HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS BOOK: Anthony Neil Smith

HOW I CAME TO WRITE HOGDOGGIN’

I did a really stupid thing.

I started writing the second book to feature bad cop Billy Lafitte before we’d sold the first one. And it had been out there for quite a while gathering rejections and silence. I was in that post-novel-writing stage where I wasn’t sure what to go with next. I’d been writing standalone (known outside the publishing world as “novels”) books so far, including a pretty sexually explicit one that went nowhere. So I should’ve headed to “mainstream thriller” territory, right?

Ha. Yeah. You must not know me so well.

The first thing that got me following after Lafitte again was an image. I couldn’t shake it. It was Billy Lafitte, on a Harley, riding back into Minnesota with a thick beard, ’stache, and sunglasses. That was it. Passing through small towns on his way to redemption.

So I tried that. A chapter in first person, Billy pulling up outside the Sheriff’s Department in Pale Falls, the same place he’d been humiliated in Yellow Medicine. And...that was it. It didn’t feel right. I didn’t have a story. I just had the image, and it went nowhere. I put it aside and worked on some other piece of shit for a few weeks.

The other thing was that in Yellow Medicine, some of my earliest readers saw the character of Federal Agent Franklin Rome as a really evil guy. They kept saying, “Why doesn’t Billy kill him at the end? That would be really satisfying.” Shocked the hell out of me. I always saw Rome as a basically good guy, just doing his job. The evidence pointed to Lafitte, and he doggedly pursued the evidence. Maybe he got it wrong and ignored some things because of the feeling in his gut, and maybe he was a bit too zealous in his investigation, which led to real tragedy for Lafitte, but he sure wasn’t evil.

That set up what I really wanted—a novel from both Rome’s and Lafitte’s points of view. Let Rome have a voice so people would be more sympathetic towards him. And since I never write purely good or evil characters, both of these guys would be complicated and tough to root for or against completely. Yes. Tension. Awesome.

Next, how did I get Lafitte back? I already knew he was a biker. Had to be. Felt right. And this was before the Sons of Anarchy had even started airing. (Man, I swear, the biker thing came out of the sky and smacked me in the head...about ten seconds before everyone else got hip to the biker revival). Then, another image. A towering bearded biker giant with followers like a cult. A god. Steel God. Master of life and death in his gang. In fact, the book begins with him passing judgment on a snitch in his club. His first words: “Fuckin’ guilty.”

But the happiest accident that made this the best writing experience of my life (for some reason, every day spent on this book jazzed me more) was the decision to go with third person and bring in a bigger cast of characters. It really made this world come to life in more vivid ways than it ever had before. I had told people that the voice in Yellow Medicine was that of a guy telling stories at a bar, and you’d be glad to keep buying his drinks if he kept up the blather, but you’d get chills when he asked you for a ride home.

For Hogdoggin’, I wanted his confidence stripped away. Seeing him from the outside, through the eyes of others who had different reasons to loathe him, he became more vulnerable, but also more dangerous. A trapped animal. Which is why the title fit perfectly.

I heard about it on the local news: a “sport” (sure) where pitbulls were set on either wild boar or farm pigs and ripped them to shreds. Horrible. The only title I ever considered for this book. Hogdogging.

Yeah, it started as a stupid career move, maybe, but it taught me that the story had to come first. I had to tell this story. It erupted out of me, just kept flowing hot all over the page (man, that sounded filthy). I was lucky to finally find a publisher for Yellow Medicine before I finished, and they wanted Hogdoggin’ on the same contract. But even if they hadn’t, I would’ve finished the book because it felt that right to me. Fuck sales. Fuck publishing. I had told the best story I possibly could, goddamn it.

I’m glad it got out into the world via Bleak House Books. They did a great job and made a handsome product. But I think we missed a lot of readers the first time around. SO I’ve been thrilled to get the rights back in time for the e-reader explosion. So many new readers, new friends, new fans of Lafitte. Not only am I confident that this story will get to people the same way it got to me, but I’m finally able to tell the next story in the Lafitte saga, one that’s been simmering for a few years. I’m starting to feel the same old stirrings of literary lava. So if you like the first two, then hold on tight for what’s to come.

Amazon.com: http://amzn.to/ljaiBi

Nook: http://bit.ly/lJB9ws

Neil Smith is also the author of YELLOW MEDICINE, PSYCHOMSOMATIC, and Choke on Your Lies.

You can find him here.