KT: Jeff, I appreciate your taking the time to talk with Hardluck. First question, everyone has a definition of noir. What is yours?

T. Jefferson Parker: Darkness of tone and nature. And there’s the assumption through most of noir writing and film that the bad guys often win. Robert Towne’s original script for “Chinatown,” in which Evelyn Mulwray lives, is not noir. Polanski’s filmed version certainly is.

What do you think of the current noir marketplace?

It seems to me that since 9/11 our appetites for darkness have shrunk a little. Mine have. I know that as a writer I’ve tried to bring more breadth and humanity to my stories. I think when all is said and done, a noir attitude is fine, but it’s still just an attitude, a pose.

Can you tell us your favorite noir books and authors? Favorite noir movie?

I’ll sound like everybody else, but I love Hammett and James M. Cain. James Crumley wrote some nice dark stuff. A slightly overlooked work of genius in noir tradition is True Confessions by John Gregory Dunne. Ken Bruen’s The Guards last year was good. Hammett seems the best.

Your latest novel “California Girl” is heavily noir while your background growing up from what I have read, does not indicate that. Is it just based on your sense of the times or was it influenced by someone you knew?

I grew up in the small suburban town of Tustin, California, so that probably disqualifies me for a noir pedigree. There are some noir influences in California Girl, however, which underscore the idea that there can be darkness and evil surprise wherever you go.

The specter of Clay and his death as an advisor in Vietnam hangs heavily in the novel. Did the war touch your life?

Like everyone, I was surrounded by the war on TV, radio, magazines. It was like a bad dream you couldn’t wake up from. Personally, I had some friends and relatives who served but they came back alive. My real effort to deal with the war and what it meant to me, was Little Saigon, which was published in 1988. I was only eligible for the Vietnam draft for one year, and my number was 356, so I was not drafted and did not serve. For me, not serving was something I had to deal with, because I could certainly have enlisted but didn’t. Why? Because I was afraid to die in a jungle thousands of miles from home, just for starters.

I’m a bit confused by Katy’s behavior after Nick accidentally ingested LSD. Without going into so much detail that it would ruin the book for our readers who haven’t had the pleasure of reading it, could you explain why she acted that way? It seemed like a total character shift and one that I just didn’t get.

She sees him confused and vulnerable and basically out of control, as well as charming and helpless. The sex is a way to settle him down and keep him safe.

Guilt and pain seemed to flow from every single character. No one seems happy in the novel. Was that written that way by conscious design or am I over thinking it?

I see much joy in Andy’s writing and ambition and striving for truth, in Nick’s devotion to work and justice, in David’s love of God and mankind. They have guilt and pain, too.

I’ve read that you start work at 6:30 in the morning and end the day at 5. Could you give our readers an idea how this works for you and how you go about your day?

Mornings are best for writing, so I try to get right to it. Sometimes I’ll write 3 or 4 pages before I’m really aware of much. I try for 5 pages a day. It’s always interesting to see where the story will lead you. Most days I sit down and have very little idea what’s going to happen. Afternoons lend themselves to the business end of writing and living a life. I take lots of little breaks. I used to break every half an hour for a smoke, but I quit that. So now I break every hour and check email or something exciting like that. My wife and children are generally not far from where I work, so I’ll wander out and see what they’re up to.

Do you outline or do you wait and see where the characters take you?

I’ve done both. I didn’t outline California Girl except in a very general way. I knew I had five decades to cover, so I quickly gave up any idea of outlining it. I just winged it, changing characters and years and decades when it felt right. Silent Joe, on the other hand, I outlined in 85 single-spaced pages, then found out 200 pages into the manuscript that the outline was worthless. Red Light I outlined and it helped me tremendously. I think the more you know about the story ahead of time, the better, but not always. How’s that for contradictory?

How long does it take you to write a novel from start to finish?

About a year.

After 12 books counting “California Girl” is the writing process any easier?

I’m a better writer now but it’s not any easier. You try to raise the bar, give yourself new goals and challenges. When it’s going well, though, it’s not difficult at all. You just put on your seatbelt in the morning and enjoy the ride.

Assuming you can discuss it, would you explain why you changed publishers and how you selected a new one?

My agent got me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Morrow is a terrific house and I’m really lucky to be there.

Any advice for aspiring writers? Do this or for heaven’s sake, don’t do that thoughts?

Write lots and read good writing. You are what you read. Aspire to be better than you are.

Who are you currently reading within and without noir and why? Who do you really like?

I re-read Terrill Lankford’s Shooters not long ago, and liked it again. No surprise. I really like John Shannon. He’s a treasure. I’m getting a terrific kick out of Gregg Hurwitz’s The Program, which was just published. I’m re-reading Wambaugh’s The New Centurions now, and it’s even better than I remembered. That was one of the books that made me want to be a writer. I’m reading the 9/11 Commission Report and a book on San Diego architecture and a book called Spy Goddess: Live and Let Shop. So you can see my tastes are varied.

Any advance word on your next projects?

I’m finishing a mystery set in San Diego. It’s a complicated one, full of political and sexual currents, a story about loyalty and betrayal.

Jeff, one final question, how much autobiographical stuff is in California Girl? I’m guessing of the four brothers you’re closer to Andy?

California Girl has tons of autobiography in it. I’m probably closer to Andy than the other brothers. I always wanted to write about a writer, and I finally got the chance. I loved my days as a young reporter, and clearly Andy does too. What I like about Andy most is that he’s smart enough to write decent stories about other people but he doesn’t realize he’s living the best story of them all. In a roundabout way, that’s what California Girl is to me: a way of putting down what I went through as a 14-year-old kid growing up next to an orange grove while the world boiled around me.

California Girl

By T. Jefferson Parker

www.tjeffersonparker.com

William Morrow

www.harpercollins.com

2004

ISBN # 0-06-056236-6

ARC

The year is 1968 and amidst a backdrop of Vietnam, rising drug abuse, and societal upheaval, the four Becker boys are trying to find their way. For Clay, his personal search is over, having died in Vietnam. David Becker is a charismatic preacher with a growing congregation. Nick is a cop and Andy is a hotshot crime reporter. The living brothers are drawn together by the death of Janelle Vonn and her death will have a deep and lasting impact on their lives and the dark secrets they hold dear.

They first met Janelle in 1954 as the book opens when the Becker boys fought the Vonns as brothers everywhere often do. It was a simpler time on the surface, but the rumble in the orange groves by the packing plant hid a dark secret. Janelle was just five years old then but something about her haunted Nick. And it haunts him years later when he stands above her decapitated body inside that same old packing plant in the orange grove.

His life and the lives of his brothers are deeply intertwined in the short and often miserable life of Janelle Von. With both Nick and Andy driven by a sense of guilt and shame and with the occasional assists of brother David, they work the case relentlessly in an attempt to find the killer. Along the way, deep dark disturbing secrets about all three brothers are uncovered as well as a legacy of abuse outside the Becker family that should have been stopped long ago. Nothing stays hidden; no matter how hard you try.

This is a dark and often disturbing novel featuring a case study of what greed and ambition can do to a man. Is it fate and pre-destiny that drives us all or is a refusal despite the evidence in front of us to change? Something the Greeks tried to answer long ago in their own ways and T. Jefferson does in his.

At the same time, the themes of guilt and absolution weigh heavily in the work. Along the way, the reader is introduced to Dick Nixon, Timothy Leary, and Charles Manson while following a trail of politics, murder, greed, sexual orientation, drug abuse, adultery and other societal issues. The book is a microcosm of the world at large that featured tumultuous times and something clearly conveyed in the novel “California Girl.”