Ask the Author: Stephen Holgate
Answered Questions (10)
Stephen Holgate
First, of all, I'm very sorry to be so slow responding. I'm not very good about negotiating Goodreads, and didn't realize I had questions pending. That's a pretty funny story about Tangier, though I suspect it wasn't very funny at the time. I had some interesting times there. I got to meet the author Paul Bowles at his place there. I met a former OSS officer named Gordon Browne, who was in his 90s and had retired to Tangier, where he had been a spy during WWII. Some of the stories, Gordon Sands tells in "Tangier" are ones he told me, including the one about the exploding turds. (If you haven't read my book yet, this isn't much of a spoiler.) As for trouble, I only had the social kind. Twice when I was staying at the American Legation Museum for a couple of nights I brought along a guest. Both times the guests managed to really cheese off the director of the museum. I was terribly embarrassed and I think it ruined my relationship with the director. I still feel bad about it. But I had a diplomatic passport, which can keep you out of a lot of trouble. I was once way out in the countryside in southern Morocco on vacation when a policeman stopped and asked me what I was doing. I explained to him my family and I were seeing the sights. He wanted to take me down to the police station and question me. I don't think he was really suspicious of me, but he didn't want his chief finding out he had spoken to an American diplomat and simply let me go. The background to his behavior, which I didn't know at the time, was that riots had exploded all over the country that day. As in most places, they wanted to blame it on outside agitators. And here I was, the most "outside" guy he could think of, floating around his area. Anyway, I let him know I was a diplomat and made clear he couldn't force me to go with him. He was very polite about it, but very insistent. I told him he was more than welcome to take down my name and my passport number and my license plate. He wasn't very satisfied -- was no doubt afraid that he would still end up in trouble with his chief -- but didn't have much choice but to let me go. I felt a little sorry for him.
Stephen Holgate
I went into my closet to get a pair of slacks. They no longer fit.
Stephen Holgate
The same mystery we all face. Who am I? What is my place in the world? Am I of the spirit or purely material? More prosaically . . . I had several situations during my years as a diplomat that lend themselves to suspense stories more than to straight out mysteries. I've tried to use these situations in "Madagascar" and "Sri Lanka." I also learned a great deal about the unusual cultures I lived and, odd as it may sound, feel an obligation to share what I learned. I mean, if the taxpayer was allowing me to live this life, I need to report back on what I learned. Curiously, most of what I describe in "Madagascar" really happened in only slightly different form -- even the most unbelievable things. That's why I use several times the phrase, "I'm Madagascar the implausible is not only likely, it's mandatory." (At least that's how I remember writing it. I'm too lazy at the moment go back and look up the exact phrasing.)
Stephen Holgate
I've been re-reading "The Hours" by Michael Cunningham and am reading mystery by the great French writer, Georges Simenon.
I just finished "The Sympathizer" by Viet Thanh Nguyen.
I just finished "The Sympathizer" by Viet Thanh Nguyen.
Stephen Holgate
I worked with the American Embassy in Rabat a number of years ago and greatly enjoyed living in Morocco, with its wonderful balance of the familiar and the exotic. I found that Casablanca is nothing like the movie Casablanca, but Tangier is. To this day, you can get yourself into a lot of trouble very quickly in Tangier. Part of the inspiration for my story comes from people I met in Tangier. I met a private detective who had come to Tangier to help a family defend its good name after it was accused of having helped the Nazis in World War II. I also met a retired agent of the OSS, the precursor to the CIA, a charming man on whom I partially based one of the characters in the book. He told me how, during the war, Tangier was an open city, controlled by no central government, making it a perfect nest for spies and smugglers and other dubious characters. Another source of my story came from a friend who described how the family of a diplomatic colleague of ours had been torn apart during the war. The colleague's mother, my friend told me, had come to the United States with her young son early in the war, assuming her husband, a French diplomat would soon join them. He never did. It was an intriguing story and the basis of much of the book. The only drawback, I later found, was that the story was totally untrue. These elements rolled around in my mind for several years, changed shape and curled around each other until I had the story I've set down. So, Tangier, is a blend of misremembered stories, untruths and bits of conversation imperfectly recalled. Maybe that's what fiction has always been.
Stephen Holgate
By reading. Ever since I was in grade school, I've sucked up books like a vacuum cleaner. By the time I was 9 I had ideas of becoming a writer, coming up with my own stories. I started my first one when I was in 4th Grade. I got all of about 200 words down. I think it petered out at that point because, at 9 years-old you only know about 200 words-worth of life.
Stephen Holgate
A novel set during World War One in Oregon. A young pilot, badly burned during the crash of his fighter plane, has been assigned to a make-work task with the Signal Corps in the woods of Oregon. As he tried to recover, both physically and mentally, he is torn between his attraction to two women, one the beautiful daughter of a local timber baron, the other a Siletz Indian, banished with her father from the reservation.
Stephen Holgate
Everyone has to find their own path, so I'm not sure I have much advice to give other than to say, "write!" Get black on white, as someone put it. Try to find time every day. For all the creative talent that one might have, discipline winds the day.
Stephen Holgate
No heavy lifting, and I can stay inside when it's raining.
Stephen Holgate
It may be a question of attitude. I've never thought of myself as blocked. Occasionally, I'm not sure what comes next, so I'll go back and rewrite earlier sections until I come up with something. I have confidence that I'll find an answer. Sometimes I'll start to have doubts about the worthiness of the whole project. Again, I go back to the beginning and work through things. I usually find that the idea is okay and I'm coming along reasonably well.
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