Rebecca Brown's Interview with
Norm Harris
Author of
Fruit of a Poisonous Tree

Rebecca :
Fruit of a Poisonous Tree (FOAPT) is a naval thriller, set in & around the Puget Sound -- why?

Norm :
Before I begin I would like to thank you, Rebecca, for inviting me to interview with you today. I consider it a great honor when an esteemed person, such as you, takes their time to ask me about Fruit of a Poisonous Tree.

In choosing a setting for FOAPT I went with what I knew best. I was born & raised in & around Seattle. I love the Pacific Northwest; I will spend the rest of my life here, unless I decide to move to Arizona to get away from this dam' rain.

The Puget Sound is a beautiful area. Nothing is more impressive than to be crossing Elliott Bay, on a ferry, on a clear day, & see Mount Rainier rising up behind the Seattle skyline. I live partway between Mount Rainier & Seattle. I eat my breakfast each morning with that giant mound of vanilla ice cream right in my backyard.

Do you remember the song, “the bluest skies you’ve ever seen are in Seattle. The hills the greenest green...” etc. I wanted to share this with those who might read my book, it was a natural for me.

As it turned out, the editor said I had to cut most of the sights & sounds of the NW I had written. “This is a thriller not a travelogue,” she said, “So cut it!” But I fooled her. I left in the stuff about the ferries. Then a funny thing happened. I got the edited version back & the editor had inserted a scene from the Public Market that I had cut. I asked why. She said she liked that part. Go figure!

One of my favorite movies, & the movie that inspired FOAPT, is An Officer and a Gentleman. It was filmed in Port, Townsend, Washington & at Fort Worden.

Because of its rich Naval history the NW setting was perfect for a Navy movie. For the same reason it is perfect for a Navy novel. I chose the Puget Sound Navy Base at Bremerton for that reason. I so identify with the character in the movie played by Richard Gere that I lived those scenes when I first entered the Air Force.

Rebecca :
I lived in Port Townsend for eleven years & the kids & I often played at Fort Worden: lovely walks, bicycle paths, swimming, roller blading & tons of events!

Did you know you had written a JAG mystery & is the Belisarius television series interested in your book?

Norm :
I've been in contact with the Navy advisor to the TV show; & with several people at Paramount Pictures, including their legal beagles. Right now I am waiting to hear back from Viacom, they own Paramount. Have heard nothing yet.

I do know that I have received two invitations to attend JAG Fan Conventions in Los Angeles this fall. Somewhat like Trekkie Conventions are to Star Trek fans. I will be doing some autographs & hopefully rubbing elbows with some of the show's cast.

I never watched JAG when I was writing the book. The parallel between my book & the show happened on its own.

Rebecca :
What is meant by the fruit of a poisonous tree?

Norm :
Fruit of a Poisonous Tree is nothing more than the title of my book. Those five words were adapted from a legal doctrine set forth in the Fourth & the Fourteenth Amendments of our Constitution.

The doctrine is called, “the fruits of the poisonous tree” doctrine. I wanted to use those exact words but an author, Archer Mayor, had already used them for the title of his book, so I had to come up with a variation. I'm just waiting for some lawyer-type to point out to me that I screwed up the words. I'll then have to go through with him the same explanation I just gave you, I'm ready!

In a nutshell: here is what it means. Under the fruits of the poisonous tree doctrine evidence, which is the direct result of immediate product of illegal conduct on the part of an official, is inadmissible in a criminal trial against the victim of the conduct under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In FOAPT two of the protagonist, Navy Commander Faydra Green & CIA/CNN Foreign News Correspondent gather key evidence that could potentially fall within the realm of the aforementioned doctrine.

Rebecca :
Your military personnel call each other by what seems to be quaintly old-fashioned names & titles. Is the military really such a mixture of the informal & formal?

Norm :
Today's military is more like a civilian job then ever before. The Navy is steeped in tradition & protocol. For that reason the “sirs” & “ma'ams” are mandatory. Of course, this depends on the situation. As with any job, there are formal & informal situations. Formal situations require protocol. Informal situations don't.

In writing fiction a writer has to over dramatize everything. With this in mind I tended to go extra heavy on the tradition. Which means the informal, the contrast, then becomes more evident to the reader, as it did to you.

Here is something most people don't realize. It is just as proper to call a female officer, sir, as it is to call her, ma'am. I didn't even want to try using that. I was sure if I did I would sooner or later have some little old guy in Tulsa emailing me complaining: “On page 59, line 6, so & so called Commander such & such, sir.”

Rebecca :
You have written an adventure yarn about a military murder & the silent invisible world-within-a-world of Black Ops. Why did you write it?

Norm :
Again, I went with what I knew. Some of the events that happen in the book happened in real life. Some of the characters are based on people I have known. I am a Vietnam Era veteran. Six years Air Force. I wrote the book to give honor to the men & women of all of our armed services.

The American public has always cast a wary eye in the direction of our federal government. The Feds are an easy target these days, bless their hearts. I wrote about an organization I call, in my book, the Galaxy Friendship Association. This was based on an organization known as the Star Friendship Association. The SFA in real life did what my GFA does in my book. They got caught bid-rigging government contracts. The Navy set up a sting operation & eventually shut the Star Friendship Association down. The good news is the SFA had to repay the taxpayers some of the money they took. The SFA companies are huge household name companies. So I wanted to write about that.

I wrote about the National Recon Office. The NRO managed to lose 2 billion dollars of your tax dollars. No one knows where the money went. The CIA for a black ops project gave the money to them. The CIA does not have to account for the billions of Black Ops dollars that it is budgeted for each year. So I wrote about that as well. All of this stuff was cleverly worked into my story.

Rebecca :
Quite cleverly I might add! Who are your favorite authors & why?

Norm :
Without question Nelson De Mille is my all time favorite. The man's ability to blend humor into a thriller is beyond compare. However, many reviews have likened my book to those of Tom Clancy. I don't read Clancy because I don't understand him. He's too technical & into gadgets. I'm more into people with a few gadgets. I don't think my book is anything like a Clancy.

Eric Burton, the author of $oft Money, is another favorite of mine. I like that guy because he is a new writer & because he actually flew from Phoenix to Seattle a few months ago, just to buy me dinner. That impressed me!

Other than those two I don't read much so I really don't have a favorite. I'm sure I have another favorite writer, but I cannot remember who it is right now? Oh, come to think of it, I would be one of my favorite writers. I have re-read my book more times than any other book that I can think of!

Rebecca :
Which is harder to write about, women or men? Action or dialogue?

Norm :
For me it is harder to write about women. I'm a guy. What do I know about women? So how did I write a book that features a woman protagonist? I had help. I wrote the manuscript then sent it to a dear friend of mine, Marki Hocking. Marki, a woman, did some writing for True Crime, and has a Master's degree in English. I told her to evaluate my female characters & tell me why I wrote them wrong. She edited & returned my manuscript with comments. I noted her suggestions & remarks & learned.

I then chose Nancy Reynolds for a proofreader & Beth Aaslid for an editor. By the time those three ladies had finished with me I had pretty well figured out how to build a female character on my own. As you know, men who dress like women are called “cross dressers.” I must then be a “cross writer”? But I do write about men too. Egan Fletcher, in FOAPT, is a Harrison Ford-Mel Gibson-John Wayne type man, don't you think? And what about Ford Clay? You liked him, Rebecca.

Part two. Action or dialogue? Has to be dialogue. Ninety percent of the reviews that I have read, regarding FOAPT, say the dialogues are strong. I have studied dialogue for years. Voice inflection, syntax, etc. I use it often & always in characterization. You notice that Petty Officer Pearce, a less educated woman than her sister Faydra, uses a much different diction. Pearce is from the south; she speaks with a southern drawl. “What if we're just about to sail right into the murky backwaters of the US Government's dirty dealin's. Paul squealed about somethin' those government guys didn't want nobody knowin'.”

Where most writers spend their time researching events & items for their books, I spend my time researching the way people in different parts of the county talk. I will say, based on my research, that the people in Kentucky have the most unusual collection of words: “You young 'uns prolly oughta git on home now 'for your paw whups ya from here to tomorry.”

The same sentence if said on the West Coast would be: “If it would not be to much trouble, children, you should consider going home soon. Before your father grows angry & beats the living crap out of you.”

I have fun with that kind of stuff. I have a harder time with action. Action has to be told minute by minute without pause or summary. I have a hard time remembering that little rule of fiction writing.

Rebecca :
That's what made your people so full of life! You do it well! Now that you have your first book under your belt, do you like the writing life? When is your best time to do it & are you a computer writer?

Norm :
I love to write, Rebecca. I started my writing career by doing a cartoon strip for the newspapers. Four frames of insane humor. I think that experience warped my brain. I had a hard time keeping the humor out FOAPT. The editor made me cut out my humor. Our Constitution gave us the right to free speech. My editor seems to think this freedom applies to every American, except me. Some day I will write a humorous travelogue & show her.

I like to write when I get inspired to do so. Unfortunately, those inspired times often occur at the wrong time. Like when I'm driving somewhere. I get an idea. I need to write it now. But I can't because I'm doing 90 around the Renton S-curves on the I-405. Or like when I am supposed to be listening to my girl friend. She is pouring her heart out to me & I get an idea for a scene. I only have a one tracked mind so I have gotten pretty good at nodding, “Uh Huh,” while all the time I am working the scene that just popped into my brain. But what am I suppose to do? I'm a writer, not a psychiatrist!

Finally, I am a computer writer. I would never be able to do a Shakespeare & write something out with a quill pen by candlelight. The computer is fast & easy to make corrections with. Do not. Do not ever think that spell check is a good thing to use for editing a manuscript. A human editor & a human proofreader must edit your manuscript.

What I like most about using a computer is that I can put a CD in one of the drives & listen to music when I write. Fleetwood Mac, Dire Straits, Tom Petty, Jackson Browne, you get the picture.

Rebecca :
I like Handel's Messiah, anything by Robbie Robertson & The Red Road Ensemble & Ray Lynch's Deep Breakfast.

FOAPT a fine brew of internal & international politics, nautical & topical subjects. What have been the side effects from publishing a soon-to-be best seller?

Norm :
Interesting question. After thinking long & hard on that question, I would say, none, so far. On second thought, carpel tunnel syndrome would be the lone side effect. Hey, thanks for the soon-to-be bestseller vote of confidence.

I don't know about FOAPT ever being a bestseller. I was surprised when the book sales rankings on Amazon.com took off like an F-15 from a carrier deck. One day the ranking was 1.9 million out of 2 million titles sold. The next day it had climbed into the upper 1% of all titles sold on Amazon. The book is doing well in the UK too. I have no idea how they found out about it? I didn't promote it there.

To be honest with you I had originally written FOAPT for my son. I published it for him. If the book ever sold 300 copies I was going to be happy. I suspect, in the first three month of its release, FOAPT sold ten times that. Still a ways from a bestseller but I'm a happy camper anyway.

Rebecca :
You have introduced us to two interesting people, actually 3, well, maybe 5. Anyway, are Commander Faydra Green & Ford Clay, Esq., going to have more adventures together?

Norm :
Two, three, five...(I'm laughing right now, Rebecca.) Thank you. You are too funny.

Commander Faydra Green & her sister J.P. are back for a sequel titled, Fruit of a Forbidden Tree (I'm must be starting a fruit tree series?) The two zany sisters still have to put those nasty boys at the GFA out of business. Captain “I’m a bigger hunk than Mel” Fletcher will not be in the sequel. Captain Vern Towsley, Faydra's boss, is. Gifford Champion, our CIA mystery man is not. None of the E-team member's will return in the sequel.

As for Ford Clay, the jury is still out on him. I am trying to find a way to work him into the next story line. I know you liked him, Rebecca. I had not planned on using him but at your kind insistence I am trying to find a way. I promise.

Thanks, this was fun.

Rebecca :
You are very welcome, Norm, you gave me some pleasurably thrilling hours & I wish you all success!

Do catch my review of this first time author's Fruit of a Poisonous Tree & buy yourself a copy! You will enjoy it! Pick up a copy today at Amazon.Com.

Rebecca Brown
(Published September 09, 2001)