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- Author interview - |
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M ysteries That Rock:An Interview with Lisa Kleinholz By Susan McBride It seems logical that the daughter of a painter and a school teacher would be creative, so it’s fitting that Lisa Kleinholz grew up to be a novelist. Though it wasn’t easy. A graduate of Northwestern University with a love of theater, Lisa’s path to publication had as many twists and turns as The Yellow Brick Road. While polishing her prose, she took up ceramics and actually ran a Manhattan pottery studio for several years. Her pots were purchased by such venues as the American Museum of Natural History, the Hard Rock Café and Saturday Night Live, but her dream of writing books still went unrealized. It wasn’t until she moved to western Massachusetts and began reporting for a local newspaper about Cambodian refugees that everything fell into place. Her manuscript about the murder of a refugee Exiles on Main Street ultimately snared her an agent and a publishing deal, debuting to critical acclaim in 1999. Her second in the series, the just-released Dancing With Mr. D. is a worthy and riveting sequel that will undoubtedly enlist new fans. SUSAN McBRIDE - You have a great story about your path to publication with Exiles on Main Street. Give us the scoop. LISA KLEINHOLZ - I consider myself a poster child for persistence. After I finished Exiles on Main Street I sent queries to dozens of agents. A fair percentage asked to read the entire manuscript, but they all ended up rejecting the book. During the two years when I was attempting to sell Exiles, my daughter Brittany was on a campaign to get a dog. With our busy lives, her asthma, my husband Paul’s allergies, that was the last thing we needed. But she persisted. She found two breeds that are non-allergenic and promised to feed, bathe, walk, and care for it. She was very lawyerly in her arguments with an answer to every objection I raised, always logical, persuasive, and hard to rebut. Finally in a fit of exasperation, I told her she could have a dog if I sold my novel. This seemed a safe bet, since by that time I had what seemed like a hundred rejections. No sooner were the words out of my mouth that the phone rang. An agent was calling to ask to read the book. She and her partner loved it, and after a revision, sold it on the first round. I usually tell this as the "how I got my dog" story since Milo, the cute bichon frise we bought, seems to be mine, although Brittany does a lot of the walking and feeding. Like the entire process that occurs after you get that first contract, Milo has been a little hard to control. Slowly but surely, I’m getting the knack. The topic of Cambodian refugees in a small New England community is a serious one for a mystery. Why did you choose to use it in your first book? I was a freelance reporter for the Amherst Bulletin, and one of my first stories was on the plight of Cambodian refugees living in the area. Many of them had been brought over from Southeast Asia by local church groups who had traveled to refugee camps in Thailand. Appalled at the conditions there, they worked heroically and tirelessly to get as many people out as they could. I had experienced a much milder form of culture shock as a young child, since I was brought up in France in my early years. My family returned to the United States when I was four. In America, I spoke French and was mystified because children didn’t understand what I was saying. During my first interviews with the Cambodians, I immediately connected. Their troubles, and there are many as a result of the trauma of the killing fields, are compounded by language difficulties. Recently, I spoke to a psychologist who works with refugees. She said one client still has daily flashbacks to horrors she suffered almost thirty years ago. Imagine having to talk to a therapist about this type of memory and trying to find a way to heal in a foreign tongue. When I talked to Cambodians young and old, and saw how eager they were to have Americans understand what they’d been through, I realized a brief newspaper article wasn’t enough. The combination of their pain and their faith in the American dream just wouldn’t let me go, and I found myself writing their story as a mystery - something I hoped would reach a wide readership. Your protagonist, reporter Zoë Szabo, is such a flamboyant character with her blond spiky hair, short skirts and high heels. Where did she come from? And how much is she like you? When I was nursing my first child, I read mysteries because they were easy to put down and pick up without losing the thread of the story. But I was disturbed that so many of the mysteries had loners as sleuths - even the women. I wanted to show that a mother could have adventures without abandoning her family responsibilities - that a mother could be a hero in her own right, and still nurture her kids. The key to Zoë is best expressed by my friend and mystery author Kate Flora, who offered this blurb for Dancing With Mr. D: "In Zoë Szabo - with her punk hair, her unsuitable wardrobe, her tough-girl attitude and her music-filled head - Kleinholz has created a unique heroine. And yet what we relate to is Zoë’s way of meeting the challenge of every ambitious woman - how to raise a family and maintain a marriage and still attend to a demanding career." I love that quote because it pinpoints precisely what I was attempting. Zoë loves her children with the fierce, tender protectiveness of mothers everywhere. But at the same time, she has that outer layer that you have to get through to see the real person. How am I different and similar? I don’t wear punk clothes. I can’t wear lipstick - it looks awful on me. I’m not married to a troubled rock musician. My husband Paul Kaplan requests that I tell people that he does not have a drug problem. (He actually was not a model for Billy, who is an amalgam of acquaintances and personalities I’ve never met). I haven’t lived in the celebrity world that Zoë has recently escaped. However, I share many of her aspirations and desires. I love my children as I love life itself. I want to protect them from all the world’s woes. I’ve moved from the city to a New England college town, and that has been somewhat of a culture shock, though not as great as Zoë’s. I’ve had serious career aspirations and tried to realize them while my children were young. In other words, I don’t share Zoë’s style, looks, or background, but I do share her struggle to balance career and family. What trouble does Zoë get into in Dancing With Mr. D.? Every kind of trouble you can think of: Boss trouble, co-worker trouble, girlfriend trouble, husband trouble, kid trouble, and diva trouble. In a nutshell, shortly after Zoë interviews Cassandra Dunne, an environmental activist who is blocking a development, the woman is murdered. Zoë investigates the killing and begins delving into the secrets of almost everyone in town. At the same time, her husband Billy is recording an album with his old girlfriend, rock diva Vivi Cairo. The plot thickens when Zoë discovers that one of the musicians in the band may have a secret connection to the murdered activist. Music seems to play an important role in your creative process. Do you listen to tunes while you write, like Zoë does? Are you a musician yourself? I love music. My husband Paul Kaplan is a folk musician and songwriter, as well as an elementary school music teacher. I’ve played piano, guitar, and violin, but none of them really stuck. So I am more of a fan than a player. My tastes are eclectic, running from classical to Broadway, jazz, folk and including blues, Irish, bluegrass, klezmer and of course, rock. All kinds of music influence my writing. Each novel is a kind of a visual symphony. I structure in "movements" or "acts" and pay attention to rhythm and tempo. And I try to give each character a hook - a clue to each personality. Zoë’s hook is her wardrobe and her exotically named lipsticks. In Dancing With Mr. D. several characters are allied with animals - Cassandra, the activist, is trying to save the newt; Vivi loves frogs; Zoë’s son Keith, dinosaurs; her daughter Smokie, rabbits; her friend Kate, horses, and so on. For each of the Zoë books, I try to explore a different genre of rock or pop music. The titles for both books so far come from the Rolling Stones. Exile on Main Street is one of their most highly acclaimed albums. "Dancing with Mr. D" is a macabre song on their Goat’s Head Soup album. In Exiles on Main Street the chief inspiration was Bruce Springsteen, who is one of my models for Billy Harp, Zoë’s sexy, musician husband. If there’s ever a movie, Billy should look a lot like Bruce. For Dancing With Mr. D, divas provided the inspiration. That was great fun. I listened to rock/pop divas going back all the way to Marlene Dietrich, including Annie Lennox (Eurythmics), Debbie Harry (Blondie), and Madonna. The keynote song is Courtney Love and Hole’s "Violet." Because of her film career and marriage to Kurt Cobain, Courtney doesn’t get taken as seriously as a musician and writer as she deserves - at least in my opinion. The albums Live Through This and Celebrity Skin rank in my all-time top ten. Your background is so interesting, as you spent your childhood in France and spoke that language fluently, then became enamored with theater only to become a professional potter and a journalist. What similarities did you find in these various creative outlets? I believe that all creativity springs from the same source, but can take many forms: cooking, child-rearing, conversation, even sports. The key is attitude. Choices we make in furnishing our homes and dressing ourselves can be outlets for creativity if we make those choices with care and attention to our own sense of beauty and integrity. However, to get others to appreciate our efforts, to create something truly distinctive, to sell our creative work requires dedication, a willingness to learn from mistakes, patience, and perseverance. In theater, I learned about building a character, dialogue, conflict, and structuring a scene. As a potter, I learned about craftsmanship, paying attention to detail, and last but not least, selling. It took me a long time to learn my craft and an even longer time to learn not to give up after one or two rejections. What surprised you about being a published author? What do you like the most and least about promotion? It amazes me how parallel my experience with owning a dog has been to the publishing experience. A trainer we hired recently to help us show Milo who was boss told us that he’s a wonderful, bright animal, but he’s the advanced model - whereas we would have preferred a beginner’s model with training wheels. Likewise, publishing has brought a whole new set of problems that, while exciting and tremendously gratifying, require going through a learning process. Dealing with contracts and deadlines has been tricky. However, I’ve been very lucky to have agents and editors who have encouraged me to produce my very best work and have given me permission to tackle serious themes, as well as to have fun with Zoë. Promotion has taken longer to learn. I wish it would happen without my having to do anything. I’ve learned that I like to do bookstore signings as long as I don’t have to sit at a table alone. So I hook up with new friends from Sisters in Crime. I’ve learned not to be shy about approaching booksellers and libraries because they are an author’s best friends. Despite my theater training, the idea of speaking in front of a large group intimidated me, so initially I had the jitters about conventions like Bouchercon. But I’ve learned to think of these appearances as conversations with a small group of friends. I try not to focus on how many people are really in the room, and it’s gotten much easier. One of the great benefits that I didn’t envision is how much fun it is to meet mystery fans and authors. The mystery community is tremendously generous, supportive, and welcoming. Of all the pleasures of publication, becoming part of this community has been the most surprising and gratifying. What kind of writing schedule do you maintain? How do you balance that with your family life? When I started, I tried to write every day. But I’ve found that a few hours a day aren’t enough when I’m on deadline, and I can’t manage to write at all when I’m promoting. So now I write in intense spurts - weeks, even months, writing from early morning to late at night every single day. Then, I take time off to promote, to do freelance editorial work to make ends meet, and to hang out with my kids and my husband. I don’t balance my family life - my family has come to the rescue since my publication and contract demanded more than full-time work on my career. My two daughters are teenagers now and don’t need as much attention in the afternoons as they used to. Recently, they started pitching in with household chores. My husband Paul, who has a demanding career of his own is a fully engaged, loving father who does chauffeur duty, as well as share in household activities. What's next for Lisa Kleinholz - another Zoë Szabo mystery? Yes. I have one in the works. This time Zoë is asked to go undercover to investigate a shady rock promoter. The music will be blues, the setting partially urban, and Zoë will encounter more danger than in the first two books. I’m also finishing a stand-alone set in the Florida Keys, about a coral reef scientist who gets involved with some rather unsavory treasure hunters. Okay, I have to ask. Do you have a holiday wish list? What's on it? Somebody once asked me what would make Zoë think she’d died and gone to heaven. At the time, I couldn’t think of an answer. Now I know - Zoë and I want the same thing: a new car. Any advice for aspiring writers or lessons you learned that may be helpful? Don’t give up. Distance yourself from the submission process. Think of it as a lottery, not as an indication of whether your work is good enough. Really great stuff gets rejected every day. Set achievable goals and reward yourself for meeting them. For example instead of saying, I want to get something published by such a date, say: I want to send out forty stories or queries in the next month. The real breakthrough in terms of my career came when I set the goal of making over 100 submissions a year. The first year I made that goal, I also found my agent and sold my book. How can readers reach you? I love to hear from readers. Visit my web site at www.kleinholz.com or e-mail me at zoe@kleinholz.com. Any final comments? In addition to having an environmental theme, Dancing With Mr. D is a celebration of women from all different stages of life and in all different guises. It is dedicated to the diva, the mother, and the crone in each of us. I don’t think those roles are incompatible, although we may play them at different times in our lives. Women are major players in life, both on the political level, in our neighborhoods and communities, and on a deeper level as the nurturers of the next generation. This novel is my way of paying tribute to them all. |
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