they fit with the narrative.

 

It surprised me how many people came to see President Roosevelt speak at the dam. It's a fairly remote location and the estimated attendance was 30,000.

 

Q: The writer Kristen Millares Young said of the book, "A most American story of survival and self advancement in the name of questionable progress, The Grand Promise posits questions about prosperity whose answers are playing out in real time." What do you think of that description?

 

A: The characters voice similar sentiments. Starks, the developer, tells the main character, Carter, "there's always a tradeoff," and in the Epilogue, the newspaper reporter Harold Burnes writes about what was lost and gained by the project.

 

Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?

 

A: I knew how I wanted the Carter story to end, but another writer who read an early draft suggested the final scene that became the Epilogue, where the town watches the reservoir fill in.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I have another novel set in Europe between the world wars that I'm revising.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I worked with a sensitivity reader to look at the way the Native American community is portrayed in the book. That was a new experience for me, and required a willingness to be vulnerable and accountable to someone I hadn't met before. I really valued that collaboration. 

 

My website can be found at RebekahLAnderson.com.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with Monique Polak

 

Photo by Paul Doumit

 

Monique Polak is the author of the new middle grade novel For the Record. Her many other books include Room for One More. Also a journalist and teacher, she is based in Montreal.

 

Q: What inspired you to write For the Record, and how did you create your character Justine?

 

A: My sister Carolyn, a family law lawyer here in Montreal, was the one who told me I had to write this book. She has seen many cases of parental alienation and believes the issue needs to be more widely addressed. “You need to write about it!” she told me. 

 

Justine has a lot of me in her — especially me when I was growing up. She believes in justice (hence her name), and she’s the kind of kid who’s always trying to fix the problems around her.

 

Also, she believes her vision of the world is correct, and it will be difficult for her to accept that she has become her mother’s soldier in the war against Justine’s dad.  

Q: The Kirkus Review of the book calls it “Sad—but frank, supportive, and properly free of easy answers.” What do you think of that description? 

 

A: I like it a lot — especially the “free of easy answers” part. I have found, in growing up, that most situations are complicated — that different people often have very different perspectives of the same situation — and that we can learn a lot by shifting our perspective.

 

I’m also glad Kirkus called the book “frank” and “supportive.” I think that as a long-time college teacher that has been my style in the classroom too — frank and supportive. I think kids needs those things from the adults in their lives. 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Justine and each of her parents?

 

A: For her mom,. Justine tries to be the fixer. Her mom is high-maintenance emotionally. Justine has become almost hypersensitive to her mom’s moods. In some ways, Justine has taken on an adult role with her mom, when what Justine needs is just to be a kid.

 

Justine loves her dad, but she is always on the lookout for his flaws. She has accepted her mom’s perspective of Justine’s dad — that he’s hapless and slightly irresponsible. In fact, that he’s a big kid. 

Q: How was the book's title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: This title still makes me happy. “For the record” is a legal term often used at trials when, for example, a lawyer is presenting evidence.

 

But of course I also meant it as an allusion to the fact that Justine is recording her father’s misdeeds in her notebook. 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m working on two nonfiction books for middle graders. Both are connected to the world of science — which is an entirely new world for me.

 

But I happen to have fallen in love two-and-a-half years ago with a scientist. His name is Guy and he is active in the Open Science movement. So that’s the topic of one of my upcoming books. 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: That I just retired after 35 years of teaching at Marianopolis College in Montreal. But I plan to keep writing as long as I’ve got ideas. (So far, I have lots.)

 

Also I have my first picture book coming out in fall 2022. It’s called The Brass Charm and it will be published by Scholastic Canada. It’s illustrated by Marie Lafrance and I LOVE IT!!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Monique Polak.