Sandra Ruttan

In October 2008 Patrick Shawn Bagley interviewed Sandra Ruttan about What Burns Within and The Frailty of Flesh, her novels featuring series characters Nolan, Hart and Tain, and other matters. One exchange:

Your series has dealt with some heavy issues like religious fanaticism, rape and child abuse. How have readers responded?

A few people have been wary about the subject matter, but I haven't received any hate mail or strong complaints. Reviewers seemed to pick up on the sensitivity displayed in dealing with the subject matter of the first book. I don't try to exploit these types of stories for shock value, or just use them to manipulate the reader into caring more. The reality is, cops who are confronted with a murdered or missing child are usually going to find it harder to cope with than the murder of a prostitute. I've dealt with child issues in the books because I had a lot of things I needed to get out of my system after working with abused children.

I think my biggest challenge centers on the fact that I don't try to give easy answers. The conclusion doesn't come wrapped up with a bow on top. The stories center on how the events affect the protagonists, and while other lives are touched on, I don't try to give the "sexually-abused-as-a-child-in-front-of-the-fireplace-so-he-became-a-pyromaniac" answer. In a procedural the focus is more on the evidence than on the psychology, and there's almost a sense of reluctant acceptance on the part of the constables. People commit atrocious acts, and they have to see them with their own eyes. Sometimes it really gets to them, but they have to try to focus on the investigation rather than their feelings. That's a tough thing to do when you're confronted with the body of a four-year-old child, just weeks before Christmas, which is the situation Tain and Ashlyn find themselves in at the beginning of The Frailty of Flesh.

Read the complete Q & A.

See January Magazine's Author Snapshot: Sandra Ruttan.

The Page 69 Test: Suspicious Circumstances.

My Book, The Movie: Suspicious Circumstances.

The Page 69 Test: What Burns Within.

The Page 69 Test: The Frailty of Flesh.

--Marshal Zeringue

Beryl Satter

Beryl Satter is the author of Each Mind a Kingdom and the chair of the Department of History at Rutgers University in Newark. From a Q & A about her new book, Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America:

In the book you dispel many of our commonly held notions about how the black slums were created and the causes of white flight. Can you talk a little about both of those subjects?

Conservatives claim that African Americans simply did not know how to maintain their properties. Liberals instead blame white racism—they argue that if white people hadn’t fled racially changing neighborhoods, today we’d have stable, integrated urban neighborhoods instead of segregated black slums. Both views are incorrect. Urban neighborhoods decayed because of discriminatory FHA policies. Mortgage redlining meant that African Americans were forced to buy from white speculators at grossly inflated prices. If they bought on contract—as was typical in Chicago and many other cities—they knew that they could not miss a payment without losing their homes. Therefore they did whatever it took to make those payments. Husbands and wives both worked. They deferred maintenance. They subdivided their properties, crammed them with tenants, and charged their tenants hefty rents.

Black people made huge sacrifices in order hold on to their homes. But their white neighbors didn’t understand this. They observed black people overcrowding and neglecting their properties. Overcrowded neighborhoods meant overcrowded schools; in Chicago, officials responded by "double-shifting" the students (half attending in the morning, and half in the afternoon). Children were deprived of a full day of schooling and left to fend for themselves in the after-school hours. These conditions helped fuel the rise of gangs, which in turn terrorized shop owners and residents alike. In short, whites fled these neighborhoods not because they were irrational racists but because they were upset about overcrowding, decaying schools, and crime. They also understood that the longer they stayed, the less their property would be worth. But black contract buyers did not have the option of leaving before their properties were paid for in full—if they did, they would lose everything they’d invested in that property to date.

Read the complete Q & A.

Read an excerpt from Family Properties, and learn more about the book at the publisher's website.

The Page 99 Test: Family Properties.

--Marshal Zeringue

Rick Steves

Rick Steves has spent 100 days every year since 1973 exploring Europe. His traveler’s library of over 50 best-selling books and videos have sold more than two million copies and his award-winning television series, Rick Steves’ Europe, is now in its seventh season.

From his Q & A with Kevin Berger at Salon.com:

What's the most important thing people can learn from traveling?

A broader perspective. They can see themselves as part of a family of humankind. It's just quite an adjustment to find out that the people who sit on toilets on this planet are the odd ones. Most people squat. You're raised thinking this is the civilized way to go to the bathroom. But it's not. It's the Western way to go to the bathroom. But it's not more civilized than somebody who squats. A man in Afghanistan once told me that a third of this planet eats with spoons and forks, and a third of the planet eats with chopsticks, and a third eats with their fingers. And they're all just as civilized as one another.

Do you think Americans are more provincial or racist than people in other countries?

The "ugly American" thing is associated with how big your country is. There are not just ugly Americans, there are ugly Germans, ugly Japanese, ugly Russians. Big countries tend to be ethnocentric. Americans say the British drive on the "wrong" side of the road. No, they just drive on the other side of the road. That's indicative of somebody who's ethnocentric. But it doesn't stop with Americans. Certain people, if they don't have the opportunity to travel, always think they're the norm. I mean, you can't be Bulgarian and think you're the norm.

It's interesting: A lot of Americans comfort themselves thinking, "Well, everybody wants to be in America because we're the best." But you find that's not true in countries like Norway, Belgium or Bulgaria. I remember a long time ago, I was impressed that my friends in Bulgaria, who lived a bleak existence, wanted to stay there. They wanted their life to be better but they didn't want to abandon their country. That's a very powerful Eureka! moment when you're traveling: to realize that people don't have the American dream. They've got their own dream. And that's not a bad thing. That's a good thing.[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Kevin Roose

From Liz Barry's interview with Kevin Roose, author of The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University, in the Lynchburg News & Advance:

What was it like to interview (the late) Jerry Falwell?

It was nerve-wracking. Jerry Falwell, in my family, was sort of like Voldemort. You didn’t say his name if you didn’t have to. But I really wanted to see, “Is this guy as villainous as he appears in the media?” When I got to interview him, I actually found he was a likable guy. I didn’t agree with anything he said, but after meeting him, I understood why he had this huge following and why he had touched so many people’s lives. The Jerry Falwell that most Americans know is not the real Jerry Falwell, at least not the whole Jerry Falwell.

What’s was the most outrageous thing you saw at Liberty?

Probably the most outrageous thing I saw there was the “Every Man’s Battle” group, the group for recovering masturbation addicts. To be fair, most Liberty students that I’ve talked to about that also think it’s ridiculous and can’t believe it exists. I think it’s just one of the things where I have to pinch myself and say, ‘Yeah, I went there and it exists and it still exists and people are still going to it.’

But, you know what, more power to them. To put it in Christian terms, “I’ll let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Read the complete Q & A.

--Marshal Zeringue

Susanne Freidberg

Susanne Freidberg is an associate professor of geography at Dartmouth and the author of a forthcoming book called Fresh: A Perishable History.

From her interview with Stephen Dubner on the Freakonomics blog:

Question: Do you find it odd that you’re doing such compelling food research as a geographer? Please explicate. Do your geography colleagues, e.g., consider you something of a black swan?

Answer: Actually I’m far from alone. Geographers have been at the cutting edge in “food studies” for a while now, and the schedule for the next annual geographers’ meeting, in a couple of weeks, is full of food-related sessions. It makes sense, given the discipline’s traditional strengths in agricultural and trade/marketplace research, and given also that we don’t pay much attention to disciplinary borders. If you want a sense of what else food geographers are up to, look up Julie Guthman’s “Can’t Stomach It: How Michael Pollan et al. Made Me Want to Eat Cheetos” (reprinted in the Utne Reader).

Question: How long have you been interested in food, and in what aspects thereof? Where did this interest come from?

Answer: I got interested in food while doing graduate research in the mid-1990’s on vegetable farming and marketing in Burkina Faso (in West Africa). I was fascinated by how people working under very difficult conditions managed to get very perishable goods to market. I was even more fascinated once I started looking at the country’s export trade in French beans to France. At the time I thought the trade deserved a movie more than a university press monograph, given all the intrigue and colorful characters involved. More generally, what I find most interesting about food (besides eating it) are all the professions, relationships, and technologies that get it to us, and how the economics of food supply are shaped by culture and politics (and vice-versa).

Question: Having only glanced at Fresh thus far, I wonder: is it written much more for a lay audience than your first book? And what are you trying to accomplish/communicate with Fresh?

Answer: Well, I am still hoping someone someday will...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Jack Kilborn (aka J.A. Konrath)

J.A. Konrath is best known for his thriller series featuring Chicago Police Lt. Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels. His new book, written as Jack Kilborn, is the horror novel Afraid.

From his interview with Greg Swanson at the My Life With Dogs blog:

Joe, there’s quite a contrast between your “Jack Daniels” series and the new Kilborn title AFRAID. When you’re writing, is there a different mind-set between Kilborn and Konrath?

Yes. When I'm Konrath, I'm more playful. I have a great deal of fun writing the Jack Daniels thrillers, and I hope some of that translates to the page.

With Kilborn I try to freak myself out by going places that scare me. I'm pretty sure that also translates to the page, because people who have read AFRAID have cursed me out for giving them nightmares.

Robert Frost said, "No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader." That also works for fear. Which means I manage to scare myself a lot.

But for some strange reason, that doesn't work with humor. Maybe because when I think of a joke, it isn't a surprise to me, and humor is very much about surprise, whereas fear is a slow, suspenseful build.

That said, I did laugh aloud a few times writing CHERRY BOMB, all of them concerning the character of Slappy. I think Slappy is the greatest character I've ever written. Just thinking about him cracks me up.

Read the complete Q & A.

Visit JackKilborn.com.

The Page 69 Test: Afraid.

The Page 99 Test: Afraid.

--Marshal Zeringue

Karin Alvtegen

From a Q & A at Edgar Award-nominee Karin Alvtegen's official website:

How does it feel to write about subjects such as shame, deceit and guilt?

I'm very interested in human psychology. Since I, myself, suffered from a deep depression and panic attacks in 1996, I know from experience how strongly our psyche affects our consciousness and our behaviour. The older I get, and the more I learn, the more I am convinced that we, ourselves, in many respects can affect how we feel by how we choose to think. However, sometimes certain conditions and other things make us loose track and require help.

I'd be lying if I didn't admit that it sometimes feels rough during my writing. I rarely work with depicting surroundings in my texts, but rather always find myself in the mind of the character I'm writing about, and at times that strongly affects me. However, since these books also aim to bring understanding into why my characters feel and act the way they do, I always end up feeling good afterwards. That's when it sometimes feels like I've learned something important.

Read the complete Q & A.

Karin Alvtegen's Missing is on Camilla Läckberg's list of the top 10 Swedish crime novels.

--Marshal Zeringue

Karen Greenberg

From Scott Horton's Q & A with Karen J. Greenberg, author of The Least Worst Place:

When Gitmo was first opened, Rumsfeld described those interned there as the “worst of the worst.” Roughly two-thirds of those originally detained were actually released by the Bush Administration, and just before the 2006 elections we learned that in fact the “worst of the worst” were not in Gitmo to begin with. What does your study of the first hundred days tell you about the vetting that went on at the outset?

Recent interviews with troops from the early days at Guantanamo confirm that the “worst of the worst” charge was suspect from the very first encounters with the detainees. There wasn’t any reliable vetting. Although the first troops on the ground at Guantanamo were led to believe that they would be receiving the “worst of the worst,” the detainees themselves seemed from the start to be far from the dangerous men they had expected—symbolically, individuals who, according to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, were capable of chewing through hydraulic cables on board the transport planes but who it turned out arrived with rotting teeth and weakened physiques. Overall, the U.S. military was blindsided by who they received at Gitmo and by the condition in which the detainees arrived. Arriving dehydrated, and startingly thin, the detainees were mostly not only small and weak, but did not even speak the languages which the troops on the ground had been told to expect. Many came from countries outside of the Afghanistan/Pakistan area. Some did not even seem capable of any dire acts. Among the earliest arrivals, one was apparently an octogenarian; another was over ninety. One was a diagnosed schizophrenic. However possible the danger quotient of these first arrivals, the inclusion of these cases made the team at Gitmo suspect that the vetting process had been haphazard at best.

Later investigations have shown that most of the detainees were not captured directly by U.S. troops. Instead, the U.S. paid bounties to, or otherwise received the prisoners from, Pakistani boarder guards and Northern Alliance troops. There was no single profile for the detainees; instead they seemed like a ragtag and miscellaneous group. Nor did they arrive with information. The pocket litter that detainees were carrying when captured–materials that trained poice would have carefully preserved and labeled for use during interrogation–came stuffed randomly into bags but was often not separated per individual. Doubts about the identities of the detainees were registered by visiting Congresspersons and by members of the Bush Administration, but these doubts never seemed to go anywhere. Thus began the story of defending a mission that seemed in part fraudulent from the start. As the general in charge has noted in retrospect, it took a petty officer to put a detainee on the plane to Guantanamo and an order signed by the President of the United States to get him out.

Read the complete Q & A.

The Page 99 Test: The Least Worst Place.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nicholas L. Syrett

Nicholas L. Syrett is the author of The Company He Keeps: A History of White College Fraternities. From a Q & A at the publisher's website:

Q: What made you want to write The Company He Keeps? Have you ever belonged to a fraternity?

A: I have never belonged to a fraternity. Columbia, the school I attended as an undergrad in the mid '90s, did not have a particularly big Greek scene by the time I was there.

I was interested in writing about fraternities because I was fascinated by examples of groups of men behaving badly, gang rape in particular. It seemed to me that most of the men involved in incidents of gang rape that I read about probably would not have behaved as they did without the influence of others in the group. I ended up trying to answer the question "Where does this behavior come from?" by picking one group of men that participated in such incidents and tracing their history. That's how I settled on fraternities.

Q: Why do you think that this book is particularly timely?

A: It's timely for a number of reasons. The first is that an increasing number of schools of late have been considering either abolishing their Greek systems altogether or forcing fraternities and sororities to go coed. I hope my book can contribute to that conversation. The second reason is that the media continues to report every year on tragic cases of alcohol poisoning in fraternities, hazing gone wrong that results in injury or death, and the sexual assault of women at fraternity parties. My book explores where all of these phenomena come from. The third is that we continue to live in a society in which powerful white men are able to use their connections to forward their careers and interests. Some of those connections have been, and continue to be, forged in college fraternities.

Q: What role has homophobia played in the evolution of fraternities?

A: The short answer is...[read on]

Read more about The Company He Keeps.

--Marshal Zeringue

Mario Acevedo

Marta Acosta, author of the Casa Dracula books, interviewed Mario Acevedo about his latest Felix Gomez adventure, Jailbait Zombie.

Part of the Q & A:

MARTA: You’ve got a new Felix Gomez book coming out with the demure title of Jailbait Zombie. Did you just decide to hop on the underage, reanimated corpse bandwagon?

MARIO: No, the underage, reanimated corpse bandwagon hopped on me.

MARTA: So what’s Felix up to these days? How has he changed since first becoming vampirized and conflicted about drinking human blood?

MARIO: Felix has become a connoisseur of human blood but he’s trying hard not to be a hemoglobin snob. He’s working on a feature for Sunset magazine: Summer Picnic Wine-Blood pairings.

MARTA: You cross genres with your stories. Do you consider yourself primarily a mystery/crime writer, an urban fantasy writer, or a humorist?

MARIO: [read on]

The Page 69 Test: The Nymphos of Rocky Flats.

The Page 69 Test: The Undead Kama Sutra.

The Page 99 Test: Jailbait Zombie.

--Marshal Zeringue