Author: Charlie H. Johnson Jr
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 978-1-4401-3993-2

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Today, Norm Goldman Publisher & Editor of Bookpleasures.com is pleased to have as our guest, Charlie H. Johnson Jr. author of Superstition.

Good day Charlie and thanks for participating in our interview.

Norm:

Could you tell our readers something about yourself and how you got started in writing?

Charlie: 

I was a writer even before I knew I was a writer.  I remember when I was very young listening to the radio about Joseph McCarthy and writing something about how awful he was when I was in elementary school.  Between that time and when I was in senior high school, I don’t remember much about writing, except that in the 9th grade I was a “D” English student and had no idea of the difference between a noun and a preposition. 

Nevertheless, I came to my interest and desire to write early, but they went into eclipse for a while.  In my very early 20s, I started writing for college publications while getting degrees in English, Speech and Drama.  In addition to teaching, after I left college, about the only marketable skill I had was writing, and so I worked as a freelance writer specializing in educational compositions for the next 25 years.  It was in 1977, however, that I started writing books, focusing on local Denver and Colorado history.

Norm:

What motivated you to use the Superstition Mountain range in Arizona as your backdrop for your novel?

Charlie: 

In 1956, when my father retired, he, my mother and I moved to Phoenix, Arizona.  Prior to that my mother had developed an interest in the Indians and history of the Southwest, and, as with many of my mother’s interests, I picked it up.  We lived in Colorado at the time, and wanted escape the cold winters.  Thus, our interest focused on Phoenix. 

We did a lot of reading and research on the area before we moved, and, of course, came into contact with the history and legend of the Lost Dutchman Mine and Superstition Mountain, where it was supposed to have been located.  One of the most memorable events on our arrival into the Salt River Valley of the Sun was getting our first sighting of Superstition Mountain brooding like a mirage in the distance as we drove by it on our way into Phoenix. 

Later, at least once or twice, we drove out to Superstition for walks into the back country there. Our sojourn in Phoenix lasted less than a year, as the rapidly rising heat and the fact that we were too poor to afford air conditioning, suggested a departure before the full blast of summer.  Along with a continuing love for desert environments, however, that time left me with a fascination for Superstition Mountain, its history and legends.   Many decades later, in the final stages of writing Duplicity, I started thinking about writing another adventure for my psychic detective, Carlos.  One night, I was watching television and on came a documentary about the Lost Dutchman Mine and Superstition Mountain.  That’s it, I thought.  Soon afterwards, I started doing research for my new book that I decided to call Superstition.

Norm:

How did you go about creating Carlos? 

Charlie: 

In the mid-80s, I had wrote a fictional re-creation of the story about Judge Joseph Force Crater, the NY State Supreme Court judge who vanished in 1930.  Like Superstition Mountain in a way, the story about the missing judge had always interested me.  I did a lot of research and wrote the book.  It was my first foray into fiction, and, in a number of ways, it left a lot to be desired.  Not finding a publisher (of course), I set it aside for over ten years. 

In the late 1990s, I looked at it again, and (as many writers feel about works that they spent a lot of time and work on), I really didn’t feel like discarding it.  So, I decided to write a “picture frame” to fit it into which would fill in some of the important elements that were lacking from the original novel.  The “picture frame” idea eventually evolved into a full novel in which a few parts of the original novel were eventually used.  As psychic investigators had been an important part of the history of the investigation of the Crater disappearance for decades afterwards, and especially in the 1950s, I decided to create as my main character a psychic detective who, logically, lived in New York City and came into contact with and was interested by the Crater case.  Thus, the character of Carlos was created.  As for his name and neurotic personality, one would have to consider that, often, writers are like self-portraitists, working looking into a mirror…. 

Norm: 

What in your opinion are the essential elements of a good thriller? 

Charlie: 

I like stories that start out in one place and end up in a completely, surprisingly different place.  For me, the movie Chinatown jelled my conception of books and movies like this:  It starts out with a detective spying on a cheating husband, but ends up in a horrible climax to a case of municipal skulduggery and incest.  I call these stories “spiral.”  They are not straight lines from start to finish, but encircle upon themselves, going unexpected places for unanticipated reasons. 

Additionally, I think a thriller must involve danger for the protagonist--but not commonplace physical danger.  The threat must come from forces that are completely out of the protagonist’s control and come into his life by accident, but threaten to destroy him.  These are forces that he has set into motion but over which he has no power—forces that, ultimately, seek to destroy him.  In such stories, human motives for violence and murder do not apply, for the source of this threat does not originate in the minds of men, but in some power of evil that has been unleashed.  In this case, the protagonist is always the ultimate victim of some ethereal evil force that he does not wholly understand and which is not subject to any expectation for rational action.

Norm:

In fiction as well as in non-fiction, writers very often take liberties with their material to tell a good story or make a point. But how much is too much?

Charlie: 

In the two novels that I have written which have a strong component of historical background, I stick pretty close to actual, verifiable facts in regard to the aspect of the story that is “historical.”  However, in my books, there are two planes of existence and action.   The first is the historical-actual, but, against that backdrop, there is another contrapuntal story taking place, and that story is wholly fictional.  That is one of the interesting challenges in writing for me:  How to make these two planes of existence appear to meld seamlessly, so that facts or events on one plane (the historical), in some way, motivate and affect action and events on the other (the story). 

I was educated as an historian, so, for me, any but the most irrelevant alteration of the facts is tabu.  History is what actually happened.  I can’t change that, so I must report it accurately.  The story, however, is the “history” that I am making, with that I can take any liberties that I can get away with as a writer.      

Norm: 

What was the most difficult part of writing Superstition?

Charlie: 

Writing the book was a fascinating journey into my imagination and challenge in converting my ideas into what I hoped to be a relatively “believable” reality.  The must difficult part of writing Superstition was writing the three page synopsis.

Norm:

Can you explain some of your research techniques, and how you found sources for your book?

Charlie: 

If you read Duplicity or Superstition, you will discover that Carlos passionately loves libraries, books, and librarians.  That goes for me, too.  Getting to do the research in preparation for writing a book is the fun part.  I love it.  In doing my research, I focus on the general background and/or specific elements of the story that I want to tell, to get the facts straight.  But, I also keep an open mind.  I look at other books on similar subjects.  I read a lot, and, despite the fact that I forget a lot of day-to-day stuff, I often remember very well some fact or event that I read that could be useful to me.  I should make copious notes, but I don’t.  In a way, I am rather impressionistic.  I do a lot of research and reading, and then set forth, into the jungle, like Stanley looking for Dr. Livingston—not sure which direction my search will take me but relatively sure of where I want to end up. 

Norm:

Did you learn anything from writing your first book and what was it? 

Charlie: 

In consideration of the fact that I really wrote two “first books,” the 1980s Judge Crater book and Duplicity, which grew directly from it, I learned a lot.  The 1980s book was very instructive as I learned narrative technique, character development, and how to frame actual historical events into a fictional context.  Looking at this book several years after writing and unsuccessfully trying to sell it, I recognized its several shortcomings.  This led me to undertake the writing of the book that grew out of it in an entirely different manner and, in doing so, learning a lot more about writing dialogue, narrative style, suspense-building, how to make the real seem like fiction and fiction seem real, and how to blur the line between the two.  

Norm: 

Can you tell us how you found representation for your book? Did you pitch it to an agent, or query publishers who would most likely publish this type of book? Any rejections? Did you self-publish?

Charlie: 

In the 1970’s, when I wrote my first book, I soon learned of the frustrations of finding a publisher and/or agent.  I decided that I had to find some way of “short-circuiting” the process.  I wanted to get to the point of having an actual book in my hands to sell rather than what I considered then (and still do now) playing games with publishers and wasting a lot of time and frustration in doing so), so I decided to publish it myself. 

In fact, it was really a hand-made book production:  I “set the type” on an IBM Selectric typewriter, designed and laid out the cover, text, and illustration, got them printed page by page and cover, assembled the individual pages into the covers for all the books (I think there were 100 to start with), and took them to the binder.  It was a good experience, and gave me special pride in the publication that sold well (and is now a collectors’ item).  (I have now brought out a second edition of that first book self-published through Lulu, and while the author must still do much of the basic work, it is vastly easier and produces a much “slicker” product for today’s more sophisticated market.  My second book, because I believed it was more marketable than the first had been, I sent to a couple publishers, and, fortunately, one took it for publication.  Ever since then, I have self-published and been very satisfied with the results.  I did Duplicity and Superstition through iUniverse. 

Norm:

Is there anything else you would like to share with us and how can our readers find out more about you and your book?

Charlie: 

Duplicity and Superstition were fun to plot and develop, often hard work to write, and, now, challenging to market, but that is the fate of many excellent authors today (not saying that I am necessarily one of them), self-published or otherwise.  I sincerely believe that today there are just too damn many good writers out there, and too much of their work is lost and not appropriately appreciated.  I think that if William Faulkner or Ernest Hemingway were just starting out today, they would have a tough job ahead of them.  (By the way, William Faulkner, as a young author, self-published one of his early works.)

The best way to find out about Duplicity or Superstition is to buy them and read them.  Go on Amazon.com and, if you don’t want to buy a new copy, buy a used copy.  There a lot cheaper, and I am interested in having people read my books--not look at the covers and wishing they had the money to buy the books. 

God (and all the other powers that be) bless all writers in their onerous (and holy) personal vocation!

Norm

Thanks again and good luck with all of your endeavors

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