Author Interview: Francis Levy

Recently, I posted a review of a new novel called Erotomania: A Romance. I was so intrigued by the book that I had to interview the author, Francis Levy, to find out how he came up with the idea for the novel.

Erotomania is an absurdist portrait of a modern-day romance. It follows James and Monica from their early days as couple that is forced to move into a nuclear fall-out bunker so their explosive sex life doesn't physically harm their neighbors, down the long journey to marriage counseling.

Q: Tell us a little about yourself, what is your background and how did you come to writing?

I was an English major at Columbia and always wanted to write. Actually trash that, I went to Columbia and felt like shit, just hated myself, felt inferior, undesirable, my long time girlfriend had left me, I then went to Yale Drama School, in a program they had in critical writing and continued to feel like shit. I constantly wanted to be top man on the totem pole. At Yale I began my long career oedipalizing reality. I constantly wanted what everyone else had. There is an expression you've got to want what you have. It took me about thirty years to learn that. I started writing for all the wrong reasons basically as a way of looking for attention. I think all writers do this to some extent and I'n ending my career with the same base motives. You will never hear a heartening word from these lips. I look at writing as an animalistic activity, a delving into an unconscious instinctual world; this is where the addictive power of writing comes from. This is a world that psychotics inhabit unwillingly and that writers are free to come and go from as they please. There is a deceptive veneer of humanism to the enterprise, but essentially it has to do with the will to power. Who used that expression? When I first came to NY after my years in New Haven, I got a job in publishing. I expected the literary world to be kind of cult of sensiblility, EM Forster had talked about "the aristocracy of he heart." It was nothing like that.

Q. How long did it take you to write the book and find a publisher?

It's a short book, but it took a couple of years since it was rewrirtten a lot. I had published a lot of short fiction, essays, humor, criticism in a wide variety of places including The Village Voice, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World, The East Hampton Star, The Quarterly and so on, but I had never published a book. I have written other books which I tried to publish unsuccessfully and I was a little wary of the situation. So I actually didn't really do much submitting. I think I queried a few places and maybe sent some sample chapters out, but I didn't seriously set out to get published in the way I had in the past. I work with a very good editor named Maggie Paley and she showed it to her agent at the time Jane Gelfman. Jane liked it, but wasn't going to handle a first novel whose only destination was going to be Morgan Entrekin at Grove. He is the one that everyone thinks off when they have an edgy book. You have to remember that the situation in publishing is particularly bad now. It really sucks. I think one of her authors someone with a big track record had spoken highly of a small publisher in the midwest called Two Dollar Radio. That's how I heard of it. I went on line, looked up their submission guidelines then submitted, sight unseen. I heard back from Eric Obenauf the publisher. He liked what I had shown him and wanted to see more. I sent the rest and he offer me a contract.

Q. Your first release is entitled Erotomania: A Romance. How did you come up with the idea? From your blog, you specifically state that the book is not autobiographical in any way!

The original title of the novel had been Savage Fuck, then Savage Kiss, but the publisher wasn't hot on it. So my wife Hallie said, why don't you call it Erotomania. It's a word I frequently bandy about. The significance of the title for me really is that Erotomania is a pathology and pathology is a form of consciousness. My two characters start as animals. they are really walking ids and they they develop personality and consciousness. It's what allows them to get to know each other and it;s the thing that always draws them apart. The romance part came because from the first my publisher regarded it as a love story. I think his acceptance letter said somethinng like "you have reinvented the love story."

Q. I have to say that even though I’ve read a great deal of erotic romance and erotic, I found myself blushing at the sexual nature of the book. Was that something that you were concerned about all? Did you find yourself ever pulling back during the writing?

Never, not once. I don't regard it as pornographic or sexually stimulating either. I just wrote. You have to understand the language the thinking is all a little like Bunuel and Dali's Chien Andalou, a mixture of humor, sexuality and agrgression. It's not the language of reality, rather that of dreams. if you look at the sexuality in that context you will hopefully see it in another way. By the way I have nothing against pornography or writing that is sexually stimulating. One of my favorite books is DH Lawrences's The Rainbow--which is wonderfully sexy.

Q. The book is not set in a specific place, although the characters travel quite a bit going to various museums, and Jim travels for work. Was there a reason why you didn’t set the book, say in New York, or Chicago?

Again, this isn't reality. It's more of a dreamscape and hence I wasn;t concerned with that kind of verisimilitude.

Q. Although this book is written solely from the male point of view, we get a strong sense of Monica’s character. Did you find it a challenge getting into Monica’s head?

Not really, I have always been fascinated by women. One of my jokes which has some truth in it is that I have a lesbian sensiblity. That is, I have the sensibiity of a woman who loves other women. I don't think sexual consciousness need be defined by sexual orientation or biology. I can be a woman in a man's body for instance while not being a transexual, who desires a sex change operation. I love being a man, but I also love thinking about what it is to be a sexual or even non sexual woman.

Q. Not to spoil it for everyone, but both Monica and Jim have suffered a similar experience with a parent, was this a conscious decision on your part? And I noticed that it wasn’t really addressed during the counseling sessions?

There was nothing consciously addressed with regard to the creation of Monica or Jim's back stories. They just evolved. However, I am a great believer in the significance of manifest content. In other words if you spot a relationship then there is a signifance to it. I am still seeing things in the novel that I hadn't consciously noticed when I wrote it. I'm a very regimented person. I work on a strict schedule the same time everyday etc, but when I actually get into the act of writing I'm in a rather manic state. It's like a good therapy session that is painful at the same time. I delve into area I might not have been aware of ideationally, then I wake up from my dreaming, only to return to the wet dream or nightmare the next day.

Q. The character of the relationship counselor, is almost the anti- Dr. Phil. Is he based on someone you know or a completely fictional creation?

It's a total fictional creation, as is the whole novel. I will say this however. I have had lots of experience with psychoanalysis, and marriage counselling both and let me add I only satirize or caricature that which I love. I actually have an article in the current issue of the psychoanalytic journaol Contemporary Psychoanalysis entitled "Catricide, Matriciide and Magic: the Artist as Chimera."

Q. Food also plays a major part in the book, particularly Chinese food. You live in New York, what are your favorite Chinese food restaurants?

I used to eat in a place called Jade Mountain. It was between 12th and 13th on Second. It was the old combination plate kind of deal with the naugahyde booths and linoleum tables, a staticky oldies station playing in the background. I always ordered the Number #1` chow main, egg roll, fried rice and wanton soup. The Chow Mein sign is still up there on the building if you pass by. Now it's a bar. It was run by a guy named Reggie Chan. He was chief cook and bottle washer. There was a delivery guy, but Reggie made deliveries sometimes too. One day the delivery guy didn't make it to work I guess and Reggie got hit by a flat bed truck while making a delivery. That was the end of Jade Mountain and a whole period of my life. My kids grew up there. When I got my black belt we had my party there.

Q. Monica and Jim spend a great deal of time watching TV. Are there any shows that are must see TV for you?

I watch no TV. I am not against it. I just watch no TV I don't have the time.

Q. What are some novels that you could read again and again?

War and Peace, The Brothers K, Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, Great Expectations, The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq

Q. Who do you admire and why?

I admire mostly dead people, Chekhov, Freud, I loved Bergman more than my own life. He is the Shakespeare of film. I hate being entertained and I hate beauty which I find alienating, but I love art and artists whose currency is human pain. That is something I identify with. It's not the pain of living that is so difficult. It is being alone in it that has always been the problem for me. I don't find a movie like Through a Glass Darkly disturbing in the least for instance. I find I solace in it. When I first saw the great Bergman films I was overwhelmed with the feeling of consolation.

Q. What is your writing process? Do you plot extensively first or do you tend to “fly in the mist?” Has your process changed over time? Do you write multiple drafts or clean up as you go?

No plotting. I write as I go, I try not to think. Ideation is the enemy of invention for me. I never say I have an idea for something. A line or succession of lines occurs and I'm off to the races.

Q. You work out seven days a week, you manage your family’s real estate holdings as well as a homeless program called Safe Haven, and you’re in analysis, when do you find time to write?

I write at the same time every day for starters. I write and weight lift in the mornings. then I go to karate or spinning or I jump rope, then I go to my analytic appointment, then I write some more. In the afternoons I write again and rewrite. I am usually working on three different things at the same time. For instance I recently completed a long essay on my analysis called "Pscyhoanalysis:The Patient's Cure."

Q. Do you have any advice for aspiring novelists?

As I have said before writing is an irrational activity; that is where the power comes from, but to deal with the huge amount of irrationality unleashed, a firm regimen is necessary. The discipline, the regimen is everything. It's what allows the process to take place. I no more think about feeling like writing than I do feeling like working out. I just do it , the same time everyday. I rarely feel like working out. Who does? Do you know anyone who wants to do something that is difficult and exhausting?I feel the same way about writing.

Q. You are also the co-director of The Philoctetes Center here in New York. Can you talk a little bit about the Center and what it does?

The Philoctetes Center is psychoanalysis, neuroscience and humanitires. We run roundtables and are now running an increasingly ambitious research program. We have a poetry series and a jazz improv series and we have a collaboration with Film Forum where we preview films of theirs that have artistic or psychological resonances. We ran a whole series on creative process showing films about Kiki Smith, Chuck Close, Louise Bourgeois etc. Chuck Close and Kiki Smith came to talk about these film. The center began as a discussion about imagination. Imagination being the palette of psychoanalysis we were interesed in what creative people who have a particular intense connection to unconscious life could tell about analysis and conversely what analysis could tell us about the process of creativity.


Q. What are you planning to work on next?

Two things. I have a collection of interrelated short stories, really fables called The Kafka Studies Department. I term these "emotional mysteries." They are illustrated by my wife Hallie Cohen , who is a painter and chair of the art departmen at Marymount Manhattan College. My next novel is nearing completion. It's called "Seven Days in Rio" and concerns a sex tourist who gets waylaid at a psychoanalytic convention.

Interview with CJ Lyons

I had the chance to pick up a copy of CJ Lyon's book at the Berkley signing in San Franciso and devoured it on the plane on the way home. I immediately emailed her and asked to interview her for the blog. Thankfully she said yes! I am very happy to welcome new author CJ Lyons to Got it Goin On. Now if only blogger would let me post pictures!


As a pediatric ER doctor, CJ Lyons has lived the life she writes about in her cutting edge suspense novels. Her debut, LIFELINES (Berkley, March 2008), became a national bestseller and Publishers Weekly proclaimed it a "breathtakingly fast-paced medical thriller." The second in the series, WARNING SIGNS, is due out January, 2009. Contact her at http://www.cjlyons.net



Q: Tell us a little about yourself, what is your background and how long have you been writing before you were published.

I've been telling stories ever since I can remember—this blurring of fact and fiction used to get me into a lot of trouble, I was in time out constantly, but of course that just gave me time to make up more stories! Imagine my delight when I learned to read and write and discovered that there were others out there with voices in their heads and that if you wrote them down they were no longer "fibs" but stories people wanted to read.

I'm trained in pediatric emergency medicine and began to seriously consider writing for publication in 2003. Then, after seventeen years of practicing medicine, I took a leap of faith two years ago and left my practice to pursue my dream-come-true of writing.

So far the gamble has paid off!



Q. Tell us about when you got “the call”?

My publishing career is a bit backwards compared to most. Berkley read an unpublished manuscript of mine and they actually called me and asked me to create a new medical suspense series for them. They wanted something new, something fresh and different—a medical thriller told from the point of view of the women.

Other than that, I could do anything I wanted with the books—imagine the freedom of creating a whole new world, reflecting my experiences as a pediatric ER doc! Of course I jumped at the chance! It was a huge challenge but also fun and exciting.



Q. Your first release LIFELINESfrom Berkley features three women doctors from diverse backgrounds at different stages of their careers in medicine. How did you come up with the idea? Any behind the scenes stories that you’d like to share?

In LIFELINES I wanted to share the experience of being the new kid on the block—that frightening feeling of people putting their lives in your hands. So I began LIFELINES on the most dangerous day of the year: July 1st—Transition Day.

You see, for teaching hospitals, our calendar starts on July 1st. That's when the new interns—yes, the bumbling fools who were mere medical students on June 30th—hit the hospitals and start taking care of patients.

I remembered my own Transition Day. Brand new, still not unpacked or moved in, barely finding the hospital parking lot (it was two blocks away in a gang-riddled, not-so-nice neighborhood) much less figuring out my way around the hospital and I'm suddenly on call, responsible for three floors worth of very sick kids!

No one died that night, not on my watch….for which I've forever been eternally grateful. I don't take credit for it—I think it was more likely because of the always-excellent nurses who were well aware of the dangers July 1st posed their tiny patients.

Of course, in LIFELINES, things don't go quite so well for my main character. She loses a patient—the wrong patient, the Chief of Surgery's son. And she has no idea why he died….


Q. I know that you are a physician but was there anything that you had to research for this book that you didn’t know? Not to reveal too much of the plot, but your story involves a fictitious group that promotes white supremacy. What kind of research did you have to do on that?

Actually, the two things I knew when I started writing LIFELINES were that it would take place on the most dangerous day of the year, Transition Day, and that it would somehow involve hate crimes.

The hate crimes part came to me because years ago I saw this photo in LIFE magazine that I couldn't get out of my head—I actually clipped it out and kept it, knowing that someday it would get into a story.

In the photo there is an elderly man dressed in a soldier's uniform with a VFW cap and tons of medals and decorations. He is standing at a protest, holding a sign that reads: Freedom IS the right to Hate.

The dichotomy of that photo tore at me. Here was a man, a hero, someone who had the courage to fight and bleed and risk his life for people like me, for my country….and yet he espoused values that were the very opposite of everything I thought America stood for—except that in a democracy, ideas are as equal as people, so how could I condemn him for having the courage of his convictions?

You see what a paradox it is. I began researching groups that espoused any kind of extreme philosophy—right wing, left wing, religious, political—simply to learn how people thought, why they felt the way they did, where they found these rock-hard, never wavering convictions. Part of that research included learning about militias and extreme religions and I used that knowledge to create my own fictional group in LIFELINES.


Q. Your book is a medical suspense thriller but there are elements of romance in the book. Is that something that you planned from the beginning?

Yes. To me, any thriller or suspense novel is heightened by characters and their relationships more than plot twists and action. Characters learning to trust themselves, trust those around them, and eventually trusting in love—these are very primal issues that resonate with any reader.

I'm a firm believer that it's not medicine that saves lives but people. I think that's what readers want, to have a vicarious experience with characters who are a lot like them, trying to find the courage to get involved and make a difference.

And there's nothing that requires more courage than falling in love.



Q. Since you are a physician, how authentic would you say hospital shows like Grey’s Anatomy, House and ER are compared to the real thing?

LOL! Don't get me started! If you're looking for true medical accuracy, then of the main medical shows--Grey's, ER, and House--I'd have to say that ER most accurately portrays the essence of chaos that inhabits any urban ER. And I know in the early years (I stopped watching after George Clooney left—for obvious reasons!) they did have an 800 number where we used to fax interesting cases from our own ER.

Grey's isn't about the medicine at all—it's about the people, the characters. The medical setting is simply a crucible to test them in. And House is really a classic Sherlock Holmes detective story—the man's supposed to be a genius (hence, the oft repeated phrase: he's the best doctor we have) but he fails three times before he gets it right! And, thank goodness, no hospital on the planet runs as badly as his does!



Q. What/Who do you like to read?

I'm pretty eclectic—tons of thriller/suspense novels, also literary ones, some YA and women's fiction as well. Just looking across the room at my stack of books (I tend to either totally immerse myself in nothing but reading, taking a day off just to read a good book or I'll read five at once and have them scattered around the house) I see: Carol O'Connell, Stephanie Meyer, John Hart, Harlan Coben, Toni McGee Causey, Susan Wiggs, Michael Chabon, Katherine Neville, Debra Webb, and Ariana Franklin.



Q. What is your writing process? Do you plot extensively first or do you tend to “fly in the mist?” Has your process changed over time? Do you write multiple drafts or clean up as you go?


Don't do what I do! I'm a terribly undisciplined writer—all those years of being forced to adhere to a schedule, get to the hospital by 7am, churn through patients, etc, have made me rebel against any kind of strict routine, lol!


I'm a seat of the pants writer. I start knowing my characters—what they want, what they need, their greatest fears—and usually I'll know if they're going to win or lose in the end (I'm not writing literary fiction so they usually win, but there's always a cost to pay). I have no idea exactly how they'll win out in the end or if maybe they lose what they want but win what they really need (I do that a lot—love to play on subconscious desires), so I start writing to find out.
That first draft is very selfish and usually written very quickly—it's for me and me alone, to tell the story my way, and explore my characters. Then, my second draft is much harder, it's my slice and dice draft where I try my best to remove myself from the equation and focus on the reader—what would make it a more enjoyable story for them? What would they expect at this juncture, how can I make it more surprising?



Q. Do you have any advice for aspiring novelists?



I think success in this business boils down to three things:


1. Vision—know what you're writing, know your goal (is it to get published, just to finish the book, maybe just to explore this character and learn more about yourself in the process), know your audience.


2. Passion—know why you write, why you're driven to write this book, what inspires you about this story, and how can you translate that to your audience.


3. Commitment—this job is not easy (although it is fun!). Writing for publication means time stolen from your family, from your hobbies, it's a job. And like any job, you need to pay your dues, take time to learn the trade, and keep on working.


Two quotes that stick with me are the line Tim Allen had in Galaxy Quest, "Never surrender, never give up" and something Jeffrey Deaver once said, "The reader is God."



Q. You offer a short story on your web-site that is a prequel to LIFELINES. More and more authors are offering little extras like this. Do you find that it is an effective marketing tool?



I have no idea! I was actually asked to write that story for a wonderful website called AuthorLink—it's available for free down loads (that's where the link on my site takes you to) to computers and, this is what was cool to me, cell phones.


Short stories are hard—writing a novel is in many ways much easier for me! But they are so much fun to try and I love a challenge, so I've found myself continuing to write them in between bigger projects.



Q. There was a recent article called "Harm in reading romance novels," Do you think romance novels harm or empower women?



I didn't read the article, but the premise sounds just plain silly. After all, why do we write fiction, tell stories, to start with?

It's to explore ideas in a non-threatening, safe environment. The first cavemen quickly found that telling the young ones, "don't go there, you'll get eaten by a sabretooth" wasn't as effective as engaging their audience with a tale, complete with characters just like them who learned the hard way of the dangers of the world. Not only did storytelling do a better job of making their point, it was more memorable so the lessons got passed down through generations.

So now, we're so evolved that someone thinks stories, any kind of stories, are harmful? And stories that reflect the one thing any society needs more of: committing, caring relationships could be dangerous???

That's like saying science fiction stories impede the growth of science or that fantasy stifles imagination or crime fiction encourages crime….

I think people bring to a story what they'll get out of it. For some fiction is pure escapism, for others it provides essential role models—characters that embody the essence of what we would like to see for ourselves and our world.

How could that possibly take away a person's power? Readers are drawn to the types of fiction they need at that moment in time—they chose the book, not the other way around.



Q: Romance has garnered the biggest market share in genre fiction, yet it gets the least respect in popular and literary culture. Do you have any thoughts on why that is? Do you find this prejudice changing?



First of all, I guess it depends on your definition of "respect." I'm sure Nora Roberts laughs all the way to the bank—as do her publishers, booksellers who stock her books, and the millions of readers who have found what they need in her stories.

What greater respect could there be than in serving the needs of millions of people around the world?

I think you give too much power to others when you depend on their definition of what deserves respect and what doesn't. Every reader chooses the books, authors, genres that appeal to them.

If someone disagrees, it should open doors to discussion, not prejudice.


Q. What are you planning to work on next?

The second book in the Angels of Mercy series, WARNING SIGNS, is due out January 27, 2009.

In it, a medical student investigates the mysterious deaths of patients but then begins to experience the same deadly symptoms herself.

In the meantime, I'm working on a standalone medical thriller and a new romantic suspense series as well as the next installment for the Angels of Mercy series.


Thanks CJ for visiting the blog. LIFELINES is out now from Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com

Pimping out New Authors - Dead To Me

So last night, a writer from the workshop I was in for two years, had his first reading at the Barnes and Noble downtown in the Village. Unfortunately I missed. A) because I was hot and sweaty from my salsa class, B) my hair looked horrible and C) I had a hole in one of my black boots and the rain was soaking in terribly. Plus American Idol was on and I forgot to set my DVR. So I missed it. But I'm here to pimp out Anton's first book to you all.

Here's a brief synopsis:

A new urban fantasy featuring a man working on the right side of law-with talents that come from left field.

Psychometry-the power to touch an object and divine information about its history-has meant a life of petty crime for Simon Canderous, but now he's gone over to the good side. At New York's underfunded and (mostly) secret Department of Extraordinary Affairs, he's learning about red tape, office politics, and the basics of paranormal investigation. But it's not the paperwork that has him breathless.

After Simon spills his coffee on (okay, through) the ghost of a beautiful woman-who doesn't know she's dead-he and his mentor plan to find her killers. But Simon's not prepared for the nefarious plot that unfolds before him, involving politically correct cultists, a large wooden fish, a homicidal bookcase, and the forces of Darkness, which kind of have a crush on him.

Doesn't that sound awesome? I had the good fortune to hear a good deal of this book during the two years that I was in the workshop, along with Carolyn Turgeon (author of the awesome Rain Village and the upcoming Fairy Godmother book), as well as the Queen Bee herself, Jennifer Belle, doyenne of the New York Times style page and fantastic author (Little Stalker, out in trade this summer).

And here's what people are saying about it:

"Simon Canderous is a reformed thief and a psychometrist. By turns despondent over his luck with the ladies (not always living) and his struggle with the hierarchy of his mysterious department (not always truthful), Simon's life veers from crisis to crisis. Following Simon's adventures is like being the pinball in an especially antic game, but it's well worth the wear and tear."--Charlaine Harris, author of the Southern Vampire Mysteries.

If you like urban fantasy or paranormal, and you're a little tired of reading about vampires, pick up a copy of Dead To Me. Hopefully I can convince Mr. Strout to guest blog in the next few weeks.