The Juror (45 page)

Q. You are a poet as well as a novelist. In The Juror, you create two characters who actually write poetry. The hotel night
clerk describes the first fictional poet, the detective Slavko Czernyk, as a “romantic” (p. 273). Eddie says about the second
poet, the villain: “There was always some question…as to Vincent’s sanity” (p. 209). By choosing these characters, are you
commenting on the nature of the poet, or just poking a little fun?

A. Vincent creates worlds, as poets and murderers will. Slavko is a
failed
poet, and thus is deserving of our deepest compassion and reverence.

Q. You also include an excerpt from the poem “The Gulf” by the Nobel Prize–winning poet Derek Walcott. Why did you choose
Walcott?

A. There I
was
poking a little fun. But Derek charged me an arm and a leg for the rights to use that one little stanza, so he had the last
laugh.

Q. It isn’t common for an accomplished poet to also write genre novels, and vice versa. Yet you have done both. Are the experiences
of writing in each genre the same or different? How does your use of language as a poet influence your style as a novelist?

A. As Cheever said of novels versus short stories, they are two distinct disciplines—utterly dissimilar. One doesn’t seem
to help with the other.

Q. You also associate the villain with Taoism and refer to specific aphorisms by Lao Tzu. Can you share with readers why you
included the Tao?

A. Because Lao Tzu’s meaning is so difficult to plumb, he’s always been beloved by charlatans. Such as Vincent.

Q. Protagonist Annie Laird is a talented artist who has to work at data entry to support herself and her son. Is this a comment
on the artist’s struggles in contemporary society?

A. Not a “comment” but it is how things work.

Q. Like the character Turtle, you spent time in Guatemala. Are there any parallels between you and that character? When the
heroine Annie escapes with her son, she goes there. How did your personal experience influence that plot twist?

A. She wanted to get as far from her tormentor as possible—to the very end of the earth—and I recalled the Cuchumatanes Mountains,
which perfectly fit that description.

Q. There are many kinds of criminals in The Juror, from figures in organized crime and corrupt officials to the novel’s villain
Vincent/Zach/Eben/Ian. Are any of them “evil”? Is crime boss Boffano? Is Vincent? Would you talk a bit about your concept
of evil?

A. The word has no meaning to me. I suppose that should worry me.

Q. Will you share some of your writing life with us? Do you write daily? Do you have a routine? Do have a specific place to
write?

A. I wrote most of
The Juror
in a one-room schoolhouse in the Pennsylvania Mountains, in winter, with two-foot snowdrifts all around. I was alone. At
night I would slog through the snow and shine my flashlight at deer in the meadow, and pick up the slow-gliding headlights
of their eyes. All of them moving away from me. Then I’d go back to the schoolhouse and work some more. Vincent got into my
head and loosened the hinges. I was having an affair with a beautiful girl I’d met at a bar in town (Stroudsburg, Pa.); she
was also sleeping with her father. I think if I’d stayed out there much longer I’d have lost my mind. Maybe I did anyway.

Q. How do you go about developing a story? How carefully do you plot your novel before you write it?

A. All the pieces of a thriller have to fit seamlessly, and should be weighed and measured scrupulously before any assembly
is undertaken.

Q. Do you base characters on real people?

A. On myself mostly, although the characters of Vincent and Annie were informed by people close to me. But when the writing
begins, all personas must say good-bye to their models and board the train and make the journey by themselves.

Q. Discuss your choice of a female protagonist. Do you feel a man writing about a woman’s emotions and mental state faces
any special challenges in making them seem authentic?

A. Creating any character is impossible. To me “authentic” always signifies really good sleight-of-hand. Woman, monster, child—I
do the best I can.

Q. How important is storytelling for a society? Would you talk about your founding of The Moth?

A. The art of the raconteur is a beautiful thing—there’s its prime importance. It may have some kind of therapeutic or societal
value, but I’m mostly interested in the beauty. So far as I know, there had never in history been a public forum for the kinds
of stories we celebrate at The Moth—unscripted, personal, “kitchen” stories. So I created one—with the help of a thousand
friends and, in particular, Joey Xanders and Lea Thau—and now we’re traveling all over the world and we’re downloaded by millions
and the art of the raconteur seems to be exploding. As it should. If you haven’t been to a Moth, please go—the evenings can
be rapturous.

Q
. The Juror
was your second novel and was tremendously successful. Your first book
(The Caveman’s Valentine)
won an Edgar Award. Then over a decade passed when no novels appeared. Now you have a third book
, Ravens.
Why did you take a hiatus after The Juror and why did you return to novel writing?

A. The years just kind of got away from me.

Q
. The Juror
became a Hollywood movie. Would you tell us something of your experience and the process through which your novel was transformed
into a film?

A. The studios were captivated by a certain strain in the novel, the core story, which they seemed to find compelling. The
rest they jettisoned. And naturally, it was “the rest”—the other strains, the surrounding layers—that I most cherished. It’s
very tough to make novelists happy. But we’re paid handsomely so no whining.

Q. Are you currently working on another novel?

A. I am, and I’ve sworn to deliver it soon, and my amazing, beautiful, patient, and gracious editor has threatened to put
me in irons if I don’t.

WEDNESDAY

R
omeo was driving down from the Blue Ridge Mountains in the baffling twilight, going too fast, when a raccoon or possum ran
in front of the car. The impact was disturbingly gentle. No thud—just a soft
unzipping
, beneath the chassis. Still, it tore at Romeo’s heart. He braked and pulled over.

Shaw awoke. “What’s wrong?”

“Hit something,” said Romeo, and he got out and started walking back up I-77, hunting for the carcass. Shaw followed him.
A tractor-trailer bore down on them with a shudder and the long plunging chord of its passing. Then the night got quiet. They
could hear their own footsteps. Cicadas, and a sliver of far-off honkytonk music. “God,” said Shaw. “This is it. We’re really
in the
South
.”

But they found no trace of the animal.

They walked quite a ways. They waited for headlights so they could scan up and down the highway. They backtracked and searched
along the shoulder. Nothing—not so much as a bloodstain. Finally Romeo just stood there, watching the fireflies rise and fall.

“Hey,” said Shaw, “I bet your friend got lucky.”

“Uh-uh. I hit it.”

“Well maybe it was like a sacrifice.” Playfulness in Shaw’s tone. “Maybe it just wanted us to have a propitious journey.”

When they got back to the Tercel Shaw said he was wide awake and could he drive? That was fine with Romeo. He got in on the
passenger side, and they descended into the North Carolina piedmont. His ears popped; the air grew humid. He tilted his seat
all the way back and looked up at the moon as it shredded in the pines. Somewhere after Elkin, NC, he let his eyes slip shut
for just a second—and then the highway started to curve beneath him, and he felt himself spiraling slowly downward, into a
bottomless slumber.

T
ara kept away from the house on Wednesday nights.

Wednesday nights were jackpot nights. Mom would start drinking early. Pour herself a g&t in a lowball glass; then fan out
all her lottery tickets on the coffee table and gaze lovingly at them, and touch them one by one and wonder which was going
to be
the
one. The TV would be on but Mom would disregard it. All her thoughts on the good life to come. Yachts, spas in Arizona, blazing
white villages in Greece, the unquenchable envy of her friends. She’d finish her first drink and fix herself another. Her
boy Jase—Tara’s little brother—would put his head in her lap while he played with his Micro. She’d tousle his hair. She’d
swirl the ice in her drink. At some point the colors of the dying day, and the TV colors, and all the colors of her life,
would begin to seem extra-vivid, even gorgeous, and she’d tell herself she was the blessedest woman in the world, and pick
up her cell phone and text her daughter:

I know we win tonite!!

Or:

I need u!! Tara baby!! My good luck charm!! Where are u? Come home!!

They were siren calls though, Tara knew. She had to be deaf to them. Study late at the library, catch a movie, hang out with
Clio at the mall—just keep clear of the house till the jackpot was done and Dad would come home to take the brunt of Mom’s
drunken post-drawing tirade. By midnight Mom would have worn herself out with rage and grief, and she’d have passed out, and
the coast would be clear.

But on this particular Wednesday, Tara had made a blunder. She’d left her botany textbook, with all the handouts, in her bedroom.
She’d done this in the morning but she didn’t realize it till 7:00 p.m., after her organic chemistry class, when she checked
her locker and saw that the book wasn’t there.

She had a quiz tomorrow. She hadn’t even
looked
at that stuff.

She thought of calling Dad. Maybe he could sneak the book out to her. But no, it was too late. He’d be on his way to church
by now, his Lions of Judah meeting. Maybe Jase? No, Jase would tip Mom off; Jase was in Mom’s pocket.

No. What I have to do, Tara thought, is just go back there and be really docile and
don’t
let Mom draw me into a fight, whatever she says don’t fight back—and first chance I get I’ll slip away to my room before
the drawing, before she blows up.

Tara went to the parking lot and got in her battered Geo, and left the campus of the Coastal Georgia Community College. Fourth
Street to Robin Road to Redwood Road: streets she despised. She hated their dull names and their blank lawns and their rows
of squat brick ranch houses. Hers was the squattest and brickest of all, on a street called Oriole Road. When she got there,
she slowed the car to a crawl, and looked in through the living room window. Mom, the TV. The painting of Don Quixote tilting
at windmills. The wooden shelf of Dad’s # 3 Chevy models, and Mom’s Hummels. Jase’s feet stuck out at the end of the couch.
Everything that Tara despised about her home was glowing and warm-looking like an advertisement for low mortgage rates or
pest control, and such a depressing show she had to call Clio and tell her about it.

“I’m spying on my own house.”

Said Clio, “
That’s
kind of perverted.”

“It’s a really ugly house.”

“I know.”

“I can see my brother’s little marinated pigs’ feet.”

“OK.”

“But I have to see how drunk Mom is.”

“How drunk is she?”

“That’s the problem, I can’t tell. I can’t see her hands. I have to see how she’s holding her glass. If she’s swirling her
glass with her pinky out, then I’m already in deep shit.”

“Are you going in there?”

“I have to.”

“But isn’t this your Mom’s freak-out night?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So what are you
doing
there? Come over to Headquarters. You know who’s coming? That Kings of Unsnap guy. Jonah. The one who wants to do you.”

“You told me that, Clio.”

“So come let him do you.”

“I got a botany quiz in the morning.”

“Oh God. You’re such a boring geek.”

“Why don’t
you
do him?”

“OK,” said Clio. “You talked me into it.”

“You’re such a whoring slut.”

“I know. Hey I gotta go. If your Mom does something interesting, like touching your little brother’s weewee or something,
let me know.”

“I’ll send you the pics,” said Tara. “You can post them.” She hung up, and sighed, and pulled into the carport.

As soon as she stepped into the living room, Mom was at her: “Where were
you?
” Tara consulted the lowball glass and saw that the swirling was quick and syncopated, with the pinky fully extended, which
presaged a grim night.

“I was in class.”

“You should call me when you’re gonna be this late.”

Not
late, Tara thought, but drop it.

Mom kept pressing. “Which class was it?”

“Um. Organic chemistry.”

“Why you taking
that?
”

Leave it alone. The only goal is freedom. “I don’t know, I guess it’s some kind of a requirement.”

“But if you’re only gonna be a goddamn
whatever
—why do they make you take organic chemistry?”

Tara shrugged.

Said Mom, “They want all our money and what they teach you is worthless.”

Hard to let that pass. Inasmuch as Mom contributed not a cent to her tuition—inasmuch as every penny came from Tara’s job
at the bank plus help from her grandmother Nell plus a small scholarship, and all she got from her parents was room and board
for which she paid $450 a month so that wasn’t a gift either—it was a struggle not to snap back at her. But what good would
that do? Remember, all you want is to get to your room. Remember, this woman is the same birdnecked alien you were just watching
through the living room window a moment ago. Pretend there’s no family connection, that you’re invisible and you can slip
away unnoticed at any time—