Origins: Reed Farrel Coleman On GUN CHURCH

Once in a while here at Crime Always Pays, I like to hand the reins over to an actual writer who knows what she or he is talking about. ‘Origins’ is a (very) occasional series in which an author talks about the inspiration - character, plot, setting, whatever - for their latest novel, in this case the venerable Reed Farrel Coleman, on GUN CHURCH. To wit:

WONDER BOYS Meets FIGHT CLUB, With Guns
By Reed Farrel Coleman

“I’m an adjunct professor of English at Hofstra University and I teach writing classes for Mystery Writers of America University—a kind of travelling roadshow MWA offers as a great member benefit. In any case, one of the things I inevitably discuss with students is the elevator pitch or, to put it another way, a very brief description of what your book is about. This is not a description of what happens in the book. It’s not a plot summary. It’s one line that conveys the gist of the novel. Writers, even seasoned and experienced ones, often struggle with this concept. The odd thing about GUN CHURCH is that not only did its entire plot pop into my head when I had the inspiration to write it, but the elevator pitch appeared immediately as well: WONDER BOYS meets FIGHT CLUB, with guns.
  “First, a brief summary, so you can get some idea of where I’m coming from. Kip Weiler is a washed up ’80s literary wunderkind fallen on hard times. Twenty years past his last novel, Kip’s foibles have landed him in the rural mining town of Brixton. He teaches creative writing at the local community college. One day, Kip saves his class from potential violence. For this he gets his second fifteen minutes of fame and, more importantly, the urge to write again. Little does Kip know that the book he is working on may be the blueprint of his own demise. Kip gets deeply involved with two of his students and a cult-like group that is obsessed with the intrinsic nature of handguns. The world gets very weird when art begins to imitate life imitating art.
  “So, back to how this all came about. Six years ago I was at a mystery conference, sitting in the audience as my close friend and fellow author, Jim Born, gave a weapons and self-defence demonstration. During the Q&A part of the demonstration, someone in the audience asked a question about how far shotgun pellets spread and at what rate. Jim said something like, “You’d have to be a real gun expert to answer that one.” And bang! (no pun intended), the plot of GUN CHURCH and the elevator pitch popped into my head. I’ll never know why, exactly. It just did.
  “Unfortunately, it took me six years and about twenty drafts to get it right. Strange thing is, I can usually write a series novel in 4 to 6 months, not years. But I didn’t have the chops to pull off the novel as originally conceived. There are many moving parts, lots of characters, a book within a book, tons of Irish dialect, third and first person narration … Talk about giving yourself a challenge, but it was absolutely worth it. Much like writing TOWER, the stand-alone I did with Ken Bruen, GUN CHURCH proved to be a means through which I became a far better and skilful writer. The chops I didn’t have when I began the project, I developed because of the project.” - Reed Farrel Coleman

  For a free sample of GUN CHURCH at Audible.com, along with a couple of very nice big-ups from Daniel Woodrell and Don Winslow, clickety-click here …

My Week At The Movies

You get to see a lot of rubbish when you review movies for a living, and while it’s nowhere as bad as thinning turnips or working on a building site, it’s incredibly frustrating to waste a couple of hours (plus the couple of hours it takes to get there and back) watching complete tosh when you could be doing something more useful, like staring at a blank screen and trying to remember how this whole writing lark goes again. Last week was a bad week, upon which we won’t dwell, but this week has been one of the better ones.
  I saw Waltz With Bashir (above, right) on Monday morning, an animated film dealing with the 1982 Israeli-Lebanese war, the Sabra and Shatila massacres, and the voluntary amnesia of some of the Israeli soldiers involved. Written and directed by Ari Folman, who served during the conflict, it’s a fairly straightforward narrative, in that it’s constructed from a series of interviews Ari conducts with former comrades in an attempt to fill in the missing gaps in his memory of that time. The animation is crude, a technique called ‘rotor-scoping’ that involves filming live and then painting over the resulting film; it’s deliberately crude, however, designed to place the kind of dream-like barrier between audience and action that the soldiers themselves seem to experience when they try to remember the details of the war. Naturally, it’s those details, as they emerge in a drip-feed manner, that prove harrowing. A brave and haunting film, Waltz With Bashir is as compelling as its subject matter is repellent.
  I saw Choke on Tuesday morning, the movie version of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel. I thought the novel overwrought and grating when I read it years ago, a story with all the idiosyncrasies of FIGHT CLUB but none of the substance. The movie isn’t much of an improvement; the main character, Victor, is an accumulation of quirks and oddities, and never really convinces as a fully rounded person. Yes, I know he’s supposed to be a despicable human being, and that I’m not supposed to like him, but I’d have been equally happy to hate the sex addict-cum-scam artist. I just didn’t care enough either way, although Angelica Huston’s performance, as Victor’s dying mother, is a strong one.
  Tuesday afternoon brought the Irish movie Kisses. To wit:

Two kids, Dylan (Shane Curry) and Kylie (Kelly O’Neill) run away from home to escape Dylan’s abusive father and Kylie’s creepy uncle, and spend the night wandering the streets of Dublin. That’s the very simple set-up to Kisses, which was written and directed by Lance Daly, and the movie is as beautiful as it is simple. That’s not to say it’s a picture-postcard depiction of Dublin, or of its central characters. Dylan and Kylie are expertly drawn pre-teens from one of Dublin’s less salubrious suburban estates, with all the angst, conflict and hormonally-charged naïvety that that suggests, and both have the vocabulary of a fishwife. Most of the situations the pair find themselves in are not ones that will have Bord Failte rushing to promote this movie – Kylie and Dylan, searching for Dylan’s homeless brother, find themselves dealing with a variety of winos, perverts and security guards keen to make a name for themselves. But it’s the chemistry and relationship between the leading pair that make this work, as well as a script that showcases a very sharp ear for Dublin slang, and despite their sordid environment, this is an uplifting tale that’s similar in tone and intent with the last great Irish movie, Adam and Paul.

  Wonderful, wonderful stuff.
  Tuesday night found me in the Abbey Theatre for The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Berthold Brecht’s tale of the rise of an Italian-American gangster in 1930’s Chicago and the parallels between his coming to power and that of Adolf Hitler in Germany. Jimmy Fay, who has been turning out some terrific productions in the last couple of years, directs, and it’s a long but always compelling tale. Central to its success is the performance of Tom Vaughn Lawlor as Ui, a stunning piece of work in which Lawlor somehow manages to channel Hitler, Al Capone, Groucho Marx, Charlie Chaplin and Richard III. It’s as fine a performance as I’ve seen on a Dublin stage in 10 years of reviewing theatre; if you’re in the vicinity of Dublin over the next few weeks, don’t miss it.
  Finally, the clip below is the trailer to Kisses. Roll it there, Collette …