The Amazing Zeltser-Man

A few years ago a writer named Dave Zeltserman self-published a private eye novel called In His Shadow, which received some good notices (including right here). He then went on to start Hardluck Stories, one of the better mystery fiction sites on the Internet. And now his new-and-improved first novel is out from PointBlank Press under the title Fast Lane. A couple of weeks ago we sat down (via email, so I assume he was sitting) for the latest installment of the Bleeker Books Interview.

Dave Zeltserman: From what I understand that's a different Dave Zeltserman. I've heard this other guy lives out of some back alley in Argentina. Also that his books have been hugely successful in curing insomnia and are used in almost all sleep disorder clinics in the US. I'm the other Dave Zeltserman, the guy who writes psychotic crime fiction. But I am often confused with that other guy (although I'm told I'm better looking).

BB: Well, if you're going to write psychotic crime fiction you may as well have a split personality. I actually liked SNMP blah blah blah, and until the end I had no idea who the killer was.

Speaking of psychoanalysis (sort of), you've written before that Ross Macdonald was an early influence on your writing. So how did you get from Lew Archer to Johnny Lane?

DZ: Early on as a writer I was trying to ape Ross Macdonald and doing a bad job at it. During that stage I wrote some really awful short stories. I also tried to start my first book. My original plot for Fast Lane had a Lew Archer-type PI being hired to find out why a young woman ended up in a murder/suicide after hiring a celebrity PI to find her birth parents. I plodded along with this version, but it just wasn't working. Then I stumbled across Jim Thompson's Hell Of A Woman. After that I devoured Pop. 1280, A Swell-Looking Babe, Savage Night, and every other Thompson book I could get my hands on. I found those books amazingly liberating. Not only did they throw writing conventions out the door, but they opened my eyes up to how Fast Lane could work. Johnny Lane was then born - a PI who has deluded himself into thinking he is the next Lew Archer, but in fact is just an unapologetic killer full of rage and bizarre rationalizations. What drives Lane more than anything is that he can't bear the thought of being exposed for what he really is. This is something that stuck with me from Macdonald's Lew Archer books.

BB: So, Johnny Lane thinks he can see through everyone else, but can't even see inside himself?

DZ: Lane is a deeply broken individual. He's deep in denial, and functions by building a facade of himself as some sort of a Lew Archer-type PI. When the facade is stripped away, it's not pretty.

BB: You originally self-published Fast Lane under the title In His Shadow. Were you looking to actually sell some copies this way, or just to hook up with a publisher? What did you think of the experience? If you had it to do all over again, would you?

DZ: I originally wrote In His Shadow back in 1992. I came close then with several publishers, had a number of NY houses tell me they liked it but it was too dark for them or not formula enough for a first book. Same thing with some of the large agencies. In 1997 I wrote a second book, Bad Thoughts, trying to be more formula - in this case having a good guy who triumphs at the end. But the story included out of body experiences and different planes of existence, and ultimately had a much deeper theme than the typical thriller. Also, being 1997 publishers stopped responding to query letter from unknown writers. I did have an editor at Warner Books look at Bad Thoughts, and we went back and forth with three revisions until he wanted to buy it but somewhere above him the deal got killed. At this point, out of frustration, I quit writing. Fast-forward to 2001. I was still a member of MWA having had some crime stories published, and when they struck a deal with iUniverse to have MWA members books published free I decided what the hell. It was either that or have my two manuscripts cremated with me someday. I had no expectation of selling any copies - my goal was to sacrifice In His Shadow, kind of treat it as a resume so I could get some reviews and blurbs, and then find a publisher for Bad Thoughts. I did end up getting some great blurbs from Vicki Hendricks, Bill Crider, Gary Lovisi and others - and all genuine, they all read the book and provided the blurbs because they liked it.

About the experience of self-publishing a book, well, it kind of sucks. There's a stigma associated with self-published books. After a while you just want to escape the stench. Also, it can be frustrating as hell. A book reviewer at the Rocky Mountain News read In His Shadow, liked it, and wrote a good review, only to have her editor squash it because the book was self-published. I can't blame the editor for that, but it still kind of stung. But some good stuff did happen. Due to a discussion on Rara-Avis, Luca Conti got a copy of In His Shadow and got Marco Vicentini, editor of the Italian publishing house, Meridiano Zero, to take a look at it. Marco ended up buying the Italian rights to both In His Shadow and another novel of mine, Small Crimes. Also, Jeff Gelb, who is a co-editor of the Hot Blood anthology, got a copy of the book, liked it, and ended up inviting me to submit to his anthology, which led to "Forever and Ever" being published. Also, I never would've started Hardluck Stories if I didn't do this. Never would've become friends with Vicki Hendricks, Mike Black, Ken Bruen and a number of other people. And Fast Lane never would've happened. And I wouldn't have started writing again.

Would I have self-published again? Well, things ended up working out okay, so I guess it worked out. But I kind of wish I had tried some of the smaller houses first. Also, most publishers won't touch a book that's been self-published, not unless you sell a few thousand copies.

BB: What changes did Point Blank ask for when they bought the book?

In His Shadow was the first book Allan Guthrie acquired. At the time him and J.T. Lindroos were calling themselves Wits End Publishing and they were planning on putting out at most a couple of books a year. Somewhere along the line they got bought by Wildside Press and became Point Blank Press, a much bigger and more ambitious enterprise. The deal I had was simple, work with Allan on editing the book, and I'd get final say on any edits. Allan was a bit too reverential, making mostly only minor edits, but he did kind of push me to clean up the writing. Most of the deep cuts were my own doing. For the most part, though, the plot stayed the same.

In His Shadow was kind of a rough book, with Lane rambling on at times. In a way I kind of liked that and thought it added to the psychotic aspects of the book, but I was also anxious to get rid of any sort of similarities with Jim Thompson. I was sick of PW and a few other reviewers drawing comparisions between In His Shadow and Thompson. Part of this was my own fault, especially in dedicating the book to Thompson's memory, but my reason for doing that was fairly innocent. Anyway, I used this second chance to get the writing style closer to where I was 2004.

One thing that's kind of funny. As I said before, Al was very reverential, but there was one line in the book that really bugged the hell out of him. This is where Walt Murphy asks Lane to call him a doctor, and Lane responds, "Okay, you're a doctor." It's an insignificant line, but I kind of liked it and didn't wanted to lose it. So it seems as if every edit pass we went through, Al would take that line out and I'd put it back in. I don't think he ever forgave me for that!

BB: It looks as though your strategy worked, and you won't have to take your books with you to the grave. I really liked how you toyed with some of the private eye stereotypes early in the book, especially when Lane takes the law into his own hands. Most PI characters would consider that acceptable behavior, but it takes on a little different tinge when we find out about Lane's personal life.

DZ: While Fast Lane plays with the typical hardboiled PI conventions and cliches, I believe Lane's behavior is consistent throughout the book. I don't think I cheat at any point. When Lane beats up a father who's been sexually abusing his daughter, PI readers except that as okay because they've been conditioned to. They ignore Lane's rationalizations and his nearly psychotic reaction to the episode. But Lane's broken thought processes and bizarre rationalizations are consistent throughout Fast Lane. What's interesting is I've noticed that readers who don't read a lot of PI novels catch on pretty quick about what Lane's all about - it's the PI readers who keep cutting him slack, hoping his aberrant behavior is accidental. They're the ones caught most off guard when they're forced to confront that it isn't.

BB: So, it is true what I hear? You're working on a movie deal for Fast Lane?

DZ: I wouldn't go that far. This guy Brad Keller who just made his first indie film read Fast Lane, liked it, and is interested in having some discussions about doing something with it. Nothing more than that. We'll see where it leads. My agent right now is pushing hard to get my latest book, Outsourced, optioned, and I think that's probably a better bet. But I do think Fast Lane would make a good movie and would like to see it happen someday. When I wrote it I had a movie in mind, which is why Brad found it so visual. Without sounding too full of myself, I think if it was done right it could be right up there with Angel Heart and Memento.

BB: You mentioned starting Hardluck Stories. What prompted you to start that? How's it going so far?

DZ: Pure self-interest, to promote my self-published book. But while that pushed me to get started I did have other things motivating me. I'd been thinking for years that it would be cool to start a crime fiction web magazine, probably had been on the back of my mind since the early nineties when I worked for DEC and a friend of mine at the Western Research Lab there gave me a demo of an early web browser when there were a total of six web-sites in the world (DEC having one of them). Whether writing stories, books, software, I've also enjoyed creating things.

As far as how its going, I'm proud of the quality of the web-zines I'm putting out. I have to think I'm publishing some of the best short crime fiction out there, both on the web and in print. Also got some very cool interviews with people like Ken Bruen and Vicki Hendricks. For each issue of Hardluck I get a different guest editor. Some might cynically (and correctly) guess that's so I can offload most of the work, but the guest editor thing has worked great. Keeps each issue fresh, a little different, and makes sure that no cliques get formed. Also makes sure writers have a fair shot with each issue. The guest editors seem to have fun with it, the writers seem to get a lot out of it, and I'm developing a fair amount of readers for the zine. All in all it's been fun and I think Hardluck's been developing a pretty good reputation.

BB: A lot of webzines seem to burn out after a while - Blue Murder, HandHeldCrime, and most recently Plots With Guns. Does having a guest editor help spread the load a little, make it a little easier to keep the site going?

DZ: I understand perfectly why these zines burn out, especially PWG. Even though I have guest editors, this still burns a good chunk of my time, especially when I need to provide a nonfiction piece because the zine is running light. I'm going to handle the editing chores for the Spring issue (I figure its about time), so I'll get to see how much time this really takes. For the moment I'm planning to keep Hardluck going, but (as I answer cryptically) that changes from day to day.

BB: What's next for Dave Zeltserman?

DZ: Other than watching the Pats crush the Steelers in the AFC championship game? I've got a couple of books that sound close to getting deals done, Small Crimes and Outsourced. Small Crimes is probably the best book I'll ever write. It's one of those books where the stars just seemed to align while writing it. It's pure noir, with none of the psychotic aspects of Fast Lane. Ken Bruen calls it "Classic noir, dark, funny, shocking and absolutely no compromise." Right now its probably in the right house for it and I've got someone there fighting for it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Outsourced is my latest, and the first book I've written with a commercial market in mind. Even still, I'm happy with how it came out. This book actually has sympathetic characters! Outsourced is basically a crime caper with the theme of outsourcing integrated throughout it. A group of unemployed software engineers who out of a combination of desperation and opportunity attempt to rob a bank with not so great results. The feedback I've been getting on this one has been really strong and it sounds like we've got several houses interested in it. After working in the software industry for 22 years, this is a book I was meant to write.

Hey, Graham, this has been fun.

BB: Thanks, Dave, and best of luck with Fast Lane.