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-Hello and welcome to "Book Lust."
I'm Nancy Pearl.
My guest today, a return guest who was here
when we talked about her novel "The Center of Everything,"
is back with a new novel, "The River View,"
featuring one of my favorite characters of all time,
Jamie Harrison.
Jamie, thank you so much for joining us.
-You mean Jules Clements.
-I do mean Jules Clements.
-But I like the idea that I'm his alter ego.
-You are his alter ego,
and I remember when we were talking about
"The Center of Everything,"
which people can now go back and watch
because all of these interviews are readily available.
I asked you if you were working on a new Jules Clement.
And you were, I believe,
thinking it through or thinking about it.
Yeah. Yeah.
And so talk about your relationship to Jules Clement.
But before you do, I just want to say,
this is a submystery series.
It doesn't matter in what order you read them.
In this one, I really would recommend to readers
that they begin with the first of the books in the series,
"The Edge of the Crazies,"
which is where I, if I may, fell in love with Jules Clement.
-Thank you.
-And couldn't wait,
and this is the fifth book in the series,
and thank you for writing it.
-Well, I mean, thank you for reading it.
It was harder than I expected to go back to the series.
I found it unexpectedly --
I had forgotten the difficulties of how you roll out a plot,
how you keep your secrets.
Mysteries add another layer to it
and sort of an extra discipline.
And yeah, it's hard. I had charts everywhere.
But Jules is a character I fell in love with, too.
I don't know really how I came up with him,
but I wanted to write about the town I lived in,
and I wanted to come up with a cop who was a cop
for the right reasons, possibly, muddled reasons.
His father was a sheriff, and he had become an archaeologist,
and he'd left, and he wanted to move home.
And Blue Deer is sort of modeled of my hometown of Montana.
And it's not easy to find a job here.
It's not easy to find a way to live here.
It's a fictional town,
it's about 7,000 people, and to an amazing degree,
you know everybody in town.
So I came up with a man who was in his mid-30s
and who was trying to fit back into life here,
and trying to think the best of everyone, or not.
I wanted somebody with a sense of humor.
I wanted somebody initially who was unmarried
and sort of free range and having fun.
And it was tremendously fun for me to write about it
from a point of view of a man.
I got to have bar fights.
Nobody suspected we had anything in common, you know?
It was really kind of freeing and also practical,
because there's probably not still very many female cops
in the state of Montana.
So I wrote four,
and I took him through a variety of romances,
a lot of death --
way too much death by population to be believable.
But, you know, things do happen.
And left them 20 years ago,
and had to come back and wanted to come back.
And when I first started writing this newest book,
"The River View," I made Jules 20 years older,
and I gave that up after a few months
because it just wasn't as fun, Nancy.
I don't mind being 20 years older,
but I wanted him to stay young.
-Are there decisions that you made with the first book
or the first -- the early books
that forced you
to carry a plot out in a certain way
into this fifth book?
Do you know what I mean? -Yeah.
-Things that you kind of regret?
-Things that limited me -- -Yeah.
-Well, the main thing is that in the fifth book,
I go back to sort of the central tragedy of Jules's life...
-Right.
-...which was the murder of his father.
In the first book,
I said that he had been killed in a highway pullover
by a man who had shot him.
And in this book, I take on why he was shot.
Everybody -- the killer has confessed.
So there's really nothing to know, right?
But his mother wants to know the "truth."
And the truth is supposedly just why.
But, yeah, I was constrained.
I'd said it was a shotgun.
I'd said it was somebody driving a truck.
And suddenly I'm like, Ack, how do I do this?
How do I make this not quite so clear or not so clear cut?
-Right. -Yeah, I had some regrets.
-I kind of -- I love those mysteries
where you're unraveling events of the past,
and how still those events really have great repercussions.
Especially this crime has huge repercussions
in the present of the book. -Sure.
-You know, those are my favorite.
-It made him who he was.
And it made sense to deal with this crime
when I was bringing him back
because it allowed me to review his life.
-Yeah, right.
-In a fairly organic way.
This is what happened.
This is what made him who he was.
This is why he became a cop.
And then explaining why he is not a police officer anymore.
He's not a sheriff anymore.
And some of that is what I dealt with
when I was going to have him --
20 years later, it's harder to imagine
a maybe more left-wing police officer
leading a sheriff's department in Montana now.
It just is.
I mean, I wish it wasn't quite that way,
but it's much more divisive out here now,
and it's a little harder.
So I had had Jules quit at the end of,
he'd stopped caring by the end of the fourth book,
let's put it that way. He became, you know,
sort of in the gray area of what he was doing
and what he wasn't doing,
and he kills somebody somewhere in there,
and has mixed feelings about himself.
So in this one, I had to find a workaround to keep somebody in.
It's good to know a cop, even if you're not a cop,
for the sake of a mystery novel. And I have his wife, Caroline,
still working half-time in the Sheriff's Department.
-And so, in your mind, that's how you're pronouncing it,
is Carolyn and not Caroline?
Okay. -I go back and forth, but...
-Oh, you do. Okay.
-Yeah, Caroline, Caroline, you're right.
-Okay. Well, I mean, that's how I heard it.
-No, but that's normally how I do it.
Yeah. -Okay. All right.
Did you read a lot of mysteries growing up?
-Yeah, lots and lots.
Dorothy Sayers, everybody, a lot of English mysteries,
a lot of those early Swedish mysteries.
The Martin Becks, which I loved, loved those.
I loved their sense of humor and their earthiness.
Nicolas Freeling. Oh, God, everybody.
I just read everybody.
Sort of trying to get back up to speed,
I haven't been rewriting so much,
but I've been thinking about the plots,
and I have a basement stacked with mysteries.
Everybody from L.R. Wright.
I mean, all these people I've forgotten about.
Michael Innes, a lot of Ross MacDonald.
You know, just the gamut.
I loved Chandler when I was a kid, basically.
I mean, read most of them by the time I was 20.
-And you still have those books?
-I have a lot of tattered paperbacks.
It's hard to get rid of the good ones.
-Oh yeah, yeah.
Well, I'm just thinking when I can come down and visit you.
-I will keep it. I will keep the looted basement.
Yeah. Bill James.
I mean, I've got everything.
Or not everything.
I don't have enough from the last 20 years.
So that's what I've been trying to catch up with.
-Why do you think you stopped reading mysteries?
I mean, what did you turn away from that into,
if that makes sense?
-Well, a couple of things.
I mean, I think I stopped reading them
because they stopped being as much fun for me.
I could see too much. I started thinking.
I grew up with a father who was a writer,
and I was taught to read for fun,
just to read because you love it.
But if a book succeeds, if it just gives you joy
during it, suspension of disbelief
and all that good stuff, it's successful.
And I started pulling them apart so much
that I really stopped enjoying it.
I also -- a lot of Jules's character
is in reaction to books
that are very, very good,
but I kind of got worn out with a brave,
yet alcoholic and lonely and somewhat self-pitying cop.
You know, I just got tired of that.
-Right.
-And so many books for a while,
really good writers have that kind of central figure.
I mean, I really wanted to write about somebody
with a sense of humor,
who might have a drinking problem,
but he's not ready to consider it yet, you know?
Or, I don't know, just somebody loping along through life.
-Right. And so what were you reading in the interim?
-Lots of stuff.
-That's a huge question, sorry.
-Yeah, it is, but I still read Kate Atkinson.
She really, her books,
those Jackson Brody novels came out just a couple of years
after the first Jules,
and I just found that exactly what I've been trying to do.
I love those. Just a lot of straight novels.
I'm reading Ann M. right now. I'm reading some Martin Amos.
I've been reading -- I don't know, I couldn't even begin.
Lily King, "Euphoria," I loved.
"The Sisters Brothers." Just novels.
Dennis Johnson, "After All These Years."
-But a lot of it is,
those are like when you talk about the mysteries
and now with the Kate Atkinson, first, I mean,
I can see the absolute parallel between Jules and Jackson Brody.
That's a great comparison and I wouldn't have thought of it
if you hadn't said that.
-I'm admitting that he inspired me to keep writing.
-Oh, good.
-And make me want to go back.
I reread them a few years ago and I thought,
"I can do this again."
-Yeah. And I think that what they share,
part of what they share
is they're not happy-go-lucky policemen.
You know, I mean, they're not happy-go-lucky
in their characters.
But the books are not straight-on mysteries.
I mean, in those books, there's a central mystery,
or more than one, that they're dealing with,
but they're books about living in those characters' present.
-Right.
Yeah, well, I mean, I like the messiness of life.
-Yes.
-I like the details and the mundanities,
and then I like blowing them up, kind of, you know?
She also does -- I just really admire --
nobody does plot strands better than she does.
Nobody can make things --
I mean, sometimes maybe she goes overboard,
and I know the temptation.
But nobody does it.
She makes it look like it's a Rube Goldberg machine,
but it's tightly controlled.
-And that's the way life is.
I mean, that's what I feel, the messiness.
-The accidents.
-The accidents, and that, you know, people say, you know,
how did you get to be who you are?
And you just say, in many ways, it was chance.
It was, you know,
you turned this corner and that happened and,
you know, who knows what would have happened
if you had turned the other way.
-Who knows? -Right, right.
And I think that messiness that you're talking about
is such a good way to describe.
It's exactly why when I read "The Edge of the Crazies,"
I was so taken with it.
And I had no idea when I read that book 20 years ago
that it was based on a real place,
or that the Crazy Mountains were the Crazy Mountains.
-Right. -You know?
And I remember telling a friend
who was working at the library
that I had just read this book, you know,
"The Edge of the Crazies."
And he said, "Oh, it's set in Livingston, Montana, I bet."
And I said, "It is."
"Well," I said, "No, it's called Blue Deer."
And he read the book.
And he said, "Nancy" --
he recognized every single street in the book.
I mean, he loved it as much as I did,
but for a kind of different reason,
which I think is so interesting about
why we like the books we like.
-It is, and it's so subjective.
It can be when you're reading it.
You know, I could be reading --
I could pick up those books
that I couldn't get through 20 years ago and love them again.
-Absolutely.
-You know, it's all mood.
-Right, it is.
It is, and I think that that's something
that's really important to -- really important to realize,
that if you don't like a book
that's in a kind of genre or whatever that you normally like,
that I would say, like,
80% of why we like a book or not
or why we feel like going on is due to our mood.
-It's not the book's fault.
-No, it's not the book's fault.
Totally. Yeah, yeah.
And I think that, I mean, of course
when people talk about books set in the, you know, the West --
Montana, Wyoming, you know, that whole area --
"The Last Good Kiss" is, you know, the kind of formation.
-Best titled book.
-Totally best title, based on a Richard Hugo poem,
"The Last Good Kiss Was Years Ago."
Yeah. Yeah, and that's a book
that I've always wanted to go back to.
I think I've read it twice now over the years,
but I'm kind of afraid to go back to it
because I want it to be as good as it was when I first read it.
-I know what you mean, and I've reread parts of it.
I haven't reread the whole thing, and I knew Jim Crumley,
and I knew how things, you know, it falls --
everybody's book falls apart in places, you know?
A finished book is the ruin of a good idea,
but it is a majestic book in so many ways.
And it's got that wonderful line about ruining
a perfectly good afternoon on a bar stool.
And somewhere in this book I put in a little call out to that,
shooting the hell out of a good day, you know?
He was a wonderful guy, and it's a wonderful book.
And I think that you'll still get that if you reread it.
-And that's a book that messiness is at its heart.
-Yeah, exactly. -Yeah.
So are you reading anything or, let me,
no, we talked about that a little bit.
So let me back up and say, so are you working on anything?
Are you always working on a book?
-Yes. -I'm so in awe of people who --
what does that mean, that you're working on a book?
-It means that I had hoped to get through a rough draft
for the next book before I started the book tour.
-Oh. -Because I thought it would --
"We're all working on a book all the time"
is just self-defense, I think.
It's just making sure that you don't suddenly find
yourself high and dry without an idea.
It's just -- it's health care.
It's mental health care. And I'm not that far into it
because I kept having to put it down, pick it up, put it down.
Life intercedes, and life really has interceded this year.
And I've been, you know, writing essays.
One thing that people might not realize
is you're constantly trying to plug,
you know, get stuff out there, get your name out there,
do Instagram, do Twitter, do this, do that.
And I think it takes me longer than other people.
I somehow have trouble getting back into a task
once I do two other ones.
I don't just dot back and forth,
but I am liking the book I'm writing and I hope to have it --
-Is it a historical, like "The Widow Nash"?
-No, it's another Jules. It's another Jules.
-Okay.
-Which sort of deals with, it's another of the past.
I really like writing books that are unfilmable, Nancy.
But it starts out with something that happened
when he was an archaeologist with a good friend.
And then it goes on to come up with the many ways
you can steal things from safe deposit boxes.
-Oh. -So, you know.
And it's called "Blue Ghosts."
-Oh, okay.
I was very excited when "The River View" came out.
One of the reasons I was very excited
is that the earlier four books have been reissued in paperback.
-That makes me really happy.
-Oh, yeah. Yeah. -So that was pretty.
-Yes, yes. Very pretty editions.
And I thought, "Boy, that's the way to do it,"
because now people can go back to those early books.
So what about the audio book of this one?
-I am trying to remember the voice actor's name,
but he's got a lovely voice and he's doing it right now.
-Oh good.
-Yeah, if it's not out now, it's going to be out very soon.
-Oh, good.
Because I'm a latecomer to audio, relatively late.
But, boy, in many ways, with the right reader,
I enjoy listening more than I enjoy sitting down and reading.
-That's great.
-Which is so fascinating, because it adds
that new dimension,
where it's not just you and the reader --
it's not just you and the book.
You know, and Paul Auster talks about
how he always leaves room for the reader in his books,
and that he believes that at the end of the day,
it's a collaboration between you and the reader
with the book that they're reading,
which goes back to mood.
-Right. That's a good -- I mean, that's a great thought.
I have trouble doing it
simply because I will sometimes float off,
and I don't want to miss the plot.
So I listen to a lot of non-fiction.
-Yeah. -Where I assume I can just --
I don't know, whatever.
But I should start doing it. I love this guy's voice.
I loved the reader for the last two books,
for "Widow Nash" and for "Center of Everything."
So I've had a lot of good luck with that.
-When you're, so when you're reading,
so what I'm finding is that I'm,
that I feel like I've had a lifetime of reading
and I'm in a way analyzing every book as I turn every page.
Which does not make for a comfortable reading experience.
-Yeah.
-Because it's too hard to kind of get into it.
And I don't do that with mysteries because I --
mostly I don't really care whodunit.
I'm reading it for the --
-It's impulsive and you're reading them.
-Right, right.
-As entertainment, pure entertainment.
-Yes, yeah.
And so it's kind of a relief in a way
to read a mystery that you're not --
that I'm not editing in my head.
And is that kind of your experience?
But you're finding that you're doing it with mysteries as well?
-I was doing it with mysteries.
I mean, part of it is that I edit part time, too, you know?
So I'm always,
it's hard, like when I read galleys for other people
or when I'm appearing with other people,
it's especially hard if I don't have a,
if I have a bound book, even if it's a galley, I won't do that.
I turn off that part of my mind as much as possible.
If I'm reading it on screen, I'm just constantly wanting to...
-Fiddle. -...futz around with it.
I do --
yeah, I have trouble with just blowing through a book now.
I really do. I keep stopping. I look at the sentences.
I look at the structure.
It's been a while since I've just blazed through a book.
That part of me, I worry, is gone,
and I really want -- I think the last time
I really had that feeling, I loved --
I mean, I've read so many good novels,
whether they're literary fiction or whatever,
and I truly enjoyed them.
But in terms of just blazing through,
Denise Mina's fun mystery "Conviction."
-Yeah.
-That was gleeful and just great, you know?
-It wasn't too scary.
I always find Denise Mina too scary.
-No. "Conviction" is completely different.
She is having fun.
It's like she's thrown out everything.
It is essentially a comedy. -Okay. All right. Good.
-It's really completely -- you can feel her joy on the page
and her complete decision to be silly about some things.
She pulls it off.
-Okay. Yeah. -She's scary.
I mean, she's normally very grim.
This is not grim. Nope. -Okay, good.
Because grim is -- not in the mood so much.
-Yeah, no, I know what you mean.
I don't really want to deal with child murders.
And I don't -- I just, yeah. -Yeah, yeah.
And I never want to be in the head of either the victim
or the murderer in the preface. I just don't want...
-Yeah, well, it's been done. -Yeah, I just --
-It's been done well in some books, but yeah.
-Yeah, I just don't want it.
That's not -- unh-unh, don't do that in the last --
-Okay. No big italics.
I have an editor who hates anything like that.
So if I've ever tried it, he's beaten it out of me.
-Oh good. That's great. All right.
Well, thank you.
Thank you again for coming back on the show.
-Thank you for having me.
-You're more than welcome. -Good to see you again.
-You too. Bye bye. -Bye bye.
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