Giles Foden

Giles Foden's books include The Last King of Scotland (1998), his second and most famous novel, which is set in Uganda during Idi Amin’s rule and was turned into a film in 2006.

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

What book changed your life?

Paul Muldoon’s book of poems Meeting the British (1987). I was lucky to be taught by him at university. He showed me how to mix aesthetic, political and personal concerns in the same artwork.

* * *
Which literary character most resembles you?

Lucky Jim [in Kingsley Amis’ book of the same name], for all his hapless incompetence.

* * *
What book do you wish you’d written?

Graham Greene’s A Burnt-Out Case. It’s a brilliant evocation of Africa and of the artistic personality.

Read the complete Q & A.

--Marshal Zeringue

Alyssa Katz

Alyssa Katz is the author of Our Lot: How Real Estate Came to Own Us.

From her Q & A with Mark Schone at Salon:

Isn't homeownership actually good for you? I thought it was the panacea for almost all social ills, it drove the crime rate down, educational achievement up, and so on.

Yes, well, homeownership is only as good as the amount of home you actually own, and I think the big problem in the last generation or so is that Americans have turned to more and more and more debt to reach for the American dream.

There's a lot of great examples out there -- the Nehemiah homes that transformed East New York in Brooklyn from a really devastated and dangerous place to someplace that's still really poor and has a high crime rate but has an opportunity to really grow and have a stable bunch of families really invested in building a home there. So all that's great. Certainly there's a lot of evidence that homeowners do tend to stay in one place for longer, their kids perform better in school. They tended to be more involved in local politics, community affairs, and block cleanups. The problem is, it's very hard to separate out the effects of homeownership itself from the fact that people who have a certain economic or social standing are more likely statistically to be homeowners in the first place.

Does this mean that we shouldn't actively encourage homeownership, using government money or government policy?

I think there's nothing wrong with using government money, policy, pressure, all those tools to make homeownership more of a possibility than it would otherwise be in the marketplace, simply because the market left to its own devices discriminates aggressively. It rewards people who already have wealth, who have already had a leg up economically, and it's great to give other people the opportunity as well.

The problem is...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Carleen Brice

Carleen Brice was named 2008 “Breakout Author of the Year” by The African American Literary Awards Show for her debut novel Orange Mint and Honey, which was also a selection of the Essence Book Club. She is also the author of Walk Tall:Affirmations for People of Color, and Lead Me Home: An African American’s Guide Through the Grief Journey and edited the anthology Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number: Black Women Explore Midlife. Her new novel is Children of the Waters.

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

OW: CHILDREN OF THE WATERS touches on so many issues—chronic illness, family secrets, interracial relationships, challenging pregnancies, holistic healing, self-esteem. May we ask how you came to write this novel? Did any characters or storylines jump out at you above any others?

CB: Well, the nugget of the story–the relationship with Trish and Billie–is based on a true story. One of my sisters-in-law is biracial and her family put her up for adoption and kept her older sister who is white. In real life she was adopted by a white family, so when her white birth sister found her, race wasn’t much of an issue. (And unlike Billie she was actually immediately very close with her birth sister.) There was also a young woman who worked for me years ago who discovered at a young age that her birth mother was Native American. Those two stories fascinated me. And truth be told I have a half sister who I’ve never met, and yet here I’ve written two books with characters who are half sisters. We’ve recently been in touch and I hope we’ll meet one day soon. As far as interracial relationships go, my husband is white.

One brother was married to a biracial woman and all his in-laws were white. My other brother is married to a Latina. Our family is, like many, many families in this country, quite a mixed bag. I’m fascinated by reconciliation and how the past affects us even if we don’t think it does. So family secrets and dynamics are something I’m just naturally drawn to.[read on]

Read more about Children of the Waters.

Visit Carleen Brice's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

Gregg Hurwitz

Keith Raffel asked some questions of Gregg Hurwitz about his new book, Trust No One. A sample:

The Sunday Telegraph says, "The breathtaking pace of this thriller is set from the opening scene." How do you keep it going?

This is far and away my fastest paced book. So the challenge was to keep that momentum hurtling forward while not sacrificing character or plausibility. It was something of a balancing act, and I hope readers find that I pulled it off.

Are you writing what Graham Greene called an "entertainment?" Or are you shooting for more?

I always put it all out there on the page. I never feel like I'm done with a book until it has - after draft upon draft - thoroughly exhausted me. But at the same time, I'm wary of drawing my own conclusions about my work. I am all about story. At the end of the day, I want to write the best goddamn tale I can and if readers find something more there, then I'm quite pleased.[read on]

Read an excerpt from Trust No One and watch the video trailer.

Learn more about the book and author at Gregg Hurwitz's website and blog.

Gregg Hurwitz is the author of several critically acclaimed thrillers, most recently The Crime Writer which was a finalist for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger and the ITW Best Novel of the Year award.

My Book, The Movie: The Crime Writer.

The Page 69 Test: Trust No One.

--Marshal Zeringue

Robert Wilson

Robert Wilson is the author of seven novels, including A Small Death in Lisbon, which won the Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of 1999 from Britain's Crime Writers Association. A graduate of Oxford University, he has worked in shipping, advertising, and trading in Africa, and has lived in Greece and West Africa. He lives in Portugal and Oxford, England.

From his Q & A with Julia Buckley:

Your novel THE IGNORANCE OF BLOOD is the fourth and last in the Javier Falcón series. Is it difficult to say goodbye to a character that you’ve gotten to know so intimately?

As you now know from The Blind Man of Seville Javier was not in a good mental state when I first met him. He was divorced, struggling with his father’s death, tending towards the introspective and not getting on well with his homicide squad. He also had this terrible sense of being on the edge of a great abyss, something in his mind that he knew but did not know, a feeling that a monstrous revelation was about to surface and break him as a human being. By the time he finishes his four book journey I believe that he is in a much better place. He has been dismantled, put back together, re-equipped and revived. So I leave him with no sadness on my part, but with a feeling of a job well done. It had always been important to me, in a reversal of the normal series character, that my protagonist would change. And he does, for the better.

Your biography reveals that you are an extremely well-traveled man, and as a result, you say that “I realised that there were other ways of thinking and doing things that were just as valid as my own.” Does this objectivity affect the way that you create characters?

That realization was...[read on]

Visit Robert Wilson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lisa See

Lisa See's most recent book is Shanghai Girls.

From her Q & A at Powell's:

Aside from other writers, name some artists from whom you draw inspiration and talk a little about their work.

Bob Dylan. It's a funny thing, but I didn't love him all that much when I was younger. My mom had his early albums, and I was aware of his songs and all that, but I wasn't particularly passionate about him in the same way I was for, say, the Stones. When his voice went, I didn't care for him at all. Then, when I was on book tour in the Bay Area for one of the mysteries, I had a media escort who played Time Out of Mind over and over again as we drove together day after day. The escort was a huge Dylan fan. She'd been to lots of concerts over the years, so she talked to me about his work, even from the "off" years, and about the songs we were listening to. Maybe it's because I heard that CD so many times — literally over and over again for five days — that something just clicked. I finally heard what I needed to hear. (Or maybe I was brainwashed.) Over these past few years, I've become fascinated by the way Dylan can tell a whole story in just a few minutes, how he plays with words, and how things don't necessarily have to follow a linear progression. I even got XM radio in my car so I can listen to The Bob Dylan Theme Time Radio Hour. I have to drop everything and go for a drive so I can listen to it. He'll take a single word or concept — rain, Cadillacs, or presidents — and play archival pieces related to that particular theme. The music is interesting and often it's stuff I've never heard before, but what I love most are Dylan's musings on the theme. He has one weird mind.[read on]

Also check out See's interview with Kate Merkel-Hess at The China Beat.

The Page 99 Test: Lisa See's Peony in Love.

--Marshal Zeringue

J. Courtney Sullivan

From a Q & A with J. Courtney Sullivan about her new novel, Commencement:

Q. One of COMMENCEMENT’s protagonists, Celia Donnelly, is an Irish girl from Milton, MA, who moves to New York after graduation. You’re an Irish girl from Milton who moved to New York after graduation. Is Celia—or any of the characters—modeled after you?

A: For the most part, every character in COMMENCEMENT—Celia very much included—is made up of material that’s about ten percent borrowed from real life, and ninety percent pure fiction. There are definitely a lot of similarities between me and Celia: we live in the same neighborhood in Brooklyn, our upbringings were similar, we sort of look alike, and as children we both took embarrassing Irish step dancing classes that left us completely unable to dance like normal people. But Celia is much more of a wild child than I ever was. She’s fairly apolitical, while I am obsessed with politics and women’s issues. Politically, I am most aligned with April. And I guess there’s a bit of me in Sally, too—I am a total neat freak, and have even been known to wash my keys in soapy water now and again, as Sally does. (Think of how dirty they get!) There are small similarities between me and every one of my characters: I share Bill’s love of W.H. Auden and Bree’s love of Dolly Parton. But then again, part of the fun of writing a novel is living vicariously: Last year, when I desperately wanted to get a dog, I gave one to Celia instead. She has a closet full of fabulous designer clothes, while I have six black sweaters with varying necklines.

Q: In the same vein, are any of the characters based on your friends?

A: When I was a student at Smith, I met ...[read on]

Visit J. Courtney Sullivan's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Robert Fate

Jugglers at the Border, Robert Fate's fourth Baby Shark novel, is due out in September 2009.

From his interview at Meanderings and Muses:

You know, women in the 1950s were a whole lot different than they are today in a whole lot of ways (was that an understatement?). Back then, a young woman in her early 20s would most likely be married and a "stay at home mom." Kristin is a far cry from that stereotype. Even knowing the brutality that is part of what makes Baby who she is, you really don't explain why she seems determined to stay single. The love between her and her adoring Lee seems strong enough to warrant a commitment in the way of marriage. Will we be learning more about this inability to commit on Kristin's part as the series goes on?

I’m glad you asked about this. I have never wanted any aspect of Kristin’s existence to seem to be a literary device, not her personal life, the incidents of family life she remembers before the deaths of her mother and father, nor her friendships and infatuations, and especially not her love life. I have never felt an inclination to overly expose her private life and have tried to handle those matters in a realistic but considerate way. On the one hand, I think the reader has a right to know, but Kristin has her right to privacy, as well.

Kristin had as normal a childhood as was possible with her father “off at war” the better part of her early years, and then “off shooting pool” after he came back from the Pacific. She was allowed to love him in spite of his truancy, because her mother did. She never heard him condemned for not coming home to stay after the war, but rather they read his letters together that told of his adventures on the road, as they had read his letters from the South Seas. He explained himself to his daughter in the first book as she was deciding whether to go with him, and her response showed the hard-nosed, clear-eyed view of life and compromise that has come to define her as the self-contained warrior we know.

Kristin dropped out of high school and went on the road with her father after her mother died. This was her choice. She was sixteen, resilient, and willing to live out of the backseat of her dad’s Cadillac just to be with him. Then, at age seventeen, after witnessing her father’s murder, she was brutally raped by three men, beaten senseless, and left for dead in a burning building. So, I ask you sincerely, how in the world could anybody expect her to have a normal, loving relationship with anyone after that? Especially a suitor. She needed time to heal.

Indeed, she is nineteen before she can bring herself to even chance a relationship and that ends badly before it can get properly started. So, having been set back again, she kisses a few frogs along the way, but has no success in finding love until she is twenty-one and meets Lee Pierson, the romantic detective. This is in Beaumont Blues. There are complications; it is not easy, but they want it to work, so it does and she ends the book with a boyfriend.

All right, Kaye––I am finally to your question. In High Plains Redemption Kristin discusses with Henry what it is that is keeping her relationship with Lee from becoming more serious. Lee is a police detective and in her pursuit of justice she sometimes finds herself on the other side of the law. If she is truthful with him about some of the things she and Otis have done, she is presenting him with a moral dilemma, as well as putting herself, Otis, and even Henry in danger of arrest. Plus, she sees it as unfair to ask Lee to make choices between the oath he has taken as a police officer to uphold the law, and the temptation of letting her slide on acts for which he would ordinarily arrest people. It’s not easy. She loves Lee, but she can’t be truthful with him. He’s no dummy. He gets it and doesn’t try to press her, because he doesn’t want to lose her. So book three ends with them ignoring the elephant in the room, and not trying too hard to resolve the issues that have them stalemated.

In Jugglers at the Border, book four, you will find Kristin and Lee more relaxed in their roles and a hint––but only a hint––of how they might solve their impasse.

Read the complete Q & A.

The Page 69 Test: Baby Shark.

--Marshal Zeringue

Wednesday Martin

Wednesday Martin has worked as writer and social researcher in New York City for almost two decades. She was a regular contributor to New York Post’s parenting and lifestyle pages for several years, and her work has appeared in a number of national magazines including Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Fitness. Martin was also a features editor at Woman’s World. She earned her doctorate in comparative literature from Yale and taught cultural studies and literature at Yale, The New School, and Baruch College. A stepmother for nine years, she lives in New York City with her husband and their two sons.

Her new book is Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do. From a Q & A at the official website:

Q: Are you a stepmonster?

A: I've certainly had my days! And what became clear to me in the researching and writing of this book was that, contrary to what I had believed when I first got involved with a man who has kids, that's true of most women with stepkids. We have all had days when we feel wicked or evil. Being in a tough situation and feeling compelled to fix it, and then feeling like a failure when it comes to repairing someone else's dysfunctional family will do that to a person!

Q: Is that why you wrote the book?

A: In part, yes. It was cathartic for me to write about my own feelings of frustration and failure, certainly, and to find that these were common emotions for women with stepchildren to feel.

But I also wrote the book that I wanted to read but couldn't find. As I struggled to figure out how to relate to my husband's kids and to deal with being a stepmother, I couldn't find many books out there that went beyond formulaic advice that felt impossible to follow at the time. Like "Don't take it personally" and "Let it go or you'll regret it."

I wanted a book that...[read on]

Read an excerpt from Stepmonster, and learn more about the book and author at Wednesday Martin's website and blog.

The Page 99 Test: Stepmonster.

--Marshal Zeringue

Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Carlos Ruiz Zafón, author of Shadow of the Wind and other books, is one of Spain’s bestselling authors. His new novel is The Angel's Game.

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

What book changed your life?

Discovering the world of books changed my life: I discovered the magic of the printed word.
* * *

What was the first novel you read?

Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days.
* * *

What are you most proud of writing?

I’m just proud of surviving the writing of my books and giving them to others. I’m fond of all my books – they’re all my little monsters so despite their defects I’m proud of them.

Read the complete Q & A.

--Marshal Zeringue