with Ed Ifkovic
We are delighted to welcome author Ed Ifkovic to Omnimystery News today.
The fifth mystery in his series featuring Edna Ferber, Final Curtain, was published earlier this summer by Poisoned Pen Press and we recently had the opportunity to talk with him about it.
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Omnimystery News: Introduce us to your Edna Ferber mysteries.
Photo provided courtesy of
Ed Ifkovic
Ed Ifkovic: In my Edna Ferber mystery series I use a real-life person who was, in her lifetime, considered one of the most popular women novelists and playwrights of her time. Of course, the character I created, though based on a wealth of biographical bits and pieces of her life, is nevertheless a fictional rendering. According to biographies and other accounts, Ferber was an outspoken, feisty woman, not one to suffer fools at all, and given to pronouncements to the press that suggested a rather acerbic personality — in other words, a woman easily rankled and ready to share that piqué with outsiders.
In my novels I try to soften her edges a bit, develop her very real humanity, and suggest that her heart was always in the right place — which, I truly believe, it was. But I believe her direct approach to situations was a wonderful character trait, very serviceable in a mystery novel: she heads into situations — a murder always happens when she's in town — with the idealistic resolve to solve that crime.
Because she had a long and varied writing career, beginning when she was nineteen as a cub reporter for the Appleton, Wisconsin Crescent, up until her eighties in the 1960s (her last novel was Ice Palace, published in the 1950s), I can imagine my amateur sleuth at different times in her life. In other words, I can show how her decisive personality evolved from girlhood to maturity. This is one of the wonderful things I can do with such a real-life character: I can discuss her reactions to gruesome situations as a young woman of, say nineteen, but then allow variations on that personality as she moves through her twenties and into adulthood.
All along, of course, she's a concoction of my imagination so I can take liberties with biography, but I always keep an eye on the very real woman who relished the life she fashioned for herself.
OMN: How difficult was it for you to assume the voice of a female lead character?
EI: One of the first problems I faced when I chose to develop Edna Ferber into an amateur sleuth was the question of gender. I am a male deciding to enter the mind and sensibility of a woman. Not only that, I had the task to imagine her thinking at different stages of her life — from being an adolescent girl in small-town Wisconsin in 1904 (with all the horrific prescriptions and limitations faced by all women then), through her peak years as an internationally famous writer, even to her declining years, when creeping old age informed many of her decisions. I found some of this daunting, but thought it worth the effort.
Initially, I wrote the mysteries in the third-person singular, a safe way of approaching the topic, I thought. That way I could project a life on the page and still keep myself safely removed. However, after I finished drafts of two of the mysteries, vacillating between viewpoints, I suddenly realized that the mysteries didn't "work" for me. That is, Edna needed to be up front, center stage — she needed the first-person point of view. For this vital woman to be outspoken, deliberate, forceful, the "I" pronoun was necessary. Such a device, I believed, would allow the reader into her mind. When I converted the "She" to "I" in one text and reread it, suddenly I thought: yes, indeed. This is Edna's story. Of course, it's "my" idea of that female voice, with resultant limitations and embellishments. Nevertheless, I believed that any authenticity I sought in my mystery was fostered by such a change. It may not have been the real Edna Ferber who told the story — and I certainly didn't try to emulate Ferber's distinctive literary style — but it was an "Edna Ferber" that had validity.
I also knew — and learned first hand — many some women might take offense at my usurping a woman's voice, but the response I received from different women after publication told me that I managed to "be" a female character telling a story — and not offend the reader. Also, frankly, I've always felt that women were inherently more interesting than men, especially in fiction — more dimensional, colorful, contemplative, curious.
OMN: Your mysteries seem to cross several mystery subgenres. How do you think of them?
EI: Because my central character is an amateur sleuth, I guess my mysteries can be categorized as "cozies," although I think the term might be a little limiting. In fact, because my novels range over a wide variety of time periods and are situated in different parts of the Untied States, I also classify them as "historical novels." I am very concerned with establishing the setting and the people who lived then. I reference real historical events, although I might jiggle the truth a bit. I spend considerable time researching clothing styles, architecture, eating habits, landmarks, and cultural attitudes of the time. As a result I tend to define my words are historical novels that involve a murder — and resultant mystery: who did it? — that needs to be solved. Edna Ferber always has the final answer.
OMN: Tell us something about Final Curtain that isn't mentioned in the publisher's synopsis.
EI: Final Curtain is based on a true story: Edna Ferber did go to suburban Maplewood, New Jersey in the summer of 1940 in order to play Fanny Cavendish in a revival of her play (with George S. Kaufman) The Royal Family. However, in my mystery George Kaufman fills in as the director of the summer stock, something that is not true. He had nothing to do with the production. But I wanted to create a "collaboration" of Kaufman and Ferber on solving a murder, just as they collaborated on numerous Broadway hits, like Stage Door, Dinner at Eight, and of course, The Royal Family.
OMN: Give us a summary of Final Curtain in a tweet.
EI: In 1940, best-selling writer Edna Ferber stars in a New Jersey summer stock revival of The Royal Family but finds herself investigating the murder of an understudy.
OMN: How much of your own personal or professional experience have you included in your stories?
EI: Because I'm using a real-life writer as an amateur sleuth, much of my plotting and characterization is based on fact. Edna Ferber chronicled the length and sweep of America — from Connecticut to Alaska to the Midwest to Oklahoma to Texas and beyond — so I use those various locations as the foundation of my plotting. Along the way she met and worked with well-known names (like Mercedes McCambridge, Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, to list some), and so I re-create these people in the books. For example, in Lone Star, I have Ferber going to California to witness the filming of her best seller, Giant, where she befriended James Dean and Rock Hudson. I use those friendships as jumping-off places, fashioning a murder and mystery around them. So, indeed, I employ real people throughout my books. I also use other well-known people in bits and pieces. For example, dining out in Los Angeles, Ferber spots Jack Benny at another table. It's fun for me to assemble such a cast of noteworthy folks that speckle my pages.
But I also use people I know from my own life — without their names, of course. One of the characters in Escape Artist is based on a girl I knew in high school. I still recall her nasty pettiness and vain posturing, so she was perfect for one of my imagined characters. Now and then, some one will stop me and ask, "That character reminds me of so-and-so. Did you …?" They are usually right. The folks around me, especially those recalled from the past, are a wealth of character opportunity. Now and then a friend will comment that a bit of dialogue sounds like something I said at a dinner a decade ago. Yes, that's true. Lately, another friend insists my immersion in Edna Ferber mysteries — now at five — has resulted in my commonplace conversation sounding painfully like Edna Ferber talking. I don't know whether that's good news or bad. I actually take it as a compliment.
OMN: Describe your writing process for us.
EI: Once I get an idea for a mystery I begin to scratch out notes on a yellow pad. If I like what is developing, I then create characters surrounding the main idea, flesh each one out in paragraph or two, including physical description as well as personality characteristics. Usually I know who will be murdered — and who the murderer is going to be. At that point I create an outline, chapter by chapter, delineating the plot line. If I'm satisfied with the rough outline, I then begin a draft on yellow pads, working until I conclude the book. Then I transfer the draft onto a computer screen, print out a copy, and reread what I have done. In the meantime I research the environment, the historical era, anything that will give body and dimension to the book. Another draft develops, with revisions and additions to the typescript, after which all of changes are put into the computer. Somewhere along the way line characters will change a bit, especially their names if I feel the name I've chosen doesn't match the character as I've developed it. The plot will shift, if necessary. I usually have the ending in mind but there are times when, driven by the machinations of plot as the book is written, scenes are omitted or added. Then the manuscript is put away for a while, to stew in its own juices, if you will. Usually there's a final draft before it is sent on to the editor, whose comments and changes I will entertain. That is a wonderful process, because another set of dispassionate eyes often lets me see what needs to be done. Sometimes the most obvious changes slip past me until brought to my attention. Such a partnership of writer and editor is crucial — and delightful.
I write at a desk facing my backyard. Ferber herself once talked of a wonderful view from her Connecticut estate, though she turned her back on it when she wrote. I'm the opposite: I face a backyard that relaxes me. In winter I watch snow falling through the bank of white pines bordering my property. In summer I watch my tomato and pepper plants growing just outside my window. In fall the maple leaves swirl against my windows. In spring robin red breasts build nests in the fir trees by the window. I find it all appealing, the perfect vista when I sit back from writing and daydream. Then … it's back to work.
OMN: It sounds like you conduct a lot of research for your stories.
EI: To prepare for writing my mysteries, all of which involve historical periods, I need to do considerable research. The Internet, of course, is a boon, jam-packed with information and leads, though I've discovered not all the information is trustworthy. Double-checking the Internet can be a full-time endeavor! But I also like old-fashioned public libraries, as well as rapidly disappearing brick-and-mortar bookstores. (A yearly visit to the John King bookstore in downtown Detroit, five stories of untold riches, can provide me with a crate-load of old books I can devour when back home.) I make copious notes on the people and the era, though most information never makes it into my books. I suppose the accumulation of facts creates an atmosphere in my head that, I hope, somehow translates onto the page.
I also like to travel to the scenes of my novels. One of the most exciting and challenging was a week in Appleton, Wisconsin, where Edna Ferber spent her high school years and early reporting days on the Crescent newspaper. With notebook in hand, I traipsed the streets and routes she traveled as she scurried around town. I even squatted on the front lawn of the old Ferber homestead until a shifting curtain in a window suggested I move on. I explored the old synagogue she attended with her family. For my current book, Final Curtain, I traveled to Maplewood, New Jersey, a half hour train ride from Manhattan, and spent the day wandering the streets, loitering in the parks, talking to librarians and clerks in bookstores, generally enjoying the landscape that would be the background for my novel. The manager of the Maplewood Theater, now a movie house, let me wander the hallways, and shared some old black-and-white photos of the place when it hosted New York plays. Great shot of Tallulah Bankhead appearing in summer stock!
OMN: How true are you to the settings of your books?
EI: Setting is crucial and pivotal in my novels. Because Edna Ferber travels to different locations, I decided to make the environment important to the plot line. Since the novels also take place in different time periods, ranging from 1904 through the 1950s, the shifting, changing landscapes Ferber encounters often play a decisive role in what happens. All the locales are real, much as Ferber found them, but I purposely reinvent these settings, grounding my descriptions in the very real geography, but then translating the fact into a background that serves the purpose of the murder mystery. I would like my readers to feel planted in the landscape of the novel, and sometimes that requires a reordering of neighborhoods and architecture to fit my needs. IF Ferber is walking the streets of, say, Appleton, Wisconsin, I want the reader to see what she was seeing — and understand why her observations are significant.
OMN: If we could send you anywhere in the world, all expenses paid, to research the setting for a book, where would it be?
EI: Budapest, Hungary — the place I'd like to visit. Edna Ferber made a Grand Tour of Europe in 1914, just on the eve of the breakout of World War One. She talks in her autobiographies of the end of the old-fashioned Victorian/Edwardian world, the pompous posturing of royalty in the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. She visited Hungary, where her father had been born. I'd like to situate a mystery in Budapest, placing Ferber in the center of that robust, turbulent time, what with political intrigues and assassinations and elegant afternoon teas in stylish pastry shops. The visit had a profound effect on her, but I believe she would have enjoyed the stay even more with a delicious murder right before her eyes. I know Budapest fairly well, but I haven't been back in twenty-five years. I worked for the United State Information Agency teaching English summers during the Communist Era, so I was there perhaps eight or nine times. Wonderful visits, filled with wonderful friendships that continue to this day. But I'd love to return to "research" the streets and buildings and history, all to the end of letting my amateur sleuth uncover the truth behind some nefarious crime.
I also would like a dream vacation in Alaska, particularly taking a piper cub up into the Arctic Circle, vising Fort Yukon. Ferber did a novel based on Alaska called Ice Palace, called the "Uncle Tom's Cabin of Alaskan statehood." I plan to add to my series with a mystery that happened while she is researching hat novel. It's a state in the United States, but it seems so far away, an exotic land. Everyone I know, it seems, has visited. I'd like to be next.
OMN: What are some of your outside interests? And have any of these found their way into your books?
EI: I have two hobbies, both of which occasionally inform my writing. I collect old books, largely classic American authors in early editions. I like old leather-bound sets of nineteenth-century authors, like Mark Twain and James Fenimore Cooper. I also collect art, particularly some nineteenth-century regional Connecticut painters, most now forgotten. I also collect pre-World War One Russian avant-garde painters, although most are outside my limited budget. But I enjoy reading about artists like Kasimir Malevich and Ljubov Popova, as well as seeing their works in museums. I have tried to integrate some of these avocations into my writing, particularly the "old-books" theme. But I've yet to find a way of introducing innovative Russian avant-garde art into Edna Ferber's decidedly American universe. Perhaps down the road …
OMN: What is the best advice you've received as an author?
EI: Years ago, working on a Ph.D. dissertation, my advisor looked at the sloppy pile of typed sheets on his desk — over one thousand sheets! — and looked me in the eye. He said something I've never forgotten: "Go back over it. When in doubt, cut it out." A mantra for any writer: When in doubt, cut it out. Over the years I've learned that revision is the name of the game. Often there is a novel lurking below the surface of the mass of manuscript, but you have to dig for it. Cut, rethink, shift sentences around — anything to clarify and illuminate the text. I've come to love the act of revision, and that is the best advice I could give any aspiring writer: Don't be happy with the first words you put on the page. Sit back, reread, and play with sentence structure. Stop saying the same thing over and over — the reader isn't stupid. He/she can get what you're saying immediately. Often it's insecurity that makes a writer hammer the same idea over and over. Bottom line: when in doubt, cut it out.
OMN: Complete this sentence for us: "I am a mystery author and thus I am also …".
EI: "I am a mystery author and thus I am also someone who demands that everything in life have a logical ending." I like strings tied. If there's a murder, there has to be a solution. Murder creates disorder. At the end order must be restored. As a child I hated the short story "The Lady or the Tiger." Exactly which door did that man open at the end? I need to know. It still bothers me.
OMN: How involved were you with the cover of Final Curtain?
EI: The book's cover was the product of the publisher's wonderful production/art department, although they shared a number of possible covers with me until we agreed on the current one. There's always a varied, colorful assortment of possibilities, and I'm always happy with the result. My titles are purposely short and to the point, usually two words, hopefully powerful enough to grab a reader's attention.
OMN: What kind of feedback have you received from readers?
EI: Mostly I've received positive feedback from readers, in particular those who recall fondly the novels of Edna Ferber. Although she is largely forgotten these days, some remember her vast celebrity and power, especially the manner in which so many of her best sellers were made into blockbuster Hollywood movies (like Giant, Ice Palace, Cimarron, So Big). My reinvention of her as a sleuth has pleased some readership, so I've had a very positive response.
On the other hand, I've received some negative feedback whenever I deal with prominent social issues of the time. For example, my Downtown Strut deals with the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and Ferber's involvement with some talented young African-American writers. Some readers felt I glossed over the civil rights issues of the time, and found fault with the manner in which Ferber deals with racial politics. In one scene Ferber invites a young African-American writer to lunch in midtown Manhattan, only to realize (from the expression on his face) that such behavior would not be permitted in such segregated times. It's a moment I intended to show Ferber's awakening to an America she didn't quite grasp — but which doubtless every African-American implicitly understood. One reader was angry, saying she should have stormed into a restaurant with him, demanding to be served. Of course, that would never have happened. But because I didn't develop that scene thusly, the reader thought I failed at my task. To be sure, I still believe my novel is a testimony to Ferber's commitment to furthering the careers of young African-Americans (as she did in real life), while at the same time revealing an America that was sharply divided along racial lines.
OMN: Suppose your mysteries were to be adapted for screen or film? Who would play the role of Edna Ferber?
EI: Because my amateur sleuth Edna Ferber is depicted at various stages of her life — from a nineteen-year-old girl to an old woman in the 1950s — the role would need a seasoned actress who could somehow embody Ferber at different stages of her life. Meryl Streep would be wonderful for the later Ferber, the middle-aged to older sleuth. Liv Tyler played a young Edna Ferber in a movie about the members of the Algonquin Club in the 1920s. She might want to reprise her role … maybe.
OMN: What kinds of books did you read when you were young?
EI: As a young boy, I read whatever I could get my hands on. I still recall fondly reading a book called The Door in the Wall, which I considered a masterpiece. I should find a copy and reread it. My mother was a reader, so there were books all over the house. She subscribed to book clubs, one in particular was for the Erle Stanley Gardner mystery series, one book arriving once a month, I believe. I devoured them. Once, bored and listless on a rainy day, my mother handed me a copy of Edna Ferber's Cimarron, her wonderful western. I was hooked, reading it through the night. Immediately I read every title I could find by Ferber, the good, the bad, and the boring.
I had the obsessive habit of wanting to read every book by any author I liked. For that reason I moved through all of Charles Dickens, John Galsworthy, Mark Twain, and others. In high school I discovered George Eliot, and carted home from a used-bookstore a box load of her collected works, much to the dismay of my parents as I unloaded the dusty volumes onto the living room floor. I read all of George Eliot, a feat that I believe should have earned me some medal. I even read her full-length poem, The Spanish Gypsy. I got bogged down in the stilted rhythms but I persisted. The same with Sir Thomas More's Utopia, of which I understood not one bit. But I read … and read. In the mix, for course, were many mysteries because my mother favored them. I always marveled at the intricate plotting of those that I read, and was always baffled by the solutions. Intrigued, I told myself I would master the craft someday. I'm still trying, and the journey is remarkably entertaining.
OMN: What do you read now for pleasure?
EI: I read a variety of books now, many novels to be sure, but I have a strong predilection for biographies, especially ones that read like novels, as in David McCullough's John Adams. I just got through reading Donna Tartt's The Gold Finch, though its weight taxed my stomach muscles! I keep up with Sue Grafton's series, always fascinated by her plots and execution. Lately I've been rereading all of the Patricia Wentworth British mysteries because I truly enjoy her writing. Unknown to many folks, she is a master of the craft. I hand her books on to others, all of whom become her fans. But I always insist that friends return the books to me — I know I'll reread them again down the road. Each new reading is a surprise and a treat.
OMN: Create a Top Five list for us on any topic.
EI: A fun idea so I got carried away.
Top Five Books I Reread Every Few Years
• Middlemarch, George Eliot
• Miss Lonelyhearts, Nathaneal West
• Moby Dick, Herman Melville
• The Rise of Silas Lapham, William Dean Howells
• Light in August, William Faulkner
Top Five Favorite Foods
• Indonesian Chicken with Peanut Sauce
• Vietnamese Bun with Spring Roll
• White Clam Pizza (but only at Pepe's in New Haven)
• Chicken Tikka Masala
• Nathan's Hot Dogs (or any hot dog from a Manhattan street vendor)
Top Five Mystery or Detective Novelists
• Patricia Wentworth
• Agatha Christie
• Ed McBain
• Robert B. Parker
• Sue Grafton
Top Five Movies I Watch For on TV Late at Night
• My Own Private Idaho (with Keanu Reeves)
• Casablanca (Humphrey Bogart)
• Big (with Tom Hanks)
• Some Like it Hot (Marilyn Monroe)
• Public Enemy (James Cagney)
OMN: What's next for you?
EI: I'm currently involved in two writing projects. I'm working on a draft of the next Edna Ferber novel while, at the same time, beginning research for another. I have tentative outlines for three or four others. I've also begun a new series for Poisoned Pen Press: the Rick Van Lam Mysteries. Rick is an Amerasian (half-white, half-Vietnamese), the product of the Vietnamese Conflict, now working as a PI in Connecticut. Caught Dead (by Andrew Lanh, my pen name) is scheduled for publication this November. At this time I'm reworking a rough draft of the second Rick Van Lam mystery, a follow-up. I'm sketching out possible idea for future mysteries with this PI. Both the Edna Ferber and the Rick Van Lam series are poles apart in term of perspective and focus, and thus both challenge me. I love doing both.
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A native of Connecticut, Ed Ifkovic received a BA from Southern Connecticut State University, a master's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Ph.D. in American Literature with honors from the University of Massachusetts in 1972, studying under Jules Chatmezky. For many years he taught multi-ethnic literary studies for the United States Information Agency, spending summers in Hungary, Croatia, Italy, Israel, and South Korea. He was a former chair of MELUS, the Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature in the United States. He taught literature and creative writing at Tunxis Community College in Connecticut for over three decades, and now devotes himself to writing fiction.
In addition to his Edna Ferber mystery series he has, under the pen name Andrew Lanh, begun a new series for Poisoned Pen Press featuring an Amerasian PI named Rick Van Lam, centered on Little Saigon in Hartford, Connecticut, a novel called Caught Dead and scheduled for publication this coming November.
He can be reached via his Facebook page.
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Final Curtain
Ed Ifkovic
An Edna Ferber Mystery
Who murdered the handsome young actor? And why?
In 1940, against the chilling backdrop of Hitler's rise and the specter of another war, Edna Ferber decides to follow an old dream: to act on the stage. Selecting The Royal Family, the comedy she wrote with George S. Kaufman, for her starring role, she travels to Maplewood, New Jersey. But her escape from the troubling daily headlines is short lived. Before opening night, a mysterious understudy is shot to death, opening up a world of lies, greed, and hypocrisy.
Ferber, along with Kaufman, who is directing the production, begin a different kind of collaboration: the discovery of the murderer. As rehearsals evolve, they deal with a cast of characters who are all hiding something from their days spent in Hollywood: a stage manager, a young ingénue, an American Nazi and his boisterous girlfriend, a stagehand named Dakota who is the son of a famous evangelist, his charismatic preacher-mother, her money-bags husband, and a driven acolyte of the church. Each character, Edna discovers, has some connection with the dead man. Why have they all converged on quiet Maplewood? As Edna investigates, she realizes that the answer to the murder lies back in Hollywood.
As Kaufman wisecracks his way through the story, Edna methodically examines the facts, determined to find the answer. Opening night looms and so does World War II. Edna, resolute, believes that justice needs to prevail in a world that is falling apart.
Mac
