WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Cally Crossley and this is the Cali Crossley Show. The writer Dennis Lehane is the local treasure turned crown jewel of the literary crime scene a Dorchester native. The power of his prose is place in his fictional Hanes inner city Boston is torn in two by race and class warfare and it's a city on the brink. That's the engine of his work firing up the drama that makes his books page turners and the movies based on his books. The stuff of blockbusters and Academy Awards. Lane joins us to talk about his latest book and how dual citizenship splitting his time between the Bay State and the sunshine state affects his work. From there it's another serving of crime fiction with the great Walter Mosley on known evil. The second installment of his new detective series. Up next the power of prose from Boston's bad streets to Mosley's mean streets. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi saying we're seeing a seesaw

effect in the U.S. market on a day that's seen big losses overseas major European share markets close lower today capping an already turbulent week. Investors are still worried about Europe's debt crisis and the U.S. his ability to get its economy out of the doldrums. Vice President Joe Biden is also trying to quell fears in China where the government is concerned about the safety of its assets in the U.S.. Some news grabbing investors attention though from J.P. Morgan Chase and Company the bank joined other financial firms and cut its forecast for economic growth during the fourth quarter. At last check on Wall Street the Dow was down 35 points at ten thousand nine hundred fifty five. The Nasdaq was up slightly it's a 23 82 as simpy 500 down a bit. It's at eleven thirty eight. The Labor Department says unemployment went up in more than two dozen states last month. Danielle Karson reports the numbers. Show a mix of gains and setbacks. Job losses went up in 28 states last month while 9 posted decreases. Nevada

still struggling with the highest jobless rate almost 13 percent. New hires were strongest in New York where they totaled nearly 30000. But Steven Stanley chief economist at Pierpont securities cautions that a month's worth of job gains doesn't necessarily indicate a trend. The numbers are small enough that you can get a lot of noise you know so it could be that maybe there was a new plant that opened in New York somewhere that I heard a couple thousand people in it all of a sudden shows up as a big gain. Stanley says the state numbers mirror the broader jobs picture which he describes with one word tepid. And he says the turbulence in the financial markets is unlikely to help convince businesses to start beefing up their workforce. For NPR News I'm Daniel Karson in Washington. Britain is condemning today's attack on the British Council compound in Kabul Afghanistan which left several people dead. The Taliban claimed responsibility. Larry Miller reports from London the British Prime Minister David Cameron is calling the attack cowardly.

Heavily armed gunmen stormed the British Council office taking over the building for a number of hours the British ambassador says staff survived by locking themselves in a safe room. The British Council runs cultural and educational services around the world. In London its chief executive Martin Davis says despite the attack operations in Afghanistan will continue. So what are we doing that is of vital importance it does make a huge contribution. Giving young Afghans what they're actually looking for which is access to the outside world and indeed what this attack sent to do was to close down that access. The Taliban say the attack was timed to mark the anniversary of Afghanistan's independence from Britain in 1919. For NPR News I'm Larry Miller in London. The Dow is down now forty seven points it's at ten thousand nine hundred thirty nine and the Nasdaq is up slightly twenty three eighty one. This is NPR News. Thousands of foreigners trapped in the Libyan capital while rebels advance are expected to be evacuated in the coming days. That is the word from the International Organization of

Migration which is appealing for more donations to help pay for the evacuation. An Iowa spokesperson says a large group of journalists who are also stranded in Tripoli asking for help to get out. Rebels fighting to oust Colonel Moammar Gadhafi have been fighting troops in Zawiya with their sights set on taking Tripoli. They have claimed control of the road from the capital to the Tunisian border which is the main evacuation route. It was 20 years ago today that a group of communist hardliners placed Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev under house arrest. The coup attempt failed but as Jessica Ghawi reports it eventually led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The communist hardline Putsch meant to stop President Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms including perestroika and glasnost actually pave the way for the collapse of the Communist Party and the end of the Soviet Union thereby creating the present day Russian state. But now 20 years later according to a poll by the Levada Center nearly 40 percent of

Russians say that the coup and its aftermath had disastrous consequences for the country and its people. After the Soviet Union's collapse the 90s became a difficult time for many when economic reforms wiped out people's savings and unemployment and organized crime increased. For NPR News I'm Jessica Ghawi her in Moscow. The Obama administration reportedly plans to auction off tens of millions of acres in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas drilling. We the first time that's held since last year's unprecedented BP oil spill. This is NPR. Support for NPR comes from the John D and Catherine team across the foundation committed to building a more just verdant and peaceful world. More information that Mack found. Dot org. Good afternoon. I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Kelly Crossley Show. We're playing a rebroadcast this Hour featuring interviews with writers. We begin with award winning writer Dennis Lehane on his latest book Moonlight Mile. He's a

local boy who's made the big time by way of his bestselling books like Shutter Island and Mystic River. Earlier this year the Boston Book Festival brought him back to Beantown. I begin the conversation by asking him if he saw a distinction between book signings and book festivals. I never I never noticed a distinction there. I think that they're both what I like about festivals and I like about signings is you know you spend so much of your day in a room years sometimes in a room and you don't know who you're writing to and then all of a sudden they show up when you do a book signing or when you do a festival. I think it's really neat. I love it. You know it's one of my favorite aspects of the job. OK great. So Saturday folks will be able to see you at the Boston Book Festival. Now one of the things you'll be talking about is a preview of your latest book Moonlight Mile which is a follow up to Gone Baby Gone those characters and Gone Baby Gone. Yeah. And so why did you feel the need to revisit those characters.

You know it's. I didn't feel the need. They came knocking on the door that's the way I've always put it with them. I can only write about them when they are really any character but particularly when they tell me to do so or when they get in my head and they had just gone silent for about 11 years. I used to picture them in a room somewhere and the phone would ring and they'd see my name on the caller ID and if they don't pick up don't pick up. So finally they just sort of knocked on the door and started talking and I think you know I wondered if there was fan pressure and other pressure because the end of Gone Baby Gone leaves us all going. Well yeah. So then I wrote prayers for her and I wrote the fifth book in the series in 1999 as a sort of. You know let's do a little closure which I'm not a big fan of Personally I think it's a myth that has been shoveled down our throat by Oprah. But I thought all right I'll give I'll give the fans closure I wrote the last book in what I thought was a series I thought it was the last book and then they went away for five. Well for 11 years and then they

came back and obviously there was something about the Amanda McCready case the girl goes missing in Gone Baby Gone. That just didn't want to lie down and just just kept coming back up and so I decided to revisit it. And having read the book it does answer a few questions that it really again makes you have a few thoughts about because I like the ambiguity of Gone Baby Gone at the end of that. And I think that's what drew a lot of people to it wondering well what would I do in this in the same situation. Yeah a lot of people certainly I saw it again when the movie came out. What I saw was the split down gender lines it tends to be women tend to have a very clear sense on what they would do. And so women tend to take very much more a strict relative morality approach to it in this situation. I would not that let that little girl go home. Men tend to say well we can't just decide who we let live with their parents and who we don't. So it tends to split gender lines and I find that really fascinating.

I find the argument really interesting and I think it's going to be picked up again with this book that's what I'll say. OK. Because it's really pretty interesting. Now one of the things about this book and every other book that you've written it's based in by so Boston everything about it is Boston. Yeah so I mean I know that your experience growing up here but was there more about Boston that makes you want to write about it in this way. You know it's just it's it's my well and so I have a perfectly good well that's still drawing water. And so when people say Would you ever think about running some place else this is going to be my question. Why would I why would I cross the field to go to somebody else as well when my well has still drawn plenty of water. I'm fine. I I love the city of fastener with the city. My mom is my dad more anybody gave me a sort of addiction to it because he hated highways so we used to just drive the streets even when nobody was doing it in. We crossed neighborhoods to get to other neighborhoods which in the 1970s nobody

did in the inner city they always got on the expressway. So I just I got this real hopeless head over heels love affair with the city. And it's like any love affair there are days you know you just you just kind of wish you could get a divorce you know but the vast majority of time. You're in it. You love it it's great. So why why do you love it so much. I don't know it's unique for one thing the more I travel the more I see how few unique places are left in this country. I mean the vast majority of America that I can see and that I've seen is a sort of suburban modularized America in which the only way Tom Wolfe has a line the only way you can tell you've entered a new town is by the 7-Eleven 7-Elevens new border into the next place. And it's you know it's all 7-Elevens and Abercrombie and Fitch isn't everybody kind of thinks the same and looks the same and talks the same and they have Bostons. Now it's very different. It's very. It's just a unique place people. You'd have to get out of here to understand how different this is from the rest of the country. I think you

know when you look at unique cities you look at Boston you look at New York certainly look at Chicago Philly. San Francisco seems are very particular. You know Pittsburgh has something to it but Akron not so much. You know Des Moines not so much. A lot of places where it seems like it used to be communities were built around a church. Now it seems like they're built around a mall. And that I find just really it may work for other people but it's not my thing. I like it here. I like my Dunkin Donuts and my Newbury Comics and my and my just like guys who you know call everybody kid you know. I like the way the city works. It's interesting because when you started writing these books of course many years ago so in a span of you know some 30 years of your writing these books featuring Boston as a character and then just how old I think I was OK 20 years OK.

There's been a huge change in the city. I mean is this today's Boston is very different. I would say even from reading your latest book I read the book and I think this is a place in a time and I know people like that live here but it's very different now. Yeah it is. And I think I would I wrote about it very much. I wrote about that very much in Mystic River that was what Mr. Gore was about Jen here comes gentrification. What is he going to do this neighborhood. And and I think in the Patrick book whenever he is in Dorchester in this new book he is talking about the sort of my neighborhood when he and me went to the neighborhood where I grew up which was I was Polish when I was there was no sort of Vietnamese Cambodian. So he doesn't he does note that and then I think if I were to look at Boston now I'd want to look at specifically and look at Boston 2010. I'd want to look at the way it has been gentrified now. And yet the old things are still underneath. You just gotta know where to scratch. But you have a city that suddenly looks very

different than the city I grew up in you know a very small city that had the really low bond rating. The city was in really rough shape is suddenly it's not that city anymore and yet we still have an underclass. And yet we still have a lot of issues the economic issues facing us we have a lot of social injustice still going on in the city. There's a lot of things going on. I brought I wrote an editorial in The Boston Globe a couple weeks ago because I bristled at a line with the Boston Globe seem to be taking us writers to the woodshed for writing dark stories about this city. And I thought you know and they said this is not representative of most people's experience and I said really because that would be news to people and not a pan that would be news to people in Dorchester that would be news to people in Roxbury where we still have generational poverty we still have generational violence. We still have just this terrible cycle spinning over and over and over and over and over again. And I think to just say that's not Boston is is a lie and it's going to end it. It's type of sweeping the problem under the rug which I don't believe it. So we have

you know we're still in transition we're still in flux I think as a country we're still in flux and it's everything is moving so fast that I'm not sure I can keep up sometimes be honest you know when people say Do you tweet man I wouldn't even know I would even know how to do it. Do you do that on your phone. Yeah when I have a kiss Yeah I mean well yeah your phone your computer. Yeah. OK that's all right. You know I'm lost I'm not quite a lewd act but if I'm in the I'm in the vicinity. All right so let me go back to just the changes in Boston as you've described them and how your characters and Moonlight Mile your latest book reflect that or observe that a little bit but you know they're not really they they're observing it but it's interesting to me because if you know lots of people don't know that 54 percent of busted now is is minority. Right right. And but your characters interact with a lot of people in the community but they're of a certain you know they remind you of the Dorchester neighborhood really yeah yeah yeah.

Absolutely I mean you have to dip your toe in some of these other calculations. I would dip in only in so far as it's the same question as to why don't I write about another community in another state say another area. I think I can do it but at the end of the day I'm a tourist. I'm on the outside of the glass looking in and and if I could have Patrick enter into a an issue or a community that that I found interesting in a way that I said OK he'll be my tourist he'll be me as a tourist. But what I write from the inside out. No I don't think I understand at this point. Certainly an interesting Cambodian culture in a way that I could. I don't think I don't think I could understand Brazilian culture enough if I wanted to dive in for 10 years and and learn. I guess I could but you know I mean I'd rather I'd rather see the great Brazilian novelist come out and do that I would rather see the great. Cambodian American writer come out of Dorchester. You know I mean like like Come join the tent we're all here you know. But I don't necessarily think at 45 years old I'm the guy to go navigate

those waters. OK not at this point I understand. Certainly I think I feel very comfortable. I think I could write from the perspective of an African American if they were from Pandora just rocks you know where I get it where I can sort of understand you kind of I can float in here you know. But. But no I don't I honestly don't think I can say grasp the culture of. The Brazilians in Allston or in some of you know I mean I think I could just only as a tourist come in and I could write. My guest is award winning writer Dennis Lange. He joined us earlier this year to discuss his new book Moonlight Mile. We'll be back after this break. Eighty nine point seven. WGBH. Support for WGBH comes from you and from the Preservation Society of

Newport County presenting the Newport mansions Wine and Food Festival featuring lady of us Janet September 23rd through the 25th. You can visit Newport mansions dot org for more information. From Bentley University's McCallum graduate school offering full time and part time MBA programs along with seven business focused and mass degrees. Details at Bentley dot edu slash grad. This week on Radiolab very funny what a funny idea. Mr. Goble thought that right in front of the home they should build a bus the best to nowhere and there's no bus coming. No but never the story of how one nursing home used a bench and a lie to save their patients. Join me this

afternoon at 2:00 here on eighty nine point seven. WGBH radio. The power behind public radio is listener support and just this summer your support has meant recording like this. There are about twenty five hundred Navy SEALs who go through some of the toughest training in the military SEAL Team Six is even more exclusive. Take 20 guys that have done great. So the losses in Afghanistan amount to about 10 percent of their force. That's what listener support means to WGBH show your support at WGBH dot org. Were running out of oxygen. I only have so many people that I can treat the world and it's not an easy decision for anyone to make. Coming up at 3 o'clock on an eighty nine point seven WGBH Boston NPR station for news and culture. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. Today we're replaying an interview with award winning writer Dennis Lehane. We discussed his latest book Moonlight

Mile what it's like to see his books make it to the big screen and his portrayal of Boston through his words. A lot of people don't know you don't live there anymore. I do live here. Well this is the confusion. You know I do. Well you're in Florida. I'm in Florida half the time when I'm in Charleston the other half of the time. Everybody knows where to find me in Charleston. And yeah I I've been working my way steadily back. I was I was I went down the steps from a clean getaway I want to teach in Florida and I met my wife. So I couldn't look her in the eye and say I can only write in Boston. I tried but she called B.S. on that. So I'm working my way back were here six months now every year and I think we'll be at a nine month point within within four years. How do you do this split screen in terms of you know keeping that sort of Boston focused. I mean obviously living every six months helps but you've got to be influenced by Florida

and what you're experiencing there. And you've been teaching down there as well writing so I wonder a little bit but I'm just not at the end of the day I think this is so in my blood now it would have been a few years ago but now I just it's it's ingrained. I mean it's just it takes seconds to get the mind set back it doesn't take me long at all. OK. I would have a drink and I was in a little bar and and this guy kept coming in and thanking me for writing the for writing The Departed. And thank you for saying I didn't write that about you know I mean and. And he said Yeah yeah so was Jack Nicholson like you know what I mean. I'm like that's Boston. You know what I mean. I didn't write it. I know you didn't but what was their mission. So so yeah it doesn't take me long to get the mindset back. Well I mean I think that's a perfect segue to what you're going to be talking about at the Boston Book Festival this year which is about taking books and going to screen and I think the reason that

he would think that you would have written The Departed is so many of your books have been turned into movies. And so in essence a lot of people's impression and understanding of what Boston is is really that which you have created. Yeah I'm sure I'm sure Mayor Menino loves me. Yeah it's like if there's if there's a gun in a bar fight must have written it. You know I mean there's a movie and there's a gun in a bar fight it happens in Boston must be playing. I've already had one person come up and thank me for running the town. It was already. Wait a second. Both you know the guy who wrote the book or the guy who wrote the script are friends of mine. I did not do that but I did write mystic just so people know you know Mystic River Shutter Island Gone Baby Gone Baby Gone yeah ok yeah I wrote the books and other wonderful people wrote the screenplays and. Yeah I think when I started writing about it not too many people were writing about the neighborhoods they were writing you know you saw people writing about Boston you know Parker most

famously Robert B Parker. But people were writing about Dorchester or ever to Chelsea Charlestown you know people are doing that. I was and then when I did Mystic River I was so much wanted to write about all the neighborhoods that I said let me just create one representative neighborhood. And that's how East Buckingham was created and and and then the movie gets made and something hits this I guess it becomes vogue it becomes involved to do Boston. For lack of a better word Boston gangster stories I guess. Well I want to give our listeners a chance to hear a little piece from Mystic River. If there's someone out there who is a moonlight Mystic River first. This is from the 2003 film Mystic River it's based on Lane's novel of the same name it stars Sean Penn as Jimmy Markham who is reunited with two childhood friends after his daughter's murder. And in this scene Jimmy mourns the loss of his daughter with his friend Dave Boyle played by Tim Robbins. Kids. Just like you. Two people.

You know for Clark. I know. And it's really starting to just you know they could make you cry. My own little daughter you know I can cry. To me. That's that's there you see even though you didn't write it it seems to me has the essence of what I wrote that's you know we have to. Yeah yeah. Directly you have a scene in the book. Yeah and how do you feel when you hear that. I mean does I mean a book in a movie a totally different. Yeah yeah. It just feels. It feels weird. I don't I don't often put it I look at it and I just go Oh what a wonderful alterna universe of my books. I think I love all three films I'm big fans of all three films but I have only been able to watch them once. Really. Yeah it's you know that feeling you get when maybe you don't get a question on the radio but you'll feel most people get when they hear their voice on a recording. And it's like oh I don't know about that. I take that magnified by about two

million and you're somewhere near what you'd feel seen your words spoken by an actor on a 70 foot screen. It's really strange. So I did it one time and one time only and then I just go. I'm good I'll never never see that again. Even the DVDs they sit in my house and they're still in the cellophane room. Wow. Yeah I watched about 10 minutes of Mystic River wants to be a Latino because I wanted to hear Sean Penn say is that my daughter in Spanish. I thought that was cool but that's it. So I don't know how else to describe it it's this alterna universe and I'm I'm very happy with it. But I don't really engage it. Now here's the thing that I think as just a person enjoying your work whether on the screen or in the book. Yeah. How do you as a writer you've written these words these are your you created them they're in your head they come knocking when they want you to come back to them. But now I would think it would be Casey Affleck. Amy Ryan from Gone Baby Gone when you write a follow up to

that and it's you know no how do you you don't do you see them in your head when you're writing Patrick and Angie. Not at all not at all. They're they're so. My Patrick and Angie are my Patrick and Angie. And in the book they're 44 years old. Forty four and forty three. Where is Casey Affleck was 30 in Gone Baby Gone so if I were to write you know I mean if I was think about Casey Affleck I'd be trying to age him and all this case he was an actor interpreter in a role and he did a phenomenal job I love that character. But it's not my Patrick it's Casey's Patrick. And he did a terrific job. My Patrick is over here. I said in my books in very much locked into my head and I know what he looks like and I know I just know a completely different Patrick. And so no I think I have this really clear sense of the bifurcation between a book and a film. I've always had it I've had it long before I wrote and I can enjoy both. But I never mix the two they never can I can sit there and tell you how much I love the book L.A. Confidential and I can tell you how much I love the

movie L.A. Confidential but they're two totally different entities to me. So the same thing with my own work. OK. Helene Amy Ryan that's my favorite performance of any of my characters Amy Ryan Doe and Holly McCready and carrying on. I love that but I'd also written for her on the wire so I knew her as a totally different type but you know I've I've written two different roles. So when she did. That character she nailed it she killed it. It's a perfect perfect performance. When I brought Helene McCready back in Moonlight Mile I never once thought of Amy Ryan. I thought of the homely McCready that I had in my head when I first created her in 1997. Well let's listen to a little of Patrick and endure Patrick and Angie from your book Moonlight Mile. Do you I'd love you to read a passage with just an exchange between the two of them. Oh yeah. This is this is right after Patrick has been. Beat up and he's sitting at the table with Angie who is now his wife and their daughter Gabriella. So so yes he has a child now.

You know what's funny Angie asked in a voice that suggested something that wasn't. I do not I assured her. Most private investigators don't get kidnapped and assaulted. The practice is rumored to be trending upward I said. She frowned and I could feel both of us trapped inside ourselves not sure what to do with today's violence. There was a time we would have been experts at it. She would have tossed me an ice pack on her way to the gym expected me to be raring to get back to work by the time she got back. Those days were long gone though and today's return easy bloodshed drove us into our protective shells her shell is made of quiet fury and a kind of wary disconnection. Mine is made of humor and sarcasm. Together we resemble a comedian family in an anger management class. It looks awful she said with a tenderness that surprised me. I said it only feels for five times as bad as it looks really I'm fine. That's the percocet she said and the beer I reminded her. I thought you weren't supposed to mix the two. I refused to bow to conventional wisdom I said I'm a decider and I've decided I want to feel no pain. How's that working out. I toasted her with my

beer. Mission accomplished. I really love the way you the exchange between those characters and the way you're able to. Just put their relationship on a page in those dialogue exchanges I just love that. Oh thanks thanks yeah that's I mean the fun of them has always been there's a line I think in the book that I thought really summed up their relationship where he said I marry an Irish temper to an Italian temper and you get broken dishes and I think that's you know they they love each they fight as fiercely as they love each other they have this I have always had this very very much give and take tug of war relationship but they're very much in love and they're equals. I like that in the way that you've portrayed them and that was again that's a perfect example of a distinction. And I adore Gone Baby Gone I think in a weird way of all my films it's my favorite because it was shot purely in my neighborhood and I think Ben I understand Ben Affleck understands let me put a pause

here let people just hear a little clip. So they would put it in their head that this is a trailer from the 2000 film Gone Baby Gone is based on Dennis Lane's novel of the same name. It's directed by Ben Affleck The film follows two private investigators as Patrick and Angie in their search for an abducted 4 year old girl for your own shots on the street you know because you talked about they want to warn you about 10 percent of the song. This is day three. Do you know people in the neighborhood you don't talk to the police want to. Hire you to augment the investigation. You still have my daughter. Song you have to. Lose. I just that that film had a mood to it. A sense of place in which what you're achieving is you're writing to us and it's a really authentic Boston movie. I mean and that's probably why it's got a little kind of special favor flavor for me because only a Bostonian could have made that movie the way that Ben Affleck made that movie. I

mean he just. Even even to the point where there were points where he was shooting streets that got every gun is the only book that has I could trace some factual minutiae to it and there were certain times where I'd say to Bennett say you know you're shooting on the street we're actually one of these events have actually happened. He had no clue. I mean it was that kind of alchemy was going on. So so the only thing having said all that the only thing that we ever disagreed on and we were very clear that we would always have a gentleman's agreement about how we spoke about it was that it was Angie and Angie in the movie is not the end of the books and she's just not the same character is not the same person at all. So what I love about Angie in the books is that she is never given it she's 100 percent. Patrick's equal 100 percent his peer and I and I like that I enjoy writing them in that way because every time he's just going to get a little too cocky and become a little bit too much the guy she takes him down a peg you know. So it's fun.

You as you write these characters. I was interested also in your just focus on you know low class issues that rise. Sure through the book there's a section in there I'd love you just a little piece of you know what you achieve in and in the book I'm trying to just put I think in people's heads about you know what's going on now. OK well this is the scene where Angie is there looking for Amanda McCready has disappeared again now she's 16 17 years old and they run into a woman at a dog park and who may or may not have seen her. And she says no. I can't understand why this woman is not really being forthcoming and she says this girl could very much regret running away Harvard was waiting for Yale wherever she wanted to go. The woman yanked on a dog's leash so she could watch enter some cubicle at a slightly higher rate of pay. Hang her Harvard diploma on the partition wall. She spends the next 30 40 years learning how to short stock and steal people's jobs and houses and their 401 ks but that's OK because she went to Harvard sleeps like a baby at night tells herself she's not to

blame it's the system. Then one day she finds a lump in her breast and it's not ok anymore but nobody cares honey because you made your bed so do us all a favor and die in it. The woman's eyes were red by the time she finished in her free hand shook as she reached into a person came back with a cigarette. The air in the park felt raw and she looked like she was in minor shock. I'd taken one step back. The woman had never raised her voice but the rage she dispelled into the atmosphere had been so torn and pitiable it had rattled us all. And it wasn't rare. Quite the contrary. You asked a simple question lately. I made an innocuous aside and suddenly you were the recipient of a hollow of loss and fury. We no longer understood how we got in here. We couldn't grasp what had happened to us. We woke up one day and all the street signs had been stolen all the navigation systems had shorted out. The car had no gas. The living room had no furniture. The imprint in the bed beside us had been smoothed over. It's amazing to me that you are able to continue to capture that feeling because

obviously you're way beyond working class at this point in your life. That was a good part of your early life. It was a good part of my early life and most of my friends are still working class. And so I've watched them go through this economy. Look I took a hit in this economy lot of people took a hit in this economy but but my hit was more like oh I didn't get to resell my house for what I thought I'd get for it that's that's you know. Yeah not quite different. Yeah exactly where I have other friends who are honestly they don't know if they're going to be able to pay for their kids next year school and their benefits have been cut. It's a scary terrifying world out there. And the fact of the matter is is that everybody who we trusted to take care of us lied to us and let us down. And I don't know that. I'm not sure this is a different shaking of our confidence than say what happened in the 70s with with Nixon. This is far worse in a way you know. And. And I don't know how we're going to recover. I honestly don't. And so

that's what this book and a lot of ways is about Patrick's a guy who's an independent contractor he has no benefits he has no support system and he's at a point where he has a wife he has a daughter and there's little to do. There's no money coming in. That's right you know so. So I wanted to take a look at that. And the good thing about the Patrick books is you can take a look at things without getting on your soapbox something about his voice allows me to be I don't know. There's a touch to it that I carry. And I was ready to get away with it without being like rah rah rah rah rah you know yet right and I agree. Yeah. So what's next. Moonlight miles a follow up to Gone Baby Gone and don't come knockin for another two I don't know. Yeah. The next book I think is going to be set during prohibition it's going to be my sequel to the given day the book that was preceded this about the Boston police strike and then I've got some various of irons in the fire in terms of TV but I can't get any spin. I can't get any more specific about it than that. Too bad. I know I'm sorry. You once said a long time ago that you want to hope that you would never when you became successful

become kind of a jerk. You said in a different language what we want is yeah ok. Yeah yeah yeah able to I think so. You know a friend of mine had a great line. I felt great about this. My boss at the time the head of my publishing company said to a buddy of mine he's so he's so humble he's so down to earth has he always been this way and my buddy said oh he used to be a lot more arrogant you know and I think that's some weird way I've become a lot less cocky and a lot more aware of how I need to than I used to be. I was much more of a of a jerk and I think that a lack of a better word my 20s and I am now. So I'm OK well we're all the better for it. I'm Kelly Crossley and we've been speaking with award winning writer Dennis Lehane His latest book is Moonlight Mile. Up next an interview with Walter Mosley on no

evil the second installment of his new detectives. Don't go away we'll be right back. Support comes from you. Cambridge portrait photographer. Still clicking with the Polaroid 20 by 24 analog camera and original Polaroid film. From the Coast artist open studio tour August 20th and 21st into Everton in Little Compton Rhode Island and Dartmouth in Westport Massachusetts. You can find out more at South Coast artist org. Next time on the world literature and 9/11 editor John Freeman says the trauma had an

unforeseen impact. I think there was a a moment where American fiction writers realized that America was not the center of the world even though it might have been the center of their own lives. How September 11th changed America's literary voice. That's next time on the world. Coming up at three o'clock here at eighty nine point seven WGBH. Seven out of every ten dollars spent on daily operations here at eighty nine point seven WGBH come directly from listener support and thousands of WGBH supporters and doubled the impact of their financial contributions by having them matched dollar for dollar by their employers to find out if your employer will join you in supporting WGBH radio and television. Visit WGBH dot org slash matching gifts. The informal friendliness of Celtic music. Joining me Brian O'Donovan every Saturday at 3:00 for a Celtic sojourn here on eighty

nine point seven. WGBH. I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. Today we're rebroadcasting an interview with writer Walter Mosley. He's written over 30 books since he picked up the pen 25 years ago. He joined us earlier this year to discuss his crime novel known evil. It's the second installment of his new detective series featuring the private investigator Leonid McGill. Walter Mosley welcome. Well thank you so much. I'm great to be here. My bookshelf is laden with all of your books. I was one of the ones and I'm sure you heard from us all who was very sad when Easy Rawlins went away after you finished the series about Easy Rawlins. I just couldn't imagine a year without Easy Rawlins but now I have to tell you I love this guy. Well that's good I'm glad it was very important to to move away from Easy Rawlins partially because the.

I wrote that series of books for my father and my father's generation a group of people you know black people living in on the West Coast who there was no literature about there was no literature about it all and that. And so if you don't have any literature you don't have a history because nobody reads history books and so. So the thing is that I wanted to write about those people but now we're in the 21st century and in the 21st century there are still issues and problems and things we have to deals but they're much much much different. And I needed a contemporary character somebody to talk about my world and that's where I came up with Leonid McGill. OK well I'm going to compare and contrast Easy Rawlins and Leonid McGill even though they're two separate characters. And I know writers don't like this but Easy Rawlins series was from 1948 in 1900 for people who don't know the first book came out in 1990 and in 1902 President Clinton was he was running for office and he said you were his favorite mystery writer so that the devil in a blue dress which was the first in that series went through the roof in terms of sales which was great but easy was a World War Two

veteran who turned to sleuthing to sort of pay his bills he was in the official private eye if you will right. Yes. So now here we have today. L. T. McGill. And this is set in New York as opposed to Los Angeles and it's in 2008 so it's quite a leap in time as you've said. The first book is a long fall and this is the second we're talking about. And this guy is older then Easy Rawlins and he's a real private eye albeit with a little bit of a shady but a real crooked private eye when he no longer could but he's been a crooked private eye most of his life so there is a twist to it also. I know I love the twist. Tell us give us a little bit background about Leonid because he's got this interesting communis father who named him. Yeah well there are a lot of things about when and when he has a father who was a sharecropper who when the father was a kid his parents were getting kicked out of there. There sharecropping House and the Marshall spit on his mother and

he decided he hated this march like he did everything he stood for and he was going to be the opposite so he started become a communist and he didn't really understand what being a communist was just such a heavy Russian so he named himself Tolstoy later on he kind of figured out what it was became a union organizer and a socialist and communist in name disc children Linnet and Nikita. But then at the end he kind of home trained them. But at the age when it was 12 he abandoned them. And when it had a had a pretty hard life. Linnet became a detective who did most of his work for the mob. So like if you robbed a bank and the police were after you when it would come to you take some of the evidence planted on somebody else and at least the police would think that the other guy or at least a defense attorney would say well if this other guy had this evidence on him what's up with that. The other guy might go to prison might not Linda didn't care that many things wrong. But then maybe 2006 2007 a young woman tried basically had somebody murder

her and put the evidence on Lee in it because Lynn it had destroyed her father and sent him to prison many years before. And when it all of a sudden realizes that you know I've been a mess and I have done the wrong thing. This is dirty business. Yeah yeah I see it when it is a metaphor for America 30 40 years of really going in the wrong direction. Then all of a sudden one day saying hey you know we should start doing what's right. It's an almost impossible task. It's almost impossible for a limit to change directions and certainly for America to. What's it like creating a whole new protagonist because people are going to do the comparison even though the sort of superficial thing I just did here how do you. How was that process like for you. Well I'm happy about you making comparisons. Anybody else making comparisons that's fine with me. I love to write I write every day I write all kinds of books science fiction nonfiction literary fiction crime fiction. I've written about many many different kinds of characters from Fearless Jones to Socrates for a low to a lot of one off characters.

So a new character for me is not you know I don't know because I don't know what you know even when you're writing about the same characters there's new characters that appear in those novels that you write about so well here's one of the things that I love about your detective series I mean I've read all your other stuff as well. You have a real community surrounding the main character that is just so interesting. I mean the main character is very interesting but I love the community of people that are involved with him and with Lee Anita I love that bug character and get Zephyr if I'm pronouncing her name right. And Katrina this awful wife she's living with I mean I just I love all these details about the character's life. You know one of the things when the people first are writing in the hardboiled tradition there's definitely a hardboiled serious. The Hardwell tradition is kind of the working class American rendition of existentialism and the early characters by Hammond

and later Ross McDonald were characters who had no mother no father no sister no brother no wife no children no girlfriend no regular apartment even they might have a car from one book to the next but that's about it. And because of that they could be completely existentialist in the ideal philosophical way meaning to say if I arrest you and I'm going to put you in jail until you tell me the truth well I'll just sit there in jail until you decide let me go because I don't have any responsibilities but Leonid you know he has his children he has as a wife you might have a dog and I mean there are things that he's responsible for outside of himself and that actually brings a lot more difficulty in trying to live that existentialist existence. Well you've written often about the importance of having a black hero writing about writing Black Heroes which you know both these characters that we've talked about Leonid and Easy Rawlins and also about the everydayness of black life which I just find you know that sounds so simple but you just don't see it everywhere.

And you know and it's interesting too I definitely write about black male heroes because. Hardly anybody writes about black male heroes for some reason. Like men are not supposed to be heroes in America. I'm not really sure why. Even with our president and and also you know that. But it's what I find interesting right now is so different Easy Rawlins is really a definitely a black male hero he's a black man who lives in a black world who's suffering very clear and direct racism and dealing with that. Linnet Well it's different what door he walks through depends on what he experiences and sees and feels and which I find you know really kind of fun and interesting because being a black man in America in 2010 is a lot different to me a black man America 1970. It's not that we live in a post-racial state it's kind of like a metter racial nation which you never know where you're going to end up on the roulette wheel.

Speaking of that I that's why I like your character who has a dad from Togo and I'm from somewhere else that you get you know naturally blonde hair and all kinds of stuff going on. Yeah it's kind of fascinating. One of the things that I love about your black male heroes is they are men and women there are men that leap off the page that makes a girl go. And the thing that I like about Leonid is this ex-boxer life which seems to add to it. There's just a little piece here listeners that I'm just going to read to you that I I love just the way that you work the boxing into Leonids whole character. I was vulnerable of course all people are innocent and anyone can be made to look bad. And I had enough skeletons in my closet to make a death row inmate seem angelic. But I wasn't worried not about Toler just overwhelmed by the circumstances of my life. Any good boxer can tell you that if you have a sound strategy and stick to it you always have a shot at winning the fight. And even if you don't win you can make it through to the final bell throwing at least

some doubt on your opponent's claim to victory. What beats a fighter with a good plan isn't power or a lucky punch not usually know what beats are journeymen pugilist is the onslaught of an implacable attack. If your opponent throws so much at you that you get confuse you will necessarily be drawn away from your game plan and defeat it by the complexity of your own misperceptions. Love this manly man. Thank you and the whole X Box thing going on. It's working for me. Actually it sounded pretty good thank you thank you for making it sound like that. Oh I love it. That's why I'm known to evil Walter Mosley Secondly I need McGill mystery. The first was The Long Fall How did you feel people responded to that. The first book and now the second it seems like people liked it pretty much I you know I was I was wondering how much they were going to or you know I'm you know at some point or another you can't worry about that you know you can worry would you like it that you like do you like me. You know I mean but I think that the book is is doing a what. All right I think you know

what I intended to do is to address contemporary America and I think it does I think many people are taking it on in that way. Yeah. One of the things that has been written is that you use your detectives particularly I mean you've done a lot of writing some very specifically about race and class and other issues in America so that there's no question about it. But in this fictional context you use this settings to talk about race and to to have people think about it in different ways through those characters lives. Do you see that you're doing that I mean is that a deliberate thing on your part or it just becomes because of the who the characters are that's what you write about. Well partially it is. You know when you're writing about Easy Rawlins and 1062 and he's trying to walk into a restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard. Well he's going to have trouble. The guy at the front door is going to stop them. The woman at the podium is going to stop him. The waiter is going to everybody's going to stop and say Well do you belong here and he's going to have to explain everybody. Lynn is not going to have that problem. Lynn it is

going to have other problems like for instance when he talks to the most important man in New York and he's sitting in his office. Alfonso Nala says he's as you know Lynn and only my receptionist was a black man and you're the only two black Americans who have ever been in this office. Does that surprise you. And when it responses don't think that surprises me is that you recognize that that's true. Because And because there are there are subtle differences there are things that a lot of people don't realize. I spend many times in New York I'll be standing in a room and I say in this great NSA you know you know but you realize I'm the only black person in this room and I'll be talking to the people across a while you know. That's true and I know this happens a lot you know. It's but a lot most people if you belong to the majority of people in the room you don't notice that's right. You know and and so. So it becomes more subtle and when it's case especially because a lot of people who don't like when it doesn't have anything to do with race they'd be happy to be hanging out

with most def you know. You know with Lenny Kravitz please they say oh yeah I'd love to you know have supper with Barack Obama. You know it's it's particularly Linnet and his you know his tough working class stance that puts people off. Now you've had some of your books turned into movies Denzel Washington of course devil in a blue dress and Don Cheadle was in that one as well playing mouse fabulous character Laurence Fishburne playing Socrates. An always numbered always outgunned. And now I hear that this one may be up for film as well. Yeah I've been working with Jonathan Demme made to do a series for HBO based on long fall and then you know going into you know known to evil and later on when the thrill is gone which is the third one you're already working on the third one. Yeah I'm going on that and you know that so that's going to be you know hopefully you know I'm working on the script even while I'm on tour right now so it's

kind of fun. Now I know you write different characters and now you say you have a lot of people in your head now that you have a favorite. I mean can my favorite character is Linnet son twill well. Oh I love that character he's my of all the characters I've written. Twill is the favorite and there's another character in these books who has my favorite name Johnny Knightley I would love that name. Sunday night was a really good I got to say something about your names they're all very interesting. We know you know it's true that you know when you come come from black America but also when you come from poor America you know there are very few things you have you can you have sex now if you have sex you have children you get to name those children. So you know you put a lot of energy into these things because you know you don't have a whole bunch of stuff going on and these things are cheap you know. And so yeah names I think are you know very important you know how we name people how we know people you know people are born with a name you know Bill. But you give him some other kind of name based on you know some talent he has or doesn't have or whatever.

I would be remiss if I didn't point out how generous you are with new writers and influencing them. I loved your book purchased how to write your novel. This year you will write your novel of course I've never written one. I've got the book anyway. Well that's me. And I observe human interaction at the National Black Book Club Conference and I think that's a wonderful place and the both the readers and the budding writers are so enthused about being around you and you're so supportive that seems to be part of your whole thing. Well you know I am support in some ways I am and some points I'm not I think you know I do what I can for as I wrote This Year You Write Your Novel because you know it's short it's 80 pages and it's everything I know about writing novels I get upset when I see these big 300 page books about writing novels and and you start paging through and they start talking like Shakespeare and Tolstoy and you know Dickens you think God you know if I if you if you have to compare people to those writers you'll never become writers you know. I know I let you know I like to talk to writers and be hopeful about it and I love writing you know it's like when I wrote that book that said you can write a novel I said.

I don't know if that novel ever get published but if you write a novel that will change your life all by itself. And I think that's important. Well you see you. You didn't didn't publish your first one till where you were 33 or 34. Yeah. My first novels published I was 38. And I think it's important for listeners to know you are a computer programmer and I never I never thought for a long time 16 years as a computer programmer I still do pots and you know I like you know I think it's really kind of wonderful to come late to something so because then you don't feel like you deserve it. You know there are a lot of young writers who you know said Well you know I'm this writer I'm this important thing people should be doing these things for me and you know after you've you know lived a long time you know kind of struggling around with a paycheck. If you don't feel like that which I think is good. How long does it take you just to craft these beautiful sentences. This is something that you know we all who wish ourselves to be there. Wonder how long and how long do you massage the thing. How do you know when it's right you know I do.

I do many drafts of a of an of a novel I go through it many times and work with the sentences and worry about them I'm never satisfied with them. But you know I think a lot of it is you know over like I write three hours a day and those other 21 hours things are going on unconsciously And so when I come back the sentences are changed when I read reread what I wrote yesterday the sentences have changed in my head and I change right on the page. A lot of the work is unconscious work and I think that's true mostly in art but a lot of the work is on conscious work. Well I'm glad that we're conscious enough to know how fabulous you are and how fabulous this new character is you still can. I've just been delighted to speak to Walker Mosley thank you so much for joining me. I'm callin Crossley. You've been listening to a rebroadcast. I was speaking with writer Walter Mosley about his book known evil. It's the second installment of his new detective series featuring the private investigator Leonid McGill. You can keep on top of the Calla Crossley Show at WGBH dot work slash Calla Crossley

follow us on Twitter and become a fan of the Gallic Boston show. On Facebook. Today Show was interviewed by Antonio only and produced by Chelsea murders and at USC that. We are a production of WGBH radio Boston NPR station for News Notes.