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 Laura Lippman on November 29th, 2004, before the publication of To the Power of Three.
Return of the WORLD’S WORST INTERVIEW: LAURA LIPPMAN edition.
We here at GischlerCorp had such an outstanding response from our Sean Doolittle Interview (2 e-mails) that we decided to do it again. This time, Laura Lippman is on the chopping block.
Victor Gischler : Sometimes I think of titles of short stories but then don’t write the stories. Like “In the Hell of Bad Candy.” I like that one. Can you share some of your discarded titles? Tell us about the “thinking of a title” process.
Laura Lippman: I’m not sure I can say it’s discarded, but I’ve long insisted that my memoir will be called “Shaved Meats, Piled High.” I saw it on the menu of a lunch place near the morgue.
I suck at titles. And when I was in the newspaper game, I sucked at so-called “art heds,” which were the equivalent of titles. A few titles have been obvious (“In a Strange City” for a book about Poe’s Baltimore legacy), but most have been hard-fought. I always feel it’s cheating, to title the book after it’s finished. It seems to me that real writers know the title going in. But I almost never do and it’s getting worse.
That said, I can do short story titles. I’m going to write one called “Hindsight” for Dublin Noir and “A Case of Montrachet” for Baltimore Noir.
If you could have a super power what would it be and why?
Empathy Girl, capable of knowing what other people are feeling. Actually–I may really have this. I’m not kidding. Every now and then, when conditions are right–on very bright, clear days–I experience the illusion that I am inside the heads of people I see on the street. And it’s really painful because it turns out that a lot of people are very sad and lonely.
As fast as you can, name five “warm” things…GO!
Hot Pockets. Cashmere. My Paul Frank pajama bottoms, which are patterned with a skull motif. Red wine. Any color in the maroon family. (Not to be confused with Maroon 5, which I know is neither hot nor cool.)
Would you rather be trapped underwater in a sinking submarine or in orbit in a damaged space shuttle? Go on about that for a while while I get another beer out of the ice box …
I don’t even want to be in a functional submarine. My submarine phobia is so pronounced that I can’t watch Das Boot. I’m dead-serious about this.
What kind of beer do you drink?
Anything cold.
Has there been any film interest in your novels? What actors would you like to see in which roles?
To date, the film interest has been tepid, although I now have a terrific film agent, so perhaps that will change. I refuse to think about Tess’s alter ego, but I can cast some parts in Every Secret Thing. Julianne Moore should play Helen Manning, the mother. Angela Bassett or Sonja Sohn (The Wire) should play the victim’s mother.
Scarlet Johansson would be great as Alice if she would just gain 50 pounds. Do you think she would? Rene Zewelleger could give her some tips. In fact, Rene would make a great Nancy Porter, the homicide cop, but she’d have to go back to her Bridget Jones weight.
Do you ever get the itch to write a non-crime novel? What are some of your ideas? Tell me so I can steal them.
Is plagiarism a crime? I’ve long wanted to write a novel about a professional student with a photographic memory and an unusual disability–she truly cannot tell the difference between her own ideas and what she’s read, so she’s forever getting in trouble for plagiarism. But, because she’s young and buxom, professors are always eager to bail her out. Her father, who has made a fortune running dry cleaners in San Antonio, sends her off to language school in Mexico to cool her heels after the latest incident, where she then finds her life is beginning to plagiarize her favorite novels. Lolita, for example, as she finds herself on the road with the under-age son of her host family. Think Terry Southern’s “Candy,” only Candy is hyperconscious.
Do you ever drive at night really really fast and the headlights of the oncoming cars look like demon eyes? DEMON EYES! PUT OUT THE EYES!
No, but when I’m a passenger, I sometimes count the broken lane lines disappearing beneath the car. Plus, I have repeated nightmares in which I’m driving and can’t keep my eyes open. Control freak much?
Pudding or cake?
Cake, although I went through a phase in college where I ate vanilla pudding for lunch and dinner.
What’s next for Laura Lippman?
Some time off. I haven’t taken more than a long weekend since August 2003,when I spent three weeks in Ireland. Even then, I wrote almost every day, because I had a book due. So when I turn in the revisions for To the Power of Three on Dec. 1st, I’m going to take much of December off. Except for the three short stories I owe. And work on the MWA annual. And preparation for my Goucher class. And reading some manuscripts for blurbs. I recently discovered workaholism and converts make the strongest adherents, etc., etc.
GischlerCorp would like to thank Laura Lippman for being a good sport and a class act.
And BSC Review would like to thank GischlerCorp for the generous use of this interview series!
Victor Gischler is the author of 4 hard-boiled crime novels. His debut novel Gun Monkeys was nominated for the Edgar Award, and his novel Shotgun Opera was an Anthony Award finalist. His work has been translated into Italian, French, Spanish and Japanese. He earned a Ph.D. in English at the University of Southern Mississippi where they beat him with rolled up newspapers and fed him raw liver. His fifth and sixth novels Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse and Vampire a Go-Go were published by the Touchstone/Fireside imprint of Simon & Schuster.
