Archives for August 2016

Thanks to the “Cyberlibrarian” for this review of “Bedlam’s Door”

August 31, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

The Cyberlibrarian: Reviews and Views on Current Literature

Welcome to my blog. I am Miriam Downey, the Cyberlibrarian. I am a retired librarian and a lifelong reader. I read and review books in four major genres: fiction, non-fiction, memoir and spiritual. My goal is to relate what I read to my life experience. I read books culled from reviews in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Bookmarks, and The New Yorker. I also accept books from authors and publicists. I am having a great time. Hope you will join me on the journey.

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Bedlam’s Door: True Tales of Madness and Hope

by Mark Rubinstein MD

Thunder Lake Press 2016

275 pages Nonfiction

Dr. Mark Rubinstein is a physician and psychiatrist, but in his heart, he is a storyteller. He has published several novels and medical nonfiction works over the years in addition to practicing psychiatry. Bedlam’s Door, his newest book, is a series of reminiscences about patients he encountered through his years as a psychiatric resident and then in his private practice.

Each chapter of Bedlam’s Door is a case study, from a Hungarian man who thinks that he is the King of the Puerto Ricans, to a suicidal woman suffering from post traumatic shock following the death of her husband. Each story is unique, heartbreaking, and eloquently told. Rubinstein says: “It’s really quite ironic. I fell in love with psychiatry because each patient—through sharing human commonalities—has a uniquely personal story.” Following each case study, Rubinstein outlines the diagnosis and the pathology, or the reason for the treatment. Often he offers a postscript to the story about how the patient fared following treatment. The after words are extremely valuable to help the reader understand the case.

My favorite story concerns a man named “Mr. Smith” who was brought to the hospital by the police. He had been hanging around a famous New York hotel, saying that he had plenty of money and that he wanted to rent a suite at the hotel. He was dressed in expensive, although worn out, clothing and was carrying a large briefcase and said that he had a lot of money inside. He looked around the hospital and decided that instead of the fancy hotel, he wanted to rent a room in the hospital. Dr. Rubinstein played along with the charade all the while trying to assess Mr. Smith’s mental stability. But it was not until Mr. Smith opened the briefcase to show the money—thousands of dollars of Monopoly money—that Dr. Rubinstein concluded that Mr. Smith really did need a room in the hospital.

Patricia, the suicidal woman suffering from post traumatic stress following her husband’s death, had been under treatment for several weeks when Dr. Rubinstein visited her and found her much calmer and more in control of her life. He mentioned that what she had needed was a chance to begin healing. Her response spoke volumes. “Thank you for not letting me make a permanent decision in a temporary frame of mind.”

The tag line of Bedlam’s Door is True Tales of Madness and Hope. Rubinstein illustrates graphically how there is almost always hope—hope that comes with intense counseling and balanced medicine. This is the great value of the book; while the stories are fascinating, the upbeat tone and implicit sense of hope pervades everything.

I have been trying to think about who benefits most from reading Bedlam’s Door. Certainly it would be valuable for medical students deciding whether to pursue careers in psychiatry, but it would also be valuable for families facing psychiatric treatment for loved ones. Dr. Rubinstein’s message of hope will resonate in many settings.

Linda Fairstein, a well known novelist, recommends Bedlam’s Door. “Bedlam’s Dooris a riveting read about madness and mental illness. Mark Rubinstein—award-winning novelist, physician, and psychiatrist—is the perfect guide for this journey through the mysteries of the mind, from despair to hope, and he does it in brilliant form. If you enjoy psychology, crime fiction, a good story, and forensics, this is a must-read book.”

Here is Mark Rubinstein’s website.

Posted by Miriam Downey

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‘With Love From the Inside,’ A Conversation with Angela Pisel

August 29, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Angela Pisel has worked as a therapist and life coach, mentoring women through various stages of their lives. With Love from the Inside is her debut novel.

With Love from the Inside focuses on Grace Bradshaw whose time is running out. She’s on death row for the murder of her infant son, and all appeals have been exhausted. Her execution date has been set and she wants her now-married daughter, Sophie, to know the truth about what really happened to her baby brother William.

Sophie hasn’t been in touch with her mother in years. She’s turned her back on her old life, keeping the details of her past hidden, even from her husband and his family. But Grace’s attorney tracks down Sophie and tells her of her mother’s impending execution, which sends Sophie digging into the past to uncover new details about her brother’s death. Will she follow evidence that might exonerate her mother but destroy the new life she’s so carefully constructed? And is her mother the monster the prosecutor made her out to be, or the loving mother Sophie recalls from childhood?

What was the inspiration for your writing With Love from the Inside?

I decided to write the book because of my obsession with TV trials. I began researching women on death row, read their stories, and wondered about their children. I tried figuring out why they ended up on death row. I wanted to explore the entire issue and determine what went wrong in their lives.

Your descriptions of the daily life on death row are harrowing. What kind of research did you do?

I read everything I could about death row. I read interviews with inmates; read books; watched documentaries; and talked to staff members at a North Carolina correctional facility in Raleigh. Death row is a horrific place filled with irony. Inmates are sentenced to death and may sit on death row for decades before being executed. They’re kept in small spaces with very little human interaction. There’s constant cursing; the sounds of toilets flushing; people screaming; and we wonder why the inmates don’t act normally in such a place. It’s especially strange when before an execution, an inmate is put on ‘death watch’ and everything is recorded: how much they weigh; what they eat; what they’re doing. The purpose is to ensure the inmate doesn’t commit suicide. The irony of it is morbidly fascinating.

With Love from the Inside makes clear that factors other than the crime itself can be determinates in prisoners ending up on death row. What are they?

It varies from state-to-state. The Supreme Court has determined that death row is supposed to be reserved for the ‘worst of the worst.’ But you will find the Green River Killer—who executed forty-eight people—got life in prison, whereas Kelly Gissendaner in Georgia, was executed but didn’t even commit the murder herself. Her boyfriend did it. It can be terribly arbitrary, depending upon where you live.

From reading the novel, one must conclude you have thoughts about the death penalty. Tell us about them.

I’m very concerned about inequality in sentencing. In addition to the Green River Killer executing forty-eight people but receiving a life sentence, there’s Richard Glossip, who is currently on death row in Oklahoma. He didn’t actually kill the victim and there’s evidence he may be innocent of the crime for which he’s been sentenced to death. One-hundred fifty-six people have been released from death row because of evidence showing they were innocent. A woman in Arizona, Deborah Milke, spent twenty-three years on death row before having the charges dismissed.

I’m also concerned about people who don’t have the resources to provide themselves with a good attorney. They’re forced to accept court-appointed attorneys who often lack experience in trying capital cases. In my home state of North Carolina, sixteen people, three of whom have been executed, were represented by lawyers who were later disbarred for unethical conduct. While these trials are sometimes viewed by some as ‘sporting events,’ they’re very serious affairs with life-or-death consequences.

With Love from the Inside also focuses on family members of death row inmates. What thoughts do you have about them?

I’m glad you asked that question. When I was researching the novel, I interviewed a woman whose father had been in and out of prison during her entire life. I really got a good look at the life of a child celebrating birthdays and holidays with a parent behind bars. The experience often has a profound impact on children who feel deprived and can also feel the parent’s incarceration is the fault of the child.

Tell us about your path to becoming a published author.

As a little girl, I always wanted to be a writer. During junior high and high school, I grew up in a small town and wrote for a local newspaper, covering sports. I was encouraged to pursue a more practical career and became an occupational therapist. My daughter developed cancer when she was two-years old—she’s doing fine now—and I used that time to start writing again.

Once I’d written With Love From the Inside, I was fortunate to find an agent, and the novel was sold to Putnam within about a month.

What do you feel is the most important lesson you’ve learned about the writing life?

I’ve learned the best reason to write is you gain satisfaction from writing.

For me, writing is a passion. I have to do it. When I’m writing, some part of me comes alive. Personal satisfaction in the process is what’s most important for me. The other thing I’ve learned is perseverance is crucial. You have to learn all the skills needed and never give up if you want to get published.

What’s coming next from Angela Pisel?

I’m working on my second book—a high-stakes family drama with another secret.

Congratulations on writing With Love from the Inside, a poignant novel written with power and grace, which takes the reader on an emotional roller-coaster.

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Thanks for the kudos about Bedlam’s Door from the “Review Broads”

August 24, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Bedlam’s Door – a review

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‘The One Man,’ A Conversation with Andrew Gross

August 23, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Andrew Gross is known to millions of readers as an internationally bestselling author of thrillers.

But, The One Man is a riveting historical thriller unlike anything else Andrew Goss has ever written. Behind the barbed wire of Auschwitz, Professor Alfred Mendl seems just like an old man who writes gibberish on scraps of paper, but the U.S. government knows Mendl’s knowledge could very well change the course of history.

U.S. Army Lieutenant Nathan Blum, an escapee from the Krakow ghetto, whose family died at the hands of the Nazis, is asked to sneak into Auschwitz on a mission to find Mendl and get him out alive.

You’re very well known for writing ‘suburban’ thrillers. What made you undertake this departure into historical fiction with The One Man?

I wanted to write stories with bigger bones. Publishing, and to some degree your own readers, typecast you into a familiar role. While I was comfortable writing stories in which you can look at a character and hold up a lens and see yourself, I felt constrained by that genre. I felt it was holding me back as a writer, and I wanted to write books more in line with what I would like to read. I wanted to expand my horizons.

The One Man is richly evocative with descriptions of military intelligence, Auschwitz, and many other World War II details. It reminds me of some of Leon Uris’s books. Tell us a bit about your research for this novel.

When you’re writing ‘suburban fiction,’ you can always wing it. In that kind of fiction, very few elements of reality are sacrosanct. When writing about the Holocaust, you can’t just make stuff up. As a Jew writing about the Holocaust, it’s sacred territory…it’s ‘Ground Zero.’ I felt an obligation to represent things not only accurately, but compellingly. I’ve been to several concentration camps. Over the years, I’ve read the litany of Holocaust books, including Night by Elie Weisel, Sophie’s Choice and many others. I had to immerse myself in many different aspects of those events: from the American attitude toward Jews during World War II, Franklin Roosevelt’s thinking, and to atomic physics, which is an important component of the book. But it was my goal to write a story about heroism, not about atrocity—so, while I wanted the landscape of the death camps to be real, I wanted to write about one man in an extraordinary situation who stood up and demonstrated heroism. I didn’t just want to add my name to the canon of Holocaust literature describing atrocity or the will to survive. But the setting was important to portray accurately.

I know from what you have said that The One Man has some very personal meanings for you. Will you tell us about that?

My father-in-law who recently died at ninety-six, came to this country six months before Poland was invaded in World War II. He never knew what happened to his entire family. He was the only one to survive the war. Because of that, he carried a mantle of guilt and loss that no one really understood. He would never talk about any of that and never wanted to go back to Warsaw because it conjured up such sad memories for him.

I wanted to understand what was behind this burden of guilt and shame that followed him here for his entire life. He was never happy and never free of his memories. His ‘Survivor’s Guilt’ intrigued me. In composing this book, I wanted to write a story that was almost the story he would have told if he could have opened up enough to tell it.

He joined the U.S. Army and was put into the OSS. He never talked about what he did there, either. While the rest of the novel is fiction, it’s really my putting into his mouth what I think he might have said had he ever opened up about things.

Do you feel you’ve taken a personal risk in writing this historical thriller as opposed to continuing with ‘suburban’ thrillers?

Absolutely. The risk began when I ended one contract with my previous publisher and began trying to sell the outline of The One Man. Various publishers wanted to take me on provided I continued to write conventional thrillers. Some didn’t want to take the risk to find out whether or not I had the chops to write an historical novel. And there was the chance some of my readers wouldn’t follow me along. But really, people always crave a great story.

So, I’m exploring a new territory and hoping I can establish myself in this genre. The business of writing commercial fiction involves a great deal of risk.

This brings me to my next question. As a successful author of thrillers, what thoughts do you have about writers being relegated to certain genres?

It’s a tough industry. From a business perspective, everyone talks about branding an author. It’s hard to sell books and especially more difficult if you’re trying to convey a new image or present a different brand. Name recognition and salability are really the defining parameters, and most authors find themselves locked into a specific genre.

The bottom line is I have to write what’s in my heart. When you do that, the best stories emerge. I’ll make this analogy: when I go to funerals, people speaking are often filled with an innate eloquence coming from the heart. Even those who aren’t storytellers can convey compellingly things about a person because their words are heartfelt.

Looking back at your career, have your writing process and style changed?

My process hasn’t changed. I learned a great deal from working with James Patterson. I outline my stories and keep the chapters relatively short. My work regimen is still the same.

My style has evolved. In the beginning, I started out writing sixty percent for pacing and forty percent for character; I now spend more time on developing people and settings than formerly. I want to deal with larger themes, and that requires a different style and more richness in my prose.

What has surprised you about the writing life?

On the positive side, I feel blessed to be able to do this. I’m so lucky I don’t have to be on a train going into Manhattan for a day’s work. I still manage to get paid for what I do during the course of a year. So, the flexibility of the writing life has changed me. It’s made me a much easier person to be around.

Negatively, it can be a frustrating life. The business is often irksome because it’s very difficult to market one’s self these days. On any given week, the bestseller list resembles the one from ten years ago.

Unless you enjoy that fully-branded status, it’s challenging to market yourself successfully in today’s publishing world.

If you could re-read any one novel as though you’re reading it for the first time, which one would it be?

I recently re-read All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren.

I’ve picked that one because it might be the most beautifully written book ever written by an American. We’re all taught it’s a book about a Huey Long figure, Willie Stark, and it’s a political novel; but my take on it is now through completely different eyes. To me, it’s the Telemachus myth about a son’s search for his own father. And that made this book incredibly beautiful for me.

What’s coming next from Andrew Gross?

Another World War II novel. It’s based on an unknown incident that’s been unearthed: the story of a British-Norwegian raid on the heavy water facilities in Norway that ended the Nazis’ attempts to create an atomic bomb. It’s an incredible David and Goliath story. I’m taking some liberties with it and doing it as a novel.

Congratulations on writing The One Man, an historical novel David Morrell called, ‘suspenseful, taut, terrific” and about which Steve Berry said, ‘The characters are intriguing, richly drawn, and wrestle with the unforgivable triangle of evil, guilt and the choices they must make.’

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‘The Wolf road,’ A Conversation with Beth Lewis

August 15, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Beth Lewis has travelled extensively and while pursuing her many interests has had close encounters with black bears, killer whales, and great white sharks. She works as a managing editor at a leading London publisher.

The Wolf Road, her debut novel, introduces the reader to Elka, a 17-year-old girl who ten years earlier, was found wandering, lost and hungry by a solitary hunter who took her in. Over the intervening decade, he taught her how to survive in a desolate post-apocalyptic land. Now, Elka is on a quest to locate her parents, but the man she thought she knew has been harboring a secret: he’s a killer and is tracking her. And she may be his next victim.

Elka is a fascinating character. How did you conceive of her?

I came up with the idea for the book from a television show, Hannibal. There was a particular scene where a girl is with her father who is a hunter. It turns out, not all is quite as it seems. There’s a question of whether or not she’s complicit in his crime or if she’s a victim. I thought that scene was very powerful, and felt it was an interesting kind of psychology to explore. Elka derived from that show fully formed, including her voice.

Speaking of voice, Elka’s narrative voice is authentic and unique. I was impressed by the fact that someone from the UK captured a Southern/wilderness speech pattern. Tell us a bit about that.

I’ve always loved the Southern storytelling tradition. I also watched so many television shows about Alaska, Canada, and the Yukon. That Southern rhythm and twang coupled with the wilderness inflections melded together into the voice of Elka. I suppose her voice is not truly authentic to any of those places, but it works quite well in a post-apocalyptic tale.

The Wolf Road is filled with beautiful details of a vast and unforgiving wilderness. How do you know so much about the wild?

I travelled through Canada when I was twenty years old and spent a good amount of time in British Colombia and on Vancouver Island. I also watched a great deal of television about those areas as well as nature shows and documentaries. I’ve read many books—especially Jack London’s novels. It’s an area of the world I absolutely love. I wish I lived there, so in a way, the novel is sort of a wish-fulfillment fantasy.

The Wolf Road deals with many things, among them is Elka’s struggle to distinguish between fact and fiction in her own recollections of her past. Will you talk about that?

I wanted to write a book about a character who had done awful things, but by the end of the novel, the reader would still want Elka to win out. Maybe there’s a sense of discomfort in the reader, but I wanted very much for the reader to remain sympathetic to her. I think Elka coming to the realization of her own past at the same time the reader does, helps maintain sympathy for her. In a sense, almost anyone is capable of forgetting the evil he or she has done, or at least, blocking it from consciousness. It was great fun revealing the extremes of Elka’s experiences to the reader.

Talk about her relationship to her parents.

All she has from her parents is a letter they wrote saying they left her with her grandmother. Though she can’t read, she memorized the letter from her grandmother having read it to her. All she remembers of her parents is a feeling she was loved. That’s what sustains her. She maintains the naïve belief they left her to find a fortune. When she actually locates them, she receives quite a shock. Realizing one’s parents are not always what they seem is quite an important part of this coming of age story.

Who are your literary influences?

My biggest influence is Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. That novel really cemented for me the importance of setting and emotion, and the raw brutality of the wild. Apart from Bronte, David Mitchell has had the biggest influence on my writing. He kick-started my wanting to become a writer. When I read Cloud Atlas, a light bulb went off in my head.

Tell us about your road to publication as a novelist.

It feels like it all happened very quickly, but it didn’t. I wrote four novels before The Wolf Road, none of which has been published. I wrote the first draft of The Wolf Road in about three months, and got an agent who was successful in finding a publisher. It’s taken two years from when I started the first draft to publication.

What’s coming next from Beth Lewis?

I’m rewriting my next book which is about four friends who discover a body. The live in a small mid-Western town which is filled with secrets, and they begin unearthing certain things with nasty consequences.

Congratulations on penning The Wolf Road, a brutal and poignant literary journey into the truth of a young woman’s origins and her path to redemption.

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‘The Wolf Road,’ A Conversation with Beth Lewis

August 14, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Elka is a fascinating character. How did you conceive of her?

Speaking of voice, Elka’s narrative voice is authentic and unique. I was impressed by the fact that someone from the UK captured a Southern/wilderness speech pattern. Tell us a bit about that.

The Wolf Road is filled with beautiful details of a vast and unforgiving wilderness. How do you know so much about the wild?

The Wolf Road deals with many things, among them is Elka’s struggle to distinguish between fact and fiction in her own recollections of her past. Will you talk about that?

Talk about her relationship to her parents.

Who are your literary influences?

Tell us about your road to publication as a novelist.

What’s coming next from Beth Lewis?

Congratulations on penning The Wolf Road, a brutal and poignant literary journey into the truth of a young woman’s origins and her path to redemption.

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‘The Heavenly Table,’ A Conversation with Donald Ray Pollock

August 7, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Donald Ray Pollock worked as a laborer and truck driver until he was 50, when he enrolled in the English program at Ohio State University. While there, his debut short story collection Knockemstiff was published. His first novel, The Devil All the Time, was published when he was 57 years old. His work has appeared in various literary journals; and in 2009, he won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize. In 2012, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship.

His second novel, The Heavenly Table, follows two interwoven stories. The first concerns the Jewett Brothers—Cane, Cob, and Chimney as they embark on a bank robbing spree from rural Georgia to Meade, Ohio. The other story follows Ellsworth and Eula Fiddler, an Ohio farming couple struggling to survive after Ellsworth is swindled out of their life’s savings.

Eventually, the paths of the Jewett Brothers and the Fiddlers cross as a huge ensemble of characters populate the pages of this sprawling novel.

The Heavenly Table is painted on an enormous canvas with two converging stories and multiple subplots. Did you outline these adventures or did they arise spontaneously?

I am a very messy writer. I began the book with the intention of writing a novel set around Camp Sherman, an army training camp built in 1917 at the edge of Chillicothe, Ohio. However, because my own “creative process” is not governed by anything even close to rational thinking, I eventually ended up with a story centered mainly around three poor sharecropper brothers from Georgia who use a pulp novel about an outlaw named Bloody Bill Bucket as the inspirational guide to change their lives. After I finally had those characters in place, I ditched the others, and then the episodes fell into place spontaneously, as I pushed the book forward.

When I sit at the desk long enough, things will happen, but I shouldn’t waste so much time, especially at my age.

Your writing style has been compared to those of Flannery O’Connor, Raymond Carver, and Cormac McCarthy. Your work has been described as Southern Gothic horror. How would you describe your style?

I’ve been heavily influenced by Southern writers, that’s for sure, especially by the way they deal with place, religion, and poverty; and by their creating quirky characters. Probably the Carver comparison came about because I come from a blue collar background and write about people stuck on the bottom rung of the system. As for ‘horror,’ it’s not the Shirley Jackson/Stephen King supernatural stuff, but rather, I write about the everyday and much, much worse real horror we see or read about in the media: murder, drug addiction, family abuse, insane religious beliefs, etc.

I think ‘Southern Ohio Gothic’ might be a more accurate label, just so people don’t get the wrong idea and figure I write about zombies or vampires. [Laughter].

You once said readers are much better at seeing themes in your work than you are. Will you talk a bit about that?

I don’t have any ‘themes’ in mind while I’m writing; and then after publication, I try not to think any more about the book than I have to. I’m usually filled with doubts about my work, so that’s just an invitation to regret what I might have done better. Also, I figured out a long time ago that I’ll never be a critic, or an intellectual. My brain just can’t seem to make the connections necessary for critical thought. I’m proof that you don’t have to be all that smart to be a writer. [Laughter].

You worked as a laborer and truck driver until you were fifty. You also once said if you had “quit drinking and started writing in my twenties as opposed to mid-forties” many things would have been different. Will you tell us about your path to becoming a highly regarded author?

One thing that’s common about people who’ve had addiction issues is we have a hard time being satisfied. After I got sober, even though I had a good job and was happily married, I still felt something was missing. Then around the time I was forty-five, I watched my father retire from the mil. It made me stop and think about my doing the same thing in another twenty years. I had this sudden urge to try to do something else with what was left of my life.

When I was in my thirties, I’d managed to get a degree in English through a program at the paper mill that paid most of the tuition for employees who wanted to take college courses. Since I’d always loved reading, I figured I’d try to learn to write. After flailing about for five years and publishing five or six short stories, I quit my job at fifty, and enrolled in the MFA program at Ohio State University. It was one of the most difficult decisions I’ve ever made, but I knew by that time I wanted to be a writer.

As far as if I’d started writing earlier, who knows? Perhaps I’d have six or seven books out by now instead of three and reside in Vermont or Montana instead of Ohio; or maybe I’d have flamed out early and ended up living in a homeless shelter somewhere. [More laughter].

Did your experiences as a factory worker and truck driver end up informing your writing?

I think what I got most out of my years working in a factory was a sense of how people talked and developed a feeling for black humor. Some of the men I worked with could joke about anything, the most terrible event, and somehow make it funny; and when you live in a world as messed-up as ours, that’s really not a bad thing to be able to do. Also, when you punch a clock for thirty-two years, you become accustomed to living by a fairly rigorous schedule, which probably makes things easier as far as showing up at the desk every day and trying to write.

The Heavenly Table captures the atmosphere of 1917 Georgia and Ohio. Did you do a great deal of research before writing the novel?

Not really. I’d already read enough history over the years about the first decades of the 20th Century to have an idea of what everyday life was like then. I did read quite a bit about America’s entry into WWI before I decided that wasn’t really my story; but other than looking up a few historical facts about automobiles and the prices of goods, I just used my imagination.

The Heavenly Table and The Devil All the Time concern people trapped in situations where there seems to be no escape. Will you talk about that in regard to storytelling?

Probably because of my own personal troubles when I was younger, I have always had some empathy or understanding for people living sad, terrible, even worthless lives; and I find it a subject worth writing about because it’s really an almost universal feeling.

While my focus is mainly on poor, uneducated people who can’t seem to catch a break or just act stupidly, you can also be beautiful and smart and well-off, and get caught in a situation from which there is no escape: a loveless marriage, a job you hate, or a dream you didn’t pursue. For some people, this feeling might last only a short while, and for others it might last forever, but I’d say most of us experience it at some point in our lives.

I found The Heavenly Table to be remarkably adroit at weaving multiple subplots and backstories into the main narrative. That seems to be part of your storytelling style.

As I’m working on the principal characters and trying to figure out the plot of a story, ideas for other characters and their backstories appear. Some are easily dismissed, but others feel like keepers, and I turn them into subplots. The big problem is how to make all this stuff fit without it appearing forced. I realize this is a simplified version of what really goes down, but it’s the best I can do. I honestly have no idea where this stuff comes from.

What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned about writing?

Probably that writing is a job that you have to work at just like any other, and waiting for ‘inspiration’ before you sit down at the desk isn’t going to get you anywhere.

You’re hosting a dinner and you can invite five people, living or dead, from any walk of life. Who would they be?

This is one of those questions I tend to overthink, so I’m just going to go with my first inclinations. My grandfather, Ray Pollock, who died in 1959 from a heart attack while working on the railroad when I was five years old. John Keats, my favorite poet. The writer William Gay, whose life story was a big inspiration to me when I was starting out and whom I never got to meet before he passed. Lastly, just for kicks, I’ll throw in Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy because I’m told my grandfather laughed his ass off the one and only time he saw one of their films.

What’s coming next from Donald Ray Pollock?

I am working on a novel set in Ohio in 1959 called “Rainsboro.”

Congratulations on penning The Heavenly Table, a compulsively readable, multi-tiered and picaresque literary novel that stands alone in the current crop of popular fiction.

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‘Judgment Cometh,’ A Conversation with Scott Pratt

August 2, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Scott Pratt is the bestselling author of the Joe Dillard series of legal thrillers. He was a criminal defense attorney before becoming a full-time novelist.

In Judgment Cometh, the eighth Joe Dillard novel, Joe is hired to defend a man who was driving a pick-up, which when stopped for a traffic violation, was found to have containers with body-parts in the truck’s bed. They are the remains of a judge who had gone missing. As Joe explores the case, he comes to believe his client is not guilty. But then, who is kidnapping and killing judges all over the state of Tennessee? Joe and his friend, Sheriff Leon Bates, follow the case to a dark and life-threatening conclusion.

Judgment Cometh begins with a quote from Thomas Carlyle, ‘Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed, for some a day or two, some a century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death.’ Tell us your thoughts about that.

I ran across that quote and it struck me as being so appropriate for the beginning of this book. You can commit a terrible act and “get away with it” for some period of time—it might be a day, a year, or a century—but eventually, something will happen to right the universe, to get things back to where they were or should be before you committed this moral transgression.

Talking about moral transgressions, Joe Dillard is a very moral man, isn’t he?

He is, or I should say, he tries to be moral. His definition of morality may be different from some people’s. His morality isn’t based on religion, but on his own conscience. His has an individual morality, an inner code. He tends to look at things as being black or white with very little in between. When he finds himself in a gray area, he feels uncomfortable and may react violently, or even irrationally. When his moral code is violated, he may not always know how best to handle the situation, but he will handle it. He always acts to right a wrong.

When Joe Dillard meets with his new client, David Craig, he doesn’t want any details about the death of Judge Fletcher Bryant, the man whose body parts were found in the bed of David’s pick-up truck. Why is that?

At the outset of the representation, a lawyer wants to be very careful with a defendant. If the defendant admits to a crime and says, “I chopped the victim up and put his body parts in the back of the truck,” that limits the lawyer’s options going forward with the case. If the attorney knows the client has confessed to the murder, and puts him on the stand to testify, if the client lies on the stand, the attorney must abandon the case. The attorney is suborning perjury if he knowingly put a client on the stand and allows him to say he didn’t commit the crime. So, the attorney dances around the issue until he or she gets a sense of the facts and evidence and truly thinks the client did not commit the crime; then, he may ask the client whether or not he did so.

Judgment Cometh initially focuses on the police search of David Craig’s truck and the suspect’s interrogation. Tell us about the legal principles involved.

There are two kinds of searches involved in a case like this one.

One is an inventory search where the police impound a vehicle and go through it, logging everything in the car so the suspect can’t later claim things were stolen. Every police department has a procedure for an inventory search.

But there are limits to such a search. Let’s say there’s a closed container in the vehicle—a suitcase—they can inventory the item. But if they have reason to believe there’s something like contraband or something dangerous in that suitcase, they are permitted by law to open it. It’s a Fourth Amendment issue regarding unreasonable search and seizure. Different states interpret it differently. The police officer must have some reasonable and easily articulated suspicion that something inside the suitcase is going to be evidence of a crime. If there is no such reasonable suspicion, he cannot, by law, just open the suitcase.

In the book, the police officer was a rookie and testified that he opened the container on a hunch.

In a courtroom, a hunch doesn’t cut it. Evidence found under such circumstances comes under the exclusionary rule and is thrown out.

Joe Dillard is getting older and is now working with his son, Jack, and daughter-in-law, Charlie. Where do you see the series going?

I’ll probably put Joe in a less active role, more of a supervisory position. Jack and Charlie will handle most of the action from here on out. Joe will be the legal guru. It will be a way for me to revitalize the series by injecting these young lawyers into the stories.

You’ve written eight Joe Dillard novels. What are the advantages and disadvantages of a series?

The advantages of the Dillard novels are important. For me, writing about Joe is like putting on an old coat. It’s so comfortable knowing the main players, but it becomes a matter of trying to always keep it fresh.

The disadvantage is the level of vigilance I must maintain to ensure the series doesn’t get stale; that can happen if a writer gets lazy. The series is now a little darker than it was in the earlier books, but that’s because I’ve been in a darker place because my wife has been battling breast cancer. Some of my own anger and frustration has bled through into the novels.

In that vein, Scott, it’s clear Joe is going through some of the same difficulties you’ve been facing in your own life. He’s something of a fictional stand-in for you.

Yes, he is. I’ve talked to my wife, Kristy, about this. I asked if she minds my letting the world know she’s got metastatic breast cancer. More than a million and a half people are looking in on our personal lives through the books. Kristy’s thought and mine are the same: if we can help anyone understand and deal better with cancer, it’s worthwhile. It’s difficult and we want women and their families to know they’re not alone in the battle.

It’s also important for readers to see Joe’s wife, Caroline, survive and continue to thrive. She tries living as well as she possibly can. You can’t imagine how many e-mails I get from readers telling me, ‘Don’t you dare let Caroline die.’

Looking at your writing career, has your writing process changed over the years?

Not really. It’s all about discipline and getting into the chair at the same time each day; going to bed at the same time; getting plenty of exercise and staying mentally sharp. I don’t outline my books. I start with a small idea, and keep going. About half way through the book, I decide how I’m going to end the story. I build a foundation and then head for the end.

What, if anything, do you read when you’re busy writing a novel?

When I’m writing, I don’t read anything other than research. If I were to read Dennis Lehane when I’m writing, I’d start writing like he does. That goes for any other author. If I read them while I’m actively writing, I’ll find myself subconsciously mimicking them. While I’m writing, I don’t read. In between novels, I read voraciously.

Speaking of voracious reading, which authors do you enjoy reading?

Dennis Lehane is one. I love reading Mike Royko’s columns. I read Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway. As for reading genre fiction, I love John Grisham’s novels as well as all kinds of thrillers.

What’s coming next from Scott Pratt?

I contracted to write a trilogy for Thomas & Mercer. It’s called Justice Burning. It’s something of a Breaking Bad lawyer novel where something bad happens to an attorney who then goes off the deep end.

Congratulations on writing Judgment Cometh, another gripping novel putting you in the company of John Grisham, Steve Martini, John Lescroart, and Scott Turow.

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