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I appreciate this review in particular because it says BLEAK HARBOR is a tale about seeking justice for the wronged. I did not set out to pursue that theme, but the story worked out that way.
I’ll be talking with the amazing Michael Connelly about his new book, DARK SACRED NIGHT, and my new book, BLEAK HARBOR, on December 5 at the Double Tree Resort in Scottsdale, Ariz. Sponsored by the equally amazing Poisoned Pen bookstore. Details here.
On this day 39 years ago, I started my professional journalism career at the Brighton Argus, northwest of Detroit.
My first job came after a summer that probably didn’t please my Dad after he paid for four years of tuition at Notre Dame. Shortly after graduating, I was working the midnight shift at a wire factory, spot-welding metal baskets for $4.50 an hour. Later I spent a month as a greenskeeper in northern Michigan. Not exactly what you expect from an ND degree.
I had gone to ND thinking I’d be a lawyer. But after three years, I decided I’d had enough school. One of my Mom’s friends gave me David Halberstam’s The Powers That Be for graduation. Although I never finished the book (90-word sentences can wear you out), I was inspired to apply for newspaper jobs. That September, Rich Perlberg and Rolly Peterson asked me to cover Howell city, courts, cops, schools and sports for the weekly Argus. I started on a typewriter. Weeks later, we made the dramatic shift to computers.
Not long after that, the owner of the Argus bought the Livingston County Press in Howell. Both papers were energetic and independent. Rolly and his Press counterpart happily skewered local politicians and bureaucrats–“the bastards,” as Rolly referred to them–on the editorial pages. I wrote news, features, occasional columns, headlines, photo captions. Staffers gathered for beers and tale-telling at the Brighton Hotel on Wednesday nights. Thursdays were rough. By Friday, I was wondering how I would get 14 stories written by Monday night.
My experiences at the Argus and Times informed those of journalist Gus Carpenter in my Starvation Lake trilogy. The photo here is of the Livingston County Courthouse, which later became the model for the Pine County Courthouse in Starvation Lake. I’m grateful to Rolly, who died some time ago, and Rich, who remains a friend, for giving me a chance and for teaching me what it meant to be a serious journalist. Things were different then, of course, but certain things remain the same. Whether news is delivered on a cellphone, a tablet, a TV, or in newsprint, consumers want two things: 1) something they didn’t know five seconds ago; and 2) great frigging tales that make them cry or laugh or think or get angry or all of the above. It really is that simple, despite how complicated so-called media experts can make it sound.
I’m not sure I’ll make to my 40th. But so far, so good.
A: Rice, black beans, red pepper, pineapple and chicken = caddlesnaw. Oh, you’ve never heard that word? It popped into my head when my wife first made this dish many years ago. And so caddlesnaw entered my small inventory of nonsensical words that usually can be used interchangeably, depending on the situation. Another is “hodo,” which can mean a lot of things but frequently is used as a stand-in forthe verb “go.” Yes, I know this is borderline insane, but apparently I have passed it on to my children, who have concocted a larger store of functional non-words. It strikes me that I don’t think I’ve ever used a nonsense word in one of my novels. I will have to correct that. Meantime, I do love me some caddlesnaw.
A: Yep, that’s the Cliff’s Notes for Lord of the Flies. I just bought it as part of the incredibly sophisticated research for the book I’m writing to follow BLEAK HARBOR.
I remember discovering Cliff’s Notes in high school and thinking, wow, this could be helpful. I used them to supplement to my reading of a few of the novels I was assigned. In retrospect, I can see that they could unduly influence a reader’s perception and blunt the way we use our imagination in good ways to fill in the blanks of our understanding of a book. I used Cliff’s twice in college: once for Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, because I had no idea what the hell was going on, and later for Dickens’ Oliver Twist, because it was the end of my senior year and I didn’t give a flying fuck.
I read Lord of the Flies in high school and loved it. It came to mind recently as I was casting about for a detail in the book I’m writing. One character has a relationship with drones so personal that he names them. I wanted a cool antecedent for the names. For some reason I thought of Lord of the Flies, with Ralph, Piggy, Jack, et. al. Perfect, I thought. But I needed to review who these boys were.
I’ll admit to a twinge of guilt that I’m not rereading the book. But at my current book-reading rate, I wouldn’t finish it till 2020, a year later than my deadline. I hope the reading-and-writing gods forgive me.
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