INTERVIEWS --->> list of interviews
SJ Rozan, award winner, well known, but making a bit of a change in her career with her latest book, was my first interview. I met her at the Harlem Book Fair a couple of Julys ago. She was gracious enough to buy my books. That August, at a party hosted by Bonnie and Joe at The Black Orchid in NYC, SJ was kind enough to call me a real writer. Kind words.
Interview with SJ Rozan
1) You're already the author of a hugely successful mystery series (eight novels, including Winter and Night, have earned her awards like the Edgar, Shamus, Nero, Anthony, and Macavity as well as a large readership) -- What about ABSENT FRIENDS will surprise your readers?
First, the fact that it's a standalone. And it's a 3rd person narrative, told from a number of different points of view. It's darker and my use of language is more experimental than in the books in my series.
2) Can you say what is "experimental use of language"? Maybe an example?
Experimental for me, not cutting-edge in English prose. But things like internal rhyme and meter, alliteration, assonance... The fragment that springs to mind is from p. 19, where Georgie is "...ready to catch her if she fainted or to fetch water, a sweater, whatever she wanted." I could have said that many other ways, but I chose this way for the complex relationships of the sounds of the words.
3) What in your reading or writing prepared you for the departures you've taken in your latest book? This assumes, of course, that ABSENT FRIENDS is part of the evolution of SJ Rozan, writer, and not a complete revolution.
It is an evolution, though I suppose it could seem like a revolution. I'd been getting more willing to take literary chances, and progressively more lyrical in my use of language, in the series books, so this was a very large step but still a step, not a jump off a cliff. And I'd been reading Margaret Atwood and John leCarre. It's essential to read on a higher level than you yourself write if you're hoping to get anywhere near that level.
4) Bill and Lydia will be coming back, right? Will the writing of the series be affected by anything you've learned from writing ABSENT FRIENDS?
The next book after ABSENT FRIENDS will be another standalone, but then yes, Bill and Lydia will be back. What will affect the series books now is a new understanding of the tools in my writer's toolbox: I think there are a few more I have some idea how to use than there were before.
5) Ah, the writer's toolbox. Could you name one of those writer's tools that you've learned how to use?
The biggest one, for me, was point of view. Almost everything I've written, and certainly all my novels, have been in the first person. The ability to wield a close third person POV, and in fact four close third person POV's, was something I had to develop.
ABSENT FRIENDS received raves from everyone from Publishers Weekly to The Wall Street Journal and no doubt has earned Rozan a legion of new readers. If you've been a fan of Rozan's earlier novels, ABSENT FRIENDS will be a revelation.
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