On his old, now defunct, site, Victor Gischler conducted a series of interviews from the end of 2004 to mid-2005. With his permission BSC will be reprinting his World’s Worst Interview series over the next few days. Sometimes the internet feels temporary, and good content gets lost or forgotten in the rush forward. When possible we want to blow the dust off of something and bring it back to the front. If you know of something that should be reprinted let me know.
Victor Gischler conducted the following interview with Sean Doolittle on November 23rd, 2004, before Rain Dogs was published.
In a feeble attempt to draw more interest to this blog, I’ve decided to introduce THE WORLD’S WORST INTERVIEW. My first victim is Sean Doolittle. I figured I’d better start with a pal who would put up with my nonsense. (Anyway, I swiped this lame interview idea from Tod Goldberg who did the same thing to me a few weeks ago.) I caught up with Sean Doolittle in a greasy spoon on Route 66 and asked him the following lame questions:
Victor Gischler: So you wrote some books or something, huh?
Sean Doolittle: 3.0175 books, pal. And counting.
What’s the biggest sandwich you’ve ever built? What was on it?
Three-foot sub. Sort of a multi-cheese World Meat combination on French Loaf with Ragu sauce for flavortaste. I remember it didn’t keep very well.
Aside from Victor Gischler, who is the biggest influence on your fiction? Who’s the thirteenth biggest influence?
I like what I heard Walter Mosely say about this at the Vegas Falley Festival of Books in October. He said writers always lie about their biggest influences to sound loftier. They say Faulkner or Proust or something when really it was Curious George.
With that in mind, I’ll say Franklin W. Dixon, Wilson Rawls, and Mad Magazine for fossil fuel. Later, Stephen King for combustion.
Here’s a spooky story: recently I went to ABE.com and found an old beat-up library edition of a book I’d read only once in 6th grade but always sorta remembered fondly. It’s all about this couple who moves out to the country and discovers the woods around their house are infested with feral cats. All I remembered was that it was called Feral.
Anyway, I got this thing in the mail the other day, and it turns out the main character’s last name was Bishop (kinda like the last name of the main character in my first book, Dirt).
So never mind what I said before. Apparently my biggest influence was Berton Roueche.
How did you get so good so fast at video golf, you bastard?
I finally took a lesson. Shaved twelve strokes off my game. I can give you the guy’s name, he’s a magician.
Talk about your next project a bit. I understand you’re almost finished.
The next one is called Rain Dogs. It’s a bit of a change-up from the first two books, which were both set in Los Angeles and had somewhat larger, quirkier casts of characters. Maybe not larger casts per se, but the narrative bounced among multiple points of view.
This one is a rural crime story set in the Sandhills of western Nebraska. Call it middle-of-nowhere noir: big sky, lots of empty space, the occasional meth shack explosion. It’ll be out this time next year.
Stones or Beatles?
Stones.
Yippetty-doo-dah-whammy! How about that?
Sorry, but I have to disagree with you there.
What’s the one non-crime book everyone should read RIGHT NOW?
Feral by Berton Roueche.
Actually, let me close my eyes and select a title at random from my Non-Crime Books Everybody Should Read shelf.
Okay. . .Catch-22, Joseph Heller. Yeah, that’s a good one.
Here, I’ll do it again. Reasons to Live, Amy Hempel. This one is short stories. Really fine short stories. Ever read the one in here called “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried?” Holy crap, what a heartbreaker.
Read that one, too.
Okay, one more time, reaching away from the “H” section. . .Outside the Dog Museum, Jonathan Carroll.
Man, I’m on a roll! Let’s take one quick stab at the other end of the alphabet. . .oooh, yes. Slaughterhouse-Five. Vonnegut. Indeed.
Heard any good jokes lately?
Lemur walks into a bar. Gets nine stitches.
I’d like to thank Sean Doolittle for helping out with the debut installment of The World’s Worst Interview. Check out his site at www.seandoolittle.com or go to Amazon.com and buy Dirt and/or Burn, two great crime novels from the very hip UglyTown Press.
Special thanks also to Victor Gischler for letting us re-run his content here at BSC Review!
