Interview with Andrew Gross by Diane G. (icesk8tr)

Diane G.: First of all, I would like to thank you for agreeing to do this interview for PaperBackSwap!!

What inspired you to start writing, and how did you get involved with James Patterson?

I always wanted to write. I was a published poet while still in high school and ended up editing the literary magazine at Middlebury, but when I graduated I shifted to business and got a MBA and focused on other things. I ended up doing apparel turnaround in the sports field (Head, Le Coq Sportif) and when one of them severely didn’t turn around I decided not to leave any more blood on the field and asked my wife for a year to pursue this dream, the year turned into three, as happens, but when my book didn’t ultimately sell—twenty publisher rejections—and I was sitting around my den not knowing what my next step was in life, I got a call, out of the blue, “Can you take a call from James Patterson?”

Unbeknownst to me, my rejected manuscript had been given to him by the head of his publishing company, and he was looking for someone who “wrote women well” to team up with to start his women’s murder club” series. We did six books together!

Diane G.: How much did you learn from working with James Patterson, and did the fact that the books were bestsellers help you with your confidence to write that first novel on your own?

Not only my confidence– I knew I could do this!—but my skill sets as well. In the way of plotting, pacing, and how to create emotion in scenes, a big thing with Jim. It’s pretty clear I don’t write Patterson clones, but I have adapted many elements I learned from him into my own voice and my own concept of how a novel should be crafted. I always say it was like a combined MFA-MBA in thriller management!

Diane G.: I know your first solo novel was The Blue Zone, and since then you have written three books in the Ty Hauck series. Are you going to continue with the series, concentrate on single novels, or both?

I’m intending to continue with a Hauck novel I’m starting to write now, with publisher approval. It should be published in 2013- crazy that we’re thinking that far ahead.  I think he’ll get mixed up with American arms shipments to Mexican drug lords. Nasty.

Diane G.: I have followed your books since The Blue Zone and I get so caught up in the novels while I am reading them, which as you know, causes me to miss stops on public transportation. Eyes Wide Open was definitely in this category as well! Do you get caught up in the novels when you are writing them?

Of course. Hard not to. I always search for the emotional core of my books- and the character who best carries that weight. Sometimes I have to find it during the writing itself. It’s not always clear. It’s always emotional for me, however that character’s fate turns out. I don’t get so caught up in the “chase,” but in the human side of what’s really at stake behind it.

Diane G.: Eyes Wide Open draws from tragic events that have happened in your life, did this make it more difficult to write the story, or was it in a sense therapeutic?

In truth, the book was easy for me to write because much of the first half revolves around events that were real and to which I was party—so it kind of wrote itself. A family suicide is never easy, and it’s destroyed my brother and sister in law, but the connection of Jay in the book to Charlie and Gabby is close to how it was for me. It was an awkward distant relationship, and I was sorry for Alex, my nephew, but he was a sick, troubled and violent kid, so to be honest, I always had a distance from him so I was able to write about what happened with some emotional distance.

Diane G.: So, I have heard you had a passing encounter with Charles Manson, what was that like?

Just one quick encounter as a kid, described in the book. I recall two things: he was polite to an extreme, so polite, it was almost threatening. He was very quiet and restrained, and held my brother back from an emotional outburst, but even in saying very little, and none of it threatening, we all definitely remember that he had the most “power” in the room.

Diane G.: This book and others you have written revolve around family situations, how does your own family influence your writing?

I often take my family, which is pretty calm and loving, and then twist it and do terrible things to it to come up with the scenarios in my books. I kind of say, what is the worst thing that could happen to me, and then I write it!

Diane G.: How much time to you spend researching details of historical events or a geographical area when you are writing a book?

Depends. Enough to “sell” the scene to the reader, but not so much that I come off like an expert or a show-off. Another thing I take from Patterson—don’t let “expertise” slow the down the scene. So don’t over-study! Not my thing.

Diane G.: What authors have influenced you in your life, and do you have a favorite author you like to read?

Robert Stone’s Dog Soldiers and Robert Penn Warren’s, All the Kings Men are the two books that had the most profound affect on me. As a craftsman. In terms of who I read, whatever’s cool and hot in the thriller trade. Reading Connelly’s The Reversal and another book called Before I Go to Sleep now.

Diane G.: What is next for you?

Another thriller built off a real life experience. Last year in Houston, while on book tour, I was stopped for a traffic violation, and ended up pulled out of my car, cuffed, throw in the back of a cop car, told I was being arrested and taken to jail, then after ten other cops arrived, had a bunch of chilling 9/11-type questions thrown at me: “what were you doing in a federal office building in downtown Houston?” “When was the last time you were stopped by the police?” Fortunately, for me, the situation ended benignly, with a full apology. But for my character, and for the “arresting” officer, it doesn’t end so benignly at all. So as long as these crazy things keep happening, I’ll have good fodder for new books!

You can learn more about Andrew Gross and his books at his web-site: www.andrewgrossbooks.com

A big PBS thank you to Andrew Gross and Diane G for a great interview!

Tags: Authors, Book Recommendations, Book Suggestions

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