Heidi Diehl

Heidi Diehl's new novel is Lifelines.

From her interview with Jeff Dingler for Saratoga Living:

It’s a very ambitious debut novel. What was the inspiration to write something so outside of your comfort zone?

I was really quite interested in that time period: the ’70s in West Germany. My grandparents were German immigrants to New York, and my mom’s had a lot of connections to Germany. It was a place that was really close to my parents, and I’ve been there a lot. But having this German heritage is, of course, quite troubling when you think of German history and the Holocaust. There had been this culture of denial after the war, this culture of silence, and in the late ’60s and ’70s, it began to swing the other way. People who were born in the postwar generation were really trying to find ways to come to terms with that history. Which, I guess, as a person of that heritage, I was also trying to grapple with so many years later. So I found a lot of inspiration in that time period. It just seemed so psychologically complicated.

The novel got an endorsement from George Saunders. What did that feel like?

It was such a generous take on the book from him. Actually, when George was...[read on]

Visit Heidi Diehl's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Elliot Ackerman

Elliot Ackerman is the author of the novels Waiting for Eden, Dark at the Crossing, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and Green on Blue. He is both a former White House Fellow and Marine, and served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart.

Ackerman's new memoir is Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning.

From the transcript of his interview with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly:

KELLY: It also prompts the question of - as you look at the Middle East now, to what extent it's all one war?

ACKERMAN: I think it's absolutely all one war, and I think that's been one of the things and one of the reasons that I wrote this book and came back, was this intuitive understanding that whatever we announced in Iraq when we left in 2011, you know, that it wasn't over, that it's still not over today, as we're sitting here - it's still playing out. And one of the things that's been difficult, I think, for my generation of veterans is that because the wars haven't ended, every single one of us who've left the war have had to basically make a separate peace, had - to a certain point - say, you know what? I've done my last deployment. I know other people are going to be deploying. But I'm finished.

KELLY: And what does that sound like? Is it, my war is over?

ACKERMAN: I can remember many occasions talking with friends of mine, saying, you know, we wish - you know, we wish this was even like Vietnam, when it was just sort of - it was over, or the Second World War, where it was over, and we would all go on and go to business school or do whatever we were going to do next, and it was clear there was no choice to be made; this was done.

And for this generation of veterans, I think that's been complicated because...[read on]

Visit Elliot Ackerman's website.

The Page 69 Test: Green on Blue.

My Book, The Movie: Green on Blue.

My Book, The Movie: Dark at the Crossing.

The Page 69 Test: Dark at the Crossing.

Writers Read: Elliot Ackerman (February 2017).

--Marshal Zeringue

Amy Mason Doan

Amy Mason Doan's new novel is Summer Hours.

From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: In our previous interview, you described Summer Hours as "a female nod to The Graduate with a touch of The Sure Thing." How did you come up with that concept, and with your character Becc?

A: I’ve always wanted to write a feminist, gender-swapped homage to The Graduate. My rendition is different in many ways, but the post-graduate confusion, generational conflicts, and central love triangle are there.

In The Graduate, Ben Braddock is torn between an older woman, Mrs. Robinson, and the woman his own age, the more innocent Elaine. In Summer Hours, Becc grapples with her feelings for an older man and her innocent best friend, Eric, who’s loved her for years.

It’s shocking to me that it hasn’t been done before, because it’s such a juicy, iconic story that’s ripe for reinterpreting from a female point of view. And it brilliantly examines our timeless post-grad fears: I’m worried about my future. What if I turn into my parents?

I went to U.C. Berkeley, where much of The Graduate takes place, and I was a reporter for 20 years. So I can’t hide the fact that Becc is essentially a much bolder version of me when I was younger.

Lost and jobless, she has a secret summer fling with...[read on]

Visit Amy Mason Doan's website.

Writers Read: Amy Mason Doan (August 2018).

--Marshal Zeringue

Clay Risen

Clay Risen's latest book is The Crowded Hour: Theodore Roosevelt, the Rough Riders, and the Dawn of the American Century.

From the transcript of his interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep:

INSKEEP: Well, were [Roosevelt's Rough Riders] hugely famous when the United States organized an army and invaded Cuba in 1898?

RISEN: Absolutely. You know, there was this moment in 1898 where I think - and this is the significance of the war - is that it changed how America thinks about its military and about its role in the world. And it gave a positive spin to the idea that American can have a military and should go out into the world to intervene, to bring freedom.

And for a lot of people, even at the time - and editorialists wrote about this. They said the Rough Riders are emblematic of that new America, of this idea that we have this power and we have this - the strength and these values at home. And now we're going to arm them and take them out into the world. And to me, that resonates throughout the 20th century. Time after time, we do that same sort of thing.

INSKEEP: So let's note this is the beginning of the idea of America going out into the world to make the world a better place by force when that seems to make sense to Americans. But there's also the identity of the individuals themselves. What did the personnel of the Rough Riders suggest to Americans about who America was?

RISEN: Well, this is one of the ironies because one of the things that Roosevelt talked about and one of the things that he valued about the Rough Riders was this was not just his idea about American masculinity but also what in his mind was diversity, but within a very narrowly prescribed idea about what diversity was. They were all...[read on]

The Page 99 Test: A Nation on Fire.

Visit Clay Risen's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Hilary Davidson

Hilary Davidson’s debut novel, The Damage Done, won the 2011 Anthony Award for Best First Novel, and the Crimespree Award for Best First Novel. The second book in the series is The Next One to Fall and the third is Evil in All Its Disguises. Davidson’s first standalone novel, Blood Always Tells, was published by Tor/Forge in April 2014.

Her new novel is One Small Sacrifice.

From Davidson's Q&A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: How did you come up with the idea for One Small Sacrifice, and for your character Detective Sheryn Sterling?

A: I like to joke that writing a mystery is like playing an extended game of “What If?,” but it’s actually true.

Writing One Small Sacrifice started with questions that I kept turning over in my mind. What if you had a suspect whose fiancée has suddenly gone missing under strange circumstances, and what if that same suspect had been involved in the death of another woman a year earlier? What if the NYPD detective who’s investigating him has become obsessed with the case, and what if her own family history is influencing her decisions about the case?

The wonderful thing about writing from multiple viewpoints is that it allows you to delve into the mind of each character and explore their motivations, and that drives the plot. Where the characters come from is harder to explain: I could hear Detective Sterling’s voice when I started writing the book, and it came with...[read on]

Learn more about the book and the author at the official Hilary Davidson site.

The Page 69 Test: The Damage Done.

The Page 69 Test: Blood Always Tells.

The Page 69 Test: One Small Sacrifice.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jamie Metzel

Jamie Metzl is a technology futurist and geopolitical expert, novelist, entrepreneur, media commentator, and Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council. His new book is Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity.

From the transcript of Metzl's interview with Fareed Zakaria:

ZAKARIA: So the basic message of the book seems to me to be the genetic revolution is coming much faster than we think, and we are going to be able to make human beings?

METZL: Well, certainly the genetic revolution is coming much faster than we think. And it's going to change a lot of things. The first thing it's going to transform is our health care. Then it's going to change the way we make babies. Then it's going to change the nature of the babies we make. And over time, it's going to alter our -- even our evolutionary trajectory as a species. And it's a huge deal. It's coming soon, and we're not ready.

ZAKARIA: So the health care, I think, people understand, that we're now going to be able to look inside our genes to figure out what are the things that cause illnesses, perhaps fix them.

METZL: Yeah.

ZAKARIA: But the making babies part is the one that I think is most -- seems most revolutionary. Yuval Harari talks about how you -- you now might have the ability for the first time ever to really change what it means to be a human being and make, you know, much bigger, stronger, smarter human beings. Is that right?

METZL: Yeah, well, biology is at play. Our species has evolved by what we call the Darwinian principles of random mutation and natural selection for almost 4 billion years. And now, for the first time ever, and forever starting from now, we are going to have the ability to alter our biology in increasingly significant ways.

And it's going to happen in stages, all using technologies that already exist.

So the first stage is going to be using IVF and embryo selection -- and our knowledge of what -- to read the genomes of different people, to be able to select from among -- let's say it's 15 embryos in average IVF -- then we're...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Laura Tucker

Laura Tucker's new book is All the Greys on Greene Street.

From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: How did you come up with the idea for All the Greys on Greene Street, and for your character Olympia?

A: I wanted to write about an artist living in a time and place where making art was as natural as breathing.

Q: The novel takes place in New York City in the early 1980s. Why did you choose to set it there, and how important is setting to you in your writing?

A: Setting is really important to me; I’ve always loved books that give you insider access to special or unusual worlds. By 1981, artists and galleries had taken over a lot of abandoned industrial spaces in SoHo. I was curious to know what it would have been like to be a kid growing up there.

Q: Can you say more about why you decided to focus on artists in this novel?

A: I'm fascinated by...[read on]

Visit Laura Tucker's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Suketu Mehta

Suketu Mehta is the New York-based author of Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, which won the Kiriyama Prize and the Hutch Crossword Award, and was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize, the Lettre Ulysses Prize, the BBC4 Samuel Johnson Prize, and the Guardian First Book Award. His new book is This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant's Manifesto.

From the transcript of his interview with NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro:

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So you see immigration as a form of reparations.

MEHTA: Absolutely. The poor countries aren't asking for sacks of gold to be fetched to them. They're asking for the borders of the rich countries to be open not just to goods but to people. And you know what? When people move, everyone benefits. The rich countries benefit. And the migrants themselves benefit. And the countries that they move from benefit because the rich countries aren't making enough babies. The migrants improve their standard of living by an average of fivefold. And the best and most targeted way of helping the poor of the world is through remittances, which account for $600 billion a year.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That's when immigrants send money home to their families in the countries that they come from.

MEHTA: Exactly. Worldwide, the total of remittances are about four times all the foreign aid that was sent to the poor nations, so it's the best and most targeted way of helping the poor back in the global South.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: OK. But let's say someone accepts your premise and your facts but, frankly, just doesn't want to live in a multicultural place, believes that a country is stronger if it is unified by a common heritage.

MEHTA: Well, I would say to them, buddy, you...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

A.K. Small

A.K. Small's debut novel is Bright Burning Stars.

From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: How much did you incorporate your own experience as a ballet student into Bright Burning Stars?

A: I love this question. I think a big part of why I began writing BBS was to re-enter the world of ballet, almost like allowing myself a do-over, if you will.

I quit dance at the height of my potential and later deeply regretted my decision. I used the memory of my own “studio” and “stage” experiences a lot while drafting the story. The physical aspect of ballet and the various dance scenes are very much me inhabiting my old dancer body and...[read on]

Visit A. K. Small's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

--Marshal Zeringue

Daniel Kennefick

Daniel Kennefick is associate professor of physics at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. He is the author of Traveling at the Speed of Thought: Einstein and the Quest for Gravitational Waves and a coauthor of An Einstein Encyclopedia.

Kennefick's new book is No Shadow of a Doubt: The 1919 Eclipse That Confirmed Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

From his Q&A at the Princeton University Press blog:

What compelled you to write this book?

The story of the 1919 eclipse is one of the most dramatic and significant in the history of science, and one that I’ve always found fascinating. What compelled me to research it closely was my puzzlement about the criticisms of Eddington which I heard repeated more and more, especially while working on volume 9 the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, which covered Einstein’s life during the year 1919. I found the complaints about Eddington’s supposed bias in favor of Einstein unconvincing, especially the claim that Eddington’s pacifism was responsible for his desire to prove Einstein right. I thought that it was time someone looked closely at the actual data analysis decisions, using original documents preserved in the archives. I decided to write the book because I found the complete story of the eclipse which I put together to be fascinating and the centenary seemed like a perfect occasion to tell that story. I also felt that there was a danger that important work on the 1919 eclipse was being overlooked. As part of my research I learned that a re-analysis of the photographic plates taken in 1919 was conducted in 1978 by English astronomers at the Royal Greenwich Observatory using modern plate-measuring equipment and computers. They completely vindicated the work of the original team, and yet their re-analysis had gone totally unrecognized and unread. It was even misrepresented in the one book which did allude to it, Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. So I felt it was...[read on]

Learn more about No Shadow of a Doubt at the Princeton University Press website.

My Book, The Movie: No Shadow of a Doubt.

The Page 99 Test: No Shadow of a Doubt.

--Marshal Zeringue