HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS STORY: Lois Karlin

And come one,
come all, to the Partners & Crime bookstore for a
launch party on Thursday, December 15th, at 7pm. 

How I Came to Write This Story: Lois Karlin, “The Understudy”*

When the call went out for submissions to the NY/Tri-State
chapter’s Sisters in Crime anthology, the guidelines inspired
a foray into New York neighborhoods off the tourist track.
I knew right away I wanted my story set in and around the
Bowery during the still-seedy late ’70’s. I could relate to
the era, and I wanted a noir tale that would capture the
neighborhood’s flavor before it was entirely snuffed out by
gentrification.

I was fortunate to have a neighbor who had worked in a firehouse in the Lower
East Side near Alphabet City. The firehouse was right across the street from a
favorite drug spot for junkies - true story - where smack sold at a premium because
resuscitation was available. I left Carl’s house with stories about the city on fire,
layouts of
tenements and lofts, and notes on heroin addicts and
Wall Street junkies, gangs, skid row, and flophouses.

I’d already begun writing about a nineteen year old living by
her wits, who’d wandered to the neighborhood in order to
squat in an abandoned tenement building.

Then Carl mentioned a couple of suburban college
girls who had tried to make it among the druggies and street
people, living rent-free next to the bricked up building where
junkies lined up for each new batch of heroin.

The two girls, crushed by the reality of a life they’d
romanticized, inspired my protagonist’s look-alike friend
from a wealthy family in Greenwich, CT.  They survived. For awhile. I didn’t know
where the story was going. When those girls got lost in the world of smack it
was a surprise to me. When they switched places the story led to the Bowery,
and to doom. For a glimpse of that slice of life I thank Carl and the internet.

Thank you, Patti, for the chance to talk about The Understudy and the SinC anthology. You can read a snippet
of each story, and a word about the authors and book availability, at Murder
New York Style: Fresh Slices. http://www.murdernystyle.com/.  

Sunday Night Laughs" All in the Family

Saturday Night Music: The Drifters

Your Favorite Biopic

And it was not J. Edgar.

And I am certain I have asked this before but with new ones on Hoover, Thatcher and Monroe, it comes to mind.

MY LEFT FOOT with the fabulous, and too seldom seen, Daniel Day Lewis who stars as Christy Brown, a spastic quadriplegic born to a large, poor Irish family. His mother recognizes the intelligence in her son who everyone else regards as a vegetable. Eventually, Christy matures into a cantankerous writer who uses his only functional limb, his left foot, to write with. I had read him before seeing the movie but this one blew me away.

Biopics about rising over adversity win me over. And the authentic feel of every scene did too.

What's your favorite?

THE SUMMING UP, Friday December, 9, 2011

My review of J. Edgar is at Crimespree Cinema.



The Summing Up, Friday, December 9, 2011

Patti Abbott, The Kitchen and The Cook, Nicholas Freeling
Yvette Banek, How to Be a Bad Birdwatcher, Simon Barnes
Joe Barone, A Pinch of Snuff, Reginald Hill
Brian Busby, Touchable, Les Scott and Robert W. Tracy
Bill Crider, A Memory of Murder, Ray Bradbury
Scott Cupp, Passion Play, Sean Stewart
Martin Edwards, Bennett,, Desmond Cory
Cullen Gallagher, Dark Intruder, Vin Packer
Ed Gorman, Fake I.D., Jason Starr
Glenn Harper, An Irish Solution, Cormac Miller
Jerry House, A Fifth of Bruen, Ken Bruen
Randy Johnson, The Shell Scott Sampler, Richard S. Prather
George Kelley, Galactic Courier, A. Bertram Chandler
Margot Kinberg, Simisola, Ruth Rendell
Rob Kitchin, Death and the Penquin, Andrei Kurkov
K.A. Laity, Young Men in Spats, P.G. Wodehouse
B.V. Lawson, Murder Before Mittens, John Reeves
Evan Lewis, So Dark for April, John Evans
Steve Lewis/Richard and Karen La Porte, The Chicano War, William Campbell Gault
Doug Levin, Shadow of a Broken Man, George C. Chesbro
Todd Mason, Dancing Naked: The Unexpurgated William Tenn V. 3 by Philip Klass. edit by L. Mann
J.F. Norris, Dead Man's Watch, G.D.H. and M. Cole
Juri Nummelin, The Interrogation, Thomas H. Cook
Richard Pangburn, Jerusalem In,, Martha Grimes
Eric Peterson, License Renewed, John Gardner
James Reasoner, Slaves of the Scorpion, Brant House (G.T. Fleming Roberts)
Gerard Saylor, Die Trying, Lee Child
Ron Scheer, Hands Up, Frederick Niven
Kerrie Smith, Roseanna, Maj Sjowal and Per Wahloo
Kevin Tipple, Nights of the Red Moon, Milton Burton
TomCat, The 4th Bomb, John Rhode
James Winter, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne

Friday's Forgotten Books, December 9, 2011

I am taking off Friday, December 23, Friday, December 30th and Friday, January 6th. If anyone wants to collect links, please let me know but.... maybe we could all use a breather. Nearly four years of FFB now. AMAZING!!

Nicolas Freeling, best known for producing some of the finest of modern crime fiction, began his working life as an apprentice cook in a large French hotel. He continued cooking professionally for many years, and his enthusiasm for, and interest in, gastronomy in its broadest sense is at least equal to his passion for crime. Here, reprinted in a single volume, are his two splendid books of gastronomical memoir drawn from those experiences. Each is a delicious blend of the culinary and the literary, and include such recipes as cinnamon lamb stew and bouillabaisse, all charmingly floating about in a consistently entertaining text. The work is illustraited by the witty and winsome pen of John Lawerence, the perfect visual sauce for Freelin's savouries. Funny, wise, full of inspiration and delight, The Kitchen Book & The Cook Book will find a place close to every cook's hearth and heart.

That's from AMAZON not me because....

This is a book I bought for Phil last Christmas, thinking it would be right up his alley. I think it's still sitting on the bookshelf where I placed it then. Too bad. A good lesson. You can't always predict what books will capture someone's fancy. I may read it myself, liking Freeling as much as I do.

Picking out a book for anyone but my son is risky business. He reads it all. A very nice man, my son.


Ed Gorman is the author of BAD MOON RISING and many other novels. You can find him here.

Fake I.D. by Jason Starr

Jason Starr is the poet of pathological lives. In Fake I.D. he gives us Tony Russo, gambling addict and bartender/actor, who believes, despite enormous evidence to the contrary, that someday real soon now he will reap a bonanza with his gambling just as he knows that he will soon enough be King of Hollywood. Gold at the track and movie star pussy forever.

One of the ways he hopes to hurry his dreams along is by stealing ten thousand dollars from the bar where he works. He has a chance to buy a share of a race horse and thus become a (another fantasy) a gentleman of the horsey set (his daydream about standing in the winner's circle with a movie star lady practically going down on him is especially embarrassing and pathetic). But being the good businessman he is he takes the ten grand and goes to Vegas where he is real real sure he will play this into much much more. He returns home broke of course.

Being a good sociopath Tony must now replace the money he lost in Vegas. This quest, and it is nothing less, involves more stealing and not incidentally murder. Starr gives us a trio of women who become indelible in the reader's mind. My favorite is Janene. Like Frank, the man who owns the bar where Tony works, she is sensible, intelligent and honest. It is from her that he lifts jewelry.

Starr has one of those quintessential New York voices. Because Richard Price's Ladies' Man is one of my favorite novels I kept hearing riffs on that in this book especially when Starr was writing about the bar and the people who work there and hang out there. Starr has an almost surreal eye and ear for manners and he can be both witty and chilling at the same time. He's excellent with boozy conversation.

Starr is on record acknowledging his debt to certain of the paperbacks of the 1950s and 1960s and the pace and punch of his novel certainly demonstrate that affection especially when all of Tony's sweaty plans begun to unravel. But the book is wholly Starr's and it's a sound strong good one. So many writers try hard to replicate Jim Thompson by using similar material. Tony Russo's heart is as dark as any of Thomson's sociopaths but his environment and his style could not be more disimilar. Lew Ford wouldn't know what to make of him.

Because of his social eye and because of his ambition to include the wider world in his work, Jason Starr is among my favorites of the neo-noir writers. Fake I.D. is a gem of treachery.

Yvette Banek
Joe Barone
Brian Busby
Bill Crider
Scott Cupp
Martin Edwards
Cullen Gallagher
Glenn Harper
Jerry House
Randy Johnson
George Kelley
Margot Kinberg
Rob Kitchin
K.A. Laity
B.V. Lawson
Evan Lewis
Steve Lewis/Richard and Karen LaPorte
Doug Levin
Todd Mason
J.F. Norris
Juri Nummelin
Richard Pangburn
Eric Peterson
James Reasoner
Gerard Saylor
Ron Scheer
Kerrie Smith
Kevin Tipple
TomCat
James Winter

My Life at the Theater-Much Ado About Nothing

We saw this a few weeks ago at the Hilberry Theater in Detroit. I have probably seen it at least three times, but in the right hands, it is always enjoyable. And this production was great.

Except for a staging problem. In order to absorb the rain they wanted to use in a scene, they covered the stage with gravel. It was very annoying to have the crunch of gravel in every scene. And then the gravel began to develop mold so they tried to bleach the mold and nearly killed off one audience with the fumes.

But the crunch of gravel will always cement my memory of watching a top-notch production in a great year for this company.

Can't wait to see their next production THE CRIPPLE OF INNISHMAAN.

YOUR FAVORITE CHRISTMAS MUSIC

Kevin-Now that I am five I am not as interested in cheetahs.
Me-what are you interested in then?
Kevin-Elephants.


Eliminating Vince's music, what is your favorite holiday CD. I need some new music to play, so help me out.

I'll be back. Giving a speech about writing as a profession to a kindergarten class.

Mandy Patinkin on Homeland

I have never been a Mandy Patinkin fan. He has always seemed like a diva and I don't mean that in a sexual way but rather that he seems full of himself. Above the common masses. A Broadway baby that occasionally steps off stage. I guess I am mainly thinking about when he stepped down from--was it Chicago Hope?

But I have to say in the terrific HBO series, HOMELAND, he is bringing nuance, quietness and the creation of a real man to his role. He is able to recede into the background and still remain part of the canvas. Claire Danes is great too, of course, but Mandy's character is the best one for me. Nothing would surprise me because he has left it and himself open to anything. Wow!

If you don't have SHOWTIME, HOMELAND is worth renting when it comes out on DVD.

Any recent performances by actors that surprised you as much as this one did me?

Clint Eastwood, Director

My favorite Clint Eastwood movie remains UNFORGIVEN although I have not seen all of them. What's yours?

J. Edgar

2010 Hereafter

2009 Invictus

2008 Gran Torino

2008 Changeling

2006 Letters from Iwo Jima

2006 Flags of Our Fathers

2004 Million Dollar Baby

2003 The Blues (TV series documentary)

– Piano Blues (2003)

2003 Mystic River

2002 Blood Work

2000 Space Cowboys

1999 True Crime

1997 Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

1997 Absolute Power

1995 The Bridges of Madison County

1993 A Perfect World

1992 Unforgiven

1990 The Rookie

1990 White Hunter Black Heart

1988 Bird

1986 Heartbreak Ridge

1985 Amazing Stories (TV series)

– Vanessa in the Garden (1985)

1985 Pale Rider

1983 Sudden Impact

1982 Honkytonk Man

1982 Firefox

1980 Bronco Billy

1977 The Gauntlet

1976 The Outlaw Josey Wales

1975 The Eiger Sanction

1973 Breezy

1973 High Plains Drifter

1971 Play Misty for Me

1971 The Beguiled: The Storyteller (documentary short)

Book Review Club; MUDBOUND, Hillary Jordan

Sometimes belonging to a book group makes you read books you would never have come across on your own. This is one of them.

The story takes place in the years of the Second World War in the Mississippi Delta. It's told in multiple voices, which gives us insight into a number of characters, all of them wrestling with the lot fate has dealt them.

Two returning soldiers both struggle with what the war has done to them--one white, one black. The black soldier has actually been treated better as a soldier in Europe than he will ever be in the South of the 1940s.

The black soldier's family, sharecroppers, wrestle with the indignities forced on them in that era (leaving stores by back doors, taking what's left of virtually everything). The wife of the land owner (and they are not rich either) is college-educated but must live in a shack when her husband loses their potential house to a sharper bidder. Their marriage is not an easy one.

All of these characters have noble moments and lesser ones. The Mississippi of THE HELP looks more evolved than twenty years earlier. This is a sad book but one that will stay with you.

For more First Wednesday book review, check out Barrie Summy.

Tuesday Night Music: Ronettes, Be My Baby

If there was one song that I loved at fifteen, this was it. Jerry Lazara, where are you now?

HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS STORY: Ron Earl Phillips

As Luca Veste put it several times over, he invited writer after writer to contribute his worthy charity anthology, Off The Record, and everyone accepted. I was one of those writers. I foolishly jumped aboard.

I had just finished up the story "The Dog Catcher" for the Flash Fiction Friday writing prompt, City of Lost Children, which was facilitated by Thomas Pluck and Fiona Johnson. This prompt did incredibly well, aided by generous donations by Tom and Fi and the inclusion of the Fictionaut community. Luca was among the nearly 50 contributors. He read my story and made his pitch. It was a good pitch. No wonder he got an overwhelming response.

Luca told me, like he told the others, all we had to do was choose a song title. He gave several suggestions, but I ultimately found myself fixated with American Pie by Don McLean. Anyone who knows the song, knows it the song already has a story. It's a tribute in part to Buddy Holly and how it affected a young Don McLean as he grew up into a changing world of the 60s.

To me, the song has many cords that dealt with economic, sociological and political change. A lot of what we are facing today. So I had several ideas spinning around my head that I wanted to tie to themes of the song in one cohesive story. That was a struggle due to word limitations and a want to stay in my wheelhouse, crime fiction.

"American Pie," as it came to finish, is a good distance from where I wanted to take it, crime fiction was out, but in the end, I think I managed to tell a personal story of loss, of regret, with a last glimmer of hope.
--
Ron Earl Phillips

Tuesday's Forgotten Movies,THE PUMPKIN EATER

Written by Harold Pinter, based on a book by Penelope Mortimer, and directed by Jack Clayton, this 1964 film is about Jo, a woman with eight children and three husbands, who's miserable still. Peter Finch, a writer, is the third hubby.

A psychiatrist posits that Jo is unable to enjoy sex without procreation being part of it, thus all the kids. Love a psychological story.

Another outstanding British film from the sixties. Character studies were a great strength. Four year later, Anne looked much younger in THE GRADUATE.


For more films, see Todd Mason.

All I Want for Christmas Is You.

HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS STORY: Pete Sortwell

Luca asked me to be in on ‘Off The Record’ a while ago now. Having read his story ‘Shooter’ and seen him around the Facebook writing community over the last few months, I was happy, no honoured, to be asked. The fact I had to write something inspired by a song at first was a bit of a ball ache, as I tried to crowbar in something relating to the novel I have just finished. That was called ‘Rehab’ after the Amy Winehouse song. It had an emphasis on the ‘No, No, No’ part of the lyric and it turned out shite. With the closing date looming I considered giving up for a while. Then I remembered one of my good friends was actually nominated for the Mercury music prize in 2007, in fact he was in up against Amy then too. Neither won in 2007. However, in the ‘Pete Sortwell chooses a title of one of your songs contest 2011’ James ‘Maps’ Chapman came up trumps. I have even drawn him a picture (that’s a lie actually but I thought about drawing him one). So I gave the album covers a look through and saw ‘So Low, So High’. As I was listening to it I also remembered an episode of ‘Only Fools and Horses’ where Del, Granddad and Rodney have gone poaching and end up holed up in a cottage, rain pouring down outside, and a lunatic on the run from the local mental hospital. Rodney sees a face outside and thinks it’s the madman, that’s when Granddad comes out with the line I nicked for the last line of the story. Have a read and find out what it is.

--
Pete Sortwell

Writing

What is the most common thing you do on a second draft of a story?

With me it's to try and simplify the language. I have to get rid of all the high-falluting terms I have used on the first draft. Collapse two sentences into one. Make sure it sounds like real speech and not nineteenth century speech. Greatest piece of writing advice came from Al Guthrie. People don't talk in full sentences. So neither should your characters.

Usually I work through plot problems before finishing the first draft. I rarely move sections around either. My first draft probably is more like three drafts actually.

I always wonder why my impulse is to use big words that don't express something as clearly as a small one.

How about you?

Sunday Night Laughs: Fawlty Towers

What Movie Disappointed You When You Saw It Again?

I saw this on its original release 20 years ago and liked it a lot. I saw it again last night and was really disappointed in almost every aspect of it. The back story was underdeveloped. Emma Thompson was miscast. Kenneth Brannaugh's American accent was awful. Robin Williams was...Robin Williams. It was not the menacing, twisty movie I remembered. Drat. Did I change or did the times change?

What movie wasn't as good as you remembered?

Saturday Night Music: Beach Boys