Ask the Author: Peter Steiner
Answered Questions (4)
Peter Steiner
I wrote a new Louis Morgon last year, a sequel to The Capitalist, in which we get to know a little about Louis Morgon's childhood. Unfortunately the book has yet to find a publisher.
Peter Steiner
Dear R.L. Jackson, Thank you for writing. The embarrassing fact is that I don't read much in the genre I write in. So the only names I can offer are of writers I admire and whose work has, in some ways, influenced me. Anthony Trollope is the writer a most admire, and if you haven't read the The Way We Live Now, I think you should. It takes a few pages to get used to the 18th century idiom, but once you get used to it, it turns out to be delicious. George Eliot's Middlemarch is another great book in a similar vein. Neither of these books are exactly mysteries or thrillers, but there are suspenseful elements, and the writing is splendid. Among contemporary writers I'm fond of Penelope Fitzgerald and Rohinton Mistry. I'm sorry I can't offer you a better answer. I'm finishing up a new book now, and hope it will be available in the not too distant future. Peter Steiner
Peter Steiner
For a long time, when I was a newspaper cartoonist, I had a daily deadline. I was expected to look over the day's news and come up with a cartoon for the next day's paper. I had only a few hours. Doing that for a good twenty years taught me not to be afraid of a blank piece of paper. I would just start drawing and see what came out. Often it was not worth keeping, but it usually led to something that was.
I've found that the same strategy works for writing. What I write first may not survive, but it leads to something that leads to something that leads to something. And I'm writing, which is the main thing.
Another, and more important strategy, is to stop writing for the day at a point where I don't want to stop, where things are rolling and the writing is going well. That way I am eager to get back to it. I never sit and stew. If it's not going forward, I get up and do something else.
I've found that the same strategy works for writing. What I write first may not survive, but it leads to something that leads to something that leads to something. And I'm writing, which is the main thing.
Another, and more important strategy, is to stop writing for the day at a point where I don't want to stop, where things are rolling and the writing is going well. That way I am eager to get back to it. I never sit and stew. If it's not going forward, I get up and do something else.
Peter Steiner
The idea for The Capitalist came gradually when I was reading news accounts of Bernie Madoff's crimes and the reaction to them. What if Madoff had been cleverer and had gotten away with it. I wondered whether my main character Louis Morgon, who has tackled some pretty big time thugs, would be up to bringing someone like that down. The only way to find out was to write the book.
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