Q/A With the Author
Q: At the outset, Mike, can you tell us where you're from?
A: Sure. I was born in New York, but I have lived all over the United States. Growing up, I lived in New York, Rhode Island, California and New Jersey. I went to college in Baltimore and law school in Virginia. After law school, I lived in Baltimore for six years. I moved to Atlanta, where I stayed for another six years. And in 2000, I moved to Southern California, where I live today.
Q: Where?
A: Los Angeles.
Q: It was 13 years between A Thousand Benjamins and The Locklear Letters. What happened? Were you in a coma?
A: A coma would be a better explanation than the real answer. The real answer is that I was busy working, and time just flew by. Before I knew it, 13 years had passed.
Q: Did you know there were rumors you had died?
A: I began hearing them in the late 1990s. A friend called me up to make sure I was okay. I personally thought the rumors were pretty funny. For instance, the rumor about me dying in a mountain-climbing accident. Well, I've never been mountain-climbing. I'm afraid my family didn't find the rumors very funny.
Q: You mentioned that you've been working. What kind of work do you do?
A: I'm an attorney with the law firm of Epstein Becker & Green. We handle labor and employment matters. I've been practicing since 1988.
Q: Do you try cases?
A: Yes.
Q: Is it just like in the movies?
A: Not at all.
Q: Does it bother you that people generally hate lawyers?
A: I think there's good reason for people to hate lawyers. Our profession deserves the reputation that it has. I wish we could do a better job of getting rid of the unethical, incompetent lawyers and weeding out a lot of the ridiculous, frivolous lawsuits.
Q: You sound disenchanted with the profession. Why do you keep practicing?
A: It's my experience that the good lawyers are the ones who are bothered most by the unethical, incompetent lawyers. And if all the good lawyers left because they felt that way, the profession would get even worse.
Q: What's the worst thing you've seen a lawyer do?
A: Tough question. I've had a case where a lawyer tried to bribe a critical witness. I've had a case where a lawyer accepted and retained property his client had stolen. I've had a lawyer who tried to take advantage of the fact that I was out of the office to attend my father's funeral. I could go on and on.
Q: How do you find the time to write if you're practicing law?
A: The answer is that I really don't have as much time as I'd like, which explains the 13 year gap between my first two books. I wrote "The Locklear Letters" during a one-week vacation. And I worked on "You Poor Monster", off and on, for 15 years.
Q: Your first book, "A Thousand Benjamins", got some rave reviews, and you were compared to J.D. Salinger. What was your reaction to that?
A: Are you sure it wasn't Pierre Salinger?
Q: No, it was J.D. Salinger.
A: A nice, but completely inaccurate, comparison. There's only one J.D. Salinger.
Q: BookSense selected "The Locklear Letters" as the #1 book from small publishers, and Amazon picked it as one of it's "breakout books." Did you think about giving up the practice of law when that happened?
A: I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it might tend to incriminate me.
Q: You're invoking the Fifth Amendment?
A: Absolutely.
Q: "The Locklear Letters" would make a great movie, don't you think?
A: Sure. We sold the film option on the book. I have no idea what's happening with the movie.
Q: Has Heather Locklear expressed any interest in being in it?
A: I hope she'd want to, although her role would be very small. Also, given what I know about Hollywood, I wouldn't be surprised if they decided someone else was better for the Heather Locklear role than Heather Locklear.
Q: Who?
A: I don't know. Is Bea Arthur still alive?
Q: One of your novels, "My Wife and My Dead Wife", seems to have gotten lost somehow. It doesn't seem that anyone even knew it came out.
A: I know, I know.
Q: Are you at peace with that?
A: I can't say I've lost any sleep over it. It's a good book, in my opinion. I'd be more upset if "You Poor Monster" got lost.
Q: Would you agree that "You Poor Monster" is your most personal work yet?
A: Is it that obvious? Yes, it is.
Q: The book is set in Baltimore, as were your first two books. Why is that?
A: I love Baltimore.
Q: Just how similar are you to the main character, Hamilton Ashe?
A: Somewhat similar, but Ham is a bit of an everyman, which he has to be in order that the light might shine more prominently on Sam Shoogey, the other main character in the book. I'm not sure I would have been as sympathetic or as generous as Ham is in his dealing with Shoogey.
Q: Shoogey has already been described by reviewers as a "near-epic character." What's your reaction to that?
A: Just that I wish they'd remove the word "near." Seriously, I'm very pleased that they would say that. Shoogey took a lot of work. It's difficult to make a horrible person one of your main characters because you don't want the reader to just put the book down because they can't stand him. He has to be intriguing enough that readers will want to know what happens to him. Then, when readers realize that they suddenly care about him, it's all the more rewarding.
Q: That's exactly what happens in the book. You hate Shoogey, but you laugh at his stories and want to hear more of them. And ultimately, you end up crying for him. Was that your intent?
A: Yes and no. I can't say I wanted people to cry for him, but to the extent that shows readers came to care about the character, then, yes, that was what I was shooting for.
Q: Are you saying you shouldn't judge people by first impressions?
A: Or second, third or fourth impressions. You don't really know anyone until you really know them, and sometimes you never do.
Q: Tell us about the endnotes. They tell a different story, and the reader comes to care about the "author" as a result.
A: When I first sold "The Locklear Letters", I had started writing a new novel that was to be called "Footnotes to My Memoirs". There was going to be no text, just footnotes from which the reader would figure out what the text was.
Q: Sort of like how the reader had to figure out what some of the letters said in "The Locklear Letters"?
A: Exactly. Well, my editor asked me what I was working on, and I told him about Footnotes to My Memoirs. There was a ten-second pause before he said, "Are you kidding me?" It ended up that another of his authors, Mark Dunn, was working on a very similar book. It's called "Ibid", by the way, and it's an excellent book. Anyway, because I was only a chapter or two into "Footnotes to My Memoirs", I decided to scrap the book altogether. But I decided I wanted to play with the form of "You Poor Monster" a little more, and I liked what I could do by adding endnotes.
Q: Well, they definitely work. Do you think readers will read the endnotes. Your "author" describes reading foonotes or endnotes like being upstairs making love, then having to run downstairs to answer the doorbell.
A: I hope they'll read the endnotes, but they don't have to. The book stands on its own without them. It's up to the reader whether he or she wants to run downstairs to answer the doorbell. Sometimes you run downstairs and it's just a salesman. But sometimes you run downstairs and it's someone with a check for the grand prize from a sweepstakes.
Q: Usually, it's a salesman, isn't it?
A: Sure. But what if the one time you don't go downstairs, it's the guy with the sweepstakes check?
Q: The last endnote is a sweepstakes check, isn't it?
A: Aw, shucks