EAT THIS, NOT THAT

Remember the EAT THIS, NOT THAT books? Perhaps because those books were very visual, and so not rendering themselves well to audio format, author David Zinczenko has come out with an audiobook titled EAT IT to BEAT IT, which he also narrates. The three hour production includes a PDF on the first disk, to assist with those "boring to read aloud" stats, and is written with the same basic premise that people want to eat at fast food restaurants, but are unsure about which entrée to choose. Not surprisingly, most people are ignorant about the ingredients in the items they order. For example, if you have high blood pressure, you will want to stay away from PF Chang's hot and sour soup, one bowl of which has more salt than is recommended for three days, even by people without high blood pressure! Cheesecake Factory takes multiple hits too, as does Applebee's, On the Border, IHOP, Olive Garden, Quiznos, Red Lobster, Ruby Tuesday, Sonic, TGI Fridays, Sbarro, Steak & Shake, Dennys, Nathan's, Chili's, not to mention Burger King, Carl's Jr., McDonalds, etc. Zinczenko makes a point to suggest alternatives within the same restaurant to choose, knowing that people are loyal to these brands. Worst item, which may sound healthy? Baja Fish Tacos at Long John Silver's. It has 9 grams of trans fats, the worst kind of fat, shown to cause memory loss and brain shrinkage. Not a very smart choice. Of course if you eat Calamari Ricardo at Carrabbas, you're getting 11 grams of trans fats. But at least you don't think it's healthy! Other surprises include the fact that processed foods in your grocery store may contain pulped wood shavings, insect body parts, and even human hair. And that often the FDA accepts the manufacturer's claims without followup or investigation. And that the phrase "contains whole grains" means nothing if the "100%" isn't the prefix. And that many additives are shown to cause cancer, ulcers and inflammation, while sugars hide in ingredient labels under multiple names that you wouldn't expect to be sugar. It's all about keeping you buying by lying. Of course to avoid much of this headache, one could avoid the inner aisles of grocery stores and junk food restaurants completely. One could avoid soda, and eat raw foods with little (if any) factory raised meat. This book, though, is for the majority of people, who simply won't do that, and are enticed by commercials (which some companies spend more money on than they do their products.)

 

Habits are hard to break because they don't require thought. For people who favor living through their emotions instead of their intellect (which is most people) habitual actions are a way of life. Breaking bad habits becomes nearly impossible, and the personalization filters the media giants use to track people in order to sell them things they already like amplifies the habits in a way that is most profitable for those doing the spying and steering. Keeping us in a box (television) or bun (fast food) equals slavery and disease for us, and huge profits for junk food giants and Big Pharma. It is hard enough for thoughtful and analytical people to change a habit, imagine football Superfans with juicy burgers and Cokes on the Jumbotron. In BETTER THAN BEFORE author Gretchen Rubin argues that changing our habits is counterintuitive but necessary to build stronger, more productive lives. She combines examples of lives transformed with methods that provide understanding via research, and long-lasting success (not just lame motivational tools that don’t outlive January.) Add to this Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s FAST FOOD GENOCIDE, which examines the health risks of giving in to one’s “comfort zone:” an early grave. He discusses “Frankenfoods,” those unsustainable processed and fake foods which reap the most money from the very luring ads you see on TV and at ball games. Laden with chemicals that make them more tasty, these foods are engineered rather than grown, while the purveyors program us like robots to buy more and more. Alternative recipes energize a two-week plan to stop the madness. LINKS COMING.

Andrew Grant Interview

Andrew Grant was born in Birmingham, England in May 1968. He went to school in St Albans, Hertfordshire and later attended the University of Sheffield where he studied English Literature and Drama. After graduation Andrew set up and ran a small independent theatre company which showcased a range of original material to local, regional and national audiences. Following a critically successful but financially challenging appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival Andrew moved into the telecommunications industry as a 'temporary' solution to a short-term cash crisis. Fifteen years later, after carrying out a variety of roles including several which were covered by the UK's Official Secrets Act, Andrew became the victim / beneficiary of a widespread redundancy programme. Freed once again from the straight jacket of corporate life, he took the opportunity to answer the question, what if ... ?

Jonathan Lowe) Your wife is prolific as an author too. How did you come to meet her in Chicago, and did she really write a novel at Starbucks? 

Andrew Grant) She is prolific! Far more so than me – she’s currently working on her fifteenth full-length novel, while I’m on my ninth. We actually met at Bouchercon – the World Mystery Convention – the year it was held in Baltimore. I was living in the UK at the time, but soon moved to Chicago where we got married. And yes – she really did write her second novel – A Poisoned Season – in the Starbucks in Franklin, TN. She started her third there, too.

JL) It sounds like something J.K. Rowling did. Historical vs suspense. What do you have in common with Tasha, and what do you like to read that's similar or different? 

AG) You’re right – J.K. Rowling started out writing in a coffee shop in Edinburgh, Scotland. My elder daughter went to university there, so when I visited her I couldn’t resist going to see the place where Harry Potter was born. The main similarity Tasha and I share is our love of reading. We both devour all kinds of books in almost every genre. The main difference when it comes to our writing stems from Tasha setting her novels in the Victorian era while mine are all contemporary. This places very different demands on our research – Tasha is a trained historian who fully immerses herself in the period by drawing on a wide array of primary and secondary sources, visiting every location she writes about and even cooking food from the places she describes, while my focus tends to be more involved with current day details such as the inner workings of the world’s financial markets, the flaws in the criminal justice system, and the quirks of our various law enforcement agencies. 

JL) Talk about False Witness vs More Harm than Good. Different lead characters. Royal Navy intelligence vs Detective. Trilogies? 

AG) The thing those books have in common is that they’re both the third in their respective series – I wouldn’t necessarily say trilogies because I’d love to revisit both characters and still have plenty of ideas for future adventures for them. The main differences arise from what the heroes do for a living. David Trevellyan is a Royal Navy Intelligence agent, and as such he’s able to travel the globe and become involved in all kinds of espionage and political intrigue. Cooper Devereaux on the other hand is a homicide detective in Birmingham, AL and while the locations of the crimes he investigates are necessarily more fixed I take the opportunity to explore the inner psychological world of his adversaries in much greater depth.

JL) You were in drama and telecommunications. I have done everything from selling paint and later postal stamps to writing and acting in radio dramas. Is there anything more precarious and yet thrilling than writing, and do you have advice for writers? 

AG) You’re right about writing! I don’t think I’ve ever experienced higher highs or lower lows in anything else I’ve ever done for a living. Or done anything as precarious! My advice for the new writers would be – ignore all advice. Write your own story in your own way. It’s impossible to chase a trend – it will have changed by the time you’ve finished your book – but for me the biggest danger is listening to all kinds of contradictory feedback and ending up with something that reads like it was written by a committee. Your work might have sharp corners and rough edges, but that’s what’ll make it stand out.

JL) How do you like Chicago? Was there once on my own for a hardware convention, and took a singles cruise with a Japanese guy to Italy, later, just to save on the single supplement fee who was from there. I wrote and read while he danced with the ladies. Funny but obsessed with ballroom dancing!

AG) We were in Chicago for almost ten years, and absolutely loved it (despite not meeting any ballroom dancing Italians!) It’s a wonderful, vibrant city full of every kind of food and entertainment and gallery and attraction you can think of. And its architecture is magnificent, too. I’m a huge mid-century fan, and Chicago has more van der Rohe’s, for example, than anywhere else. However, we eventually decided it was time for a change so went for about as big a contrast as you can possibly get and now live on a nature preserve in Wyoming where we’re surrounded by moose and elk and deer and antelope – and hardly any people.

JL) UNEASY LIES THE CROWN? 

AG) This is the book where the inevitable finally caught up with Tasha, and Queen Victoria eventually died. Her passing sent shockwaves throughout the empire, and brought with it a particularly perilous problem for Lady Emily and her husband Colin to navigate their way through.

JL) Do you listen to audiobooks? Stephen King is a big fan. I like them because it extends reading time to forever, plus some great voice acting. I knew Frank Muller, who was King's fav, and read some of his books. A pioneer in the business going back quite a long time now.

AG) I like the idea of extended reading time! I haven’t quite made the leap to audio books yet, though. Perhaps it’s time I find some recorded by Frank Muller and give them a try…

JL) What's next for you and Tasha? 

AG) Tasha finished up her next Lady Emily mystery which is set in Pompeii – and it’s wonderful! Meanwhile I’m working on the second in my current series which features Paul ‘The Janitor’ McGrath, who fights for justice on the streets and in the boardrooms of New York City.

Reacher is on PRIME. Andrew has recently taken over the Reacher dies since Lee Child’s retirement. They both now live on PRIME real estate in Wyoming, while Scott Brick, narrator of NARRATOR and the Reacher series is busier than ever! 

Chris Pavone and Boo Walker

THE TRAVELERS by Chris Pavone: It’s 3:00 a.m. Do you know where your husband is? Meet Will Rhodes: travel writer, recently married, barely solvent, his idealism rapidly giving way to disillusionment and the worry that he’s living the wrong life. Then one night, on assignment for the award-winning Travelers magazine in the wine region of Argentina, a beautiful woman makes him an offer he can’t refuse. Soon Will’s bad choices—and dark secrets—take him across Europe, from a chateau in Bordeaux to a midnight raid on a Paris mansion, from a dive bar in Dublin to a mega-yacht in the Mediterranean and an isolated cabin perched on the rugged cliffs of Iceland. As he’s drawn further into a tangled web of international intrigue, it becomes clear that nothing about Will Rhodes was ever ordinary, that the network of deception ensnaring him is part of an immense and deadly conspiracy with terrifying global implications—and that the people closest to him may pose the greatest threat of all. It’s 3:00 a.m. Your husband has just become a spy. Read by Paul Michael, who is always great in this genre due to his ability to guide an air of intrigue with a steady and not overly dramatic tone. Michael is a veteran stage and TV actor who also narrated what is the most viral mystery novel of all: The DaVinci Code.

RED MOUNTAIN in eastern Washington is home to a community of eccentrics. Otis Till, the area's visionary winemaker, has been known to howl at the moon--fully nude. Single mother Margot Pierce moved across the country to build an inn, but so far all she does is binge on gelato, the Hallmark Channel, and fantasies of murdering her ex. High school senior Emilia Forester, daughter of celebrity parents, is struggling to build her own life outside of their shadow. And Brooks Baker is a man haunted by his past spent living on the streets as an orphan. Somehow, everyone lives together harmoniously, their lives intertwined like the vines in Red Mountain's beautiful and renowned vineyards in the novel by Boo Walker, narrated with the resonate voice and acting skill of Armen Taylor.  
Jonathan Lowe) You’ve always wanted to write, but you’re involved in the winery business. Did you start with articles or fiction? 
Boo Walker) I used to play music in Nashville for a living with a band called the Biscuit Boys. My first taste of the creative process and putting words together was writing songs. When I left that career, I had to fill the void. Being a voracious reader, I always wanted to try my hand writing fiction. So I went from songs to full-length fiction.
JL) Anything happen at the winery itself that could be described as “mysterious” or “suspenseful?”
BW) There’s always things that happen at the winery with a sense of suspense or mystery. Our winemaker was nearly killed by the press one year. A year before that, someone stole our neighbor’s grapes, picking them at midnight during harvest. I’ve seen wars waged between humans that may not resolve themselves for generations. Eastern Washington is desert country, the wild west. We have coyotes that will track you, we have badgers that will maul you, and we have rattlesnakes that linger in the grass. Even though Red Mountain is a tiny blip on the map, the potential stories are endless!
JL) Drinking a bit helped me with live interviews, and many writers have been aided by wine in loosening up the free flow of ideas. Red or white for this?
BW) Ha! The best interviews always begin with a glass of white. But I have a steadfast rule… no drinking while writing. Even Hemingway stuck to that.
TR) Favorite authors? Influences?
BW) My favorite author for many years has been Pat Conroy. We share pasts in Charleston together. If I could emulate one writer, it would be him. But I read Plum Island by Nelson Demille while traveling through Ireland after high school, and it gave me the thirst. I was in Waterville on the west coast, and I remember thinking that I had to write a book. Not that I could or should, but that I had to. So I owe him a lot. My favorite book right now though, one that has utterly blown me away, is A Gentleman in Moscow. I’ve never felt so motivated as a writer. Amor Towles puts words together in ways that make my eyes water. The way his mind works is pure art and genius. And most importantly, he’s reminded me to be free in my writing. I don’t need to subscribe to any particular way of doing things. I need to write from the heart and let my voice shine.
TR) Your wine is carried at Whole Foods, bought by Amazon. Some of your characters are in wineries, too. Ever thought about sending a case to Jeff Bezos? He might buy movie rights.
BW) I love the idea of sending wine to Bezos! I sent him an email one time; he never responded. Perhaps a box of wine would do the trick!
TR) Hobbies? What’s next for you?
BW) I’ve got a sequel to Red Mountain. Next I’ll be writing a few books from my new home in St. Pete, Florida. After many years in Washington, my wife and I decided to take a new adventure. So I’m getting out and about in St. Pete, learning the history, the culture, the people. And then I’m going to throw it all in a blender and see what kind of fiction comes out. I always tell my new friends that they better be careful what they tell me, because I’m always looking for new material. Other than writing, I still play some music and absolutely thrilled to be buying my son his first guitar this Christmas. My newest hobby will be teaching him everything I know!

Emily Mandel on Science Fiction

STATION ELEVEN by Emily Mandel is not your typical dystopian, post-apocalyptic novel. There were no zombies, no Hunger Games, no alien invaders. Instead, an irresistible strain of swine flu arises in Georgia (Russia) and quickly sweeps across the world, landing in Toronto, and killing most of the world's population. The novel follows five people among those left, who were in isolated areas, including at an airport where the survivors of a last flight find themselves. The lights go out after news networks sign off for the last time, and leave these pockets of humanity who escaped the riots and roving bands of killers (one called The Prophet is like a pied piper for jaded misfits.) Minstrels and actors travel too, performing as a means to retain their sanity and earn their living in a world gone dark. The comic book one character writes forms the title to the book, as she tries to retain and connect with her childhood. The novel is lyrical and poetic, and is read with consistent engagement and charm by Kirsten Potter. 

   

Audiobooks Today) You have a character with a tattoo about survival not being enough, who says they’d debated it all their lives. I thought this was interesting as I’ve had the ironic thought or idea, “he lives in a world without people” repeated when I see another person contemplating a crowd of strangers passing. Our culture seems to be about survival, the “us against the world” theme, and with this new millennium so many people have become obsessed by apocalyptic or end times stories, some of them unfortunately cliche and ridiculous, like the zombie books…which many of the authors probably didn’t mean to be allegorical. Were you influenced by Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” in any way?

Emily Mandel) I was influenced by The Road, both positively and negatively; positively in the sense that it gave me the idea that it was possible to write a literary novel set in a post-apocalyptic landscape, negatively in the sense that when I started writing Station Eleven, it was very important to me to not write The Road, so I consciously avoided much of the territory that McCarthy covered. I wasn't particularly interested in writing about the horror and mayhem that I imagine would follow in the immediate wake of a societal collapse. McCarthy and others have covered that very well. I was much more interested in writing about what comes after that—and I assume that something would come after that, because mayhem isn't particularly sustainable as a way of life for decades on end. I was more interested in writing about the role that art might play twenty years after a collapse, the kind of culture that might begin to emerge, etc.

AT) The traveling symphony and group of actors playing King Lear, along with the library, reminded me of Ray Bradbury’s dystopian Fahrenheit 451, where people learn and repeat books in order to save them for posterity. Is this partly why the groups travel in your novel? And why King Lear? Lear gave away his fortune to his daughters. You have a character paying a student loan debt, which is one of the humorous moments. 

EM) I’m sorry to say that I haven't yet read Fahrenheit 451. The Traveling Symphony in my novel travels for strictly practical reasons: what they want to do is perform Shakespeare and music, and that's something that they wouldn't necessarily be able to do if they stayed in one place. If they were to settle, almost all of their time would be taken up by the tasks of survival—hunting, fishing, hauling water and firewood, etc. If they travel from town to town, there's a novelty factor every time they arrive in a new place, after an absence of a year or two; it means that their offerings are rare and precious to the residents of these places, and it means the residents are willing to trade food and goods in exchange for their performances.

I chose King Lear for a couple of reasons. The title role is one of those parts that actors look forward to playing all their lives. It was a good climax to the life of the somewhat vain fifty-something actor in the pre-collapse sections of the book, Arthur Leander. More importantly, Lear is on one level a play about losing absolutely everything. Lear loses his kingdom, his dignity, his family, his sanity, and ultimately his life. In the timeline of the book, the play is set just as a pandemic is about to hit; the people watching it in the theatre are about to lose absolutely everything, and most of them will not survive, but on the last normal evening of their lives they're together in a theatre, watching a play. It struck me as a good play for the moment.

AT) Indeed. About the usual choices made for novels on this theme, today people riot and steal when some outrage occurs or the lights go out, and presumably they’d do the same if the economy collapsed or a pandemic broke out. One survivalist bunker show I saw had a demonstration of a man going through an escape tunnel away from his bunker far enough that he could pop up and shoot his neighbors trying to break in. You chose an airport as refuge, since it was the source of the virus going everywhere, and is a familiar setting for tragedy or various forms of theater. Stephen King once chose an airport, and also a grocery store for a horror setting. In writing a literary novel on how people react, were there more sensational, cliche elements you discarded after first considering them?

EM) There were certainly more horrific elements that I considered. For several drafts, the airport in the book had concourses that could be separated from one another by sliding glass walls. In that version, a sick passenger staggers up a jet bridge in Concourse A and collapses by the ticket counter, which triggers an emergency quarantine protocol, Concourse A is sealed off, and everyone trapped in the concourse dies of flu. It was completely gratuitous. I felt I could achieve the same effect in a far more subtle way with the quarantined Air Gradia jet.

AT) Thanks for going against the usual. It worked. You know, after hearing your novel, I thought of Bill Gates for some reason, whose early life comprised a race for domination and money, and whose later life now is about helping others less fortunate. He seems more peaceful now, almost as though he’s had an epiphany about the meaning of his life. I believe readers will take away something like that after listening to your novel, too.

LINK COMING. 

American culture is obsessed with money. We go to war over it. We trade our lives for green pieces of paper. Money is associated with power, sex, ego, control over our destiny…and that of others. We are more likely to believe what rich people say. We worship them. We forgive them. We ask that they teach us. But, as with anyone, there are good and bad rich people. As the saying goes, “power corrupts.” They can get greedy. Like Kevin O’Leary on Shark Tank, there is never enough money. Rappers eat it up on camera, mainly to show that they’ve “made it” out of poverty and drugs. (Well, poverty, anyway.) A singularity of quantum computer intelligence, which knows the markets, can calculate the odds of every transaction, can see the future faster and more accurately than anyone on Wall Street or in Vegas. There is no greed. It is simply science. Because science is our only hope of overcoming pollution, greed, overpopulation, global warming, dying oceans, etc. It needs that money to accomplish this. And the man in control of it has quite a story to tell. Regarding science fiction, in the novel TO LIVE FOREVER money is not a problem or desire anymore. Citizens are divided, not by class of wealth status, but by class of aging status. You move up in class by achieving things for society, and if you achieve enough, you become Amaranth…immortal. Who knows when that will happen. By accident, most likely. It was interesting to see the profile of that woman in ISIS who joined and ended up getting blown up after killing others…I thought about Malala, her exact opposite, the girl who was shot by terrorists for standing up for education and reading. The first girl didn’t believe in this world, only the next world. She gave up on this one, like so many are doing. Because of greed and war. Malala never gave up, and won the Nobel Prize. Then I heard the audiobook above “Luke Skywalker Can’t Read.” He makes the point that no one in Star Wars is ever seen reading a book. The thought occurred to me that maybe that’s why the Dark Side is so strong. Ignorance breeds fear, and fear breeds war. Star Wars is space opera. Which means emotions rule. Emotions always rule prior to wars. To Live Forever goes beyond space opera. As Malala put it, “One book, one pen, and one teacher can change the world. Education is the only solution.” She’s right. Boots on the ground don’t matter in the fight against ignorance. Ignorance is self replicating. But so is knowledge.

To Live Forever: Earphones Award Winner.  “Narrator Kevin Kenerly sets a commanding tone of this visionary morality tale…On audio for the first time, the novel illuminates thoughts on race and class in the unique way only science fiction can pull off, and Kenerly’s naturally strong and charming voice is aided by his gift for wry engagement, his subtle yet enthusiastic steering of the story arc, and his effortless creation of both male and female characters. What makes this book special is how it reveals the universal truths of human nature, ending with a befitting twist. Kenerly is the perfect pilot for the ride." --Jon Lowe (in Audiofile)

Interview with James Sallis

Over the past fifty years, while "mostly wandering about the house," James Sallis has published fifteen novels, multiple collections of short stories, poems and essays, three books of musicology, reams of criticism, a classic biography of Chester Himes, and a translation of Raymond Queneau's novel Saint Glinglin. Onetime editor of the London-based magazine New Worlds, Jim worked for many years as a reviewer for periodicals including the New York Times, L.A. Times and Washington Post; served for three years as books columnist for the Boston Globe; and maintains a books column at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. He teaches advanced novel-writing at Phoenix College and plays out often with his band Three-Legged Dog, as sideman for other musicians, or solo. His novels include Drive, from which Nic Refn's award-winning film derived, the six Lew Griffin novels, Death Will Have Your Eyes, and The Killer Is Dying. Jim has received a lifetime achievement award from Bouchercon, the Hammett Award for literary excellence in crime writing, and the Grand Prix de Littérature policière.

Jonathan Lowe) You have wide interests, a cosmopolitan noir writer/musician with published poetry, fiction, essays, scripts, translations. Genres, too. Mystery, science fiction? Have you also had an array of odd jobs along the way?
James Sallis) No colorful author’s bio here, I’m afraid. Aside from teaching, off and on for twenty-five years or more, when necessary – when markets for writing faded away -- I worked as a critical-care respiratory therapist, mostly specializing in the care of newborns, some of them as little as a pound or so at birth.
JL) That’s not odd, it’s unexpectedly befitting in a way. Of course most writers write what they like, or they sidle up to producing the required novel every year in the same genre and formula, which keeps fans happy but can seem limiting, even boring. Medicine, liquor, or soda pop. What’s your preferred poison for fictional characters?
JS) I don’t seem to have a lot of choice.  Something begins it all, an image, a voice in my head, then before long the story and characters take over. I follow as best I can. Watch, pay attention, try to keep them in sight as they take sudden turns.
JL) Harlan Ellison once said science fiction is great because of its reach and range, although pop scifi is about blaster battles, the least interesting to me. You?
JS) Mimetic fiction strives to describe the world about us, this place of corners, tabletops and shadow, as seen by writer, narrator, characters. Arealist fiction – which may be fantasy, magic realism, surrealism, science fiction – steps back, shows mankind and existence from outside the frame, in far larger contexts.
JL) Where did Lew Griffin come from—experience? And what do you think of Lew Archer? 
JS) From years of reading classic American detective fiction – but especially from Chester Himes, imagining how again and again he reconfigured his life into his novels. As, in quite another manner, did Ross Macdonald. The Long-Legged Fly was intended as a stand-alone, a fairly standard detective story, but even then it had begun to shape-change into something else, and with each of the six novels took on greater substance and depth. It may be the only six-volume series with a surprise ending. The entire series, by the way, will soon be republished in uniform paperback by my new publishers, Soho Press.
JL) Have a friend in New Orleans, lived there a while. What makes the city attractive to you besides the jazz?
JS) It’s at once the least and most American of cities. Tradition, diversity, a pervasive sense of history, an equally pervasive sense of America’s double consciousness. The original gumbo city – parts of everything we are, the worst and best, forever on open display. 
JL) The father of VR, Jaron Lanier, plays a lot of instruments most people have never encountered. Why the attraction, and do you play jazz, fusion, or classical on guitar?
JS) Mostly I play old-time music: mountain music, string-band music from the 30s, blues, Cajun, vintage country. Traditional American musics, on banjo, mandolin, guitar, Dobro, Hawaiian guitar, fiddle, Weissenborn, steel guitar, harmonica. As with literature, I’m naturally drawn to music from the marginalized, the pushed-aside. 
JL) Do you like the word “stylish” as a description of you? How would you describe your writing?
JS) I’m working to get as much of the world as I possibly can in every word, sentence, phrase, scene and page, swimming upstream of cliche all the way, denying the gravity of narrative – of making everything fit -- that can pull one down.  I want my worlds messy, like the reflected, real one, and my language as stubbornly precise an evocation of that world as possible. 
JL) Loved Willnot, while narrator Kevin Kenerly on audio captures the character of Hale perfectly, and with all the allusions weaved in, too. Tone is perfect. Does your personal philosophy get filtered into the text, and do you prefer stand-alone novels, serials, or sequels? 
JS) I prefer novels that are self-contained and short, almost like short stories with lots of breathing room, things like L’Etranger, Sturgeon’s Some of Your Blood, McGuane’s Panama, A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood, surprise packages containing so much more than they seem to.
JL) Am thinking Last Night at the Lobster by Stuart O’Nan, now. Loved Drive, and sequel, and also the Ryan Gosling movie, which simply fired on all cylinders. People need characters like that, to mix things up. Complex and surprising, with an unknown history. What do you like about the movie, and did you see Spielberg’s first film Duel? 
JS) I think it’s a great movie, a brilliant reimagination of the novel in cinematic terms. As for Duel, I do recall seeing it many years ago – from a Richard Matheson story, by the way, and from his script.  Matheson’s “Born of Man and Woman” is one of the first stories I remember reading.
JL) Anyone you wish would play Lew Griffin? And what’s next for you?
JS) I can think of many fine actors out there now. There’s always been interest, and for several years options were held on the books, but thus far they wander the world alone. As I mentioned earlier, all six Lew Griffin novels—the “bug books”—are coming out in new editions from Soho, as is my new novel, Sarah Jane. A new, greatly expanded version of my book on original-paperback novels, Difficult Lives, is out from No Exit in the UK and due from Syndicate Books here in the US. This go-round, it’s coupled with another group of pieces on crime writers under the title Hitching Rides. New poetry and story collections. 

Interview with Geoff Sturtevant

Geoff Sturtevant had been driving a truck and voraciously consuming audiobooks for 16 years. He won the 2018 ABR LISTENERS CHOICE AWARD for best humor entry for his audiobook production of Occupational Hazards: The Blue-Collar Omnibus. He writes about the absurd, the macabre, and the general strangeness of the human experience. The book is quite amusing, and different. There’s mystery, suspense, satire, scifi, you name it. He’s the James Patterson of humor: inventive, offbeat, and able to dole out even gallows humor effects in ever rising insight. The opening story is sheer redneck fun, told with a believable accent on audio. He also narrates some of the stories. His October 2022 project is my own CAT ON A COLD TIN ROOF as narrator, and in December THE FINAL PLOT OF VALERIE LOTT.

Q) How did you start writing?

A) I started writing mostly to make my mom laugh. I'd spend two or three weeks writing a novelette just to invite her over, hand her a manuscript, and just sit in the other room listening to her laugh. There's something about making a 70 year-old lady laugh at what she's probably not supposed to laugh at that's very gratifying. Craft is more important to me than being funny, but I love getting laughs most of all. 

Q) Why this book, and why multiple narrators on the audio version?

A) I put together Occupational Hazards with the audiobook specifically in mind. I'm a huge audiobook fan, and I reached out to a bunch of my personal favorite narrators to help me produce it. The response has been positive, and the narrators had a lot to do with that.

Q) Views on morality arise in your writing. God given or human choice?

A) I think morality is both God-given and based on choices. New cultural values are embraced, and God-given morals are ignored. People are complicated creatures, and no one reason is responsible for anyone's particular values. Both of my daughters, for example, decided as soon as they understood meat came from animals, that they didn't want to eat meat. It still surprises me that this seemed to be their default moral choice. Maybe they'll un-learn this one, maybe not. I do hope to teach them other ones I consider valuable, but society is steadily forgetting. 

Q) Funny you should mention meat. I’ve interviewed authors on both sides of that issue, too. Meatonomics versus The Big Fat Surprise. Dr. Preston Estep at Harvard takes another view in The Mindspan Diet, showing that iron in meat and supplemental iron added to flours in America cause Alzheimers in over age 50 adults. I forget who the other one I interviewed…oh, right. Kelly Preston. Tell us about your story The Relativist. 

A) In that story, which on the surface is a really ridiculous, the underlying moral message/question is: if you've committed to ethical relativism, is it possible to hold anything sacred? The story is totally surreal, but it constantly puts cultural values at odds with each other; from quirky culinary differences to all-out good vs. evil. Moral values is a tough subject itself, but it's good for writing fiction. You don't necessarily need the answers, only the conflict. 

Q) Takeaway from your book?

A) The reason I call this "Blue-Collar fiction" is that I wrote it for guys like me, who work hard, and like to be able to laugh at whatever they think is funny. Nobody who drives a truck for a living is concerned with political correctness. Since those are the people I relate to, I like to use work-oriented scenarios and regular-guy characters, and write the kind of material that amuses guys like us.