He Comes In Fire
1. What inspired you to write your book?
2.
What is it about? He Comes In Fire is about how the need to comprehend a frightening
mystery like church arsons can sometimes lead us even deeper into darkness –
into paranoia, false accusations, wrong judgments about our fellow human
beings, and so forth. In a sense, though, it’s also about religious faith and
what constitutes real faith in a fallen world. Is the person who looks and acts
the part correctly a “good man,” or is it the stranger who, owing to genuine
struggle, comes off as a nut job? So the way appearances interact with a
deeper, more troubling reality is definitely a major theme.
3.
What do you hope will be the everlasting
thoughts for readers who finish your book?
4.
What advice do you have for writers?
Man, I was face down in the ditch.
Seriously, I finished the first draft of this novel in 2008, and it went to
publishers in the same month the market crashed. It was swept away in the
riptide, and for a while it seemed that was the final word. I just kept
revising and reworking it, even rewrote the story as a screenplay, kept at it,
kept working, until I felt it was really polished, really finished. Then trying
every door, so to speak, every publisher that would answer an email. Mostly
they rejected the book out of hand. Some would agree to read it, but months would
pass and I’d never hear from them again. Who knows if they read even a page? I
just wouldn’t allow myself to despair. I felt the novel was too good for that,
even if I wasn’t. I just kept at it, and finally I found Atticus Books. Right
place, right time, right person – that’s what it all comes down to, and
sometimes it just takes a long journey to find your way home. So my biggest
piece of advice is to keep struggling and fighting, but also be really tough
and honest with yourself, so that you keep getting better.
5.
Where do you think the book publishing
industry is heading? Wow, that’s a
tough one. For all its recent diversification in terms of new technologies, in
some ways the creative landscape feels more restrictive than ever. There are so
few opportunities for writers to publish (outside of self-publishing), and
almost no publisher wants to take chances on experimental or unconventional
works. Which means, on the balance, we’re seeing more blandly commercial stuff,
and fewer exciting or challenging novels. Personally, I’m really rooting for
smaller, independent presses to grow and flourish. And it’s absolutely
possible. In the TV world, AMC was a pretty minor cable channel until the
success of Breaking Bad, which changed everything. My hope is that more
independent presses will become the book world’s AMCs by scoring hits with
outstanding and original novels – and maybe, just maybe, readers will get tired
of schlock and start to demand that change.
6.
What challenges did you have in writing
your book? Well, no shortages in
that department. My goal from the start was to create a story that has the
depth of a literary novel but the pace of a suspense novel – so walking a
tightrope, in other words. From a technical point of view that was challenging
all the way through. But one of the toughest problems, and someone recently
asked me about this, is keeping the balance between your work and family life.
I have two kids and, usually, a job, so finding hours upon hours to be immersed
in such a demanding process isn’t easy. And the truth is, that’s probably why
it took me so long to write He Comes In Fire. So I really had to learn
patience, and come to terms with the idea that, you know, you’re not trying to
score a quick success. You’re writing because you want to write, and you’d do
it anyway even if you knew for a fact it would never see the light of day. It’s
a little like working on a black belt in martial arts, which I’m also doing,
and which has helped me a lot actually. You don’t do it for the glory of the
belt rank, or because you think one day you’ll need to fight a dozen terrorists
hand to hand – you do it for the satisfaction of perfecting the techniques.
That’s enough in itself.
7.
If people can only buy one book this
month, why should it be yours? Great question for
me, because I lost my modesty over the past couple of years, maybe left in a
hotel somewhere on Route 95 or 81, and I still haven’t found it. First off, He Comes In Fire is a fast, entertaining read. It’s mysterious and
suspenseful, but at the same time it asks some provocative questions about the
world today, not just about the American South. What kind of people are we? Who
do we want to be? Do we accept crime, degradation, sinfulness, with a shrug?
Does justice matter to us? Would we rather have easy answers than a
complicated, uncomfortable truth? I think these questions apply very much to
the current wave of violence we’re experiencing in America: the mass shootings,
the murder of police officers, and the general sense of bewilderment
surrounding all this. The phenomenon of church arsons is so bound up in issues
of race, injustice and faith, that it would be almost impossible not to find
some insight into the present situation through this story. So buy it for either reason – to better understand the
world we live in, or for fun – but you should definitely buy this novel.
For more information, please consult: www.hecomesinfire.com
For more information, please consult: www.hecomesinfire.com
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