Kate Racculia

Kate Racculia is the author of This Must Be the Place.

From a Q & A at her publisher's website:

Who are your favorite writers?

I love Kate Atkinson, Michael Chabon, Margaret Atwood, Jane Smiley, Richard Russo—I could go on. And there's nothing in the world like a vintage Stephen King and a glass of iced tea on a lazy summer day.

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Which book/books have had the biggest influence on your writing?

Ellen Raskin's The Westing Game blew my 10-year-old mind with its multiple characters, multiple plots, multiple red herring, try-to-solve-it-yourself mystery. And years later, John Irving's The World According to Garp was an object lesson in absolutely stuffing a book to bursting—with characters, with ideas, with absurdity—and yet making it all ring true.

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What inspired you to write your first book?

This Must Be the Place was inspired by many, many things: the art of Joseph Cornell; the Pixies' "Doolittle;" the true story of John Myatt, an art forger who happened to be a single father (which got me thinking: what would it be like to have a forger in the family?); and a burning desire to justify the student loan payments I owed on my MFA.

Read the complete Q & A.

--Marshal Zeringue

William Gibson

William Gibson's new novel is Zero History.

From his Q & A with Anna Metcalfe for the Financial Times:

Where do you write best?

At home for the most part but when stuck I resort to a laptop in a coffee shop – the busier the better.

What is the strangest thing you’ve done when researching a book?

The strangest are life experiences that turn into research. For Zero History I participated in the brainstorming of a new brand, for a clothing manufacturer involved in military contracting.

What are you scared of?

Racism, sexism, nationalism, tribalism, fundamentalism (about anything at all), the excesses of religion, self-satisfied ignorance.

Read the complete Q & A.

Gibson's Neuromancer appears on Annalee Newitz's list of "Thirteen Books That Will Change The Way You Look At Robots" and Andrew Crumey's top ten list of novels that predicted the future.

--Marshal Zeringue

Carolyn de la Peña

Carolyn de la Peña is a professor of American Studies at the University of California, Davis. She is author of The Body Electric: How Strange Machines Built the Modern American.

From a Q & A about her new book, Empty Pleasures: The Story of Artificial Sweeteners from Saccharin to Splenda:

Q: What inspired you to write a book about the history of artificial sweeteners?

A: I grew up in the 1980s in a house with a lot of substitutes. We had Egg Beaters, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!, No Salt, Crystal Light, and Diet Pepsi. I really don't remember having butter, except in restaurants, until I was in college. So a big part of it is autobiographical: I wanted to know where these products came from, and how people like my mom - who was always watching her weight - had come to think of them as healthy options. And, of course, what impact this way of eating, which was entirely new really, has had on us as Americans. It is odd, when you stop and think about it, that "diet" and "low fat" became mantras for good health, especially considering that all of these products relied on chemicals made in a lab, most of which had not even existed just decades before. I thought there must be more to the story than "diet foods" make "diet people" - especially since these healthy substitutes rose in sales in a way that pretty much parallels the rise in what some people call the "obesity epidemic" that's occurred in the last few decades in the U.S. Of course, when I actually sat down to do a history of all those substitutes, I found each history (fat, salt, egg, and sugar) extraordinarily complex, and pretty unknown. So I started with the first, and most popular substitute, artificial sweetener. After finding little about them in what's been written about food, I decided that fifty years was long enough to wait for a history of these things, and I'd write it myself.

Q: What was the first artificial sweetener in America, and why was it created?

A: The first artificial sweetener, anywhere, was...[read on]

Learn more about Empty Pleasures at the publisher's website.

The Page 99 Test: Empty Pleasures.

--Marshal Zeringue

Bryan Gruley

From a Q & A with Bryan Gruley, author of Starvation Lake and The Hanging Tree:

Tell us about the process of plotting a mystery novel. Do you have the story mapped out before you sit down to write, or do you discover it along with your characters?

So far, I’m not much of an advance plotter. I know where the story begins and I have a vague idea of how it ends. Then I start writing and, yes, I discover the story along with my characters. As I go, I jot notes to myself about story arcs I need to follow through on and loose ends I have to tie up, and these become a sort of rough, moving outline for what’s to come in the next few scenes.

How is writing a sequel different from writing a debut novel? Does your writing process change at all?

Writing my first novel was hard because I had no idea how to go about writing a novel. Writing the sequel was hard because I had no idea how to go about writing a sequel.

I don’t mean to be glib. In a sequel, you have to be mindful both of readers who have not read your previous book and readers who have. You have to give the former enough backstory to appreciate the setting and characters without giving so much that you either bore repeat readers or reveal so much of the first book that new readers won’t go back and give it a try.

At least for me, another challenge on the sequel was quieting the echoes of reviewers, bloggers, readers, and others who had opined about my writing. Writing my debut, all I had to worry about were my own instincts and the suggestions of the few friends who read the manuscript. This time around, it was impossible at times not to recall the critics, professional or not, who’d complained about the hockey or the dialogue or the prologue or the way my hair was done in the author photo. It made for some second-guessing, but I tried to remind myself what my friend, the novelist John Galligan, told me: Write what’s in your heart.

When you first conceived of this series, how did you decide which point of view to tell the story from? Did you ever consider using a character other than Gus to narrate, or telling the story from a third-person perspective?

In truth, I...[read on]

Visit Bryan Gruley's website and The Hanging Tree website.

The Page 69 Test: Starvation Lake.

The Page 69 Test: The Hanging Tree.

--Marshal Zeringue

Elizabeth Gilbert

Elizabeth Gilbert's books include Eat, Pray, Love and Committed.

From a Q & A at her website:

Q: Why do you think U.S. divorce rates are so high? What statistical findings did you encounter that people might consider before tying the knot?

A: First of all, it's important to know that the famous "50% divorce rate" that we hear about so much these days is a little bit misleading. Across the board, there is a 50% divorce rate, true, but those numbers really change based on the age of the couple at the time of marriage. Young couples divorce at astronomically high rates, which blows the curve for everyone else. The fundamental conclusion we can draw from all the data is this: Marriage is not a game for the young. Wait as long as you humanly can to get married, and your odds of staying with one partner forever will increase dramatically. If you wait until you are, say, 35 years old to get married, your odds of success are pretty terrific. The other question is one of expectation. Modern Americans bring to their marriages the most over-stuffled bundle of expectations the institution has ever seen. We expect that our partner will not merely be a decent person, but will also be our soul mate, our best friend, our intellectual companion, our greatest sexual partner and our life's complete inspiration. Nobody in human history has ever asked this much of a companion. It's a lot to ask of one mere mortal, and the inevitable disappointments that follow such giant expectations can cripple marriages.

Q: In the book, you state that same-sex marriage may very well save the institution of marriage. How so?

A: Marriage is on the decline everywhere, and same-sex couples are the only ones who are really passionate about matrimony anymore. As one commentator described the situation, it's as if the institution of marriage is a crumbing, decaying, old neighborhood where nobody wants to live anymore. But then-in come the gay couples, begging to move into that neighborhood, buy up all that valueless real estate, renovate those old houses, bring creative new shops and galleries to the place and suddenly make it the coolest place to live again. After which, heterosexual couples and families will follow! So the argument becomes this-instead of trying to "save" the institution of marriage by excluding gay couples from matrimony, maybe it's smarter to try to rescue marriage by letting same-sex couples move in and gentrify the place. It's a cute argument, but...[read on]

Writers who were pulled in by Eat, Pray, Love include Jennifer Mascia and Vivian Swift.

Read about Elizabeth Gilbert's best books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jed Rubenfeld

Jed Rubenfeld is the Robert R. Slaughter Professor of Law at Yale Law School and author of the novel The Interpretation of Murder.

From his Q & A with Boyd Tonkin for the Independent:

Choose a favourite author and say why you like him/her

Kazuo Ishiguro. I've read every book he has written... Here's someone else with an exquisite ability to captivate you with his language – and to capture the human drama.

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Which fictional character most resembles you?

In my own writing, I suppose it has be [the psychologist] Stratham Younger – but I wish it was the detective, Jimmy Littlemore.

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Who is your hero/heroine from outside literature?

Abraham Lincoln. I still tell stories about him to my kids. He was a man of tremendous integrity, morality and self-restraint. And he was one of the few politicians who transcends politics.

Read the complete interview.

--Marshal Zeringue

Garrett Peck

From Debra Eckerling's Q & A with Garrett Peck, author of The Prohibition Hangover:

How did The Prohibition Hangover come about?

I had this moment of epiphany at Christmas 2003. … I was at my grandmother’s house in Scottsdale, and had brought a really nice bottle of Burgundy to share with Christmas dinner. Three generations sat at the table: my grandmother, my mom, and me. When I opened the wine, my grandmother got a bit snooty about the fact that she didn’t drink; my mom and I are social drinkers, and we both collect wine.

My grandmother (born in 1913) was part of a generation that stigmatized alcohol use. Those values of temperance weren’t passed on; hence both my mom and I drink. I thought, “Wow, that’s quite a shift in society!” We went from a country that stigmatized alcohol to the extent that we changed the Constitution (and then changed it back after Prohibition turned out to be a disaster), and here we are today where two-thirds of adults drink. The stigma against alcohol is largely gone.

At that moment, the idea came to me, and I knew I wanted to write about it.

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Why this topic? This format?

I wanted to try something that no one else had ever done, which was to explore how Americans became a drinking nation again in the 76 years after Prohibition. The last really seminal work on Americans and alcohol was published in 1979 by William Rorabaugh. It was called The Alcoholic Republic, and it explored the roots of the temperance movement in the early 1800s. But the period after Repeal was completely unchartered waters! And that’s where I dove in.

While I do have a short chronology at the beginning of the book to tell how we got into the mess of Prohibition – and how we got out of it nearly 14 years later—I quickly realized that the story needed to be told thematically, rather than chronologically. Each chapter is a standalone theme. For example, I address how the craft beer market has come bubbling up, why Sideways is the best movie about wine ever made, what churches say about alcohol today, and I capped it all with a chapter on underage drinking, which is part of a huge national discussion right now. Ultimately I concluded that the US should lower the drinking age to 18 as a way to combat binge drinking among young adults. I suspect this will be controversial.

Read the complete interview.

Learn more about the book and author at Garrett Peck's website.

Garrett Peck's best books about Prohibition.

Writers Read: Garrett Peck.

The Page 99 Test: The Prohibition Hangover.

--Marshal Zeringue

Shirley Williams

Shirley Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby, is a British politician and academic. Originally a Labour Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister, she was one of the "Gang of Four" rebels who founded the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1981. She later served as Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords.

Her autobiography is Climbing the Bookshelves.

From her Q & A with Boyd Tonkin in the Independent:

Choose a favourite author and say why you like him/her

The pressures of political life mean I read a lot of poetry. My favourite now is Seamus Heaney. He has such extraordinary insight into events – including political events – but is also, profoundly, a poet.

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Which fictional character most resembles you?

I don't have an answer to that, but my parents did. They named me after Charlotte Brontë's 'Shirley' – although I find her rather self-righteous and tedious!

* * *

Who is your hero/heroine from outside literature?

It has to be Nelson Mandela. When you think of the amount of bitterness he overcame, after 27 years in prison – it's phenomenal.

Read the complete Q & A.

Learn about Shirley Williams's six best books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Robert B. Parker

Painted Ladies, Robert B. Parker's latest Spenser novel, was completed the year before he died. The novel is out this month.

From an interview at his publisher's website:

Q: Your writing career began with the 1974 publication of The Godwulf Manuscript, the first [book] in the Spenser series. Why do you think that Spenser has developed such a widespread, loyal following and is still so popular among readers?

A: I think people are drawn to Spenser because he's a very likeable man. He has many dimensions. He has important relationships, including an ongoing love relationship with Susan Silverman, a difficult, complicated, interesting woman. Spenser is beset by the same problems we all are, yet, being a bit larger than life, he triumphs over them in ways that we don't always. He can't be bribed, seduced with sex, or frightened with violence, and most of us can. Also, there's a persistence to him. Publishers always like to have an author who gives them a book a year. Readers do, too. Spenser is dependable in that way. He's around every year, growing and changing.

Q: Spenser is a Boston P.I. You live in Boston. Your independent film company is named after your short-haired pointer, Pearl, who has also been featured in your last few Spenser novels. How much do you draw from your own experience in writing your novels?

A: T.S. Eliot once talked about the function of the imagination, drawing the analogy of a bell jar with two separate inert gases in it. When you insert a piece of tungsten, the two become a third gas that was not present before. He likened that to the imagination; that it creates something new out of what was there. That's a fairly good analogy for what I do. Certain aspects of my novels reflect my own life, but in ways that only I understand; that is, you can't read Spenser's career and draw any very intelligent conclusions about my life. Other parts are more obvious. My wife Joan and I were separated for a period in the early eighties, which was reflected in Susan and Spenser's relationship. One of my recurring characters is a choreographer/actor and I have a son who is a choreographer, and another who's an actor.

Q: Are there any underlying themes that run through your work?

A: ...[read on]

For more about Robert B. Parker, see The Rap Sheet entries Looking for Robert B. Parker: A Fond Farewell to the Man Who Saved P.I. Fiction, Part I and Part II.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ken Follett

Thriller writer Ken Follett has sold 100m copies of his 31 books worldwide. His first major success was Eye of the Needle (1978).

From his Q & A with Anna Metcalfe at the Financial Times:

What book changed your life?

Father and Son [1907] by Edmund Gosse, which I read when I was 14. It’s about a young man who abandons his religion. It gave me permission to do the same.

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Who are your literary influences?

Writers who taught me literature is the greatest adventure. It was Enid Blyton and her Noddy books from age four, and then Ian Fleming’s Live And Let Die when I was 12. And Stephen King.

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Who would you choose to play you in a film about your life?

George Clooney. But my kids would laugh their socks off so I’d say Sir Robert Stephens, who played the best Falstaff I’ve seen.

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What book do you wish you’d written?

The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris. I wish I had created Hannibal Lecter.

Read the complete interview.

Eye of the Needle is one of Louise Bagshawe's five classic chase novels.

--Marshal Zeringue