We are delighted to welcome author Earl Javorsky to Omnimystery News today.
Earl's debut novel of suspense is Down Solo (Fiction Studio Books; June 2015 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we recently had the chance to spend some time with him talking about the book.
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Omnimystery News: Tell us a little more about Charlie Miner, the lead character of Down Solo. What is it about him that appeals to you as a writer?
Photo provided courtesy of
Earl Javorsky
Earl Javorsky: Charlie Miner is a heroin-addicted two-bit private investigator. The book starts with Charlie looking down at his own body on a gurney at the LA morgue. As he floats down to it, it pulls him in and he finds that he can inhabit it and make it work. I'm not a reader (since I was a kid) of supernatural tales, zombie thrillers, or horror, and had no intention of extending that aspect of the story, except that Charlie is able to leave his body for some occasional remote-viewing. Down Solo borrows from Stephen King only to the extent that, generally, people don't reanimate their bodies and continue daily life. Otherwise, the novel is more or less a straightforward (well, slightly convoluted) Chandleresque mystery.
Charlie's appeal begins with his attempt to reconcile himself with his new situation. Except for his addiction, he's a regular guy facing a bizarre situation. He needs to find out what happened to him: how did he get a bullet in his brain?
OMN: How would you categorize this book?
EJ: I wrote to my editor, Lou, saying "I'm aware that my combination of hard-boiled+supernatural is a potential turnoff to both camps, thus a potential marketing problem. I'm thinking that 'drug noir with a metaphysical twist' might be a way to spin it — unless you have thoughts to the contrary."
Lou wrote back succinctly with "I'm not convinced that 'drug noir' is a way to sell anything, at least not to a mainstream audience. I actually think the hard-boiled/supernatural angle makes Down Solo distinctive. We're not planning to shirk from it."
Whew! So much for a problem my head made up for me. And anyway, how many bluegrass fans listen to rap? And what could a combination of the two possibly sound like? Well, check out the opening song to Elmore Leonard's TV series Justified, by a band called, unbelievably, Gangstagrass. It's a terrific combination. It's in the crafting that the best elements of the disparate genres fuse into something new and interesting, and my hope is that my craft is adequate to the job.
OMN: How much of your own personal or professional experience have you included in the book?
EJ: Down Solo is entirely composed of fictional events, although I have seen gold stocks scams, have been to Baja a number of times, and lived in Marina Del Rey and Santa Monica Canyon at various times. Trust Me, on the other hand — and which was just released in July — has a number of characters and events that I borrowed from life and sculpted a bit. A bit of my experience here, a nutty girlfriend there, a manipulative self-help guru, and a supporting cast of drug addicts and criminals all contributed to my vision of Trust Me.
OMN: Describe your writing process.
EJ: I wrote an article on storyboarding that covers this, which you can find here. I like to have a sense of where things are going and how they'll get there, but I don't want to create a structure that will restrict my characters from unfolding according to their respective inner natures.
OMN: What are some of your outside interests?
EJ: As a long-term member of the recovery community, I am interested in addiction and recovery. This includes various modalities for healing, an exploration of the nature of spirituality, the politics of the drug war and its failure to address the problem of addiction, the benefits of community — I could go on and on. And I love surfing and playing basketball.
OMN: Do you use a pen name?
EJ: I was born DanieI Earl Javorsky but have lived as Dan Howard since grammar school. Not only is it a fairly dull, plain-vanilla name, it doesn't even have family history. My mother married John Cox when I was five. He was a Paramount actor and they gave him Howard as a stage name. So when I got a publishing deal, I decided to use Earl Javorsky. One cool thing is that if you Google it, I'm the only one. The only disadvantage is friends now goof on calling me Earl.
OMN: How did Down Solo come to be titled?
EJ: Down Solo is a play on words, obviously — Charlie's down, and he's solo, isolated by his addiction, by his new condition (deceased but somehow re-animated), and by the circumstances of the set of crimes that he's an incidental victim of. Also, there's a great blues tune called Down So Low, and of course the Richard Farina book, Down So Long it Looks Like Up to Me. Trust Me, on the other hand, is pretty straightforward: people who have to say that quite often don't qualify for your trust.
OMN: Suppose Down Solo were to be adapted for television or film. Who do you see playing the part?
EJ: I see Colin Farrell playing Charlie Miner. It's a perfect fit.
OMN: Have any specific authors influenced how and what you write today?
EJ: Oh boy, that question. Here are the three writers whose work I have consumed almost entirely: Elmore Leonard, James Lee Burke, and Graham Green. Oh yeah, add John Le Carre. But then I also love oddballs like Lucius Shepard and J.G. Ballard. Iain Pears and Michael Gruber are extraordinary writers (check out Gruber's Tropic of Night).
OMN: What's next for you?
EJ: I'm working on a sequel to Down Solo. People have responded to Charlie Miner, and his situation requires a longer arc than a single novel in order for resolution to take place for him. It's an interesting trick, trying to make a novel complete in itself and yet have it stand as a chapter in a larger narrative. I think I pulled it off the first time — hope I can do it again.
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After a long stint trying to make it as a musician in LA and clawing his way up to mid-level management in the chemical entertainment industry (just about killed him), Earl Javorsky went back to his first love — writing.
For more information about the author, please visit his website at EarlJavorsky.com and his author page on Goodreads, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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Down Solo by Earl Javorsky
A Novel of Suspense
Publisher: Fiction Studio Books
Things haven't been going well for Charlie Miner. His work as a private investigator involves him with an endless roster of shady characters. His ex-wife is borderline crazy. And he hasn't been getting to spend anywhere near enough time with his teenage daughter Mindy, the one person in his life who truly matters to him.
When he wakes up on a slab in the morgue with a hole in his head, though, things get even worse.
Just before the shooting, Charlie was investigating a case involving fraud, gold, religious zealots, and a gorgeous woman who seemed to be at the center of everything. Even with a fatal bullet wound, Charlie can connect the dots from the case to his attack. And when his daughter is abducted by someone involved, the stakes get exponentially higher. Charlie needs to find Mindy before the criminals do the same thing to her that they did to him.
After that, maybe he'll try to figure out how he's walking around dead.
— Down Solo by Earl Javorsky
