Saturday, June 22, 2013

Author Spotlight: Ron Felber



Today we welcome author Ron Felber to the comfy confines of the Gazalapalooza Author Spotlight. Understandably, Felber’s been a busy man since the recent release of his new thriller, A Man of Indeterminate Value.  We’re pleased our guest was able to carve out some time from his full schedule to visit with us for a while and share some thoughts about his new book, and writing generally.

Many of you recognize Felber’s name from his association with the popular Fox television program, "The Mob Doctor." His 2004 nonfiction book, Il Dottore: The Double Life of a Mafia Doctor, tells the story about a kid from the Bronx who grew up to become a Mafia insider and physician to top New York Mafia dons such as John Gotti, Carlo Gambino, Paul Castellano, and Joe Bonanno. Il Dottore was the inspiration for that show.

Gelber’s follow-up to Il Dottore was 2011’s The Hunt for Kuhn Sa, the true story of American authorities’ battle against an international heroin kingpin whose misanthropic reign at the end of the 20th century had the U.S. State Department calling him "the most evil man in the world." American law and drug enforcement needed to take down this drug lord, as much to rid the world of his trade as because Kuhn Sa’s savage rise to power couldn’t have happened without an assist from the CIA.

Felber brings the same hard-nosed research and meticulous attention to detail that make Il Dottore and The Hunt for Kuhn Sa enthralling reads to his brand new novel. A Man of Indeterminate Value is as much a gripping contemporary thriller as it is a riveting exposé of brutal American corporate greed, corruption and myopia. Felber draws on some of his own experiences as CEO of a U.S. manufacturing company, a former deputy sheriff, and a competitive boxer, to bring to life his new book’s main character, an anti-hero Jack Madson. Madson learns the hard way that despite what he thought he knew, happiness and money have little to do with one another, and quite often more of one inevitably equals less of the other.

Now that our guest’s deep background has been laid bare for your education and entertainment, it’s time to strap Felber tightly into the Spotlight’s hard wooden chair, flare up our battery of unforgiving klieg lights, and get this interview underway. Felber seems like a pretty tough guy. He should come through this Spotlight with flying colors. Without further ado, let’s rev this Spotlight up and see.

Gazala:    In my omnipotence, I've sentenced you to be stranded alone on a desert island for offenses best left unnamed. In my beneficence, I've decided to allow you a limited amount of reading material to make your stay a little less bleak than it would otherwise be. I'll spot you your religious text of preference, and the collected works of William Shakespeare. In addition to those, name the one fiction book, and the one nonfiction book, you'd choose to take with you, and why you choose them.

Felber:    Tough question, Richard. For fiction, I think it would be All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy. For someone who's never read the novel or is unfamiliar with McCarthy's writing, the title might be a little off-putting, even prissy sounding. But make no mistake about it, this book is as terse and gritty as anything you'll ever read, with prose that seeps through your pores and into your soul. Also, I'm very fond of the themes that he writes about—truly American themes that capture what it means to be an American in its most ideal sense. The simple justice and intense honor of his protagonist, John Grady, captures something very special about the American experience, something I delve into deeply with Jack Madson, the main character in A Man of Indeterminate Value.

So far as non-fiction, I'm very partial to Norman Mailer's books, like Armies of the Night, and Of a Fire on the Moon. But I would go with Mailer’s The Executioner's Song, if forced to pick just one. Just as McCarthy shows us the American ideal in his character, John Grady, Mailer in his novelistic non-fiction rendering of murderer and death-row inmate Gary Gilmore, explores the American dream gone awry. Like Frankenstein's monster, we see Gilmore’s dark rise and death, with wires and shorted-out electrodes set sputtering out from the sides of his head. Eerie and surreal, it's about as close as most of us will ever get to understanding the mind of a killer and his interactions with the society we live in.

Gazala:    Your latest book is an excellent and gripping novel titled A Man of Indeterminate Value, featuring ex-cop Jack Madson, a disgraced Wall Street take-over artist and target of a failed suicide scam that leaves him the "most wanted" man in New Jersey. I've read it. I enjoyed it immensely, and recommend it highly. Shockingly enough, however, from time to time my bare recommendation doesn't always motivate a book's potential reader to become a book's actual reader. Tell us something about A Man of Indeterminate Value, and why its potential reader should make the leap and become its actual reader.

Felber:    Thanks for the compliment. I'm glad you enjoyed A Man of Indeterminate Value. For those who need a nudge to go out and read it themselves, I'd say first, it's one of those novels you read in a sitting and then are disappointed that you've finished and can't spend more time with the characters you've gotten so close to. Jack Madson may not be the nicest fellow you'll ever run into, but he may be the most captivating because once you buddy-up with Jack, you're in for the ride of your life. Trapped in a loveless marriage and in a job at a Wall Street "churn ‛n’ burn" takeover house that guts American companies and spins them at huge profits to Asian firms, all the while drowning in the debt his socialite wife is racking up, Madson wants out. How to do it? Fake your own death in a Jersey Shore boating accident. Let your wife and daughter collect the $4 million in life insurance money. Then leave the east coast; you’re a dead man headed for Queretaro, Mexico, where the Chin Chou Triad has stashed a cool $2.5 million in a bank account for you in return for the intellectual property you've been stealing and secretly selling to them for the past five years. A foolproof plan? Not if you've attracted the interest of Martin Phials, the obsessive insurance investigator who is convinced Jack Madson never really died! Murder, intense drama, and then there’s also Jack's beautiful mistress, Tomi Fabri, from the Head2Toe escort service…

Gazala:    What are books for?

Felber:    Let me, if I may, Richard, slightly re-phrase the question to, "What are good books for?" I'll start with bad ones, anyway. If the author's intention is to tell a story that is meaningful to readers, even if it's not as entertaining as one would like, I give that author credit for trying. But writing, like anything else—painting, music, soccer, for that matter—requires practice and study in order to cultivate the skills necessary to write a "good" or "great" book. A good or great book in my opinion is both entertaining (riveting is even better!), and tells a story that is pertinent to the lives of readers. By pertinent, I mean the story, or plights of the characters, provide an insight into the way life operates and the consequences/rewards one might expect in living a certain way. Also, I believe good books, fiction or non-fiction, elevate the worth of being human. They inspire people to live a considered life based on choices and a person's own philosophy about how this time we have here on earth can best be lived. Books bring dignity and meaning to us in a world where human dignity seems diminished daily.

Gazala:    W. Somerset Maugham said, "There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." Do you agree, or disagree, and why?

Felber:     By the way, if you asked me about my favorite short story, it would be "Rain," by Somerset Maugham. But since you asked about his statement on the three rules of writing a novel, I'd say there are three rules or so. One, write for your audience, not yourself. Two, know how to entertain your reader. Even in tribal days, the tribe's story teller conjured tales that were captivating, not boring. Three, have something to say that means something to your audience. A writer needs to provide insight into the topic he or she has chosen to write about. The work should be in some way instructive while entertaining at the same time. One of the aspects of Rod Serling's work that I admired as a kid growing up was that through his fascinating sci-fi teleplays, he told us something about ourselves and the society we live in.

Gazala:    A sketchy Wall Street banker is slinking around my front door, and I best go see what he's up to before something unpleasant happens. Ask yourself a question, and answer it.

Felber:    Q: Would I be worried to find a sleazy Wall Street banker slinking around my house? A: Yes, because as we have to lawyers, we have turned over to Wall Street the power to destroy a person's wealth with a phone call or the push of a button. Though I am in business myself and run a large manufacturing company, the dependence of the individual on systematized global computer networks makes anything Orwell envisioned in his novel 1984 appear child's play. Just recently, we learned that IRS audits were made on groups unfriendly to the current administration in order to take them out of operation during key moments of the last election. Of course, this harkens back to the Nixon years; but the capabilities of governments domestic and foreign, not to mention the mafia, for example, to wipe out an individual's wealth and/or identity with the stroke of a computer key has never been more genuine than today. The expression is "speed kills," but they got it wrong. In the end, it is "greed" that kills entire civilizations.



Generally speaking, we concur with Felber that greed is usually bad. At times, though, it’s not necessarily bad. For example, if your greed is to get yourself a copy of Felber’s A Man of Indeterminate Value from Amazon.com, we don’t think that’s bad greed. As a matter of fact, we support that greed, by putting a link to help you feed your greed right here. You're welcome.

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Author Spotlight: Layton Green



We’re fortunate all sorts of intriguing authors visit us here. We choose them carefully to enlighten and entertain you. We’re very appreciative not only for our authors’ taking the time to join us, but for you, our readers, doing so too. We can’t say that often enough. We’ll grab this opportunity to say it again now as we bring you the latest installment in our Gazalapalooza Author Spotlight series, this time featuring the considerable talents of Layton Green. Green stops by today to share some insights about himself and his writing, and to shed a bit of light on his brand new paranormal thriller, The Diabolist.

Some Greenian background is in order. Green is a recovering attorney, deeply afflicted by wanderlust. In addition to writing, Green graduated from law school in New Orleans, and spent several years practicing law. He has traveled through more than 50 countries. To his enduring credit, many of them would let him return if he asks nicely enough. Besides lawyering and writing, Green has earned his bread and board in activities as disparate as interning at the United Nations, being an ESL teacher in Central America, tending bar in London, selling cheap knives on the streets of Brixton, and delivering telephone books door-to-door. After that point on his long and winding curriculum vitae, Green says, "the list goes downhill from there."

In his writing, Green combines his incisive descriptive skills with his plethora of travels and employments. The result is a lucky reader who can’t avoid finding herself sucked into the twisted geographic and psychological vistas Green creates in The Diabolist and his other books, whether in the Dominic Grey series, or otherwise.

The Diabolist is the third entry in Green’s deservedly well-received series of enthralling paranormal thrillers featuring Dominic Grey and his partner, Viktor Radek. In it, the duo combat a fearsome, ancient evil driving a seemingly super-powered madman's scheme to wipe out all competitors in uniting the world's Satanist factions to displace humanity's major religions.

How freaky is that? Trust us, it’s very freaky. And it’s very good, too.

Our esteemed guest is already sitting on the hard wooden chair under the unforgiving glare of our klieg light army, chomping at the bit to get this Spotlight fired up. See him fidget? We like his eagerness. Without further ado, let’s get this edition of the Author Spotlight underway. Our fingers are tightly crossed Green doesn’t summon anything underwordly to pop in for a spell while he’s under our care. Our interrogation room’s not sufficiently spacious to accommodate that.

Gazala:    In my omnipotence, I've sentenced you to be stranded alone on a desert island for offenses best left unnamed. In my beneficence, I've decided to allow you a limited amount of reading material to make your stay a little less bleak than it would otherwise be. I'll spot you your religious text of preference, and the collected works of William Shakespeare. In addition to those, name the one fiction book, and the one nonfiction book, you'd choose to take with you, and why you choose them.

Green:    A lot of really cheeky answers ran through my mind, but I’ll go with the following: for fiction, even though my favorite novel is The Magus, by John Fowles, I’m going to go with 1,001 Arabian Knights for its sheer volume and entertainment value. For nonfiction, I’m going with the amazing book Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story, by Jim Holt. This is probably my favorite work of nonfiction, and, well, the name pretty much says it all. I think it would take me a lifetime to fully absorb and ponder the contents of this book.

Gazala:    Your latest book is an excellent and gripping novel titled The Diabolist, the third entry in your deservedly well-received series of intriguing paranormal thrillers featuring the private investigative team of former Diplomatic Security Agent Dominic Grey and his partner, religious phenomenologist and cult expert Viktor Radek. I've read it. I enjoyed it immensely, and recommend it highly. Shockingly enough, however, from time to time my bare recommendation doesn't always motivate a book's potential reader to become a book's actual reader. Tell us something about The Diabolist, and why its potential reader should make the leap and become its actual reader.

Green:    Well, Richard, let’s hope your powers of online persuasion move mountains of readers! And I sincerely appreciate the shout out. I write books that I would like to read, and the reason I would pick up The Diabolist is because it contains elements I love in my novels: suspense, exotic travel, mystery, romance, action, history, philosophy, occult esoterica, quasi-supernatural happenings, and religion. And with this particular novel, I wanted to explore the themes of the origin of evil and the history of the Devil. In particular, I was fascinated by the question of theodicy, which, simply put, is this: if we accept that evil exists, then either God is omnipotent and responsible for evil, or someone or something else is.

Gazala:    What are books for?

Green:    I think books serve different purposes for different readers: entertainment, education, enlightenment, and escapism seem to be the most obvious suspects, and the ones I can vouch for. I recently read something (I can’t remember where) that said that the classic novels are a one on one conversation with some of the greatest minds in history. I loved that and think it is true.

Gazala:    W. Somerset Maugham said, "There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." Do you agree, or disagree, and why?

Green:    Ha ha, I love that one. Completely agree. I’ve never had a (fiction) writing class and quite honestly, though I made good grades, I was not a good student. But there are many ways to skin a cat, as they say (though I confess I don’t know why they say that), and I think everyone’s journey to becoming a novelist is different, whether it’s an Iowa MFA, being a lifelong reader before spending 15 years tearing up drafts and studying authors far more talented than myself (my journey), or sitting down and rattling off a great work of literature and then calling it quits, like Harper Lee.

Gazala:    A shadowy, black-robed figure is peering through my window, and I best go see what he's up to before something heinous happens. Ask yourself a question, and answer it.

Green:    Q: The question is, what have I been involved in to warrant the attentions of such an ominous, mysterious figure? A: I search my memory but can’t recall anything out of the ordinary. Then I remember that antique shop I visited in the Garden District of New Orleans, with my friend Lou. Lou is a linguist and was asked to examine a piece of unknown origin for the owner of the antique shop. The owner was a little off, to be honest. He kept his shop dimly lit and had a bunch of religious and occult pieces scattered about. The piece he had Lou inspect was a small wooden box with a flowery, rune-like script flowing down one side. Lou recognized the runes as Ogham, a long-forgotten Celtic language, and a few days later he translated the inscription as, roughly, “God Path.” (Ogham contained no prepositions.) The problem was, nothing else about the box suggested a Celtic origin. I had forgotten about the box and the inscription, though the owner’s assistant, a young East Indian woman with an accent I couldn’t quite place, had lingered in my mind. Didn’t matter. I could figure it out later. I ran to grab my cell in case I needed to call 911, but when I returned to the window, the only thing I saw was the cemetery brooding across the street, silent and empty.

See? It’s like we said earlier, very freaky, and very good. And that’s without anything underworldly popping in for an authorial assist. (At least, none we noticed…) Now you’ve had such a tasty sip, we know you’re thirsty for more of Green and his writing. We’ve made that easy for you. All you need do to grab yourself a copy of The Diabolist from the good folks at Amazon.com is click here. You're welcome.