Hugh Lessig
Fadeaway Joe
DOSSIER: Instead of writing super-human-type book characters who know everything and can do anything, yours are self-described as the “guy next door” who ends up in crappy situations. Do you credit that to your Pennsylvania upbringing or is it just a great way to craft a solid story?
LESSIG: Probably a little of both. I spent several years as a newspaper reporter in small Pennsylvania towns. No celebrities or big shots, and no criminal masterminds or retired CIA spies. It was always the guy next door who won the lottery because they decided to buy gas at the 7-Eleven Tuesday instead of Wednesday, or the guy who beat someone to death with a ball peen hammer because they had a bad day and blew a fuse. Years later, when I graduated to larger and more weighty beats, I still wanted to interview the guy next door. I remember covering a governor’s inauguration and suggesting we interview the catering staff or the guys setting up the chairs. I got a lot of looks. Still do sometimes.
DOSSIER: Where’s the best place to cover a news story: the floor of the Virginia statehouse, the deck of an aircraft carrier, or the belly of an American naval submarine?
LESSIG: That’s a tough one. The belly of a Virginia-Class submarine is a fascinating place, but given security concerns, there are restrictions on what can be reported. Much of the story stays in your notebook. Today I work for Newport News Shipbuilding, which helps build those submarines, and the construction process is just as fascinating and just as closely guarded. An aircraft carrier is compelling for different reasons. I think the public would be amazed at the number of young people doing important jobs – and doing them well, on these giant ships. As a reporter, covering the Virginia statehouse is akin to covering a house of ill repute: a lot of standing around and doing nothing, punctuated by brief periods of intense and passionate activity, followed by smoke breaks.
DOSSIER: When and where do you write, and what kind of environment do you prefer? (Absolute silence/music playing/passenger side of a big rig?)
LESSIG: It doesn’t matter, and I think it goes back to being in the news business. I’ve written stories in airport terminals, on buses, at the pier at Naval Station Norfolk, on assignment in post-earthquake Haiti, or riding back from a crime scene. Then you have the tough places to write, like newsrooms. The police scanner is going, someone next to you is yammering about their latest story or complaining about lack of overtime (or just complaining, since reporters are notoriously cranky) and deadline is looming. A career in journalism is great training for writing a novel, where discipline matters more than raw talent. As a reporter, you must write all the damn time, whether you’re sick or tired or angry or hungover. Press. Fingers. Against. Keyboard. Sometimes that helps push you through a novel, too.
DOSSIER: Refried Beans and a Snub-Nosed .44, part of the Guns + Tacos series you published with Down & Out Books tells the Dossier a lot of great things about you as a human being. What’s something else about you that will make people want to donate a kidney to buy all of your written works?
LESSIG: My first novel was released two weeks before my 65th birthday. You can view that one of two ways. One, I am an inspirational figure who shows that you should never, ever give up. Two, I’m incredibly lucky and already 65-1/2, so you’d better hurry up and buy my books. Retirement ain’t cheap, and I don’t want to end up eating cat food and sitting in the gutter. Seriously folks, I’m not getting any younger, and for the price of a single kidney, how can you go wrong?
DOSSIER: Your debut, FADEAWAY JOE, deals with a protagonist who’s a famous bouncer now diagnosed with early-onset dementia. What made you put those two things together for a main character?
LESSIG: My dad passed away after being diagnosed with dementia. At the time, I thought I’d dealt with it rather well. As it turned out, I didn’t deal with it at all. My dad was physically strong – a standout high school baseball player, a U.S. Marine in World War II, a truck driver, and a guy who could fix anything. Seeing the onset of dementia was like watching an accident in slow motion. I eventually wanted to find a way to deal with that through my writing. By that time, I was writing crime fiction. I wrote a piece of flash fiction in “Shotgun Honey” about an elderly criminal. He’s been teaching a younger man about scams and rip-offs. The old guy reflects on his life choices and wonders if he should steer this young man in a different direction. The idea of reaching across the generations appealed to me. (Men sometimes tell things to their grandkids they don’t tell their sons and daughters.) I worked in dementia to give the story tension – a ticking clock if you will. Joe doesn’t know how much time he has. He has big decisions to make, and he doesn’t know what he’ll do.
DOSSIER: The Dossier is wondering what it was like living on the grounds of Fort Monroe, Virginia after it was a military base, so please tell us all about it. How did you end up there? Why did you leave? What did the ghosts say to you?
LESSIG: Fort Monroe is a beautiful place. It has stately homes and historic buildings galore, plus a grand resort hotel that is now a retirement home. (Don’t think “Army base.”) Built on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, it housed coastal artillery batteries to protect us from invaders. Those hulking structures remain there today, silent sentinels from another time. Shana, my girlfriend, and I wanted to live there after it opened to the public, and we just kept pushing. We lived there for eight years and recently moved out. The only reason? We wanted to buy a house. You can only rent on the grounds of Fort Monroe. And yes, there are ghosts. There is even a pet cemetery. So far, the ghosts haven’t spoken to me, but I haven’t given up. All my author photos were taken at the Fort. I love it there.
Website: Hugh Lessig | Amazon Page
Jeff Circle 