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 Julia Spencer-Fleming in early December, 2004.
The WORLD’S WORST INTERVIEW hat-trick. Third times the charm, and this time Julia Spencer-Fleming has agreed to submit herself to the nonsense. She writes the very popular Clare Ferguson series. Here are the dumb questions and the good answers:
Victor Gischler: At last count your debut novel was nominated for and/or won upwards of 650 awards including the Nobel Prize for Chemistry and a Tony. Are you surprised at your level of success? What’s your own sense of your place in the literary universe?
Julis Spencer-Fleming: You laugh, but on the back jacket of my last book, it says: “Julia Spencer-Fleming is the winner of the Malice Domestic Award, two ‘Tonys’…” Finally, proof that the jacket copy is written by summer interns.
You bet I was surprised by my level of success. I simply wrote the best book I could at the time, which is all any of us do. Getting nominated all over the place became an embarrassment of riches. I remember at one point during the 2003 Bouchercon praying that somebody else would win one of the “best first” awards, because there was such an amazing array of wonderful books nominated along with mine. Do I really think In the Bleak Midwinter was a better book than The Devil’s Redhead or The Blue Edge of Midnight? No. I think I was lucky, in that my publisher had promoted the book heavily the year it came out, and it therefore had high name recognition with readers. And, you know, acclaim and awards and sales isn’t all champagne dreams and caviar nights. Sure, I now get limousines and fruit baskets when I’m in New York, and my publisher pays for a masseur to visit my home and rub the kinks out of my shoulders after a long day of writing, but I was convinced my second book was going to fold during the out-of-town tryouts. The whole time I was writing it, I was trying to figure out what I had done that was so great in the first book. I didn’t have a clue, so I couldn’t do the same thing all over again. I guess this means I’ll never be the girl James Patterson.
What is your position on lemurs and other wicked vermin? (Like Pandas for example.)
I’m firmly in the anti-lemur camp. If lemurs were members of the literary world, they would be writing those sixty-day-proposal-to-publication true crime books that sprout like mushrooms in the wake of the latest Court TV scandal. Pandas…I don’t think pandas are vermin, are they? I thought they were related to dogs. Or raccoons. I’m not sure; there were a lot of children shouting and waving bamboo shoots the day I visited the panda exhibit at the National Zoo. I missed some of the details.
We are, in my house, very pro-armadillo, however. My son Spencer has done several reports on armadillos and was deeply disappointed when I went to Texas for Bouchercon ’02 and didn’t come back with one. I offered to find a cuddly toy version, but he’s holding out for a live one to keep as a pet.
If I remember correctly, you teamed up with Denise Hamilton for a signing tour. She can’t really be that nice. Does she snore? Pick her teeth? Dish the dirt, girlfriend.
She eats like she has a hollow leg. Seriously. Do not get between that woman and her food. She’ll kill you and feast on your remains with pesto sauce and a nice Shiraz. Other than that, she’s the perfect partner. I mean, going on tour is like traveling the third world for weeks at a time. How many people can you do that with and not want to kill? But we had such a good time together we’re already planning to do it again next year. Except in 2005, I want to sleep in the same bed as Lee Child. No fair if she gets to do it two years in a row.
Who/what are your influences? Who do you like to read and/or steal from?
Margaret Maron, Sharyn McCrumb and Archer Mayor opened my eyes to what regional mysteries could be. Same with Steve Hamilton and William Kent Krueger. I can’t read Steve or Kent’s stuff while I’m working. I either start ripping them off wholesale, or I weep and beat my breast, because I can’t possible write as well as either of them, so why not throw in the towel and go have a snack? Or, and Charlaine Harris–she manages to write every single character, down to the one-line walk-ons, so that you’re dying to find out more about them. Damned if I can figure out how she does it.
I love reading what would have been called novels of manners in another age–Joanne Trollope, Louis Auchincloss, Jane Austen, Fay Weldon. Books that manage to be both intimately detailed and coolly observant about human relationships.
What’s the biggest sandwich you’ve ever built? After reading Blondie in the funny pages as a kid, I once bulit a big sandwich with sardines on it. What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever put on a sandwich? (I want to talk about sandwiches dammit!)
One year we had a Super Bowl party. This was long ago, pre-kids, back when my husband and I actually did entertaining that involved something other than take-out pizza and a jug of Chianti. I made a super-long sub (they’re called Italians here in Maine) with pounds and pounds of meats, cheeses, veggies, etc. According to the deceptive article in Woman’s Day magazine, where I had copped the idea, you stretch it out on the table, cut it into two-inch slices, and all your guests happily feast on the amusingly casual finger food. HA! What they don’t tell you is that all the stuffing inside a two-inch piece of an enormous submarine sandwich falls out as soon as you pick it up, leaving unattractive smears of oil, mayonnaise and mustard on clothing and the tablecloth.
I stopped reading those women’s magazines in 1997. I’ve been much happier since.
I like peanut butter, carrot and pickle sandwiches on toast. Even when I’m not pregnant. Is that strange?
What’s your worst experience at a signing event? (I swiped this question from Tod Goldberg.)
Oh, gosh. Could it be the time in Plattsburgh, New York, when I was held captive by the only person who showed up–a prison guard who talked to me for two hours? Or the brand-new chain bookstore in Ithaca where I sat at a rickety table, utterly ignored by all shoppers, and discovered the manager had never worked in a bookstore before, but had, in fact, come there from managing a Bed and Bath store? Or the very nice bookstore in Minneapolis with the very strange man who kept asking (in front of an audience of twenty) exactly how much I made per book?
No, no, I know what it was. Seattle. Denise and I had to drive from one end of the peninsula to the other, through rush hour traffic, forsaking hot showers and food (which, as you may recall, is a Very Big Deal with Denise) in order to make it to our evening signing. It was grueling, but I knew it was going to be worthwhile, because I had spoken at the Well Known Bookstore the year before, and had been impressed with their organization, stacks of books, and the large number of suburban mystery fans that turned out. The first hint that something was amiss came when we called for directions. The clerk Denise spoke to led us through one residential area after another. And when I say residential, I mean I was stopping while kids in Big Wheels crossed the single-lane one-way roads.
Meanwhile, I’m more and more puzzled, because I remember the bookstore being in one of those tastefully upscale suburban strip malls, the sort that are named “The Galleria.” And when we finally got out of the land of the little houses, we were in an area of the city that looked like The Hill, below Cornell. Laundromats, semi-seedy bars, organic lunch counters. Finally we pull into the parking lot. I’ve never seen this bookstore before. Denise says, “I have a bad feeling about this.” Ominous music as we make our way to the front door.
The manager meets us. She’s very apologetic. Seems this is the Well Known Bookstore’s brand-new satellite store. We were booked in here because another author is at the Well Known Bookstore, right now. Denise and I look at the counter, the tables, the wall next to the door, where, conspicuous by its absence, there is no indication that we are signing tonight. Nothing. Nada. There are seven people in the store, all of them twenty years younger than Denise and I. Five of them are wifi’ing on their laptops in the cafe.
“This store is intended for the campus crowd,” the manager explains. That would explain the prominent positioning of Camus and Derrida on the front table. “We actually only sell used books right now. But we’re hoping to get into new books soon!” She leads us to the back, where our books await signing.
There are seven. Each. I have three hardcovers and four paperbacks. Denise has four hardcovers and three paperbacks. We sign them, smiling. We accept the manager’s offer of a pistachio soy latte with a demi-glace from the cafe, smiling. We shake the manger’s hand and get hercard, smiling. Then we leave the store.
Denise grabs the keys and heads for the trunk of the rental car. “What are you doing?” I ask.
“I’m checking to see if someone left a semi-automatic weapon back here,” she says. “I want to take it, and go back inside, and kill everyone in the store.”
Zapa-dappitty-doo-wap-doowap diddly-DOO! What do you think of that?
Victor, I had no idea. Next time we get together, you and I are going jitterbugging. No excuses.
Wine: White or red?
Red. But it has to be Italian, because that’s the only stuff that doesn’t give me a headache. But if I’m out jitterbugging, I’ll order a G&T in the summer or Bourbon and branch in the winter. I live a seasonal life.
Movies: The Goonies or The Manchurian Candidate?
The old Manchurian Candidate, of course. Why was that even remade? Does anyone know? Was there a ground swell of popular acclaim? Mobs roving the streets of LA, chanting “We want Streep! Down with Lansbury!”?
Finally, what are you working on now? What surprises can we expect from Julia Spencer-Fleming?
Well, I finally finished the next book in my series. I’m now the Official poster Child of Bad, Procrastinating Authors–I blew through at least five deadlines before delivering the ms to my long-suffering editor. The book, To Darkness and To Death, will be coming out in June. I’m trying to figure out a way to convince St. Martin’s that an unexpected wave of sales indicates they should tour me in the south of France. If that doesn’t work, expect to see me instead in exotic locales like Oklahoma and Arkansas.
In the meantime, I plan to stay busy with the as-yet-untitled fifth book in the Clare Fergusson series and a couple of short stories I’ve been asked to contribute to anthologies. I may be editing a collection of Episcopalian-themed mystery stories–we’re working the details out. Victor, I see this as perfect for you. I want you to write me something about a naughty vicar.
Oh, and of course there’s my book of short erotica. I’ll be releasing that under my pen name of Denise B. Hamilton.
Many thanks to Julia for playing along. Visit her at her website!
And BSC Review would like to thank Victor Gischler 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.
