Jason Starr Interview

Back in June 2011, I interviewed Jason Starr about his then-latest novel, The Pack, and the interview was published by Spinetingler Magazine. Since the site is down, I've republished the interview below.

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In Jason Starr's The Pack, advertising executive Simon Burns life goes into a tailspin after he’s fired from his job. Marriage counseling isn’t helping the intimacy issues with his wife, and being a stay-at-home-dad is harder than it at first seemed. Things start to look up when he meets a group of dads at the playground: Simon has guys to hang out with during the day, and his kid has other children to play with. But after a night of partying, Simon blacks out and wakes up in the woods naked, and all he can remember about his dreams is a wolf. The nightmare continues to haunt him, and as his body begins undergoing changes, Simon fears that he, in fact, might be turning into a werewolf.

Yes—a werewolf—but don’t start thinking this is another Twilight spin-off. Nor is The Pack anything close to a conventional horror novel. The story is less about physical transformation than it is emotional and psychological changes, and how they can affect—and sometimes destroy—a relationship. Simon is one of Starr’s most realistically and sympathetically crafted characters, and the slow dissolution of his marriage is harrowingly and poignantly written. Much like Panic Attack, The Pack is really about the discovery of a father’s latent violent urges and the disastrous after-affects it has on his family.

Don’t let the werewolf element throw you off. The Pack is pure Jason Starr, and it is one of his most gripping novels yet.

"The Criminal Kind" Debuts at The Los Angeles Review of Books

Over the weekend, my new crime fiction column, "The Criminal Kind," debuted over at The Los Angeles Review of Books. In this first installment, I reviewed five books:

Duane Swierczynski

Fun & Games
Mulholland Books, June 2011. 304 pp.
"Duane Swierczynski is the Wile E. Coyote of crime fiction. His novels are filled with chases, explosions, and, amidst all the mayhem, a dash of philosophy about the absurdity of existence. "

Jason Starr
The Pack
Ace Books, June 2011. 352 pp.
"The Pack is one of Starr’s most realistic and relatable novels yet."

Megan Abbott
The End of Everything
Reagan Arthur Books, July 2011. 256 pp.
"The End of Everything is Abbott’s most refined and rapturous offering yet. "

Sara Gran
Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, June 2011. 288 pp.
"Claire’s journey through New Orleans is thick with atmosphere, and while she herself might be interested in heady concepts, the people she meets have complex problems that are all too recognizable, and that don’t lend themselves to easy solutions."

Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins
Kiss Her Goodbye
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, May 2011. 288 pp.
"Dexterous and dynamic plotting, swift and explosive action, snappy dialogue, graphic metaphors, and energetic characters that come alive: this is action-mystery par excellence."

To read more, check out The Los Angeles Review of Books.

Interview with Jason Starr on "The Pack"

Over at Spinetingler, I have an interview with Jason Starr about his new novel, The Pack.

Here is an excerpt:

Both The Pack and your previous novel, Panic Attack, had a lot to do with the financial and emotional pressures of the modern nuclear family, as opposed to the singles scene as presented in The Follower. Was this shift deliberate?

I wrote an earlier novel, Nothing Personal, which was also about a family with a kid, but I wanted to take The Pack in a different direction than my recent crime fiction. So, I was trying to move away from Panic Attack. After I wrote Lights Out, The Follower and Panic Attack all in order I wanted to do something a little different, more of a post-9/11 type of suspense novel where it starts off in the real world and where weirdness slowly intrudes, but with very real, viable characters. That’s what I was going for here. I don’t think I’m tying to write “family” novels, but I see that now that you point it out.

Like in many of your novels, New York City plays a crucial role in The Pack. How did you pick the locations?

I try to find the neighborhood that would be best to tell the story. So, for Simon, he starts out as a high-paid advertising executive, so I knew I had to put him in a somewhat affluent area. I chose 89^th and Columbus because I used to live there on that corner, so I knew it very well from my own experience. On a side note, the building that Martin Scorsese filmed in Taxi Driver—where Robert DeNiro’s character lived and did the famous “You Talkin’ To Me?” scene—was on 89^th and Columbus, the same corner where I lived, but it’s a different building now. It was a tenement, but it was torn down. The condo where I lived there in my 20s is still there. So, I knew the building very well. I’ve done that before—I’ll choose a location because I have personally spent a lot of time there. It saves having to do research, but it also keeps it personal for me in my head. I felt like I wanted the reader to identify with Simon, and I wanted to pretend I was like Simon in that situation, so thinking in an area that’s familiar to me helped me accomplish that as a writer.

"The Follower" by Jason Starr (Minotaur, 2007)

The Follower shows why Jason Starr is one of the great contemporary writers of New York City. He has an instinctive feel for the city’s pulse, its labyrinthine layout, and the neuroses and delusions of its inhabitants. Books like Panic Attack, Fake I.D. and the graphic novel The Chill chart the geographic diversity of New York and instinctively locate the natural terror inherent in every city block. In The Follower, Starr seizes upon the emotional torment of a young woman and communicates to the reader the fear of feeling alone and vulnerable while being surrounded by millions of people—each of whom contain the potential for unrealized terror.

One of the great ironies of New York City is that, despite being a big city, sometimes it feels as intimate—or claustrophobic—as a small town. Especially Manhattan. The skyscrapers and apartment complexes may tower higher and higher into the sky, but the size of the island remains the same. With such a dense concentration of people, it’s not uncommon to run into someone you know on the street, at the corner bodega, or at the gym.

Or so Katie Porter thinks when she sees Peter Wells at her gym. In fact, she’s strangely comforted by seeing someone from her hometown of Lenox, MA. Things aren’t going well with her boyfriend Andy, and she needs someone to talk with. Peter seems so caring, so sensitive, so attentive. But soon, all this attention starts to seem creepy and their meeting at the gym too convenient, as if it were planned. Paranoia takes over as Katie is convinced that someone is following all over the city, and Manhattan’s grid-like network becomes as entrapping as a rat’s maze.

Starr’s gifted ability to blend absolute panic with razor sharp humor is on full display in The Follower. More than just a suspense story, it’s also a satire on the New York singles scene, with twenty-something post-grads bar hopping and drunkenly flirting with anything on two legs. Starr shifts perspectives between his three main characters—Peter, Katie, and Andy—and the contrast of their unique perceptions is frequently funny. There’s also a hubristic arrogance to Peter’s observations that seems to embody noir’s dark humor: “Killing people and getting away with it was so easy. You had to be a total moron to get caught.”

Starr writes of the optimism of losers. Peter’s recurring hopefulness—“Everything could work out perfectly” and “But he reminded himself that this was only the beginning”—belie the hopelessness of their missions. Starr’s protagonists frequently mix the defeatism of David Goodis with the psychopathy of Jim Thompson. Like the down-and-out bartender Tommy Russo in Fake I.D., Peter Wells is a model of this noir mixture of someone too delusional to realize how depressed they are. If he weren’t so goddamned homicidal he’d probably be suicidal. Unlike the debt-ridden Tommy, Peter has money to burn, time to lose, and dreams to realize—dreams which quickly turn into nightmares of repressed desire and frustrated failure.

If Peter were just an obsessive stalker, he would be a one-dimensional character. Starr, however, adds an innovative twist to Peter’s personality. As part of his job at the gym, Peter has to go out onto the street like a barker and sell gym memberships to passersby. For a sociopath that can’t connect with people without stalking or killing them, Peter is ironically great at relating with people on a superficial level. As his boss tells him, “You know how to relate, know what I’m saying? Even some stranger on the street—man, woman, it doesn’t matter. They like you right away, and when they like you they trust you. That’s the whole key with sales.” There’s a Highsmithian duplicity to Peter Wells, a chameleon-like capacity for changing his personality, only Peter isn’t as diabolically clever as Mr. Ripley—Peter’s not a genius, his plans frequently fail, and there’s something very ordinary about him, which makes his character all the more frightening. There’s only one Ripley, but Starr gives the impression that there could be any number of Peter Wells out there.

"The Chill" by Jason Starr and Mick Bertilorenzi (Vertigo Crime, 2010)

2010 is off to a great start for Jason Starr, who just came off a very successful 2009 with the one-two punch of Fake I.D. in May and Panic Attack in August (review coming soon), as well as news that Bret Easton Ellis was adapting The Follower into a series for HBO and Lionsgate TV. Part of DC Comics’ Vertigo Crime line of graphic novels, The Chill pairs Starr with artist Mick Bertilorenzi, a union of perfectly matched styles. Starr’s sensibility—edgy, hardboiled, darkly funny—finds visual expression through Bertilorenzi’s artwork, as equally adept at capturing action-packed violence as it is subtler, pensive moments that bring characters’ inner tensions to the surface with their furrowed brows and clenched teeth. The latent horror always present in Starr’s work is much more pronounced in The Chill, and it naturally complements his usual interests in psychology, sexual mores, social satire, and the rich and varied landscape of New York City.

Before we get to the city, however, Starr takes us first to County Clare, Ireland. It’s the summer of 1967, and two young lovers—Martin and Arlana—are out for a stroll in the countryside. As they lay down and begin to embrace each other, something unexpected happens—an intense chill overtakes Martin, who is completely frozen. It’s a hell of a way for Arlana to realize that her family heritage isn’t quite so normal.

Cut to present day New York City. The dismembered, frozen bodies of young men are turning up all across the city. The police are baffled not only by the bizarre, brutal crimes, but also the lack of evidence: plenty of people saw the victims going off with a strange woman prior to their deaths, but no two witnesses can agree on what they saw. But then a mysterious rogue cop from Boston shows up who knows a thing or two about Irish mythology and “The Chill,” and it’s up to him to put a stop to an age-old, flesh-hungry curse.

Back-alley passions, decapitation, unholy demons, sleazy bars, and a citywide dragnet, plus more spears, sex and psychopaths than should be collected between two covers (but thankfully are). Bertilorenzi’s images drip with blood (even the shadows seem gory they are so dense), and Starr’s dialogue is as sharp and funny as ever. That, in a nutshell, is The Chill. And what a wonderfully demented nutshell it is. Fans of Starr’s work won’t want to miss this one.

Books I am Looking Forward To Reading

I know we all have ever-growing TBR piles (and, in some cases, many of them), but that doesn't stop us from eagerly anticipating new releases. Here are just a few of the recent and upcoming books that I am looking forward to reading.

What about you - any books you are particularly excited for?

Hunt through the Cradle of Fear by Charles Ardai (Leisure Books)

I really enjoyed the first book in the series, Hunt at the Well of Eternity by James Reasoner (interviewed here), and Ardai's three entries in the Hard Case lineup (Little Girl Lost, Songs of Innocence, and Fifty-to-One) are among the best of the bunch, so this should be exciting.

Losers live Longer by Russell Atwood (Hard Case Crime)

Been hearing good things about this from a lot of different people. Plus, the horizontal art by Robert McGinnis is terrific. This one I definitely need to have on my shelf.

The Disassembled Man by Nate Flexer (New Pulp Press)

The best first paragraph to a review I've read all year comes from Jedidiah Ayres. As soon as I read it, I knew I had to get this book. "A wince-inducing front row seat to a soul shredding. It’s so unrelentingly dark, so hopeless and dank, that when the humor rears its fugly head you’ll want to wretch because you laughed. You will hate yourself for those laughs. But you will laugh. And then puke. And maybe chuckle sickly for a few days. And throw up in your mouth a bit. It's not funny. Sort of though."

Death Ground by Ed Gorman (Leisure Books)

Gorman's crime fiction is some of the best stuff out there right now. And word is that his Westerns can be even darker. If you haven't read his latest, The Midnight Room, check it out. (And here's an interview I did with Gorman earlier this summer.)

Between the Dark and the Daylight edited by Ed Gorman and Martin Greenberg (Tyrus Books)

Hell of a lineup of writers for this anthology - the ones I am most looking forward to are Patti Abbott, Charles Ardai, Bill Crider, Megan Abbott, Martin Edwards, Doug Allyn, Bill Pronzini, and Joyce Carol Oates. And that's not even a third of the authors included.

Panic Attack by Jason Starr (Minotaur)

I started the summer off with Fake I.D. (Hard Case Crime) and now, at summer's close, Panic Attack is released. Great way to bookend the season, right? This one I already picked up when he was speaking at The Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan. Really fun event, and I got the book signed. Yeah, I'm a nerd, I think going to a book reading and getting books signed makes for an exciting week (if not month). Anyway, this book is sure to be awesome and twisted.

"Fake I.D." by Jason Starr (No Exit, 2000/Hard Case Crime, 2009)

Beyond the alienated, sociopathic Private Eyes and infectious Femme Fatales, there are several other reoccurring character types that are equally symbolic of the brooding, desperate sensibility of noir. Of course there are those Average Joes and Janes that are thrown into the belly of the criminal underworld whom Cornell Woolrich loved to write about. Goodis’ Dark Passage also fits this mold, with a protagonist who, in order to prove his innocence, must first become guilty himself. Then there are the losers who can’t get out from behind the eight-ball: whether on the straight and narrow or walking the crooked path, they are perpetually doomed. Charles Willeford’s Pick-Up and Richard Hallas’ You Play the Black and the Red Comes Up focus on characters like this. Then you have the psychopathic narrators of Jim Thompson, who drag you into their warped perceptions and nefarious desires.

It is these last two types that Jason Starr merges in Fake I.D., originally published in the UK by No Exit Press in 2000 and released for the first time in the US by Hard Case Crime in 2009. Tommy Russo is the bouncer of a small New York bar whose main kicks are occasional one-night stands with girls he meets at the bar and even less frequent wins at the track. A wannabe actor, even his agent has given up hope for him. Tommy gets a discount on his closet-sized studio apartment by working as the super, but even still he can barely make rent, what with the gambling debts and losses piling up like a mountain of garbage. He used to be able to count on his boss for advances on his salary, but not anymore.

Things aren’t exactly looking up for Tommy when the smelly Pete from Yonkers knocks on his car window one morning at the track. He and some buddies are pooling money to buy their own racehorse, and they need one more guy. After thinking it over, Pete decides he wants in. The problem? He needs $10,000. The solution? Rob the safe at his bar, which is overflowing with Super Bowl bets. But with his bad luck, Tommy’s dreams have little chance of coming true.

Fake I.D. unfolds like a slowly burning cigarette forgotten at the end of the night: when the ashes finally consume everything that remains, even they too must fall to the floor and disintegrate into nothingness. Like some gutter-Sisyphus, Tommy’s life is a cycle that goes nowhere, just from his apartment to the track to the bar and back to his apartment, where it all starts again. Starr contrasts Russo’s chronically dismal existence with his pipedreams of acting fame and horse-race winnings. An incurable dreamer, Russo’s fantasies are corrupted only by his desperation. The more he loses, the less he wants. It gets so bad that even a role in a dog food commercial seems like the first step through heaven’s gates.

Debased desires are just the first sign of his psychological breakdown. Much like the murderous sheriffs in Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me or Pop. 1280 whose overly rational thought processes belie their growing instability, Russo’s plans become increasingly rash and half-baked. But to see it through his eyes, he’s in control of the entire world and nothing could ever grow wrong. More than an actor, Russo becomes an author who, just like Thompson’s sheriffs, sets into motion his own master-narrative, which casts him as the supreme winner. He sets up convenient frames for the police, performs a grand snow job on his boss, and whitewashes himself of his own guilt.

One of the underlying questions of noir literature is whether the world is really against the protagonist, or is perhaps they bring it upon themselves. Often, as in Gil Brewer’s 13 French Street, the answer lies somewhere in between: the main character knowingly enters a situation in which he will face temptation, but that doesn’t mean he’ll admit it to himself. This same subconscious desire for destruction fuels Tommy Russo, whose life – all things considered – isn’t too bad at all. He meets a great girl, one who even loans him $100 when he asks, and all he can think to do is rob her in her sleep and run away. At the racetrack, he may pretend he’s buying a ticket to win, but in reality he’s knowingly buying a ticket to lose. And in his more clearheaded moments, he’ll even admit as much. He knows there’s a racket and that the house always wins, yet somehow he thinks he can beat the system and come out on top. He thinks that he can get out from behind the giant eight-ball of life that is always in the way.

Quintessential noir to the extreme, Fake I.D. shows that the thematic underpinnings of classic authors such as Thompson and Goodis are just as relevant to today’s world as they were fifty years ago. People still dream, people still fail. Some get up and try again. And some, like Tommy Russo, just keep digging themselves an even deeper grave.

Hard Case Crime has generously posted the first chapter online, but here are a few of my favorite quotes from the novel.

“I guess it was the story of my life – when I had a good thing going I always found a way to screw it up.”

“I was so hungry I think I might’ve sucked in some bacon strips through my nose.”

“I gave him another solid right in the gut, then I walked out, taking a handful of French fries out of the rack on my way out.”

“I’m codependent. I like to be with sick, fucked-up women because I’m sick and fucked up myself.”

“I got up and stared at myself in the bathroom mirror, first thinking about how great I looked, then thinking about how the cops weren’t going to catch me.”