J. L. Abramo was born in the seaside paradise of
Brooklyn, New York on Raymond Chandler's fifty-ninth birthday. Abramo is the
author of Catching Water in a Net,
winner of the St. Martin's Press/Private Eye Writers of America prize for Best
First Private Eye Novel; the subsequent Jake Diamond novels Clutching at Straws, Counting to Infinity,
and Circling the Runway; Chasing CharlieChan, a prequel to the Jake Diamond series; and the stand-alone, thriller Gravesend.
Abramo’s latest work is Brooklyn Justice, which has already garnered high praise from
respected sourses. Three-time Shamus Award (among others) winner Reed Farrel
Coleman writes: “If grit, hard guys, and the rhythm of the mean streets is your
thing, Brooklyn Justice has got them
in spades and J.L. Abramo is your man.” From Michael Koryta, author of the
Lincoln PI series: “J.L Abramo writes noir the way God and Hammett intended—tough,
terse and smart. Brooklyn Justice is
a great read with razor-sharp prose and a compelling cast. Nick Ventura is my
kind of PI.” The Denver Review chimes in with, “In Brooklyn Justice, award winning author J.L. Abramo again
demonstrates his firm grasp on the language and morality of his native streets,
with as many surprises as there are casualties. An ideal follow-up to his
acclaimed novel Gravesend.”
So what’s he doing here at OBAAT? Showing his
success has not gone to his head.
One Bite at a Time: Tell us about Brooklyn Justice.
J.L. Abramo: Brooklyn
Justice is ten months in the hazardous life of private investigator Nick
Ventura. It is about a man who know
trouble—but not how to keep his nose out of it. It is a work of crime fiction which I have come to affectionately
refer to as a novel in stories. There is no shortage of villains—including
mob wise guys, professional hit men, corrupt businessmen, gold diggers, drug
dealers, corrupt cops, gamblers, extortionists, vigilantes, street punks—but
often circumstances, particularly the search for illusive justice, can lead righteous people
to break the law and pose challenging questions about legality and morality.
OBAAT: Where did you get this idea, and what made it worth
developing for you? (Notice I didn’t ask “Where do you get your ideas?” I was
careful to ask where you got this
idea.)
JLA: I was invited to join a friend in Atlantic City, where I
watched a high-stakes poker game. The
drama and urgency of the contest was fascinating and felt like an engaging way
to begin a story. It began as a short story that went too long
but didn’t want to be a full length novel—what resulted was a novella called Pocket Queens. When it was
done the protagonist, Nick Ventura, would not let me go. He drove me to write five short stories
involving him. Buick in a Beauty Shop, The Last Resort, Walking the Dog, Roses For
Uncle Sal, and The Fist. Following Pocket Queens, they appear sequentially, covering a period of less
than a year, and featuring many recurring supporting characters. Call it what you will. A collection of shorter fiction. A novel in stories. Or simply Brooklyn
Justice.
OBAAT: How long did it take to write Brooklyn Justice, start to finish?
JLA: The writing went unusually quickly—ten months in Nick
Ventura’s life penned in only a few months real time. In part, the quick result was inspired by the
novelty of developing and making acquaintance with new characters—particularly
Ventura who is much less inhibited than many of the protagonists in my other
work. There was also a thread running
through the stories, weaving them together and driving the writing—legal justice and street justice are, in many instances, very different things.
OBAAT: Where did Nick Ventura come from? In what ways is he
like, and unlike, you?
JLA: Nick Ventura is considerably more hardboiled than Jake
Diamond, the private investigator in Catching
Water in a Net, Clutching at Straws, Counting to Infinity and Circling the Runway. I suppose the
character evolved from my subconscious interest in writing a more dangerous protagonist. Ventura comes
from an Italian-American, working class background. He is loyal to his friends,
intolerant of deceit and the exploitation of the innocent, and likes his
scotch—most similarities between Nick
and I end there. He is most unlike me in that he can be a great deal more
physically violent.
OBAAT: In what time and place is Brooklyn Justice set? How important is the setting to the book as a
whole?
JLA: The book takes
place, recent past, in the Borough of Churches—with a few sojourns to Atlantic
City at start and finish. Brooklyn has
that rare quality of being a big city with a small town element. It is a borough which could be the fourth
largest city in the United States—but it has always been defined by its neighborhoods
and ethnic enclaves.
After three Jake Diamond mysteries, set primarily in San Francisco and
Los Angeles, I felt compelled to write a Brooklyn story—to return to my
roots. The result was Gravesend, titled for the Brooklyn
neighborhood where I grew up. It was a
more personal journey and Brooklyn was a very important character in that
story—as it is in this book. I am comfortable there—in much the same way
Dennis Lehane is at home writing Boston and George Pelecanos is at home writing
D.C. Brooklyn is unique because it is Brooklyn—it is not like any other
place—and it is a perfect setting for crime fiction because it has such a rich
history of criminal activity.
As T.S. Eliot said—We shall not cease
from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we
started and know the place for the first time. That was my experience in revisiting Brooklyn
for Gravesend and Brooklyn Justice.
OBAAT: How did Brooklyn
Justice come to be published?
JLA: Through the efforts of Eric Campbell of Down&Out Books. Eric has been a long-time fan of my work—and a
great fan of crime fiction in general.
OBAAT: What kinds of stories do you like to read? Who are your
favorite authors, in or out of that area?
JLA: I love the classics.
In the Jake Diamond books, Jake is always carrying around a worn
paperback classic—A Tale of Two Cities,
The Count of Monte Cristo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame—and the book he is
reading is always tied into his story. I enjoy crime fiction, and I find that many
classics are also crime stories—Crime and
Punishment, Les Misérables, Oliver Twist, The Woman in White. In what is
referred to as genre crime fiction, I have always admired the work of
Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, Jim Thompson.
I do enjoy books that strongly make use of setting—I always learn
something from a visit to Loren Estleman’s Detroit, George Pelecanos’ District
of Columbia, Dennis Lehane’s Boston, James Ellroy’s Los Angeles, or Bob
Truluck’s South Florida. Other writers
who have inspired me include Kurt Vonnegut, Ken Kesey, Norman Mailer, John
Irving, and John Steinbeck.
OBAAT: What made you decide to be an author?
JLA: I have always needed to express myself in some artistic
fashion—a drive I could never suppress. As
Van Morrison so eloquently put it, I
can’t not write.
I eventually found
I was more adept at writing than at playing an instrument or putting paint to
canvas—though I certainly tried both.
OBAAT: How do you think your life experiences have prepared you
for writing crime fiction?
JLA: I grew up around many people involved with organized
crime—it was everywhere at every level—and at times I had to depend on some of
these people to protect me from collateral damage. My college studies in psychology and sociology always influence what I
write—consciously or otherwise. I have a
Masters Degree in Social Psychology.
Social psychology adds another element.
Rather than looking at the individual or at society-at-large, it gives
me perspective into the workings of smaller social groups and the dynamics of
their membership—be it a mob crew in a Brooklyn social club, a detective squad
in a police precinct, a group of strangers thrown together by life-changing events,
or a group of friends helping each other get through a common struggle.
OBAAT: What do you like best about being a writer?
JLA: What I like most about writing is its privacy—but working
completely alone has its dangers. Writing is a very solitary endeavor and it
necessitates isolation from others during the process. The danger lies in losing contact—not only
with other human beings but also with the exposure to experiences needed as
information for the work. I have always
tried to balance my artistic urges to include working with others in
collaboration—acting in or directing a play, singing with a band, teaching a
class.
OBAAT: Who are your greatest influences? (Not necessarily
writers. Filmmakers, other artists, whoever you think has had a major impact on
your writing.)
JLA: I have mentioned some of the novelists. Great films have been
influential—particularly crime films—White
Heat, The Big Sleep, Touch of Evil, Double Indemnity, On The Waterfront, Mean
Streets, The Godfather, Reservoir Dogs, Miller’s Crossing. And theatre has
had a great influence—Arthur Miller’s Death
of a Salesman and All My Sons, Tennessee
Williams’ Orpheus Descending and A Streetcar Named Desire, Eugene
O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, Robert
Sherwood’s The Petrified Forest, Sidney
Kingley’s Detective Story. And Shakespeare.
OBAAT: Do you outline or fly by the seat of you pants? Do you
even wear pants when you write?
JLA: Each story starts as the beginning of a
journey—destination unknown. I begin
with a situation—a scene—which confronts me personally with intrigue and which
I think or hope will encourage the reader to jump onboard for the trip. If it
is not interesting to me, I may as well watch television or whip up a dish of
eggplant parmigiana.
Often, when I
finally realize where the plot needs to go, I am on a path that will not get me
there—so I need to backtrack to find the fork in the road I missed along the
way.
I usually wear
sweatpants—to help absorb the blood and tears.
OBAAT: Give us an idea of your process. Do you edit as you go?
Throw anything into a first draft knowing the hard work is in the revisions?
Something in between?
JLA: I edit as I go and then edit and revise the manuscript as
a whole a few times before presenting it to my publisher.
OBAAT: Do you listen to music when you write? Do you have a theme
song for this book? What music did you go back to over and over as you wrote
it, or as you write, in general?
JLA: I always listen
to music while I write. My preferences
tend to rock music from the sixties,
seventies and eighties. Depending on
what I am writing and where I am in the work it can be Genesis, The Kinks, The
Band, George Harrison. While writing Brooklyn Justice, I found myself
listening to a lot of New York-influenced music—Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed,
Paul Simon. If there was a theme song
for Brooklyn Justice it would be Dire
Straits’ Private Investigation.
OBAAT: As a writer, what’s your favorite time management tip?
JLA: Write when you feel it—and
if it is not related to what you are working on at the moment, write it down
anyway. Chances are it will find a place
somewhere down the line. If you don’t
feel that urge, that need to write, don’t try to force it. Go out into the street instead, look and
listen, interact with people and your environment, experience something to
write about.
OBAAT: If you could give a novice writer a single piece of
advice, what would it be?
JLA: Understand why you
are writing, what you hope to achieve personally—intellectually, artistically, psychologically,
spiritually. And when it comes to determinations of success or failure—judge for yourself.
OBAAT: Generally speaking the components of a novel are
story/plot, character, setting, narrative, and tone. How would you rank these
in order of their importance in your own writing, and can you add a few
sentences to tell us more about how you approach each and why you rank them as
you do?
JLA: I feel a likable, believable protagonist can take you a
long way—and it always helps to surround your protagonist with a diverse,
engaging and well developed supporting cast.
I borrow a lot from characters
I have known when writing characters. Plot
is important. It wants to be somewhat original, present reasons for the reader
to remain aboard, and remain clear if not predictable. Plot was the most difficult aspect of the
writing to master—it is more technical than intuitive. It took practice. A story-driving narrative is essential. My writing is dialogue driven—it works for
me. I personally believe setting can be
a character itself—writing West Coast, San Francisco and Los Angeles, should
feel different from writing Brooklyn and New York. Unless you are writing about a galaxy far, far away—the home of your
story adds authenticity and color. Tone is always a consideration, and I find a
need to alternate between lighter and darker.
The Jake Diamond novels feature a lot of wit and humor. When his associate asks Diamond, Has anyone ever told you you’re a laugh a
minute, he replies, I hear it every
sixty seconds. The stand-alone work, Gravesend
and Brooklyn Justice, are more
serious—though they do have their funny moments.
You didn’t
mention theme, which to me may be the
most important element of the process—whether or not you recognized it going in
and whether or not it dawns on the reader as well. Theme is the subconscious inspiration, the self-learning experience, the bottom
line.
OBAAT: If you could have written any book of the past hundred
years, what would it be, and what is it about that book you admire most?
JLA: Ken Kesey’s Sometimes
A Great Notion is, for me, a perfect novel.
Family, manhood, hard work, drama, romance, mystery, loyalty, deceit,
jealousy, a larger than life protagonist, a specific and fascinating setting, conflict
and resolution, human weakness and strength—it is all there, presented
truthfully, intelligently and beautifully.
I won’t lie—I could never have written that book.
OBAAT: Favorite activity when you’re not reading or writing.
JLA: Getting out with a small circle of friends.
OBAAT: What are you working on now?
JLA: I am working on short stories to appear in four separate
anthologies which should appear in 2016 and 2017. I am putting finishing touches on the
follow-up to Gravesend. I am going back to an epic novel dealing
with one hundred years of crime in America as seen through the intersecting
stories of two feuding immigrant families.
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