with Joe Lane
We are delighted to welcome author Joe Lane to Omnimystery News today.
Joe's new political thriller, Aftershock (Bancroft Press; June 2014 hardcover, trade paperback, and ebook formats) is set against the 2008 financial financial crisis, and centered on a group of highly skilled women who are determined to destroy the despotic power of Wall Street’s masters and their political supplicants.
We recently had a chance to catch up with Joe to talk a little more about the book.
— ♦ —
Omnimystery News: The lead characters of Aftershock are a group of women. What is it about them that appeals to you as a writer?
Photo provided courtesy of
Joe Lane
Joe Lane: To me, women are much tougher, and seriously more tenacious than men. Can you imagine men enduring 9-months of pregnancy and then delivery — our species would have died out long ago. Women are also better at cooperative ventures, and keeping secrets. Plus, the two people I admire the most are women — the love of my life, Barbara, and my daughter, Kathryn. They are both tough as nails and the two of most the principled people I've ever encountered.
I wanted a small group of dedicated, extremely dangerous people, who could wear tainted white hats while cutting your heart out when necessary. So they had to be women. I know it is usually men, and usually it's one really tough, unimaginably skilled in everything guy that changes the universe. However in reality, changing just about anything takes a group — cooperation, and time. The myth of the lone tough guy tearing through the universe and vanquishing all enemies single handedly is, I think, a dangerous myth. Also I wanted readers to find the women of the WA not only tougher and more lethal than any comic book hero, but perhaps even more unsettling than Dr. Lecter.
My lead character is Penelope Baldwin, Major, US Army. She is the voice of reason and restraint and yet ultimately willing to lead her group in committing horrific acts of retribution to change the current reality. She sees ending the status quo of money and power sucking everyday citizens dry as her, and the women of the WA, responsibility. Other members of the WA, Tessa, Peggy, Irene, specifically, represent people with dedication and passion who are driven by the avarice, arrogance, and indifference of the ruling elite to commit acts of depravity they would never have before entertained. But perhaps we all are capable of such barbarity if driven hard enough into a dark corner?
OMN: How did you go about finding the right voice for the characters?
JL: At first, I struggled to find Penelope's voice. However, as I mentioned, since I am in such awe of Barbara and Kathy, and other women — Sally Ride, Rosa Parks, Viola Liuzzo, and Eleanor Roosevelt, to name a few, I simply took their strength, resolve, and added my rage to give Penelope, Tessa, and company the power they needed to do what they did.
OMN: Aftershock is your second novel, also a stand-alone. Do you see yourself writing a sequel to either?
JL: My first novel, Myth of Innocence, is, in a way similar to Aftershock. People who are bright, dedicated, wholly principled are driven to seek retribution from the seemingly untouchable who take whatever they want to fulfill their desires regardless of the cost to others. In both stories, there is a second, and maybe third story to be told.
OMN: Into which fiction category would you place Aftershock?
JL: I suppose I'll label Aftershock a dark political thriller. I have tried to weave truth with fiction to create a fabric the reader can wrap themselves in and make the entire story feel real.
OMN: Summarize Aftershock for us in a tweet.
JL: The Wall St & DC elite receive an offer — refuse it; retribution they cannot survive will be unleashed. Limos-Jets-Yachts become death traps.
OMN: How much of your own personal or professional experience have you included in the book?
JL: In Aftershock, some of the characters are based on real people or a composite of several people. In some cases, incidental characters are very close copies of real people. All of the data the women discuss regarding the causes of the 2008 economic collapse are factual. The financial issues the women discuss happening in the future for the story line, 2013-2014 for them, are actually happening. The various actions the women execute are based on actual episodes and/or training operations conducted by a variety of military and/or extremist groups, and/or well documented strategies for executing such acts. Some I have knowledge of, some not.
OMN: How did you go about outlining the overall plot of the story?
JL: The events that propel Aftershock are either exactly factual or a series of such events over time compressed to fit the story line. Moreover, my plots and subplots are fixed in time and sequence by the reality of history. So my story is crafted to fit the real events, in the sequential order that they took place. I knew how many members the WA needed to pull off their plan in real life, so I created the characters needed to make the execution their plan work — in real life. Incidental characters were introduced as needed to add reality of the story. I rarely found the need to create a character that didn't already exist in the real world doing pretty much what they did in the story.
OMN: How did you research specific plot points?
JL: Much of my research was done through reading books, essays, papers, etc. that I wanted to read and watching documentaries that aroused my imagination and rage. In reality it was those stories that formed my story. I was living in China most of the time I wrote Aftershock. So much of my research on specific items such as arms, planes, and such was done on the Internet. I have had first hand experience in some cases, especially where aviation was involved (I am a pilot of over 40 years).
The specifics of the financial instruments and transactions that produced the 2008 economic collapse were perhaps the most difficult to pin down as most of the public fare put out by the perpetrators was intended to obfuscate rather than inform. They were also the most rewarding to pin down. Nothing like catching a miscreant with their hand still in the cookie jar.
OMN: How true are you to the settings of the story?
JL: I spent tons of time and re-research to pin down each and every detail of the various locations used in the story. Where it was necessary to create fictional location, I tried to make it and its surroundings as close to the actual location without making it an exact copy of a known place.
OMN: You mentioned you are a pilot. What are some of your other outside interests? And have any of these found their way into your books?
JL: One of my most time consuming interests is reading. I read 20 — 30 non-fiction books every year. Mostly these are research-based books on topics of public interests I care about. These are usually where I find the backbone of my novels. I also read 20 — 30 novels each year. I pay close attention to how the author tells the story. One issue I pay a lot of attention to is whether or not the various actions, people, and implements in the story are credible and plausible. I find myself rating the book as much on this as the overall story. I listen to a number of these books while I exercise.
I enjoy flying although I don't fly as often now as I'd like. Barbara and I enjoy skiing a lot. We also enjoy traveling to unusual places now that we're not tied so tightly to our business in China. We're headed to the Antarctic this coming winter. I enjoy golf. I'm trying to relearn it as a player after being a coach for so many years. We both love sailing as well and plan to do more now that we have a bit more free time. I truly love to make things, including the stories for my novels. Until recently, woodworking was where I think I got the greatest raw pleasure.
I wrote, co-directed, and starred in a TV series on golf in China — 108 episodes. I really enjoyed that. So now, perhaps my most intense pleasure is coming from creating the documentary film we are producing (Depraved Indifference).
I do use my knowledge and experience in my stories if I can find a way to make it useful for the characters and the story line.
OMN: What is the best advice — and harshest criticism — you've received as an author? And what might you say to an aspiring writer?
JL: The very best advice I've received so far is, make the characters show what they feel/believe/want et al, don't tell it. Equally powerful advice was to make certain the details of any action or plot or device are extremely realistic. Likewise, do not require so many implausible coincidences as to make an event or character more of a cliché rather than a something the reader can, upon reflection, imagine might actually happen.
The harshest criticism is always TMI — too much information. Permit the reader to fill in the story and characters with enough of their imagination, desires, and passion to make the read something they feel is part of them.
So far at least, all of my stories are about issues I am passionate about. I've written them to expose readers to critical information they might otherwise not come across in their everyday lives. So I'm not sure I qualified to offer advice to fiction authors who write primarily to entertain rather than to inform and challenge a popular notion.
OMN: You mentioned you read a lot of non-fiction. Is there any one title that you find particularly special?
JL: The book I find the most inspiring, and humbling, is Long Walk To Freedom — Nelson Mandela's autobiography. I have read it, and listened to it (read by Michael Boatman — who is South African — so while listening, I can permit myself to imagine it is Madiba himself talking to me) numerous times. He has inspired me not to watch history unfold but rather to push it the direction he did. The stories I have written, and will write, as well as the documentary we are working on, are my attempts to open minds to look in that direction.
OMN: Create a Top 5 list for us on any topic.
JL: Most favorite films (in no particular order): Amistad, Schindler's List, Sophie's Choice, The American President, and Inside Job. (I have to add a 6th — Despicable Me II.)
— ♦ —
Joe Lane is an international business man and filmmaker. He splits his time between the U.S. and China, where he launched Spango, a new pizza chain in Zhao Qing. A renaissance man, he's been as a contract consultant for new product development, a speaker, Yale student, works with animal shelters to raise funds for abandoned pets, and he's been a pilot for over 45 years.
For more information about the author, please visit his website at JoeLaneMedia.com, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
— ♦ —
Aftershock
Joe Lane
A Political Thriller
Major Penelope Baldwin, accomplished pilot and tactician, could have expected a bright future and stable military career until a dubious flight mission over Al A'Zamiyah, Iraq results in the loss of her left leg, and any opportunity for motherhood.
As Penelope struggles in recovery, her mother Evelyn struggles to secure their financial future and cover mounting medical bills. Buying the lies of disingenuous bankers and marketing shills, Evelyn places her savings within the derivatives market, a bubble that (unbeknownst to her) is on the verge of bursting. The collapse will destroy what's left of her finances, along with the investments and pensions of countless citizens.
Within months, on a wintry night in Georgia, a coked-up stock trader miscalculates a power turn in a Porsche coupe, sending its right front wheel over the curb and crashing into that which Penelope holds most dear.
The stage is set for a dedicated warrior, an American heroine, to turn her sights on those greedy, callous men responsible for ripping away her future.
Baldwin, along with Tessa Montgomery (Senior Chief USMC), Cynthia Washington (RN MSW), and six other highly competent women, all similarly devastated by the avarice, arrogance, and indifference of America's ruling elite, channel their grief and rage, and their search for justice, to become a finely orchestrated and well-financed band of predators.
Several months later, several of the most powerful of America's financial and political elite are slaughtered in forty-storied monuments to their egos. Then a terror―a terror so primal that it rends the very fabric of everyday life―is released into the homes, limos, and private jets of America's quasi-monarchical class.
An invisible society of professional predators is leading a lethal attack on the long sacred relationship between money and politics.
Two critical questions are explicitly raised by the attackers: When the voice of the few, the wealthy, the privileged is the sound of the money essential for election, can the voice of the common citizen be heard at all? Can an ethical government exist when the special interests it's charged with policing have captured the political system and the means of election through their vast wealth?
0 comments:
Post a Comment