Susanna Hislop

Susanna Hislop is an actor and a writer and the Artistic Director of Slip of Steel, and is an editor of the online literary quarterly The Junket. Her first book Stories in the Stars: An Atlas of Constellations was BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week over Christmas 2014. From her Q & A with Caroline Leavitt:

Why do you think we are all so fascinated with the sky?

It’s right on top of us! It engulfs us. It lights us, darkens us, rains on us, shines on us, feeds and kills us: and even now, in an age governed by science and reason, most of us – and certainly me – have absolutely no real sense of what it is or how it works. Mostly it just makes us feel, keenly, our place in some vast and greater truth, or rather chaos or untruth: filling us with magic and fear.

What do stories about the constellations really tell us about ourselves?

I think they tell us about our need to name things. To place things, make sense of things, and also, more darkly, to own things. We like to tell stories – lies in fact – about who we are and how we got here to make us feel as if we mean something. And of course historically, the differing constellation narratives tell us a huge amount about the different societies that invented them (I was particularly interested in tracing the socio-political metamorphoses of the women in stars). Having said that, one of the things I found most incredible researching the book, was how several constellation myths are in fact echoed across continents and time by entirely different people and cultures – these uncanny similarities tell us something essential about what it is to be human, and about the very profound – although in modern society, often ignored – relationship we have with nature, that very physical, animal instinct and understanding of...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Peter Guralnick

Peter Guralnick is the author of Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll. From his Q & A with Scott Timberg for Salon:

The subtitle of your book is “The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll.” I don’t think you’re the first person to call him that, and the phrase served as the title for a documentary years ago. Overall, give us a sense of how important Phillips was to the birth and early evolution of the music.

What I think was remarkable about Sam, besides the fact that from a tiny little storefront studio in Memphis, so much music came out of such a tiny space, from something that was essentially a one-man operation. From Elvis to Carl Perkins to Johnny Cash to Jerry Lee Lewis, [he created] what was essentially the dominant strain of rock ‘n’ roll during the first few years of its existence.

What I think is extraordinary about Sam is that he had a vision for rock ‘n’ roll long before the music existed, long before he was even able to give expression to it… Years before he even conceived of building a recording studio, he conceived a music that could bridge all gaps, that could deny category… An African-American-based music that could leap across the chasms of race and social origin and class. And when he opened his studio, the first hit he had come out was [Ike Turner’s] “Rocket 88.” It doesn’t matter how you label it – the fact is, it was an extraordinary hit, it sold over 100,000 copies.

In his first public utterances, in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, he spoke of that same vision. Of “Rocket 88” being the kind of music that could appeal to all kinds, that could reach a mainstream audience, that could bridge that gap. While the record may not have fully realized what we envisioned for it, that was clearly what he was looking to achieve from the moment he started recording anyone.

He had the same vision for...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Cat Winters

Cat Winters's new novel is The Uninvited. From her Q & A with Sarah Skilton at B&N Reads:

While researching [the ghost story set in 1918] The Uninvited, what was some of the more shocking information you uncovered about the time period?

What shocked me the most was discovering the mistreatment of and violence against German Americans and other immigrants during the WWI period. I set The Uninvited specifically in Illinois because of a real-life lynching of a German-born coalminer named Robert Prager in April 1918. He was killed by a mob of approximately three to four hundred men for purportedly making “disloyal utterances against the United States.” Eleven men went to trial for his murder on June 1918. All eleven were declared “not guilty” and freed. Prager’s murder wasn’t the only 1918 act of violence committed against an immigrant in the name of patriotism, unfortunately. I don’t think we hear enough about the paranoia that gripped the nation during this war, but I think we could learn a lot from it.

Having previously written about the Spanish flu and WWI for your debut YA novel, the critically acclaimed In the Shadow of Blackbirds, was it enjoyable to revisit that era? Are there any aspects of life in that time that you wish were still in play today?

Revisiting the Spanish flu itself was a little dark and intense, but...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Margaret Sands Orchowski

Margaret Sands Orchowski is the author of The Law That Changed the Face of America: The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. From her Q & A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: Why did you decide to write a book focused on the 1965 immigration law?

A: I’ve been involved with migrants all my life. I particularly have been involved with Latinos. When I came to Washington in 1998, I got back into journalism; I was working for a Hispanic magazine.

It was a perfect melding of my background and interest. I was interested in how we managed immigration over our history. Immigration is about work—why is it in the Judiciary Committee? I got curious about how our laws evolved. The 1965 act affected my family; I was married to an immigrant.

I’m a lifetime Democrat, and a big fan of the Kennedys. I knew this law was [JFK’s] legacy. It’s so maligned now, this law—it’s the most liberal, generous immigration law. I’m going, Why are, particularly Democrats, demanding it be fixed? Along with this to be the 50th year, it was the perfect time to delve into it.

Q: And what do you see as the legacy and impact of the 1965 law today?

A: There were tons of unintended consequences. To understand that...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Rebecca Kanner

Rebecca Kanner's new novel is Esther.

From her Q & A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: Why did you decide to write a novel based on the story of Queen Esther?

A: I had originally...set out to write stories about the women in Genesis. I didn’t get very far; I wrote Sinners and the Sea [about Noah’s wife], and then I wanted to go beyond Genesis and write the story of Esther.

In the Megillah, her submissiveness and reaching for Mordecai [didn’t seem sufficient]—it takes more than a pretty face to win a king. I wanted her to be a little smarter. I wanted her to wait to tell the king she was Jewish because [of her intelligence].

Q: How much of your novel was taken from the biblical story of Esther and how much is your own invention?

A: I took the basics from the story, but there was still a lot to fill in. I like the writings of Herodotus. I wanted to mostly stick with the Megillah, but add to it, in the Jewish tradition of midrash, coming up with an explanation of why Esther delayed telling the king she was...[read on]

Visit Rebecca Kanner's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Wallace Stroby

Wallace Stroby’s The Devil’s Share is the latest novel featuring one of the most compelling anti-heroes around today, heistwoman Crissa Stone. From the author's Q & A with Sonja Hartl of the German crime fiction magazine/website Polar Noir:

SONJA HARTL: How did you develop the idea for COLD SHOT TO THE HEART? Why is your protagonist female?

WALLACE STROBY: I’d always wanted to write an entire novel from the point of view of a career criminal, but someone with whom the reader might have a certain amount of sympathy. Part of my third novel, GONE ‘TIL NOVEMBER, was written from the perspective of an aging black hitman, while the rest was from the point-of-view of a female sheriff’s deputy and single mom in a rural Florida town, the only woman in an otherwise all-male department. With COLD SHOT TO THE HEART, I wanted to combine those two ideas, and have my criminal also be a woman in an overwhelmingly male environment. That raised all kinds of interesting possibilities.

SH: I have to admit that I am a little skeptical when male crime authors have female protagonists. Was it difficult for you to write a crime novel with a woman as a main character?

WS: Actually, I found it freeing in some ways, because a woman in that position would...[read on]

Learn more about the author and his novels at the official Wallace Stroby website and The Heartbreak Blog.

The Page 69 Test: Gone 'til November.

The Page 69 Test: Cold Shot to the Heart.

The Page 69 Test: Kings of Midnight.

The Page 69 Test: The Devil's Share.

--Marshal Zeringue

Paul Strathern

Paul Strathern is the author of Death in Florence: The Medici, Savonarola, and the Battle for the Soul of a Renaissance City.

From his Q & A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: In the book, you write, "Yet this clash between the secular and the religious has continued to reverberate down the centuries..." What is the legacy today of the events in Florence 500-plus years ago?

A: Lorenzo de Medici was a standard-bearer for the values of the Renaissance. Savonarola, on the other hand, believed in a return to the ancient spiritual values. In simple terms, Lorenzo de Medici can be seen as a liberal, whereas Savonarola was more of a fundamentalist.

Though this is, of necessity, a gross simplification. The battle between these two figures in 15th century Florence can be seen as epitomising a battle which has undergone a sudden resurgence in our contemporary times: the contest for hearts and minds between the freedom and values of the western world and fundamentalism which opposes such “degeneracy.”

The struggle which took place in Florence so long ago is once again as relevant as ever. The battle is no longer for “the soul of a Renaissance city,” but for the soul of...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

John Grisham

Rogue Lawyer is John Grisham's thirtieth novel. From the author's interview with Bill Tipper for The Barnes & Noble Review:

The Barnes & Noble Review: What I was immediately struck in by Rogue Lawyer, by comparison to earlier books, was a shift in your writing style and kind of the diction and velocity of the prose. It took me a minute to orient myself. I thought, “This is as hard-boiled as I think I’ve read John Grisham.” Was that your intention?

John Grisham: Oh, sure. I started writing it probably three years ago, just as an idea. I have a lot of ideas for stories based on real cases I read about, usually something dealing with a horrible injustice in the system, something that I would love to see addressed or fixed or exposed or written about. There are a lot of those.

BNR: Some kind of flaw in the way that we think about justice and the law that produces a story.

JG: Sure. A lot of those, though, cannot stand up to the rigors of a full-length novel. So they are smaller stories. I want to address the issues: I want to meet some of the characters. For years I’ve been thinking how can I do that in such a way that I can make it compelling and readable and a whole lot of fun. So I came up with this voice, which is basically me, my observations of the system. When I was a lawyer, I sort of admired the guys who were really out-there, the fearless guys who were taking the bad cases, who would take the case nobody else would take, who were in court all the time, who were basically just kind of fearless. I wasn’t that way. I was a bit too nervous.

This all came out in the character of Sebastian: A voice, the guy who’s at war with the system, the guy who’s fighting for injustice, and then through him we can...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Laura Dave

Laura Dave is the author of the critically acclaimed novels The First Husband, The Divorce Party, London Is The Best City In America, and the newly released Eight Hundred Grapes.

Three of her novels have been optioned for the big screen with Dave adapting Eight Hundred Grapes for Fox2000.

From Dave's Q & A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: How did you come up with the book’s title, and what does it signify for you?

A: I wanted to pick a title that spoke to how much goes into winemaking - how each glass of wine is an expression of so much work. I had never thought about how many grapes were in a bottle - as soon as I found out how many grapes it takes to make a single bottle of wine, it seemed like the perfect metaphor for...[read on]

Visit Laura Dave's website.

Writers Read: Laura Dave (June 2015).

--Marshal Zeringue

Anne Enright

Anne Enright is an Irish author. Her novel The Gathering won the 2007 Man Booker Prize. Her latest novel is The Green Road. From the author's Q & A with Alex Clark at the Guardian:

In The Green Road, there’s a magnetic but also rather problematic mother - whose four children you follow to New York, Africa and over Ireland. Families are key to your work, aren’t they?

People say I write about the family all the time, but in fact I just put people into that shape, or use that shape to write about deeper truths. I was more interested in separation and connection, disconnection and love.

The story of leaving and returning - or not returning - that informs your novel runs through the history of Ireland…

Emigration has been a part of Irish life for hundreds of years, and my way into it was not through the nostalgia of the emigrants in London or Boston, because there’s quite a difficult relationship between the Irish person at home and the emigrant abroad; by the second or third generation, those emigrants turn Ireland into a certain kind of idea – which informs our own idea of Ireland, but also begins to kitschify it a little and sentimentalise it. All of that is difficult and above all else there’s an amount of shame swilling around all of that situation. The emigrants who left Ireland left because they were poor, and they left because there was nothing for them. The emigrants when I was growing up in the 80s, when I was a teenager, left not only because there weren’t any jobs, but because the moral atmosphere of the country was unbearably claustrophobic, and because in order to be themselves, they had to leave, in order to possess their own life. You had that feeling in the 80s that your life was elsewhere, that your real life was in New York or London, and not in this squabbling country that was always talking about goddamn contraception like it was...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue