Books That Kill, by Josh Stallings

 

Q: Have there been recent novels which had you laughing, crying, clinging to the edge of your seat?

A: That is a tall order, there are very few books I’ve read with that wide a swath of emotions. And seeing as Criminal Minds has the word Criminal in the title, it seems like the book's being crime fiction is implied. Also “recent” so the masters are out. Tall but not impossible.

First up is Charlie Huston’s CATCHPENNY. It is a quintessential LA novel. A young man follows his rock star dreams to LA. He has the looks and voice to make it, but the town being what it is chews him up, takes his love and leaves him broken and that is just the back story. When we meet Sidney Catchpenny he is a jaded sneak thief working for very dangerous people. It’s a crime novel. 

There is a missing 16 year-old girl who is needed to save human kind. It’s a thriller. 

And in his world magic is real. Sid can travel through mirrors, but pays highly every time he uses magic. It’s a fantasy novel or maybe urban-fantasy. 

It’s actually all of those things and more, and this points to the problem with rigid definitions in genre fiction. At its core it is about over coming the bleak world view that traumatic loss creates inside us.

“The whole internet is like a giant mirror. A swampy reflecting pool for the world. Viscous and unclean, mottled, distorting.” — Charlie Huston, CATCHPENNY.

It is about the power of hope to bring us together. For readers of Huston this may sound out of character, but trust me it’s not. It is a tough world that he never shies away from. His earlier works showed brilliantly how and why people could be broken, in CATCHPENNY he suggests a way we can heal. 

“I let myself imagine that it mattered, my voice. Vanity again. But also this. Imagine this. I let myself dream that my voice had a place in this that nothing else could have filled.” — Charlie Huston, CATCHPENNY.

For the last year I have been dipping in and out of an ever darkening depression. Reading CATCHPENNY something shifted. I saw a way to climb out. It is a brilliantly written thrill ride. The final chapters kept me reading all night. Charlie Huston has never been better.

"I absolutely loved it. Catchpenny is a brilliant book, full of heart and the language is pitch-perfect. If Elmore Leonard had ever written a fantasy novel, this would be it.” —Stephen King

Tana French’s, THE HUNTER is the follow up to THE SEARCHER. Cal Hooper, is back as the blown-in retired Chicago Detective living in a small village in the West of Ireland. French captures the claustrophobic feeling and real danger of living in a community where everybody knows your business and rumors spread fast and have real consequences. Trey Reddy, the half-feral teenager Cal is training in life and carpentry has her life torn up when her criminal father comes home spreading dreams of a gold rush coming to town. It all goes to hell and town folk look for whom to give to the Garda.

In Cal and his woman friend Lena, Tana French gives us a portrait of flawed but truly moral people whose behavior we can all aspire to. THE HUNTER is scary and funny and poignant. Tana French is a writer who just keeps getting better.

Gary Phillips’, ASH DARK AS NIGHT follows Harry Ingram in Los Angeles 1965 as he documents and tries to make sense of the Watts uprising or riot depending on your neighborhood and political bent. On one level it is a pitch perfect detective novel. A photo journalist hired to find a man who disappeared in mayhem is beaten down by dirty cops and cruel gagsters. Zooming back you see it is also a social novel, looking at what was happing in 1965 and how it affected communities of color. Watts is not seen as a monolith. Phillips shows a wide palette of people and opinions. True believing Communists, a bank robbing activist, conservative business owners, and free thinking artists. Phillips’ love for them all creates a world I want to hang out in. It is also a scary world where LAPD can grab and beat you with no fear of repercussions. It is factually right on, and that makes it even more frightening.

“For thirty years Phillips has been a must-read writer, and One-Shot Harry is probably his best ever—tense and suspenseful, of course, but also deep, resonant and intelligent. It's a story that needed to be told, and therefore a book that needs to be read.” —Lee Child

ASH AS DARK AS NIGHT is the second in the A Harry Ingram Mystery series and should be mandatory reading for lovers of crime fiction and everyone else. Gary Phillips paints a more truthful picture of LA in the 60’s than any history book I’ve read. 

Phillips does all this with his trademark humor, heart, and unrelenting action. You will find yourself laughing, crying, and clinging to the edge of your seat, I know I did.

“In the tradition of Dashiell Hammett . . . Makes us feel that the war he’s waging is for our own salvation.” —Walter Mosley

Here are a few others that I’ve read in the last year and continue to reverberate in my head.

THE HEAVEN & EARTH GROCERY STORE, by James McBride.

PEDRO PARĀMO, by Juan Rulfo.

DEATH IN THE ANDES, by Mario Vargas Llosa.

What books tick all your boxes? How do you feel about genre and sub-genre definitions, helpful, hurtful, or ya don’t even think about them?

                                                 *******

What I’m reading now, THE FITH SEASON, by N.K. Jemisin. 

On deck to read next, THE FLAMETHROWERS, by Rachel Kushner.

Everybody’s Talking at Me, The Art of Dialogue, by Josh Stallings

Q:  Share your tips for writing believable dialogue. What separates good dialogue from poor, and how do you strike a balance between too much and too little in a scene/book?

A: David Mamet said he always carries a pad and pen with him so when he overheard good dialogue he wrote it down. When I steal words from a chainsaw sculptor, it isn’t theft, it’s an homage. I try and always have a Moleskine notebook and a Fisher Bullet Space Pen with me to capture story ideas and snippets of dialogue that I either hear in my head or in the world around me.

In the early stages of writing a new character they tend to sound wooden. It takes me getting to know them well enough to dial in how they think and feel. Cisco in TRICKY was easy to start with because he was based on my son Dylan. I’ve listened to Dylan his whole life, his rhythm, word choice, and humor all came through. As I got deeper into the writing, Cisco’s life growing up in East LA added its own flavor to the dialogue.

Grandpa Hem in the same novel grew up in Deaf Smith Texas. My friend Amy loves a good turn of phrase. She was raised in Texas and she had a relative who used to say, “It’s hotter than two rats fucking in a wool sock.” That became a touchstone to Hem’s dialogue. I made the mistake of googling Texas Slang. Every phrase I found came out corny. I’ve spent time in Texas so it is best to draw on what I’ve heard than to trust Google. A little regionalism goes a long way. Planting a line like rats fucking early on tunes the reader’s ear so that they will hear all that character's dialogue with the tone or accent. Little things help remind them. “Git.” instead of “Time for you to leave.” Lets you know it’s Hem talking.

I write until I know a character and then go back and revise early dialogue. I also have a file about every character and as I discover more about them I add to their bio description. I note if they are frivolous with their words or miserly. Do they want to sound better educated than they are because they feel insecure? Do they front with street slang to sound tough and cover fear? By building this file I can refer to it a hundred pages later when they reappear and I’ve forgotten what color their eyes were or that they spoke in broken Spanglish in chapter two.

I have been told by enough women to believe them that I write wonderful female characters. I’ve been asked how I do it. Simple. I have never written a woman character. I have written many characters that are women. Gender identity, affectional orientation, cultural, or racial backgrounds are not characters. They are monolithic generalizations and of very little value when writing a character’s dialogue. 

A good place to study dialogue is by reading plays. David Mamet’s American Buffalo is a master class in rhythm. Sam Shepard’s True West delivers complete fully rounded flawed characters using only dialogue. I love films, but a screenplay relies on knowing it is a visual medium. So much can be said with a close up on an actor, that the dialogue doesn’t need to carry the work. When reading a play I was taught to only read the dialogue. Stage directions of any kind are almost always written by the stage manager after the play has been mounted and might not reflect what the writer was thinking at all.

Find writers whose dialogue speaks to you. Reread their books and ask yourself “Why do I like this? How does it work?” Take it apart and look at the lines. Steal freely.     

 Here are a couple of books with dialogue I dig… 

Set in LA 1963 Gary Phillips’ One-Shot Harry subtly uses dialogue to remind the reader of the era and place without ever clubbing you over the head with it. He writes about Black characters that come from every educational level and social strata.

Jordan Harper’s Everybody Knows covers characters from multiple levels of LA’s social classes. Actors, film makers, petty thieves, executives, cops, each with their own coded language. He captures but never mocks his characters. 

In Lou Berney’s Dark Ride he writes with love and respect about a stoner slacker thrown into a situation that calls forth his need to be a hero or as close to an approximation of a hero as he can pull off. It vibes a Hitchcockian everyman for our times. Written in first person even the descriptions read like dialogue. 

“I’m the kid in the back row, moving his lips and just pretending to sing. I’m the dude with a fake badge and a toy gun. The dumbest thing you can do, if you’re someone like me, is believe you can be more than you are.” — Dark Ride: A Thriller by Lou Berney  

I haven’t answered the last two parts of this question. How do I know good dialogue? It’s like the court’s take on pornography vs art, I know good dialogue when I read it. It’s one of those intuitive things that ultimately inform what becomes our individual voices. 

How much is too much or too little dialogue? Same answer as above. Tana French’s Murder Squad books all come down to these incredibly long dialogue driven interrogations. They read almost like transcriptions of an interview. It gives a level of authenticity that’s hard to achieve. I haven’t ever used that much dialogue, but I’m damn glad she does. Her books sing a brutal tune that I love to read. As a writer or a reader there are NO RULES… Okay, there is one rule, everything is possible if you can pull it off. I’m not Tana French, I love what she does but I’ll leave real time interrogations to her.

Last thought - I have been lucky enough to work with editors I trust to guide me when I stray too far off the map. And editors who push me when I stay too safely inside the known lines.

These Books Are Not For Burning by Josh Stallings

Q: The building’s on fire, what books do you save?

A: Easy, the books that matter are my signed editions. This year Thomas Pluck gifted me with signed first editions of most of James Crumley’s oeuvre. Tom knows how important Crumley is to me. The Moses McGuire trilogy is a love letter to Crumley’s tarnished drunken knights. Three books were missing, Dancing Bear, luckily my friend Steven Hertzog gave me a signed first edition years ago. That leaves only A Right Madness and The Wrong Case, (weirdly these are his first and last detective novels,) I will find them sooner or later.

So after I make sure Erika, our sons, and the four legged beasties are safe, I will run back in for the Crumleys and that’s it.

Charlie signed this to our son Jared after seeing his punk band play.

Ok that and the books Charlie Huston signed to me and my family. He has been a friend and supporter since I first stumbled onto the crime scene. That’s six Crumleys and seven Hustons. Nothing else.

Except for November Road, a brilliant book, and Lou Berney signed it with a wonderful note to Erika and I. 

Looking on my shelf Bad Boy Boogie screams, “Yo gonna let me fry?” How could I leave signed Thomas Pluck books behind? 

I have signed copies from my oldest best mate, fantasy writer Tad Williams. Young Americans is dedicated to him for good reason. We lived through so much, and more to go.

It’s been said that book are old friends. These are old friends written and signed by dear friends. Picking up Monday’s Lie, I remember Jamie Mason signing it at Bouchercon San Diego. I moderated a panel she was on. I had no idea we would remain good friends over the years. 

Every book here has memories attached of the book and the writer. When Erika couldn't make a conference, Catriona McPherson signed a copy of Scot Free to her.

The first time we met Terry Shames was at Noir Bar Los Angeles, she signed a copy of her first book to Erika. She remains one of my favorite writers and people. So yeah, her books are coming.  

What about Eric Beetner or Gary Phillips’ books? Johnny Shaw? Todd Robinson? Sara J. Henry? Hillary Davidson? All great writers and old friends. Yeah, their books are coming along. 

Stuart Neville added a drawing to his signature. As did Scott Phillips when he signed Ice Harvest. Got to keep those.

I have a copy of Chandler’s “Farewell My Lovely” published in Russia and signed to me from actor Victor Wong. He was in a movie I wrote and edited that was shot in Russia. This book has personal value and the back where it explains english idioms to Russian readers is priceless.

And the books of Ian Ayris, my brother from another world. Ian signed April Skies to me  praising my memoir, “It helped me more than you will ever know.” I feel the same way about his work.  

Ok, tally up time. I count thirty six heavy books that must be saved. Maybe I can drag those out of a fire in one trip… maybe… until Erika chimes in, “What about the children's books we read to the boys?” I look at the covers and remember reading to Dylan and Jared. I read Where the Wild Things Are so many times I could read it with my eyes closed, and I did some nights. 

I just asked Jared if he remembers any particular books he was read. “Yeah, Where the Wild Things Are, Everyone Poops, and Goodnight Moon.” The children's books survived the move to the mountains and the downsizing of our life, they will not burn. Not even hypothetically.

Erika’s beautifully bound with original art work Folio editions? Yep. Those are simply too beautiful to let burn.

Books have been a part of my life since before I was me. They are attached to memories, they are gossamer threads that help me drift back. Winnie the Pooh is a very little me lying on my father playing with a Steiff bear and hearing the words rumble up deep and rich from his chest. 

Peter Pan is my mother reading to us from the very book she was read to as a child. It was faded and magical. My mother was Wendy and we were her wild children.

What books would I save? 

All of them, clearly. Wouldn’t you?

Genre? We Don't Need No Stinking Genre, by Josh Stallings

Q: Okay, we write about crime, but if you had to dip a toe into another genre, which would you add to the mix, and why?

A: This is a wonderful question in that it runs my mind down multiple tracks of thought. I call myself a crime writer, and yet I’m not sure I believe in genre except as a way to organize bookstore shelves. 

Gary Phillips One-Shot Harry is clearly a crime book, and it is equally a historical novel about race, civil rights, politics and the police in 1963 Los Angeles. It is also a fine and wonderful novel. 

Naomi Hirahara’s Clark and Division is crime fiction, and it is a historical novel depicting Japanese Americans who, when released from mass incarceration were sent to live in Chicago. It can be read and enjoyed as a mystery, but the facts and history lessons buried in it are unavoidable. And this is where genre lets us down, no good book is just one thing, or even two for that matter. 

Is Steinbeck’s reworking of Arthurian legends in Tortilla Flat a crime novel? Danny and his mates commit crimes, they are in and out of jail. The story without the writer’s voice could be noir. Crime novel or character study or…?

  

Is To Kill A Mocking Bird a crime novel, legal thriller, or a coming of age novel? It has elements of all of these, as does any great book regardless of the genre we place it in.

SUB GENRES:

Inside crime writing we have Traditional, Hard Boiled, Noir, Cozy, Detective, Police Procedural, Spy, Heist, etc…. That’s before we get to thrillers and all its hyphenates. (I’m sure I’ve left many out.) 

I think of crime fiction like the blues. John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, BB King, and Mississippi John Hurt all work within the same 12 bars, 3 chords, 6 notes constraint. And yet they each express their own voice inside it. Chicago Blues and Delta Blues have less in common than Agatha Christie and Raymond Chandler yet they are in the same section of iTunes. And even with the simplicity of the blues, these artists spent their lives exploring those 12 bars. 

So far everything I’ve written fits into crime fiction, but I have danced in multiple sub-genres. The Moses McGuire trilogy was spot on hard boiled. Then I wrote a memoir. Then a disco heist novel. 

With Tricky I wanted to write about a good cop like my grand father had been. I also needed to speak to how intellectually disabled people are treated by the police. Katrina Niidas Holm at Mystery Scene Magazine wrote, “Stallings manages to entertain while advocating for criminal justice reform and calling out unexamined societal biases.” Which sounds like a social justice crime novel, yet it is categorized as a police procedural.

I start every new book with a wisp of an idea so ephemeral that anything as solid as genre would blow it away. This is totally true, until it isn’t. Coming off the Moses books I was beat. Looking for a new idea I thought about writing a story harkening back to my misspent youth as a glitter kid in the ‘70s. The words, “Disco Heist” came to me. Hadn’t a clue what it meant except that heist was a sub genre. Excluding Young Americans, I wait until the book is done and with the help of my agent and editor we discover a marketing approach, part of that will be discovering the best genre to place it in. 

And there it is, I just stumbled onto why I don’t think of genre when working; trying to decide how to sell a car before you even know if will have wheels or wings, or could be a boat, doesn’t help me as a writer. (Side note, genre also doesn’t help me as a reader.)

Back to the question, are their other genres I might try out? Sure. I am enamored with Emily St. John Mandel’s work. I would love to write a post-apocalyptic tale like her Station Eleven. The way she drifts through time and place with a powerful emotional through line is stunning. I’ve also had a western kicking around my head for a while… We’ll have to see if either of these climb their way to the top of my to-be-written pile.

My current work in progress may not have any crime in it. I pitched my agent a rough outline. Added, “Bad news, it may not be crime fiction.” She told me it didn’t matter, just pour my heart into it. And that’s what I’ll do. Pour my heart on the page and let marketing figure out this genre deal.