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You’re Invited to Dinner with Famous Authors

November 28, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Over the years, I’ve interviewed many well-known authors, and we’ve discussed their writing careers as well as some aspects of their personal lives. One question I sometimes ask has been “food for thought” for many writers, and their answers often reveal much about them. Readers of my blog seem to especially enjoy this query, and the responses it engenders:breughel

Here’s the question: You’re hosting a dinner party and can invite any five people, living or dead, real or fictional, from any walk of life. Who would they be?

Here are responses from some well-known novelists:

Alex Kava: I would start by inviting Harper Lee because To Kill a Mockingbird is my favorite book. It would be amazing to be able to talk with her. Then, I’d invite Alfred Hitchcock because I love using the Hitchcockian approach to suspense thrillers—bringing the readers to the edge and leaving them there. My next guest would be Scout Finch. Can you imagine Scout contradicting some of the stories as Harper Lee would be trying to tell them? Amelia Earhart is fascinating, so I’d invite her. And the fifth would be Jack London, a real ‘dog person,’ because I just loved Call of the Wild.

Michael Connelly: An obvious one would be Raymond Chandler. The other one is easy: my father passed away before I was published and had any success, so I’d like to have a meal with him now. I was very close to a cousin who passed away when we were twelve. I’d like to catch up with her. And maybe I’d like to meet the real Hieronymus Bosch. But, he might throw soup at me for taking his name.

Daniel Silva: Churchill would be there. I’d invite George Orwell who might be coughing and wheezing and not feeling well but I’d love to talk to him.  It would be fun to have FDR along with Churchill—to have the two leaders who saved the world sitting at the same table. How about inviting the acerbic Graham Greene? And then, I’d love to have Hemingway join us. Can you imagine the amount of drinking going on with Churchill and Hemingway there? [Laughter]. I’d watch the whole evening explode.

Laura Lippman: I’d invite Stephen Sondheim. I’d love to have Ferran Adrià, the chef from el Bulli, a seminal figure in the world of cooking. My husband would be there because I love him, and he’s great company. I would also invite a friend who’s the most provocative, no-holds-barred person I know, Rebecca Chance; and I’d love to invite Michelle Obama. I wouldn’t invite any dead people because I’d have to spend so much time bringing them up to speed on stuff. Imagine saying to Shakespeare, ‘The other day, I Googled someone…’ and he would look at me like I’m insane [Laugher].

Reed Farrel Coleman: I’d invite Moses, Jesus of Nazareth, Marilyn Monroe, T. S. Eliot, even though he’d hate being with so many Jews. [Laughter]. And then I’d invite my grandfather. He apparently loved me, but I don’t remember him. He died when I was very young.

Tess Gerritsen: I would ask Cleopatra. She’s a fascinating character who could purportedly twist men around with her intellect. I’d also invite Margaret Meade. And then, I’d ask Amelia Earhart. I’m really interested in accomplished and interesting women. [Laughter]. The funny thing is I don’t find writers all that interesting. We writers live in such a world of imagination, we’re too busy to go out and do things ourselves. I’m most interested in people who’ve done things. I would also like to have the young King Tut at the dinner. And last, but certainly not least, I’d invite Genghis Khan.

Robert Crais: I’d probably invite a couple of painters. There would also be a couple of architects. Painters and architects fascinate me. I think we all do the same thing: it’s just that their mediums are different. Their brains work in a different way and I’m fascinated by that. I’d also invite someone like Ray Bradbury or Robert Heinlein, science fiction writers. They would see the world very differently than I do.

Karen Slaughter: I’d invite Flannery O’Connor. Then, I’d have Margaret Mitchell and Truman Capote, two Southern writers. I’d invite Bill and Hillary Clinton because they could get any one of those other guests to talk and be interesting, even if some of them had a little too much to drink or if they were typically shy writers. I’ve met both Clintons. Bill has an amazing mind, and Hillary really has it together. It’s incredibly impressive when you’re a woman and meet another woman with so much to offer.

Robin Cook: I’d invite David McCullough, a wonderful historian, writer and conversationalist. I’d invite Simon the Magician—the bad boy in the Bible. From St. Peter, he tried to buy the ability to cure. I would have to invite Jesus of Nazareth. If one wants to believe the stories in the New Testament, he was the most amazing healer of all. I’d invite Upton Sinclair whose book, The Jungle, changed something really bad—certain public policy. And, I’d invite FDR. He probably had the best chance of all presidents to get us a rational national health policy.

Catherine Coulter: Georgette Heyer, a British author who died in 1972. She’s the one who invented a sub-genre called the Regency romance. Then, I’d love to have Agatha Christie for dinner. I would love to have dinner with Charles II. And I’d want to meet the modern Plato—the same philosopher, but brought into contemporary times. And then, maybe Edward I. He’s very much alive in my books—he’s a character for me—and I’d just love to ask him questions about how he deals with my other characters. He lives on in my own private little realm of ideas.

David Morrell: Thomas De Quincey would be high on my list as would Benjamin Franklin. My mentors, Philip Young and the screenwriter Stirling Siliphant who wrote Route 66 would be there, too.  If we’re talking about the great minds, I think St. Thomas Aquinas would be at the table.

Patricia Cornwell: I’d love to have dinner with Dickens. And with Agatha Christie. I’d love to have met Lincoln. I’m so sorry I never got to meet Truman Capote. I think In Cold Blood is one of the greatest true-crime books ever written. I think dead people might be my specialty [Laughter]. And then there’s Harriet Beecher Stowe because she and I write basically about the same thing: abuse of power, whether it’s slavery or anything else.

Harlan Coben: Well, I’d love to have my parents with me. If I chose writers, I’d invite those I’ve known personally, who have passed away: David Foster Wallace, Elmore Leonard, Donald Westlake, and Ed McBain. They were writers whose work I admired greatly, and whom I personally admired enormously.

James Rollins: I would love to sit down with Michael Creighton. When I wrote Subterranean, the book right above me on the shelf was Jurassic Park. I had no formal training in writing, so I used Jurassic Park as a template. I’d love to meet Howard Carter, the archeologist who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun. Mark Twain would make for some very entertaining conversation. It’s a poorly kept secret that I have written fantasy novels under the pen name of James Clemens. Plato or Socrates would round things out and we’d have a great mix of people.

Let me ask you, the reader, the same question: whom would you invite to dinner. I’d love to read and share your responses.

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Filed Under: About Books, Huffington Post Column, Interviews Tagged With: Alex Kava, Catherine Coulter, Daniel Silva, David Morrell, Harlan Coben, James Rollins, Karen Slaughter, Laura Lippman. Reed Farrel Coleman, Michael Connnelly, Patricia Cornwell, Robert Crais, Robin Cook, Tess Gerritsen

Psychology In Fiction

August 22, 2015 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

FreudOver the last few years, I’ve been writing fiction. For decades, I’ve been a psychiatrist. As a novelist, I now write with a reader’s sensibility, and read with a writer’s eye. I’m struck by the degree to which fiction and psychology share certain crucial elements.

Human functioning can be conceptualized as involving thinking, feeling, and behavior. These three elements are the very pillars of being.

Fiction taps into these foundations of existence by using the written word to evoke mental images, which in turn, beget thoughts and feelings. A novelist creates a world for the reader to enter, and to which the reader relates.  This is the essence of storytelling.

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Filed Under: About Books, Huffington Post Column Tagged With: caring, Character, David Morrell, fiction, Linda Fairstein, Lon Land, psychology, Stephen King

Great Opening Lines

June 29, 2015 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

“My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call.”

—The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

 

“His name was Rambo, and he was just some nothing kid for all anybody knew, standing by the pump of a gas station at the outskirts of Madison, Kentucky. He had a long heavy beard, and his hair was hanging down over his ears to his neck, and he had his hand out trying to thumb a ride from a car that was stopped at the pump. To see him there, leaning on one hip, a Coke bottle in his hand and a rolled-up sleeping bag near his boots on the tar pavement, you could never have guessed that on Tuesday, a day later, most of the police in Basalt County would be hunting him down.”

—First Blood by David Morrell

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Filed Under: About Books, Huffington Post Column Tagged With: David Morrell, Dennis Lehane, Dickens, don-winslow, Melville, opening lines of novels, Pat Conroy

“Black Scorpion” A Conversation with Jon Land

April 7, 2015 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

CJon Land c, Todd StephensJon Land is the prolific author of more than thirty-five books. His thriller novels include the Caitlin Strong series about a fifth-generation Texas Ranger, and the Ben Kamal and Danielle Barnea books about a Palestinian detective and an Israeli chief inspector of police. He has also penned the Blaine McCracken series, standalone novels, and non-fiction. Jon was a screenwriter for the 2005 film Dirty Deeds. He is very active in the International Thriller Writers Organization.

His latest thriller, Black Scorpion: The Tyrant Reborn is the second book featuring the character, Michael Tiranno, a myth-worthy hero created by Fabrizio Boccardi with whom Jon collaborates in this series. Michael (known as the Tyrant) must deal with a newly-surfaced enemy based in Eastern Europe—a powerful organization, Black Scorpion, involved in human trafficking and other crimes on a global scale. The leader, Vladimir Dracu, has set his sights on America as his next target. Black Scorpion has also taken hostage Michael’s lover, Scarlett Swan. Michael has limited time to save Scarlett, Las Vegas, and the entire United States.

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Filed Under: About Books, creativity, Huffington Post Column, Interviews Tagged With: David Morrell, Harlan Coben, Hercules, heroes, Lisa Gardner, myths, novels, Stephen King, storytelling

A Good Story is Disturbing

February 4, 2014 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

2014-02-03-disturbing2-thumbAs David Mamet told me, “If Hamlet comes home from school, and his dad’s not dead, and asks him how school was, it’s boring.”

As a psychiatrist and novelist, I’m aware that all good stories are disturbing. No matter how beautifully written or “literary,” a novel resonates deeply because the storyline tugs powerfully at us. It upsets, confounds and presents chaos, conflict, imbalance and upheaval — either within its character’s mind or circumstances.

As readers, we crave instability, disturbance, and uncertainty. They make us care about the characters and the outcome. We live vicariously through the anguish, turmoil and trouble the characters endure in a quest to reorder chaos — the disequilibrium — propelling the story.

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Filed Under: About Books, Huffington Post Column Tagged With: books, Books news, Cinderella, Conflict, David Mamet, David Morrell, Disturbance, fear, Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl, Hamlet, Harlan Coben, Ian McEwan, Jane Hamilton, Janet Evonovic, John Irving, John Updike, Lisa Gardner, Philip Roth, Snow White, Stephen King, The Illiad, The Odyssey

A Conversation with David Morrell, the Master of the Modern Thriller

November 4, 2013 by Mark Rubinstein

David Morrell is the author whose debut novel, First Blood, written in 1972, became a best seller, which spawned the Rambo film franchise, starring Sylvester Stallone. David has written 28 novels and his work has been translated into 26 languages.

He is acclaimed for his action-packed novels, including Brotherhood of the Rose, Desperate Measures, and The Naked Edge, to name a few. His latest novel, Murder as a Fine Art, is an historical thriller set in Victorian England.

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Filed Under: About Books, Huffington Post Column, Interviews, Mark Rubinstein, On Writing, thriller Tagged With: Books news, Booktrib, Brotherhoood Of The Rose, David Morrell, Desperate Measures, Fine Art, First Blood, Harry Potter, Mark Rubinstein, Sylvester Stallone, The Naked Edge, The Third Metric

Writer to Writer: A Conversation with Barry Eisler

September 25, 2013 by Mark Rubinstein

Barry Eisler is the best-selling author of two thriller series, one featuring John Rain, a half-Japanese, half-American former soldier turned freelance assassin; and another featuring black ops soldier Ben Treven.

After graduating from Cornell Law School, Barry joined the CIA and held a covert position with the Directorate of Operations. After leaving the organization, he worked as a technology attorney and startup executive in Silicon Valley and Japan, and earned a black belt at the Kodokan International Judo Center. He began writing full time in 2002 and Rain Fall was the first of his seven-book John Rain series.

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Filed Under: About Books, Huffington Post Column, Interviews, On Writing Tagged With: A Clean Kill in Tokyo, Author Interviews, Barry Award, barry-eisler, Ben Treven, Book News, Book Publishing, books, Character, cia, Cornell Law School, David Morrell, Fiction Writing, Gumshoe Award, James Bond, japanese, john-rain, Pacemaker Hacking, publishers, Reading, Self-Publishing, series, St. Martin's Press, the-detachment, Thriller, Winner Take All

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