Interview With Justin Scott
Introduction
Justin Scott was born in New York City in 1944. He is the author of many successful novels, including HardScape, The Empty Eye of the Sea, Shipkiller, The Man Who Loved the Normandie, A Pride of Kings, Rampage and The Cossack’s Bride. Mausoleum is the newest title in his Ben Abbott series.
Can you tell us about your new mystery, Mausoleum?
In Mausoleum, an arrogant rich newcomer to Newbury, Connecticut, is found fifty years ahead of schedule inside the gigantic gaudy mausoleum he foisted on the Village Cemetery. In the previous book in the series, McMansion, the arrogant, most rapacious of Newbury’s developers of gigantic, gaudy McMansion houses, is found under his bulldozer. In each case, the majority of citizens had reason to kill him.
These seem like good premises for murder mysteries. Has overbuilding and McMansion building happened in your town?
Enough to inspire two novels.
You have taken a few pen names. Do you write differently, think differently, plot differently when you write as someone else?
Differently--and exhilaratingly--for the first few books under a new name. Or, for that matter, the first few books in a new voice, such as my Ben Abbott voice, regardless of name. Soon, however, who one is rears his head and resumes control.
After you did an interview with the Boston Globe a couple of years ago revealing your use of a pen name or two, HarperCollins found out about who you really were only when the Globe reporter called them. Were they upset with you?
I would love to think that Rupert Murdoch, who owns HarperCollins, suffered sleepless nights pondering “What’s it all about?” But there is no evidence to suggest that he noticed.
You have said that "terror and fear of failure" stalk publishers' halls. Publishing used to be a quiet, nonstressful, genteel profession. Can you explain the terror and fear nowadays?
Two out of three jobs vanished from publishing in the last ten years. The mid-list vanished, which means that the editors, like the writers, now have to hit only home runs to survive. The old custom of grooming writers by supporting them through the publication of four or five or ten books gave everyone the opportunity to hope in the long run. Now there is no long run. Those who succeed immediately succeed very happily, those who don’t disappear. (This is not to say that no one in publishing is having fun any more. But from the firings and disappearings I’ve noticed, I conclude that the happy are a smaller group than years ago.) The point could also be made that similar changes have swept through most American business and the professions. Where is the tenured professor of yesteryear? Where is the corner grocer? How fares the newspaper reporter?
And can you tell us about the "dreaded name in the computer"?
The dreaded name is nothing more or less a number that identifies sales figures. until the computer, little was known or understood about sales figures. Writers and agents used to complain that royalty statements were too opaque to be understood. From our current perspective, it looks as if those old opaque statements reflected the fact that publishers and booksellers were as confused as we were. The upside of that confusion was that we all operated on hope. “Wait ‘til your next book,” the would say, backing their promises with checks and contracts. Now the numbers are clear. Therefore hope is offered only the new writer, or name, that hasn’t disappointed any computer yet. (Again, a point that can be made about many businesses.)
If publishers and booksellers insist on submitting writers to the authority of a computer, they can't complain when writers take steps to avoid that authority, can they?
They would be churlish to complain. Not being churlish, they probably turn a blind eye to any strategy they hope will help launch a new project.
Your saga of taking on new pen names (Paul Garrison, Alexander Cole) would make a funny satire of the publishing business. Want to do it--under a new pen name, perhaps?
You are assuming I haven’t already.
Is it terror and fear of failure in the publishing world that is leading to a certain sameness--both in the bestseller lists and the careers of authors who, having reached bestsellerdom, just have to go on repeating themselves to stay on top?
Fortunately, we all die in the end and new wits come along to remake the world in their fresh image. I used to blame that sameness on the booming mass market paperback business of the late ‘80s and ‘90s when every jacket, every title, and every plot looked the same. Now mass market paperback has vanished. I used to worry that that sameness would drive away readers. Readers, bless them, have not vanished.
What's next for you--and under which name?
I’ve promised my publisher a new Ben Abbott called HighBoy in time for June ‘09 under Justin Scott. At the moment I’m busy writing a thriller, destined to hit the shops in ‘09. I’m also contemplating rewriting another thriller. And I’ve just finished a novel about a cat. (No kidding.)