Angel Colon revisits today, and the reason? He's got a new novella out, Pull and Pray, the second in his series about professional thief Fantine Park. We first met Fantine, if you remember, in No Happy Endings (2016), which featured a heist gone wrong in New York City during a once in a century hurricane. Now she's back for a new robbery, this time out in Arizona, which is like a foreign country to her. The leader of the crew is her aunt, and with all the unresolved family issues Fantine has, it's all she can do, pro though she is, to keep her mind on the job at hand.
Angel and I, e-mailing each other at night and in the morning hours before work, talked about the book:
SCOTT ADLERBERG: First a basic question, but one I’m curious about:
What are Your Favorite Heist Novels?
ANGEL COLON: Here's where I say a bunch of
stuff everyone else says but if I'm going to be honest, I'll lay it out: I
didn't read any heist novels until I saw the movie Payback. I fell in love with
the Parker character and THEN I read the bulk of that series in turn finding
out about Dortmunder (and also having my mind blown that Richard Stark = Donald
Westlake).
That said, I adore The
Hot Rock but I think Bank Shot is my favorite (and I
drew a tiny bit of inspiration from it for Pull & Pray).
Now, movies? My grandfather was a
cinema junkie and exposed me to a lot of what I love. I watched The Killing,
Rififi, and many others when I was a kid. That said, I probably draw a lot more
influence from movies like A Fish Called Wanda, Set It Off, and Bottle Rocket.
Were there any specific models
you had, in books or film or anywhere else, for Fantine as a character?
Fantine was heavily influenced by
two people; one fictional and the other non-fictional. The first is Enid
Coleslaw from Ghost World - cynical and impulsive beyond her years. The real
person shall not be named or hinted at. All I can say is she was real and
probably two people in the whole wide world have recognized character traits
(and a line or two) that are distinctly this semi-awful human being.
You’ve written about an
Irish guy with Blacky. But you had a lot of experience with Irish guys growing
up in the North Bronx. You knew them first hand. How did you decide on
Korean for Fantine? And in this era of identity sensitivity and the question of
what is appropriation, did you have any hesitation making her, a
Korean-American, your main character?
It was a very difficult decision
to land on Korean for Fantine and I took great pains to avoid appropriation.
From the very jump, though, this character popped into my head as
Korean-American, and I couldn't pull away from that. This is why I drew quite a
few parallels between her and I when creating her as well. Fan's from a
military family that's very mixed - which I draw direct inspiration from because
that's my upbringing too.
Fun fact: my father remarried
when he was stationed out in Seoul, Korea throughout the 80's and 90's. I've
got a Korean stepmom and a Korean stepsister. It doesn't give me carte-blanche,
but I'm not entirely ignorant. (bonus: my half-brother's afro-latinx - Mia
Farrow would have a stroke if she saw my wedding party pictures).
Bottom line: I wanted to present
a character that we rarely see in this genre of crime fiction and I wanted to
present a person of a different culture that was completely American. That part
was very important to me.
I worry I don't land the notes
all the time but I'm of the belief that writers should present the world as it
is - to a fault. I'm not going to touch on anything heavy with this character and
if I did, I'd probably go out of my way to pay for a sensitivity reader or
potentially harass my family out in California.
A
lot of writers, and good ones, don’t land all the notes when they’re writing
about people they know, in their own “group”, as it were. That’s just
writing, it seems to me. Who lands “every note” in anything? Not many. Of
course there’s that extra element of sensitivity, especially now, when you
write out of your own “group”. But I get the sense you feel anyone can write
about anything or anyone if they do it well, going by your output so far. Or am
I wrong about that?
I'd say a writer can
write about anyone but not anything. I don't think any amount of sensitivity
readers or editors is going to help a white writer write about what it is to be
black in America today with complete perspective. I don't think I'd be able to
speak about the Asian-American experience as a whole either. I can speak a
little more for a marginalized character, obviously, but not the whole.
Books like Blacky Jaguar
or Pull & Pray aren't about identity as much as they're pulp adventures.
For me, that's fine to play with the casts as I see fit. Now, if I wanted to
put together a book that leaned heavily into social concepts and injustices? I
go Latinx all the way then because that's what I am and I can speak to that
experience with more truth and nuance.
I can see how this is
talking out of both sides of my mouth, but a subject like this can't be
two-sided. Diversity's important and so are #ownvoices stories, but writers
need to have diverse casts and characters too. If not, we run the risk of
segregating our stories. If I'm being honest, that tends to be one of my
biggest worries - that diversity in fiction is kept penned into it's 'own
thing' long enough to be deemed a marketing fad and shut away because that's
exactly the kind of shit that always happens.
The
Blacky books and the Fantine books are definitely unabashed pulp adventures,
and I like how they all have a sense of fun and a lack inhibition. Also, no
worries about “good taste”.
Before you wrote these
books, was this the kind of stuff you long wanted to write? And in terms of
pulp, in books, film, whatever - what is some of the key stuff you might call
influences or favorites? I know there must be a lot, but in particular, when
you were younger, works that made you think I want to create those kinds of
stories and I could do that.
I've always been big
into comics and pulp stories, so while it wasn't entirely in the cards, writing
Blacky and Fan felt right for me. I've got a long list of things I'd like to do
- horror, maybe something a little more serious - but it took me a long time to
find my voice and be confident in that voice. That voice just happens to be
snarky and fits comfortably within my current genre. Not to say it can't
change, but it's a pretty big step to find yourself as a writer and be happy
with that. Too often do people let themselves be molded by trends or feel like
they have to "slum it" in another genre before going where they truly
want to go.
That
works for me also. The sense of experimenting. But coming back to the heist
novel, or heist stories in general, for a second. They definitely have
their own set of technical concerns. You talked about seeing a lot of heist
movies growing up and coming to Stark/Westlake novels later. In movies in
particular, something like Rififi, you see a lot of prep work without getting
the full picture of how the pieces will all cohere when the robbers do the
actual job. The best heist movies do that so well. Heist stories are so much
about process. The Richard Stark novels, the ones I’ve read, are loaded with
process. How do you work that divide, how much pre-plotting and outlining, so you
show the reader enough to be intrigued without showing them what the whole
heist picture will be?
It's funny. The short
answer: It's really fucking hard to plot out a heist - especially one that
works.
Long answer: I decided
to write a character like Fan because she is very much NOT the mastermind. She
works locks - a job, that when things are planned well, shouldn't take her very
long or too in the reeds in plan details. Fan is very much an instrument of
whoever hires her. I thought it would be fun to focus on a character that
sometimes isn't privy to the whole picture, just like the reader, and since she
misplaces her trust in these endeavors, finds herself needing to improvise way
more than she should have to.
That said, Fan's coming
into her own along with me and as we both realize there's only so many jobs
where she should be caught unaware of details, there seems to be a need for Fan
to grow into her own thief, doesn't there? I wonder what it would be like if
she took it on herself to become the 'boss' for a change (ooooh, I'm dropping
hints).
I like hints. And teasers.
So yeah, let’s have that Fantine story where she’s leading a crew. Being a boss
of anything brings its own set of problems, and they may have nothing to do
with difficulties of the actual job. Lots to work with there, it sounds
like.
Next up, from what I’ve heard is a
novel? Will this have a similar kind of tone- pulpy, snarky - as the novellas
so far?
Yessir - I've got a novel coming
next year called Hell Chose Me. I've actually got me some back
cover copy:
Bryan Walsh is a
killer for hire.
He is haunted by those
who have fallen by his hand.
He will stop at
nothing to avenge his brother’s death.
When a lifetime of bad
karma finally lands on Bryan’s doorstep and leaves his brother dead, he must
survive long enough to find the killers and get his revenge, but as the path
only grows bloodier, Bryan may not be able to handle the steps he’ll need to
take against his enemies.
As he becomes more
unstable and his past crashes into his present, Bryan must decide if vengeance
is worth becoming the monster he always denied or if he could find a another
path; one that could lead to something like redemption.
Hits all the points, right? The copy's pulp to hell and
covers all the tropes. I'm hoping folks find that the inside doesn't. I tried
to marry all the weird grindhouse concepts I loved with a little bit of
literary flair and outlandish shit I've always wanted to write. There's
definitely a something in there for Blacky Jaguar fans (or fan, I can live with
that) to enjoy, too.
I will definitely be
looking forward to it!
You can get Pull and Pray right here.
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