Michael Connelly: By the Book

[ International New York Times, 12 december 2013]

The author, most recently, of “The Gods of Guilt” would love to have met Raymond Chandler: “I’d say, Ray, can a writer be happy and still be good at it?” Or does it take a life of trouble?

llustration by Jillian Tamaki

Tell us about your favorite book of the year. 

I think I’ll go with nonfiction and pick “Act of War: Lyndon Johnson, North Korea, and the Capture of the Spy Ship Pueblo,” by Jack Cheevers. I worked with Cheevers in the early ’90s. He was a very good reporter then, and all those skills are on display in this page-turner, which jumps between high politics in Washington and the gripping high-seas journey of the spy ship in 1968. This book held me like “Flyboys” and “Lost in Shangri-La.”

When and where do you like to read?

I mostly read on airplanes and right before sleep. I admit my reading time is limited because I can write in the situations and places where people usually read. But reading is the fuel — it’s inspiring — so I try to keep the tank full. What happens most of the time is, I binge read. I will put aside a day or two to do nothing but read. I did that recently with Stephen King’s “Doctor Sleep.”

Of the books you’ve written, which is your favorite?

I know I am supposed to say “The Gods of Guilt” here, since I just wrote it, but my favorite will probably always be “The Last Coyote,” because it was the first book I wrote as a full-time author, and I think the improvements were more evident to me than in the transitions between other books. But don’t confuse “favorite” book with “best” book. I am not sure I could pick a book that I would say is my best. I hope I haven’t written it yet.

You’ve said that your mother introduced you to crime fiction. Which books got you hooked?

She was into P. D. James and Agatha Christie, and I liked it, but I would not say I got hooked in until I started reading John D. MacDonald, who was writing about the place where I was growing up. His character Travis McGee kept his boat, the Busted Flush, at the Bahia Mar Marina in Fort Lauderdale. I worked there while in high school, and my boss was named in a couple of the novels. They also kept a slip open for the Flush. I thought that was pretty cool.

Who’s your favorite fictional detective? And the best villain?

It’s got to be Philip Marlowe as the detective. He had an unmatchable mixture of sardonic humor, weariness and resolve. I’ll go with Francis Dolarhyde from Thomas Harris’s “Red Dragon” as the villain. He remains in the shadow of Hannibal Lecter, but I find him more realistic and a reminder that these sorts of killers are more banal than genius. That makes them scarier. 

You covered crime for The Fort Lauderdale News and Sun-Sentinel and for The Los Angeles Times. What did reporting teach you about storytelling?

That it’s all about momentum. Momentum in writing means momentum in reading. There is a prevailing school of thought that something good must take time, sometimes years to create and hone. I have always felt that the books I have written fastest have been my best — because I caught an unstoppable momentum in the writing.

What’s the best thing about writing a book? 

There is a great freedom to it. You set your own hours and pace, you write without anyone looking over your shoulder and telling you what to do. It either happens or it doesn’t, but when it does there is an amazing sense of fulfillment to it. It’s like improvising jazz on a piano or saxophone. What comes out may have roots in something else, but you’ve made it yours.

The hardest or least rewarding?

The gamble you take with everything you write. Not knowing if what you created with that freedom to improvise is worth the paper you print it out on. You can put a good chunk of yourself and your time into something and only you may love it in the end.

What kinds of stories are you drawn to? And what do you steer clear of?

I like stories about people who have to go into darkness for a good reason and then have to figure out how to deal with the darkness that seeps into their souls. It’s a variation on the noble cause, I guess. I avoid stories that explain the villain and why he acts out. It’s just not that interesting to me. I like the bargain that good cops make. Like a law of physics, they go into darkness; darkness goes into them. They have to decide how to prevent it from destroying them. 

What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves?

I’m not sure what would be surprising. Maybe the complete collection of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels. “The Public Burning,” by Robert Coover? That’s one of my favorite novels of all time.

Who is your favorite overlooked or underappreciated writer?

There’s a guy who writes about the Panhandle in Florida named Michael Lister. I like his stuff a lot. There’s a new practitioner of the L.A. crime novel named P. G. Sturges. He’s really good, too, with his stories about the Shortcut Man.

President Clinton gave you some nice publicity when he was photographed reading one of your early novels. Which of your books would you recommend to President Obama?

“The Closers,” because I think it’s the book that underlines Harry Bosch’s belief that everybody counts or nobody counts.

Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel you were supposed to like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?

Too many to list here, and I am not that impolitic anyway — at least with writers still living. But I have to say I am an impatient reader. My time to read is too short, so I only give a book — any book — a short leash. It’s got to draw me in quickly. It doesn’t matter to me who wrote it, what the pedigree is or what the critics say. If I’m not in the car, buckled in and riding with the story by the second chapter or so, I’m probably going back to the shelf for something else. 

If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you want to know?

I’d like to ask Raymond Chandler about Chapter 13 of “The Little Sister.” It describes a drive around 1940s Los Angeles, and it still holds up as a description of the city right now. Beautiful. I’d ask him how he pulled that off. And I’d tell him that that short chapter of his was what made me want to become a writer. I’d also ask him whether it takes a tortured life to produce something like that. I’d say, Ray, can a writer be happy and still be good at it?

What book do you think everybody should read before they die?

“The Giving Tree,” by Shel Silverstein.

What do you plan to read next?

“Four Days in November: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy,” by Vincent Bugliosi. I’ve been sitting on this one for a long time. This is the time to read it.