Sandi von Pier's Interview with
J. R. Lankford
Author of
The Crowning Circle

Please give Sandi von Pier your undivided attention for her First Interview for RebeccasReads with first time author J. R. Lankford of The Crowning Circle

Sandi :
You had me hooked in the first chapter with the horrible murder of the woman in her garden. My garden is the place I go to relax & unwind. What gave you the idea to mix such beautiful, serene places (the garden & the tree farm) with murder?

JR :
Great question. I didn't consciously think about it in those terms. I feel writers have an instinct for dramatic contrast ... something akin to what a jeweler does in selecting the right setting to make a stone stand out. The garden came first. I was once in a beautiful lavender-bordered garden in Surrey & I never forgot it. It was the core inspiration for Gloria's personality. I let the setting & her identity as a gardener carry the scene. I asked myself: what's the worst thing that could happen that: 1)arises inherently from this setting & 2)is tragically meaningful for this character? It was hard to do.

I had to rewrite it several times because I didn't want to hurt Gloria. I kept making her death superficial because I understood & liked her. But to be a writer, you have to be willing to create fictional people you love & let their stories tear you apart, so your compassion for them can drive the writing. The tree farm & the wonderful little boy & his father were, again, sharp contrast for a terrible event. We don't react as strongly to violence in a violent setting, to bad things happening to bad people.

Sandi :
How did Skeet & Jake come to you? Are Shirley & Gabrielle women you might have known?

JR :
They were inspired, to some extent, by real people, but not in obvious or direct ways. To build Jake's personality I started borrowing from my husband's hobbies, just because the research would be easy. I could ask him, “Honey, what's that funny-looking thing? A spark plug from a B-17?” Straight it went into the story.

Unconsciously, I also started giving Jake some (not all) of my husband's traits. One day I realized a character who vaguely resembled my husband was kissing a strange woman in my book! I let her do it once, then put her on an airplane. Gabrielle was inspired by a Basque-American I met on a long flight years ago.

Skeet's core personality was inspired by a dear woman friend I once had who was a criminal psychologist. She used to say what Skeet does, that murderers are either eerily smart or stupid as ... well, what Skeet says in the book. Shirley was very indirectly inspired by a delegate in my former international work. He was born in China of Vietnamese parents, educated in France & carried a British passport. He wasn't a volatile sort like Shirley, nor was he bui doi, but because of him I became interested in the Vietnamese.

Sandi :
Where did “Doc” Cullum get his theory about dying & would you expand on it for our readers?

JR :
“Doc” Skeet is a case, isn't he? I wish I were as psychic as he is. His theory about death is close to my own. I used him to explore some of its implications & perplexities. Of course, few of us will know for sure until that final day arrives, but I do feel there's much to suggest death isn't simply the happenstance, meaningless, frightening thing I, for one, used to think it was. It's possible that death is actually a deeply meaningful personal event in which each person (on some level) participates for their own reasons & at their own time. This makes more sense if you believe the personality survives death, & I do.

Sandi :
Are you planning on creating a series so we can enjoy more of Skeet & Shirley -- Jake & Gabrielle?

JR :
I've developed concepts for four more Skeet/Jake novels & I hope The Crowning Circle does well enough that I'm able to write them. I enjoy these four characters. They feel real to me.

Sandi :
Where does the name The Crowning Circle come from?

JR :
It comes from the villain's dialogue in the climactic scene in the meadow. It's the novel's final circle, “the one in which the others are its reasons & its thorns.”

Sandi :
What were your favorite books as a child?

JR :
That's easy. From age 11, my favorite author was the French writer, Colette. She was the first woman to receive the French Legion of Honor & the first to be given a state funeral -- all because of her writing. The French idolize their great artists. Her novels influenced my entire outlook on life. Because of her, I wanted to live in the world, rather than only a small corner of it. I read everything she wrote.

Otherwise, for a long time my favorite novel was Dicken's A Tale of Two Cities. Then it was Herman Hesse's Siddartha. Chinua Achebe's books:Things Fall Apart & No Longer at Ease were revelations to me about the power of the novel. They were a personal journey for me. I've read & loved great literature of all kinds -- certainly Pearl Buck, Hemingway, Melville's Moby Dick & Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.

I can't remember them all because I was always reading. Even so, there were some gaps. I never read any Faulkner, that I can recall. Maybe because of his long sentences. I had to love something about a book right away to read it ... a description, a character's dilemma, how a sentence was punctuated. Something. Faulkner's long sentences may have put me off.

In college I studied engineering & they don't make engineers read much great literature. I think that's a shame. It didn't help that I talked my Freshman English teacher out of taking his courses by demonstrating what I'd read & that I could write. He concluded I was too advanced for the course, gave me an A & let me go. As a result the gaps remained. I hope to fill them one day. Actually, I'd like to own & read every worthwhile book. Impossible!

Sandi :
When did you realize you wanted to be a writer?

JR :
I think I knew when I was 11 & stole a copy of Colette's Cheri from my parents' usually locked private shelves. Here was a world of beauty & passion I'd never imagined -- a young man so desperately in love with a mature courtesan that when she tired of love & simply wanted to eat chocolate & grow old, it destroyed him. I overheard my parents discussing whether I should be allowed to read Colette & I didn't have a clue why. Oh, to be able to write like that!

As I read more of Colette, I fell in love with her sensuous descriptions of the French countryside, the woods, fields & walled kitchen gardens of her village. Everyone in my family wrote ... poems, short stories, something. My father was writing his first novel when he died. But it was Colette who first made me yearn for the writing life, though I initially thought it a hopeless dream.

On my first trip to Paris I visited the village where she was born & imagined her telling me: “Don't waste your life mooning over mine. I'm dead. You're alive. It's your turn, now.” In 1993, I quit my perfectly great job to write. Oddly, I found a lost picture of my father at about the same time. Because I'm an independent sort, I'd saved a nest egg so I wouldn't have to lean on my husband, financially. It was gone in three years & I hadn't sold a book. Without him I would have starved.

Sandi :
What are your favorite writing tools -- do you use a computer or the old pen & paper?

JR :
I use a computer. There's something helpful about the right brain/left brain involvement from using both hands to type. Also, it's the only way I can keep up with my thoughts which, when the story is going well, just race.

Sandi :
What time of day do you do your best writing?

JR :
Early in the morning, usually. But when the book really takes hold I sometimes write for twelve hour stretches, even more. My husband has to remind me to eat. After a week, at most, I collapse & return to sensible 8 am to 1 pm writing sessions.

Sandi :
I've heard the advice that writers must also read -- how can a writer find time to do that & write too?

JR :
I've heard that, too, & I do think it's necessary to at least “have” read. That's what I did constantly in my youth. Now I've learned I can't read other fiction & write my own. My brain will absorb the book's rhythms or phraseology for a time, just because I love words. I don't want to imitate so I can't risk that.

Also, my novels are research intensive. I always have a pile of non-fiction books & reference materials to study which doesn't leave me time for non-essential reading. More than once I've had to read an entire book just to write a single scene. For Shirley's background I read two: a dissertation on religion & gender issues in Vietnamese-American communities & another about the plight of the bui doi. I enjoy doing research for a novel, like Michener did. I'll probably never be able to read novels while I write them.

Sandi :
Who are your favorite authors now & why?

JR :
Between writing one book & the next, I go for biography, history & historical fiction, but again I do relatively little recreational reading. Presently I'm studying Huston Smith's The World's Religions & other references in preparation for my next novel.

Sandi :
Skeet & Jake are both guitar fans -- are you a guitar player too?

JR :
No, but my husband is. When we married I learned he & his friends expected to have a musical open house every Thursday ... at our house. No need to phone, just drop by & bring your instrument, usually a guitar. Martin guitars were always in evidence as well as banjos, violins, the bass fiddle. Since I don't play an instrument, they made me sing. It was fun.

Sandi :
I love computers & admire their power. How do you know so much about computers & what they can do?

JR :
My husband & I are electrical engineers. Theoretically we are each qualified to design & program computers. In practice, I can't anymore. I left hands-on engineering behind long ago. However, my husband has Jake's skills & then some.

He's the kind of guy to have around if you're stranded on a desert island. He'd have a generator built in no time for electricity, have running water & all sorts of conveniences, to say nothing of a secure, stable shelter.

For my writing he keeps me up to date with the latest: a lightning fast cable modem, a beautiful cube computer with a large, high resolution flat screen monitor -- Macintosh, of course, just like Jake. But he's equally well versed in PC systems. Has to be for work.

Sandi :
Can you tell us what you're working on now & when will it be published?

JR :
I've recently completed another novel with different characters. It's called The Jesus Thief. A snappy blurb would be easy to write for this one, but I think it would mislead. Like The Crowning Circle, it departs from current fiction norms, or so I'm told.

I do like to write “out of the box.“ The Jesus Thief is a thriller, but there's no murder mystery this time. It's in the hands of my new agent who told me when he read it, “How do you do that? I just can't put it down.” That was good to hear. He made me cut it some because it was long. Now it's going out to publishers & we'll wait to hear.

If a trade publisher acquires it, 9 months to 2 years later it will show up on the shelves. I've started a “sequel,” with the same characters but I wish I were two people because I'd like to write another Skeet/Jake book, too. We'll see what happens.

Sandi :
Thank you, Admired Author, for giving of your precious time to participate in this Interview. We look forward to reading more from you in the future.

Do catch my review of this thrilling mystery -- The Crowning Circle & check out the authors website at: http://www.noveldoc.com/lankford

Pick up a copy today at Amazon.Com.

Sandi von Pier
A RebeccasReads.com Associate Reviewer
(Published August 19, 2001)