Neely Tucker was born in Holmes County, Mississippi,
then the poorest county in the poorest state in America, in 1963. He has since
worked in more than sixty countries or territories across the world and
currently writes for The Washington Post’s Sunday Magazine. His memoir, “Love
in the Driest Season,” was named one of the best 25 Books of 2004 by
Publisher’s Weekly, the American Bookseller’s Association, the New York City
Library and won numerous other awards.
A seventh-generation Mississippian, he attended
Mississippi State and the University of Mississippi, graduating magna cum laude
from the latter, and was named as the University’s top journalism student. In
college, he started writing for The Oxford Eagle as their “Yalobusha County
correspondent,” which is perhaps the best job title any one has ever had. It
was the smallest daily newspaper in Mississippi, and as such he covered
everything from high school sports to county commission meetings to homicides
to the Watermelon Queen festival.
After college, he worked at Florida Today, Gannett
News Service and the Miami Herald, all in a four-year span. Moving to the
Detroit Free Press, he lived in a loft above a downtown pizzeria, froze in the
winters, and was named to run the paper’s European Bureau in early 1993.
Since 2000, he has worked for The Washington Post.
He has covered the U.S. District Court in Washington and its appellate
division, generally seen as the nation’s number two court beneath the U.S.
Supreme Court. His assignments include covering anthrax and terrorism after
9/11, the 2004 tsunami in Southern Asia and the fate of returning prison
inmates.
When he is not writing, Neely is usually on his
motorcycle, out for a long run or sipping bourbon on the back porch, wishing
that Mississippi State and the New Orleans Saints would win more football games
than they actually do.
Clinton
Greaves: Tell me about THE WAYS OF THE DEAD, your debut
novel.
Tucker:
The teenage daughter of a very powerful judge in Washington is brutally
murdered after a dance class in a rough part of town. Sully Carter, a talented
reporter with a lot of baggage – alcohol, war injuries, rage – gets the idea that
the girl’s death might be related to the disappearances of troubled minority
women in the same neighborhood. It’s
based on the actual Princeton Place murders in D.C. in the mid 1990s, when a
serial killer was stalking this same neighborhood. But, thematically, Washington
is home to some of the most powerful people in the country, some of the most
dispossessed and some of the most violent. “Ways” is about when those three run
into each other. It’s not pretty.
Clinton
Greaves: Going into the writing of THE WAYS OF THE DEAD did
you let the different threads of the story come to you? Or did you carefully
map out the entire novel?
Tucker:
Creativity is great, but it’s got to have form. So I mapped it all out by
chapter, like you’d storyboard a film. But in the write-through, the characters
started walking off the page and doing things I hadn’t planned. I always trust
that. The final twist of the book was not in any way planned. It just happened.
I said, “Oh, SH*T!” when it popped out on the page.
Clinton
Greaves: Well, I must tell you, from time to time I’ve heard
critics describe the writing in a debut novel as “assured,” and I would certainly
say that is the case with your book. I couldn’t point to one false step in the entire
novel. It amazed me that this was your first crack at long-length fiction.
Obviously, you have a strong background in journalism, and I’m wondering if
that helped you in any way with crafting your first novel.
Tucker:
Sure. I’ve made my living writing for nearly thirty years now. Fiction is a
different sort of mental game, but it’s in the same ballpark, at least to me.
The real difference is story flow and knowingly withholding critical
information. What one calls a great twist in fiction likely would be called a
cheap trick in journalism.
Clinton
Greaves: I can’t help but notice the similarities between
your name and Sully’s. I hate to ask, but how much of Sully Carter mirrors the
great Neely Tucker?
Tucker:
Some, but probably not as much as you’d think. Sully and I share the same
profession, some reporting experiences, ride motorcycles, and both love Basil
Hayden’s bourbon and the New Orleans Saints. But, for example, there really was
a reporter who broke open the Princeton Place murders. He was a former foreign
correspondent, worked for the Washington Post and came home to cover crime. He
really did crawl around in the basements where some of the bodies were found,
he really did go to the strip club on the block, really did expose all the
problems with the city morgue. And his name was Gabriel Escobar, now the deputy
managing editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Washington is lousy with
reporters coming home from abroad; someone with Sully’s career just isn’t that
unusual.
Clinton
Greaves: I’ve previously interviewed Owen Laukkanen and Paul
Doiron, two wonderful crime novelists with strong series characters. The ending
of THE WAYS OF THE DEAD left me longing for more Sully Carter, as well as
wondering how he would reconcile what he learned about another key character in
the novel. What are the future plans for Sully Carter? Are there any more
scheduled books in the series?
Tucker:
The second book in the series is already written. It’s out next summer. The
working title is “The Well of Time.” It’s Sully, back in D.C., dealing with
some of the people you’re talking about.
Clinton
Greaves: Strictly crime fiction for you moving forward? Or
do you have a desire to write in another genre?
Tucker:
The next two books (at least) are going to be about Sully. I’d like for him to
be around for a long time, and I’d like to also bring other characters and
stories to life, in whatever style/genre/format.
Clinton
Greaves: I am an unabashed lover of crime fiction, so I had
to smile when I noticed you dedicated your novel, in part, to the late Elmore
Leonard, one of my personal favorites. He certainly was adept at “leaving out
the parts that readers skip,” and infusing his work with the little details
that add verisimilitude. Do you have much time for reading yourself? What are
some books that you think should be on everyone’s bookshelf (or Kindle, Nook,
etc.)?
Tucker:
I loved Dutch, for many and several reasons. We got to be friends and he was
just so straightforward and relaxed and utterly without pretense. Sort of the
James Garner of the literary set – somebody with all the chops and none of the
ego. That perspective, and his gift for dialogue and seeing good stories,
really had an impact on me. I wouldn’t want to give anybody a mandatory reading
list, but if one likes crime fiction, say, it’s hard to be conversant without
“The Big Sleep,” “Double Indemnity,” “The Friends of Eddie Coyle,” “The Talented
Mr. Ripley,” “Silence of the Lambs,” “L.A. Confidential,” “Clockers,” “Devil in
a Blue Dress,” “Mystic River,” and anything by Dutch, Michael Connelly and Carl
Hiaasen. That’s just off the top of my head as some sort of overview. It’s
leaving out about 15 or 20 things just as influential, I’m sure.
Clinton
Greaves: Certainly the book industry is changing, as we see
more indie works coming to light because of the ease of publishing for Amazon’s
Kindle and Barnes and Noble’s Nook. Amazon and Hachette’s public feud has drawn
quite a bit of attention as well (much of it drummed up by writers on both
sides of the aisle—traditional versus self-published). You’re a relative newbie
to publishing. Based on your experiences thus far, how do you feel about the state
of the publishing industry? Encouraged or discouraged?
Tucker:
I prefer print, for what it’s worth. I have a Kindle, I just don’t like reading
anything very long on it. But as a writer, the technology used or format of how
people read it doesn’t matter to me at all.
Clinton
Greaves: What’s one question you wish an interviewer would
ask? And go ahead and answer it.
Tucker:
“Do you get tired of people telling you that you look like Billy Bob Thornton?”
Answer: “I just wish a casting director would, so maybe I’d get a movie role
every now and then.”
Clinton
Greaves: As we near the end of this interview, I hesitate to
admit that my wife abused me in fantasy football last year with Drew Brees
quarterbacking for her team. Couple that with the fact that I’m a Jets fan and
you can imagine how cranky I was for the entire season. Using your keen
journalistic eye, what do you think the prospects are for the Saints and the
Jets this upcoming season?
Tucker:
NEVER PICK AGAINST ST. DREW (His name be
praised). Eight 5,000 yard passing seasons in NFL history. He has four of them.
As to the season…as a Saints fan, one always views the upcoming season with a
sense of doom. I’d guess Jets fans tend to feel the same.
Clinton
Greaves: Thanks for agreeing to this interview. Any last
thoughts?
Tucker:
Glad you liked the book…and Sully will be back next summer.
Order Neely Tucker's Thrilling Sully Carter Novel!Amazon: The Ways of the Dead
Barnes & Noble: The Ways of the Dead
Follow Neely Tucker and Clinton Greaves on Twitter:
@neelytucker
@clintongreaves
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