Pay the Price...

IT'S NEVER too late to become a crime writer. Just ask Charles Kelly, the veteran newspaper reporter who published his debut noir novel earlier this year at the age of 61. Kelly’s PAY HERE follows Ireland-born newshound Michael Callan around Phoenix as he investigates the death of former lover Rhea Montero and struggles with his inner demons. Pulp Pusher's DAMIEN SEAMAN caught up with Charles to discuss the novel and his career in journalism.

DAMIEN SEAMAN: What’s it like to have your first novel published at the age of 61?

CHARLES KELLY: It’s a thrill to get recognition for something you’ve worked on for so long – although probably not as exciting as it would have been 20 years ago!

DS: What made you start writing fiction?

CK: Reporting can be less satisfying now newspapers are in such financial difficulties. Pay Here is about recapturing the fun spirit of old-fashioned investigative reporting you don’t see so often today. Plus, you do get something different out of fiction because you get deeper into the writing. You get to play around with your own creations, which is very satisfying. It’s a new challenge and when you’ve done anything for a while you like to try something new.

DS: Which writers were the major influences on PAY HERE?

CK: Obviously Graham Greene…Ken Bruen today…Dashiell Hammett. Everyone who ever wrote a first person detective, particularly first person Irish characters.

DS: How important is Irishness to you? How much of yourself did you put into protagonist Michael Callan?

CK: My father was Irish. I like the Irish literary style: it’s irreverent, working-class, fatalistic, hard-nosed. Like Irish music, which I’ve listened to for years. I’m not a very hard-nosed person myself but that attitude intrigues me. So I threw all that in there.

And there was my knowledge of reporting, the focus on the romance of the individual reporter. Callan wants to get the story, which means more than the text printed in the newspaper. It means understanding the issues through the worldview of the reporter. But other than that there’s not much of myself in Callan. I had Callan born in Ireland because I wanted to make him more vivid and bring the Irish theme more to life.

DS: Did you have to do any research before writing the novel or was it mainly drawn from personal experience?

CK: Mainly the book came out of my background in journalism in Arizona. I didn’t do a lot of research. Some on migrant smuggling, some on medical techniques. I’m not good at picking up on plant life or geography, so I looked into that too.

DS: What struck me about the book was the vividness of the setting. Was that deliberate?

CK: I thought a lot about that. Having lived 35 years in the Phoenix area it strikes me as a bland,

suburban type of place. It’s not San Francisco or New Orleans – it’s a struggle to find what’s unique

about Phoenix. I did try to bring the interesting aspects to the fore. The speed of change is the

underlying theme of life here. I wanted to get that across.

DS: The theme of Catholic guilt is very strong in the novel. Were you raised a Catholic?

CK: Yes. The Catholic Church where I grew up in Nebraska was part of the old tradition, you know, Latin mass. I was an altar boy. That’s all interesting from a psychological and emotional perspective. I think you try to make your characters authentic by drawing on things you feel strongly. Callan sees things in spiritual terms of losing his soul and going to hell – strong emotional themes. He’s not walking round like a robot punching people in the face.

DS: PAY HERE touches on the Northern Ireland situation and explores illegal immigration in the American Southwest. Do you consider yourself a political writer?

CK: Not in the least. I’m interested in the people within the issues. When Callan talks about illegal immigration he’s reacting on a personal basis. As an immigrant himself, he can say, ‘I know something about immigration and it’s damn tough’. That’s personal, not an expression of an overall political theme. Stories have to work on a personal level otherwise you come across as preaching.

DS: PAY HERE wasn’t your first completed manuscript. Did you ever feel like giving up on getting your fiction published? What stopped you?

CK: I wrote five novels before this. I think you get into the habit. You like the process, enjoying writing and exploring characters. And I always felt there was a chance of getting published – I never wanted to sit alone in a room so I could write beautiful things for myself. In recent years we’ve seen the rise of significant niche publishers like Point Blank Press. You feel you’ve developed the skills as the years go by. And why not continue with what you enjoy?

DS: Your current project is a biography of Dan Marlowe. What drew you to the man?

CK: It’s sort of like that little Italian restaurant you love but no one else knows about. I’d read Marlowe in the past and really liked his books. The Name of the Game is Death was my first, and from there I looked for his other novels. Before the internet this was a bit of a treasure hunt. No one seemed to know anything about Marlowe and I thought, how could this be? I was drawn to the mystery. When I started researching Marlowe I’d soon collected a treasure trove, so much I couldn’t keep from doing a biography. In terms of marketability, I don't think a biography of Marlowe is very marketable now. But being stupid is part of success as a writer. You have to get interested in subjects no-one else finds interesting, but which readers eventually will find fascinating. For a publisher to pick up the Marlowe biography, I expect Marlowe's profile will have to be raised. I think that will happen through a movie project based on one of his books. His stuff would work brilliantly on the screen.

DS: Do you plan to write any more novels, or to try to publish any of your old ones?

CK: Yes, but I have to finish the biography first. I started writing another Michael Callan novel, but I won’t get back to it for a while. Akashic publishers are in the early stages of putting together a new noir short story collection based around Phoenix and I believe I’ll get to do a story for that if it comes off. I’ll probably try publishing one of my older novels but – even at 61 – I’d like to raise my profile a little first. The Marlowe biography would help. Plus, Stark House Press in California is reissuing one of Marlowe’s books as part of a trilogy, and I’ve written the introduction to that.

DS: What advice would you give to other aspiring novelists?

CK: Network, network, network. Work the internet. It’s a wonderful place a writer can go where they couldn’t twenty years ago. Get published on short story sites. Use networking websites like Crimespace, plus a personal website or a blog. It won’t cost much and you can raise your exposure. Don’t worry so much about traditional publishing – to an incredible degree you can do a ton of marketing on the net. And I almost forgot the traditional advice for writers – write every day and enjoy the process otherwise you’ll have nothing to market!

:: PAY HERE is published by Point Blank Press

DAMIEN SEAMAN, one-time political reporter, editor, security guard, factory worker and supermarket management trainee, has lived in London, Brussels, Benghazi and Nottingham, 2007's UK murder capital. He currently lives in Berlin. More of his crime fiction has featured in Noir Originals and Spinetingler Magazine. He finds emails a pleasant distraction if youve got time on your hands: damien.seaman@web.de

Read Damien's Pusher short ... here