A Conversation with Terrence McCauley

I discovered Terrence McCauley and his writing when we shared a panel at Bouchercon Albany on noir vs. hard-boiled fiction. We hit it off right away and I quickly discovered he’s a great foil for discussing a wide range of literary topics, as he someone who actually thinks about the things his books are about instead of settling for a good story well told. (Not that I’m implying a good story well told isn’t important. It’s the most important thing, but it’s also just the entry point. Readers should expect/demand that just to buy the book.)

Terrence is the author of the University series of novels featuring James Hicks. Of his new book, A Conspiracy of Ravens, no less than Reed Farrell Coleman says, "In our new reality, Terrence McCauley’s A Conspiracy of Ravens is not far from the realm of possibility. He hits all the right notes while creating a simultaneously entertaining and frightening scenario. Read it." (A Conspiracy of Ravens is the third book in the University series, to be released by Polis Books September 19.) He also writes a series of books set in Prohibition-era New York that includes Prohibition, Slow Burn, and the upcoming The Fairfax Incident.

Terrence started an enthusiastic discussion in Facebook a few weeks ago about heroes and villains, right about the time I got word I’ll be on a panel covering heroes and anti-heroes at Bouchercon in Toronto. One thing led to another and here we are, chatting about exactly those subjects.

One Bite at a Time: In your mind, what’s the difference between a hero and an anti-hero?

This man is NOT an asshole.

Terrence McCauley: To me, the anti-hero is the character that does what he or she is going to do anyway to serve their own purposes. They just happen to be for good. A hero, often in my opinion misdiagnosed as the protagonist, seeks to do the right thing for the cause which he or she serves.

OBAAT: You write the much-acclaimed University series of thrillers. Where does your main character, James Hicks, fall in this spectrum?

TM: In Hicks, I sought to create the anti-Bond. Hicks and the University do what they feel they need to do to protect the interests of the West. Sometimes that puts them in direct conflict with their own government who isn't sure of what the University is or what it's trying to accomplish. He spends a good amount of time in Sympathy for the Devil and A Murder of Crows combating his own government as much as the terrorists seeking to attack the country. This is why I would call Hicks an anti-hero.

OBAAT: We had an interesting conversation on Facebook a few weeks ago about Vic Mackey from The Shield. Vic trod a very thin line between anti-hero and villain for the show’s entire run. You know what he’s willing to do when he shoots a cop in the pilot, yet by the time Forrest Whitaker tries to take him down you can’t help but root for Vic. How does he managed to do this, and what is it about him that makes him a villain in the end?

TM: Secretly, everyone likes a bad guy. Who would you rather hang out with in Deadwood? Dudley Do Right or Al Swearengen? Vic Mackey is compelling because he does a lot of good while he's doing so much bad. He's a conflicted character and therefore believable. We can relate to him in a way we can't really relate to a hero like Superman. We're not perfect, hence the reason why so many people like Batman. To borrow from another medium, people related to Oprah because she faced a lot of the same struggles her viewers had faced. Poverty, weight problems, professional problems and, finally, success. Megyn Kelly has said she wants to be the next Oprah. A thin, blonde white woman who looks like a model? I don't think that'll go over so well because her audience can’t relate to her. In many ways, she is what many of her audience will never be. In Vic Mackey, we could relate because he was as flawed as the rest of us. We knew he was bad, but he was relatable.

OBAAT: You have a way with anti-heroes. Both your Prohibition Era novels, Prohibition and Slow Burn, are filled with characters who embody many admirable traits but are by no means heroes. Charlie Doherty from Slow Burn is a particular favorite. Truly a corrupt cop, he still does the job so it comes out right. Terry Quinn in Prohibition is a mob guy through and through, but his loyalty to Archie Doyle is moving, and reminds me in some ways of Ned Beaumont in The Glass Key. You mentioned a minute at what attracts you to such characters. What makes you so good at writing them?

TM: I always try to create believable characters, whether they're anti-heroes or villains or heroes. I make them believable by not allowing myself to write cookie-cutter characters. In my University series, Roger Cobb does horrible things to people, yet my readers tend to like him because they can relate to him. Same thing with Doherty and Quinn. They're products of their respective times and have their own motivations for doing what they do. Quinn has no problem murdering someone, but he's loyal to Archie. Doherty went into the Van Dorn case looking for blackmail money, but he gets won over by the family and the case. James Hicks is cold-blooded and distant, but he acts in what he feels are the best interests of his country and our way of life. They're complicated characters who aren't perfect and aren't flawed in the ways readers have come to expect in literature. My characters are all perfectly flawed and I wouldn't want them to be any other way.

OBAAT: I’ll tell you why I’m asking this in a minute, but can a hero become an anti-hero?

TM: Spoiler alert here, but Vic Mackey went from being hero to anti-hero to villain. The reason why it worked was because of consistent, strong writing. The seeds for his evil turn were planted from the very first episodes of the series and came to bloom in the final two episodes of the show. He was always the villain. We just never saw it. That's why I consider the ending to be the best ending of a series I've ever seen. It fit perfectly. It took a stand. It was believable.

Circumstances in a story can change so that a hero can become an anti-hero, but it has to be done well and it has to be done over time lest the writer be accused of jumping the shark. It can't be sudden and it can't be contrived. But if it's planned for over time, then I think it can be achieved. To use the comparison with another TV show, I think you're starting to see that in Homeland.

OBAAT: The reason I asked—and the reason I’m so glad to hear your answer—is that’s what happened to my PI character, Nick Forte. He starts out as a Chandlerian hero, doing the right things and trying to do them in the right way. Each book wore him down as things didn’t work out the way he wanted them to until now he’s reached the point where if he decides someone has to go, they go. Period. The thing about Forte that’s completely different from Vic Mackey is that I didn’t realize what I’d done until I was four books in and took a few years off to work on another series. Have you ever had a character evolve on you like that, even within the course of a book?

TM: Sure. Doherty evolves big time in Slow Burn and even more so in the upcoming The Fairfax Incident. James Hicks, over the course of three books, evolves into a character the reader can understand. With Hicks, that was by design. In Sympathy, I spend a lot of time introducing the reader to the world and technology I've created. I show who the protagonists and antagonists are and kept the backstory and motivations to a minimum. In Crows, the reader learns more about the University and sees a more human side of Hicks. I folded it into the plot of the book, rather than blatantly show you who he is and where he's coming from. In Ravens, readers will see a much more personal side of Hicks than they've ever seen before. My beta readers have all given me wonderful feedback on Ravens because they feel the evolution is believable and fits with the story. My goal is to continue this evolution in future novels and I hope to have the opportunity to keep the University Series going both during the current day and in the University's past with Charlie Doherty.

OBAAT: I know you’re a fan of the TV show Justified. Where did Raylan Givens fall on your personal hero/anti-hero scale?

TM: I love Raylan, but I'd classify him as a hero. Sure, he broke the rules, but not enough to make him a criminal. He was good with a gun, maybe too good, but all of his shootings were, indeed, Justified. Great character. Great performance and skillful writing made the show one of my favorites. But Vic Mackey is in a class by himself.

Movies Since Last Time

I am enjoying this Summer of Western Research™ even more than I thought I would.

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) A disappointment. I’d seen it before but didn’t remember

anything beyond the early sequence where Billy (a miscast Kris Kristofferson) escapes from jail. There’s a reason for that. The film lacks any definite narrative direction, a pursuit story that meanders through episodes alternating between Garrett (James Coburn) and Billy until they end up at the same place. I’ve read that director Sam Peckinpah was pretty much incoherent drunk through most of the production. It shows. (In case you’re wondering, we saw the 2005 Special Edition Blu-Ray, so the cuts that ruined the film’s original release should not have been a problem. It’s just not very good.)

The Magnificent Seven (1960) Shows its age a little, but once it gets going it’s still as

entertaining a Western as you’ll find. It likely begins the turning away from the idealized horse operas with its frank examination of a gunman’s life, a movement that picks up speed with Peckinpah’s Ride the High Country and the spaghetti Westerns until Peckinpah breaks the mold forever with The Wild Bunch. Good as it is, it has what has to be the single worst cut for time of any movie I’ve ever seen, when The Seven start to work their way into the hills to take out three snipers then magically appear in town with the snipers’ guns. The entire missing scene is explained away with “You got them?” I don’t know if the sequence was never filmed or cut for length. Either way, it should have been handled better. Still, among the Top Ten Westerns ever.

Hombre (1967) A masterpiece, based on what might well be Elmore Leonard’s best book. I don’t just mean his best Western; his best book, period. (If you haven’t read it, get busy. It’s

as fine a piece of taut storytelling as you’ll ever read, with nary a wasted word.) I was struck this time by how close this falls in Paul Newman’s body of work to 1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and how there can’t be two characters more different than Butch and John Russell. Newman’s gift as an actor was how he never seemed to be acting. The entire cast provides outstanding work, and this may be Richard Boone’s best performance. Screenwriters Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr. kept much of Leonard’s dialog and captured the tone perfectly. Hombre never tries to be more than it is, and it’s a lot. There have been Westerns as good, but I can’t think of any better.

The Long Riders (1980) Never seen this one before, in part because I thought it was a

Hollywood gimmick to have sets of brothers (Keach, Carradine, Quaid, Guest) play brothers (James, Younger, Miller, Ford). I should have paid better attention. The casting was organic, stemming from the Keach brothers wanting to play the Jameses, talking to David Carradine about it and him thinking his bros could play the Youngers and it grew from there. An outstanding example of minimalist storytelling as Bill Bryden and Steven Smith team with Stacy and James Keach plus director Walter Hill to tell you everything you need to know without wasting time on exposition. The action scenes ring true and the violence appears as painful as it must have been. Well worth the time as an entertainment, and just as much as a way for storytellers to see how to get in and out quickly without leaving anything behind.

Open Range (2003) Hard to believe people were once worried whether Robert Duvall could play a cowboy. Here he’s Boss Spearman, one of the last of the free range cattlemen, who

grazes his herd over unclaimed ground across the West with the help of his small crew led by Charlie Waite (Kevin Costner). Costner was the driving force, producing, directing, and even putting up his own money, though he insisted Duvall get top billing and says the film might not have been made had Duval not agreed to do it. Pitch perfect from stem to stern, including outstanding performances by Annette Bening as Charlie’s awkward love interest and a pre-Dumbledore Michael Gambon as the evil cattle baron who runs the town. I don’t see it often listed as among the great Westerns, but it should be.

Appaloosa (2008) Here’s another one that should be right up there, Ed Harris’s adaptation

of Robert B. Parker’s first Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch Western. Harris directed and co-wrote the screenplay in a faithful adaptation of Parker’s book, about which I’ll have more to say in a couple of weeks. Harris and Viggo Mortensen play a pair of traveling lawmen who will go to any town that wants to clean itself up so long as the town agrees to their conditions. The basic story is a clever variation of a love triangle, with Harris’s Cole becoming enamored of newly-arrived widow Allie French (Renee Zellweger), whose efforts to play Cole and Hitch against each other spur the core friction in the story. Well told, well acted, faithful to the original material as well as the period in history, this is another that deserves more attention than it seems to get.

A Conversation With Austin Camacho

Austin Camacho is one of those Renaissance men you keep hearing about, except likable. Austin is the author of the Hannibal Jones detective stories as well as the Stark and O’Brien thrillers, as well as a standalone thriller, Beyond Blue. He’s also the founder of Intrigue Publishing, and, in his copious free time, founder and organizer of the Creatures, Crime, and Creativity Conference held each year in Columbia MD. Austin gave a memorable talk at this year’s Gaithersburg Book Festival that did what all good talks should do: provided me more of an impetus to think of additional questions than providing pat answers. He was kind enough to sit down with me to follow up on his lecture and talk turned naturally to this year’s C3 conference.

One Bite at a Time: I could try to describe the talk you gave at this year’s Gaithersburg Book Festival about the dearth of African-American private eyes in fiction but that would be dumb, since it’s your topic. Catch the readers up for us and we’ll go from there.

Austin Camacho: Sure. I write hard-boiled detective fiction, which I think has always been a window into American society. In my books I show how race is a part of that social structure. In the Black community, crime is organized differently, violence grows from different motivations and racial tension is the source of much real hostility. I talked about how the characters are different and offered some tips for White writers to create good Black characters. I mixed in a little history too, since there have been very very few black private eyes in fiction. 

OBAAT: That’s something I think too often gets overlooked, that there are so few black PIs. Why do you think that is?

AC: I think there are several factors at play here. First, I fear that most African American fiction writers are writing for a Black audience, and they think their community has no interest in private eye stories. 

Second, a great number of African American writers seem to feel their work needs to be morally superior or needs to teach some great lesson. That fiction should be uplifting and not just be for simple fun. Personally I think both those reasons are specious. But then, we're sailing toward a world where the term "The Black Community" is becoming obsolete.

Also, I think it's a self-fulfilling prophesy. Black writers think this is stuff Black people just don't do. You'd be just as hard-pressed to find Black cozy mysteries (like there are no old, black female busy-bodies) or books about Black scientists or pilots or medical dramas built around a Black surgeon. Writers just don't think of African Americans in certain roles. This part I think is tragic. 

OBAAT: Great point about some writers—of any background—who may feel their work needs to be “morally superior.” I’ve long believe that for any literature to be effective, it first has to be entertaining on some level, or the author is mostly writing for people who already know everything he or she has to tell them. Walter Mosely and Chester Himes come to mind for me. I enjoy reading them both, yet they got me to thinking about things—either in 50s LA or Harlem—a country white boy would never have thought of on his own, or felt as if it were being shoved down my throat if they weren’t such great stories first. You mentioned the “uplifting and not just be for simple fun” arguments are specious. I agree and feel there’s a lot of ground to be covered between “entertaining” and ”frivolous” or “exploitative.” There should be a niche there. Do you agree? (He said with a smile toward an author he sees doing an admirable job of trying to fill it.)
AC: Of course. You and I write to entertain, but for a story to hold readers of above-average intellect, they can't simply be frivolous. Our readers want heroes and villains of some depth. And crime fiction leads us, inexorably, into exploring the very nature of good and evil. Building interesting characters forces you to explore human nature. Mystery is about motive, so we end up talking about why people do the things they do. So, the space you are talking about is like an enjoyable meal. There will always be McDonald's and some will always choose the expensive French restaurant but I choose to be more the Red Lobster: fun but with some substance.

OBAAT: I have to confess that when I think of black PI writers I come up with you and Gary Phillips. (Walter Mosely doesn’t quite qualify, as Easy Rawlins isn’t really a PI.) Am I just woefully ignorant—in which case please feel free to enlighten me—or is there a disproportionate dearth of black PI writers?

AC:  We are few and far between, and those who write PIs don't get nearly as much attention as they deserve. So yes, disproportionate dearth is a good way to put it. but if you've read Gary Phillips' Monk series you know he's as good as anybody out there. Ernest. Tidyman  actually dropped seven Shaft novels in the 70s and they're all better than the movies. I can think of maybe a half dozen more if you don't count Alexander McCall-Smith (which I don't.) If I was gonna recommend one (not counting Gary of course) it would be  P.J. Parrish (actually the pen name of two sisters.) Their character Louis Kincaid is a biracial private detective like my Hannibal Jones, only set in Mississippi. 

OBAAT: There has been an active discussion in recent years among Canadian writers about the subject of cultural appropriation when white Canadians write about First Nation characters. Do you think white American PI writers have a similar situation to consider should they chose to write a black PI?

AC: Naah. White kids getting cornrows and calling each other nigga, that’s cultural appropriation. Fiction writing is a whole different thing. I write rednecks, Italian immigrants and neo-nazis from time to time. We write people who are not like us for two reasons: to help us understand them better, and to help our readers understand them better. Trying to BE something you're not, stealing our music, our slang and our dress style - that might be appropriating someone else's culture. Writing those characters is only wrong if you're inaccurate.

OBAAT: You’re the founder and organizer of the Creatures, Crime, and Creativity

Conference. One of the things that struck me the first time I went to a C3 conference is the level of diversity among the attendees. I’m sure part of that has to do with C3 being a more regional conference in the DC/Baltimore area, but that doesn’t account for all of it. C3 is a cross-genre conference. Did you deliberately set out to appeal to a more diverse audience, or was that a felicitous surprise?

AC: Oh, we definitely worked at it! Did you know there's a whole Black Science Fiction Society? When I find Black sci-fi, fantasy, or mystery writers they're usually at all-Black events. I ask them why they don't want whites to read their stories and they usually say something like, "they don't want to." Those I've convinced to attend the C3 Con have had their eyes opened. I don't think the average reader even cares what the writer looks like. And if they'll accept Lincoln Rhyme and Alex Cross, why wouldn't they accept black character written by black people? In the sci-fi arena they accept blue people, green people, people with six arms. Why would a black face bother them?

I have to bring up Eric Jerome Dickey - a New York Times best-selling author who writes, among other things, a thriller series about a hit man names Gideon. When I told him he belonged at Thrillerfest with the rest of the thriller authors of his stature his response was, "No, those aren't my people. Why do I want to hang out with them?" When I said, "To find a broader audience for your work" he waved me off. I was more angry than disappointed. 

OBAAT: Dickey’s is an attitude that’s refreshingly absent at C3. I read very little but crime and non-fiction generally and found myself having a great time talking to writers and readers of all different backgrounds and tastes. There are a couple of things I find at C3 that lend themselves to this uniquely: the communal meals and the late afternoon signing hours. Everyone sits and talks with everybody else and the whole thing just shows how much in common there is among everyone for whom books are an important element of life.

AC: I feel this is one of the most important features of the C3 Con. I find it puts the "big names" more at ease to sit at the table with the gang rather than being besieged by fans or other writers only at designated times. I remember Reed Farrel Coleman saying "This is my tribe." Ditto everyone at the book signing: first-timers, self-published, old hands, best sellers, and unknowns. All get to be just "writers." We've had a lot of positive feedback on both aspects of the Con

OBAAT: I was jazzed to learn Peter Blauner and Jonathan Maberry are this year’s keynotes, with my buddy David Swinson and Debbie Mack as the prime locals. I also see Jeffery Deaver will give a talk about writing from soup to nuts, and Michaela Hamilton, Executive Editor at Kensington, will give an “inside baseball” presentation. How are you able to so consistently pull together such high-level professionals for a conference so young?

AC: This is entirely due to networking at other Cons. I'm totally freaked out that some people who run these events don't attend anyone else's. Many of our past keynote speakers I met at Thrillerfest or Bouchercon or Love is Murder or the Philadelphia Writers Con or ... you get the idea. I chat with someone I admire and I (or my lovely wife Dee) will say, "Clearly you like attending these things. Have you heard about ours?" That's how I got Deaver, and Dee got Heather Graham.

The other trick is to treat the keynotes right: nice hotel room, pick them up from the airport, ask if they want to participate in different things, invite their spouse or partner to join us... just treat them with the respect they deserve, and make sure the other attendees do, too. While I met Maberry at the Philly Con, we have Peter Blauner because I asked Reed Farrel Coleman who'd be good. He didn't just nominate Blauner, he called his pal and said, "This is one you want to do. These guys are cool!" 

One other point - I've learned they often get bored at other Cons. Every keynote has said, "Can you keep me busy the whole weekend, please? Put me on panels, let me do presentations, I don't want to come all the way there to stare at the wall all day." So we put them to work. :-)

OBAAT: I had planned on a brief plug for this year’s Creatures, Crime, and Creativity Conference in Columbia MD September 8 – 10, but I can’t come up with anything better than Reed Farrel Coleman’s comment to Peter Blauner. Here’s the link for more information. If I don’t see you there it’s your own fault.

Twenty Questions With Beau Johnson

Beau Johnson is from Brantford, Ontario and has been getting raw with readers on both sides of the border in such publications as Out of the Gutter Online, Shotgun Honey, Spelk, HST, and the Molotov Cocktail. His first published collection, A Better Kind of Hate, drops August 14 from Down and Out Books..

                                

One Bite at a Time: Tell us about A Better Kind of Hate.

Beau Johnson: A Better Kind of Hate is a no-holds-barred collection of feel-good

adventures about one very special boy and his magical dog! No, I kid. It's a collection of what bad people do and how other individuals will no longer accept or put up with what none of us should have to. 

OBAAT: Did you write these intending them to be a collection, or is this more of a compilation of stories published elsewhere first?

BJ: These stories were never written with the intent of being collected. Once that was thrown to the wind, then yes, more stories where written precisely for this collection. New content, as it were.

OBAAT: Understanding he’s not the sole protagonist in the collection, but Bishop Rider is the engine for multiple stories here. Where did he come from? In what ways is he like, and unlike, you?

BJ: Ha! I'm pretty far removed from Bishop Rider. He's combination of many things, but anger is the thing which drives him most. Call him Frank Castle. Call him Charles Bronson. Call him a man who is trying to save himself by saving others.

OBAAT: Many anthologies have a unifying theme. Do you have one in mind here, or is the unifying point the fact that you wrote all the stories?

BJ: I never thought about theme until Joe Clifford mentioned this: Whether showcasing Rider or another flawed hero, Johnson operates in shades of gray, where sometimes all it takes is for a bad man to kill a worse one. I like that. Pretty much puts the whole book into perspective theme-wise. I can't thank him enough.

OBAAT: How did A Better Kind of Hate end up with Down & Out?

BJ: Tom Pitts. Tom Pitts. Tom Pitts. As I have said more than once, he put the bug in my ear. After a false start with another publisher, Tom again swooped in to save the day. He suggested I approach Eric Campbell at Down and Out. Low and behold, the rest is me still dancing as we speak.

OBAAT: We agree: Tom Pitts is the goods. As good a person as he is a writer, and his writing kicks ass. How do you know Tom?

BJ: I met Tom about five or six years ago through Joe Clifford and Out of the Gutter Online. Joe was the editor of the Flash Fiction section then, and I believe Tom became co-editor about the time I first started sending out submissions. For truth, I believe it was Tom's doing that got one of my earlier pieces for Out of the Gutter, “A Patient Man,” accepted for publication. Joe was on the fence about it if memory serves, and asked if he could have bit more time to let this new guy have a look. Lo and behold, an acceptance was born. That was the start of me having Tom Pitts in my corner. I think Henry Rollins should play him in the movie.

OBAAT: Besides the friendships with Tom Pitts and Joe Clifford, you and I share another connection: Down and Out Books. Tell us what it’s like working with Eric and Lance and the whole extended family.

BJ: It. Has. Been. Awesome! Those guys are so great, so professional. Every question I have had has been answered. Every thought responded to. And don't even get me started on how they cleaned up the inside of A Better Kind of Hate. I don't know what it is, but me and semi colons, we are going to come to blows one day!

OBAAT: What made you decide to be an author?

BJ: I always liked English better than math. Maybe that was it. I can't say for sure though. What I can tell you is I have always liked to write but life got in the way for many of the years where I did not write. Which is fine. I'd have it no other way. But when I got back to it...man, it is a feeling like no other.

OBAAT: What kinds of stories do you like to read? Who are your favorite authors, in or out of that area?

BJ: Crime fiction, of course. Anything King. I am also enjoying his son, Joe Hill. I dig Christopher Farnsworth as well, he of the President's Vampire. Ryan Sayles of the Richard Dean Buckner series. There is Marietta Miles, Paul D. Brazill, Eric Beetner, and still there is more. Too many to name.

OBAAT: Do you outline or fly by the seat of you pants? 

BJ: Pants. Nothing but pants.

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?

BJ: Great question. I'm something of an in-between kind of writer. Put it down, fix it up. If I have to stop, I sometimes go back to the beginning when I start up again, fixing as I go until I'm at the spot I finished at and then go on from there. Once that is done, once I think the story is mostly done, I revise it 10-15 times. Easy. I then let it sit a couple of weeks and stew. Complete, I give it a once over and then send it to my brother or sister and they take a [look] for any kind of typos I more than likely missed. 

OBAAT: Who are your greatest influences? (Not necessarily writers. Filmmakers, other artists, whoever you think has had a major impact on your writing.)

BJ: Stephen King. No question. I'm not even remotely in his orbit but he is the guy who got me hooked. I liked Joss Whedon a lot. Vince Gilligan. Garth Ennis.

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?

BJ: I know I sound like a broken record, but King. The Dark Tower specifically. I love how it winds through almost every aspect of his work. I love that he never knew this was happening from the beginning. I love the moment I realized it was.

OBAAT: I sense an affection for the work of Stephen King. What is about his writing that appeals to you so strongly?

BJ: Hmm. How do I put this into words? It's not just his writing, because it is, but it the seeds he left me, there when I began to read him. There I was, nose deep into Eyes of the Dragon, minding no one's business but my own, and I come to realize the wizard of that book, the Big Bad, is none other than Randall Flagg, the man in black himself. Yup, pretty sure my head went and tried to explode when that particular puzzle piece feel into place. Like so many before me, Stephen King has had me ever since.

OBAAT: Have you read half-memoir/half-how-to-manual On Writing?

BJ: Oh yes. Twice. Great stuff. All of it. I don't think I quite have the game to pull off everything he suggests but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't trying.

OBAAT: Is there anything you wish interviewers would ask about more? Some topic you’d like to see writers discuss more in forums such as this?

BJ: Cheese. I would like to see more discussion steered toward cheese and all its inherit goodness.

OBAAT: Okay. I’ll bite. What’s your favorite cheese and why?

BJ: Ha! Nice. All cheese. Every kind. As for why? Well, that'd be telling. But if anyone really wants to know, hey, it might be in the book!

OBAAT: What are you currently working on, and why does it kick ass?

BJ: As of this moment, not a thing. Ah, the life of a pantser!

July's Best Reads

Western research took almost complete control of my July reading and I regret very little of it. In fact, I regret reading none of what’s mentioned here.

Deadwood, Pete Dexter. Bears no great resemblance to the classic TV show but just as entertaining. Snippets of life in the camp seen primarily through the eyes of Charlie Utter, using his actual life as a backdrop. Dexter weaves fact and fiction seamlessly and effortlessly in a true classic.

Bestseller Metrics, Elaine Ash. I wrote about this at length a few weeks ago. Authors not sure why their book isn’t selling could do a lot worse than take the advice contained herein.

Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry. Had my way with this one, too. Doesn’t hold up as well as I’d hoped, but it’s still a masterpiece, which says a lot.

Famous Gunfighters of the Western Frontier, W. B. “Bat” Masterson. Bat doesn’t have too much bad to say about anyone except Doc Holliday, but a delightful book nonetheless. Written as a series of essays for Human Life magazine in 1907, it’s full of anachronistic language that sets the time perfectly. Bat was a product of his time and some of his attitudes about violence might strike some as cavalier today, but his understanding of, and affection for, his subjects shows through. A quick read great fun.

                                                                                                     

Age of the Gunfighter: Men and Weapons of the Frontier 1840 – 1900, Joseph Rosa. Almost a coffee table book with many two-page spreads of authentic period weapons. Rosa’s a Brit with an affection for the American West and has a full trunk of stories from both sides of the law. Time is taken to explore the situations that grew from all the major reasons for violence in the west: feuds, vigilante justice, range wars, cow towns, and law and order. Filled with period photos of people and places. Something a true Western aficionado will not want to be without.