READING GROUP GUIDE

DE DEATH ATHWILL WILL

HHAVE AVE YYOOUR UR
EEYE YESS
A NOVEL ABOUT SPIES
JJAME AMESS SSALLI ALLISS
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AA CCON ONVER VERSSATI ATION ON WI WITH TH
JJAME AMESS SSALLI ALLISS
What was the frst story you ever wrote, and what happened to it?
Tere were of course early miscarriages, but the frst story I wrote
that felt like a story, walked like a story, and quacked like a story
was Kazoo. It was published in New Worlds. Two others quickly
followed, one for F&SF, and one for Damon Knights Orbit, in-
culcating in me the absurd and sweetly naive notion that I could
make a living writing. From such moments are lives ruined.
When you sold your frst piece of writing, how did you celebrate?
I was twenty-one and impoverishedexcellent training for a
writer, by the wayso I probably took my wife out for a fne
meal at Howard Johnsons.
Tell us about your process: Pen, paper, word processor, human blood
when the moon is full . . . how do you write?
As though in a pitch black room where I am trying to fnd the
black door, stumbling over black furniture all the while. And I
swear that furniture keeps moving about.
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Mostly its all on computer nowadays, though each page, each
line, gets questioned, revised, rewritten, bufed, trimmed and fl-
leted hundreds of times.
Heres what writing well feels like to me. I begin a story or a
novel and its as though I almost see movement over in the cor-
ner of the room. But when I look that way, theres nothing. As I
write on into the story I start to hear breathing over there; theres
more and more furtive movement; and as I go on, the breathing
gets louder, defned. Tat thing in the corner begins to take on
shape. . . .
Whats the biggest mistake youve made as a writer?
We could talk for quite a while about that word mistake, im-
plying as it does that, like characters in poorly written fction, we
have simplistic, monosyllabic motives, i.e., that we know what
the hell were doing and are in control of it.
Commercially, not sticking to one genre might be construed a
mistake. Who is this guy? Poet? PI novelist? Avant-garde weirdo?
Fish? Fowl?
Te sole mistake to which Id admit without reserve: Not
writing enough. Tough Im pretty sure laziness accounts for that
more than does misdirection.
Which fctional character would you most like to have a drink with,
and why?
Molly Bloom. I wouldnt have to say a word, wouldnt even have
to bring along my satchel of punctuation.
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What kind of catharsis did you achieve from your latest work?
Teres the very specifc, almost physical pleasure of feeling a
story or novel slip into form, become of a piece, a whole. A kind
of click, that stops your breath for a moment. Teres the mo-
ment with Others this was at the very start, before Id written
a word, when Jennys voice came to me as I walked down 16th
Street in Phoenixwhen you realize that youve fallen through
into another mind, come to inhabit another world. And in many
cases theres the inability to read the fnal pages of Salt River, of
Te Killer Is Dying, of Others without crying, when, with those
few touchstone pages, the whole of the experience foods back.
Where do you buy your books?
Truth to tell, I dont buy a lot. Because of my many years as re-
viewer for the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe,
and others, I still receive dozens of books weekly from publishers.
Others are sent me directly by editors and by the writers them-
selves. And Gordon at Te Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction,
for whom I write a quarterly books column, keeps me out on the
dance foor with recent releases there. When I do purchase, lazi-
ness (see above) slouches me towards the Bethlehem of Amazon.
How do you handle a bad review of your work?
We have specifc tastes; we look to literature to provide diferent
things. A review is a sort of thinking aloud about fction, a con-
versation about it. I would ask only that the reviewer is indeed
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thinking, and that he or she is in fact in a conversationwith
the reader, and with the heritage of the reviewed piecerather
than talking to him- or herself.
Whats the worst advice you hear authors give writers?
Write what you know. Hey, guys, this all about imagination!
Your latest novel, Others of My Kind, originally started out as a
short story, how many of your novels have started out as short stories?
Actually it began as a novel; the short story version that appeared
in Phoenix Noir was carved at Patricks request from the novel
while it was in revision. Te Long-Legged Fly began as a short story
but then wouldnt shut up. And though I recognized Drive to be
a novel from inception, the short story version was a test drive to
see how roadworthy it might be. All the others, I believe, arrived
with book covers in hand.
Te original version of this interview appeared on LitReactor, available from litreactor
.com and Keith Rawson.
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QQUE UESSTI TION ONSS AND AND TTOPI OPICCSS FFOR OR
DI DISSCCUUSSSI SION ON
1. How does Davids life after the Cold War change when he is
reactivated as a spy?
2. In what ways does identity factor into the book?
3. David and Gabrielle have a close relationship, how does
Gabrielle help David adjust to life after being a spy?
4. What is the signifcance of Davids profession after being an
elite spy?
5. How does the short chapter structure create a sense of pace in
Death Will Have Your Eyes?
6. Who is Michael and is he who he claims to be?
7. David enjoys the cat and mouse game of spying, why does he
seem so calm when being tracked?
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8. What is Planchats signifcance in the end? Why was David
reactivated to fnd him?
9. Why is traveling the roads of America important to the story?
10. Can the reader depend on David as a narrator?
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