On The Spot at BSC – David Fulmer interview

In this edition of BSC: On the Spot we welcome author David Fulmer. Fulmer is the author of such novels as Chasing the Devil’s Tail, Jass, Rampart Street, The Dying Crapshooter’s Blues, The Blue Door, and most recently The Lost River.

His debut, (Chasing the Devil’s Tail), won the Shamus award and was nominated for the LA Times Book Prize.

You can visit Fulmer at his site.

    
Professor Crazy: Just to give our readers a little background, before I ask you questions about your novel, The Blue Door, I’d like to ask you a two-part question about your other novels. First, how many other books have you written till now, and also, could you please briefly tell us what your first novel, Chasing the Devil’s Tail, which won the Shamus Award for Best First Novel, is about?

    
David Fulmer - Harcourt just published my sixth book. My first, Chasing the Devil’s Tail, is a murder mystery set in New Orleans’ Storyville district in 1907. The main character, Valentin St. Cyr, works for Tom Anderson, who runs the red light district. The book follows his investigation of a series of murders of prostitutes. This is the book that was nominated for a LA Times Book Prize and won the Shamus Award and the Benjamin Franklin Award. It was a good start for a career.

    
Professor Crazy - Now, on to some questions about The Blue Door. In my review, I use the adjectives “tenacious” and “loyal” to describe Eddie Cero. He wants to know the true fate of Johnny Pope, the Excels’ lead singer who mysteriously disappeared three years ago. Even when two other band members are murdered to prevent them from telling Johnny what they know, his brother Ray and Tommy Gates, and Cero feel guilty about his role in trying to get information out of them, that doesn’t stop Eddie from continuing on.

Would you say that Cero is motivated more by his love of music and his tenacious nature, or by his growing attraction to Valerie Pope?

    
David Fulmer – Eddie’s motivations are mixed. At first, it’s simple curiosity about the fate of a singer he admired. The investigation part is something to keep him occupied while he’s working on mundane cases. When he comes up against Valerie resistance, he becomes intrigued and starts pushing harder to find out what happen. The deeper he goes, the more he’s hooked. He brings his aggressive style as a boxer to the investigation.

    
Professor Crazy - Complete this analogy: _________ is to Cero as Rocky’s trainer, Mickey, is to Rocky. Kidding aside, Sal Giambroni (the answer to the above analogy) did, in some ways, remind me of Rocky’s trainer, played ably by Burgess Meredith. Sal takes Eddie under his wing, shows him the ropes, and starts to rely on him more and more for all of his cases. Was this similarity between Sal and Rocky’s trainer intentional on your part, or am I perhaps reading to much into a surface similarity?

    
David Fulmer - I haven’t been asked about this specific anomaly before, but I have been asked about the Rocky parallels. The truth is I wasn’t thinking about Rocky at all when I wrote this book. Eddie is based on a guy from my little Pennsylvania hometown who went off to Philly to become a club fighter. Sal is a composite of my Italian uncles.

    
Professor Crazy - I know from having read the book flap of The Blue Door that, besides your novels, you have written about the blues, jazz, and R&B for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta Magazine, Southline, and for other periodicals and for National Public Radio, and that you live in Atlanta, Georgia. But, I was struck by the gritty realism and knowledge of details about Philadelphia that you include in The Blue Door, and I wondered if that’s due to your having possibly lived there at some point, or if it’s due to some good research, or a combination of the two.

    
David Fulmer - I grew up close to Philly, in Eastern Pa. We visited South Philly when we went to the Jersey shore in the summertime and when I skipped school later on. I’ve found that not having lived in the place where a book is set has some advantages. I see it more objectively, for one thing, and don’t miss the forest for the trees. It’s important to remember that 99% of the people reading a book will not know the landscape that well. So it’s important to bring some degree of an outsider’s perspective.

    
Professor Crazy - Where did you come upon the name The Blue Door for the title of your book? Is it based on an actual bar you’re familiar with in Philadelphia?

    
David Fulmer - That title came late, as they sometimes do. I had a place marker title and cast around until I settled on The Blue Door. The location bookends the story, so I think it’s fitting. Also, I think a door always has significance – as in where does it lead? – and blue has the obvious atmospheric influence.

    
Professor Crazy - Though I’m more of a fan of Rock music, I definitely thought that making Cero a fan of R&B was a nice touch for rounding out his character, giving him a reason to be so interested in Johnny Pope’s fate, and becoming attracted to Valerie (her beauty, of course, is a big reason, also) when he sees her singing solo at the Blue Door. Beyond these reasons, I take it that it’s safe to say Cero’s musical interests also overlap yours?

    
David Fulmer - Living where we did, a lot of Philly music seeped in. In terms of my books, I’m always on the lookout for music scenes. Such as jazz rising after 1900, recorded blues in 1920s Atlanta, and a brand of rock-and-roll that was rising in Philly and NY in the early 60s, but got shoved aside by the British Invasion. I’m a huge fan of American music, and each book has some kind of music-related subplot or backdrop or soundtrack going on.

    
Professor Crazy - The boxer T-Bone Mieux is a cheap-shot artist who has it in for Cero. Without giving away too much about T-Bone’s involvement in the novel, he sure seems to try his damnedness to screw up Cero’s life.

    
David Fulmer: There are several reasons for this. The first is personal. They both know there was no way Mieux could beat Eddie in the ring. This gets thrown in his face when Eddie starts popping up in the black section of South Philly. It later becomes something more ominous as Mieux seems to be showing up in Eddie’s path too much to be just coincidence.

    
Professor Crazy - Were you thinking of how Cero feels towards T-Bone when you chose Joe Frazier’s quote at the beginning of the book:

I want to hit him, step away,
and watch him hurt. I want his heart.
–Joe Frazier

    
David Fulmer - Actually, I was thinking of Valerie. How’s that for a twist? When I first read that quote, many years ago, I thought, “Now, that’s a keeper.” It’s a real gem of powerful language: concise and brutal and honest. But to me it has a deeper resonance and I realized that this is just what Valerie does to Eddie.

    
Professor Crazy - One of the sub-plots of The Blue Door involves the Marianne Gibson case. Her Ozzie & Harriet-like parents suspect their teen daughter of being up to something she shouldn’t be doing, and hire Sal’s agency to spy on her. Cero finds out she’s been borrowing friends’ cars, and leaving her high school during her lunch periods to rendezvous with an older man, Richard G. Barnes, at his house for sex with him and possibly other men. The case appears to be somewhat resolved, with her parents not wanting to face up to the possibility that their perfect life might not be so perfect. However, you come back to it on the very last page, and tell the readers what happens to Barnes.

What makes Barnes and the Gibson case in general so important as a plot element that you decided to return to it at the very last page of The Blue Door?

    
David Fulmer - It’s not that it’s important as an element of the main plot, but a subplot that reaches a conclusion. Also, readers will find a little twist having to do with Eddie there – and with his future adventures in South Philly.

    
Professor Crazy: This question is about a series of novels you’ve written, called the Storyville series. Could you please tell our readers what they’re about?

    
David Fulmer - They’re murder mysteries set in Storyville, New Orleans, one hundred years ago. The first one, Chasing the Devil’s Tail, was followed by Jass and Rampart Street” I’m fascinated by the setting of a legally-sanctioned red light district and its cast of characters. I combine real historical figures like Tom Anderson, Buddy Bolden, and Lulu White with my fictional ones. After those first three, I took a break from Storyville to write The Dying Crapshooter’s Blues, which is set in Atlanta in the 1920s, and then The Blue Door. I went back to New Orleans with Lost River, which came out in January. I’d like to do one or two more in Storyville.

Professor Crazy – For my last question, I was wondering if you’d tell us if you have any plans to write a sequel to The Blue Door and write more about Eddie Cero, and, in general, what are your future plans?

    
David Fulmer - The economic turmoil has hit the publishing business along with every other market. Right now, I’m waiting for a new contract and won’t know until that’s settled what my next book will be. I can tell you that the new South Philly book is on the table, along with a Storyville sequel, and one other historical. But I really like Eddie and Sal and want to do more with them.

    
Professor Crazy: Thanks once again to David Fulmer, and I wish you lots of success in the coming years! It was fun doing this interview, and I hope our readers will enjoy it. If you like good atmospheric mysteries full of action, once you read Fulmer’s novels, you’re sure to become a fan of them, as I did.