GIVING VOICE AND FACE TO CHARACTER: THE LASSITER AUDIO BOOKS

The past few days, I've had several posts regarding cover design and the visual strategies and approaches taken with Betimes Books to repackage and relaunch the Hector Lassiter series.

As it happens, the redesign efforts also ended up encompassing the audio book versions of the four Lassiter novels so-far recorded by Recorded Books. (Head Games, Toros & Torsos, Print the Legend and One True Sentence.)

The new covers for the Betimes print editions were adapted for use by Recorded Books.

In their original versions, much like the print versions of my books, the audio covers had been a pretty disparate mix of styles and approaches.

Now, for the first time, both the audio versions and novels, are uniform in their presentation.

If you haven't sampled these recordings, I highly recommend you do so, not because I wrote them, but because of the performance of their reader, the very sublime Tom Stechschulte. I had requested Tom as the voice of Hector Lassiter and all those fictional and historical figures who populate his world.

I've remarked several times—and mean it—that listening to Tom read the Lassiter books is as close as I can ever come to experiencing them as a reader. Since I have to read each novel so many times in composition, revision and proof, I can't really read them on the printed page and assimilate them as a story.

Somehow, I can listen to them as a radio play and I tend to get caught up enough in performance to forget where the story is headed.

And then there is Tom. He really gets Hector Lassiter and puts across not just the text and dialogue as written, but the subtext, as well. And, his interpretations of the historical figures, from George W. Bush to Orson Welles, are pretty wonderful, evoking the character and feel of those personages without sliding over into simple, Rich Little-style imitation.

(Ernest Hemingway should have been so lucky as to have the voice Tom gives Papa. If you've heard recordings of Ernest Hemingway's actual speaking voice, I know you'll agree.)

A few years back, I interviewed Tom about his career and voicing Hector's world. You can read that interview right here.

HEAD GAMES AT THREE

It was about this time, three years ago, that HEAD GAMES, my debut novel introducing crime novelist Hector Lassiter, "the man who lives what he writes and writes what he lives," made the scene.

As debut novels go, particularly ones from small independent presses, HEAD GAMES had a pretty startling run, garnering a number of heady awards nominations (the Edgar, Anthony and Gumshoe awards, among others), making a number of year's best lists and launching a series whose fourth installment will debut around Valentine's Day next year from Minotaur Books.

Perhaps more amazing — and very gratifying to me — is that the novel continues to roll along...still collecting reviews...still finding expression in different formats and languages.



Apart from the original Bleak House Books editions of HEAD GAMES which was published in three simultaneous formats — limited edition hardcover (sold out); trade hardcover (sold out) and trade paperback (still some of those available) — the novel was also recorded and released in unabridged audio by Recorded Books.

Last fall, BELFOND published a French translation in trade paperback format. (They call it THE HEAD OF PANCHO VILLA in those parts.)

This fall, HEAD GAMES is back out in France in mass market paperback. It's been published in Russia and soon will be published in translation in Japan.

In 2012, HEAD GAMES will again hit stands in graphic novel format from First Second with art by Kevin D. Singles. (A small sample of that appears below.)

Authors always say choosing favorites among their own books is like asking them to choose between their children. I don't quite buy that analogy, but first novels certainly earn a certain spot in their author's heart.

So, here's to HEAD GAMES at three.

HECTOR LASSITER SPEAKS

Today I’ve posted an in-depth interview with actor Tom Stechschulte over at my official site.

Tom is the voice of Hector Lassiter in Recorded Books’ exclusive, unabridged recordings of the Hector Lassiter series (Head Games and Toros & Torsos are available through your library, or Audible.com; Print the Legend will be released on audio in May, 2010).

I wrote recently about the fact that it’s only through Tom’s dramatic readings of my books that I can come close to experiencing the novels as an audience member. Something about the format and Tom’s acting short circuits my tendency to anticipate where the story is going, or thinking about what I know will happen next.

Fact is, I learn a lot about my own writing style, my tics and things I want to change in my writing or dialogue from listening to Tom read my words aloud.

It’s possible, I think, that other writers can learn from Tom’s interview, as well. Reading prose in dramatic format is an art. I’ve attended many, many author readings over the years, and the fact is, few of us writers read our own work particularly well.

The flipside of that is that some authors read their prose with such a forceful style that after hearing them read even a few passages of their work, you forever hear their voice in your head as you continue to read their novels and stories.

The most extreme example of this, I think, is probably James Ellroy. After hearing him read a few times in person, and after listening to his recording of his memoir, My Dark Places, I can’t read anything of Ellroy’s without hearing his actual speaking voice in my head. Ditto Ken Bruen. Ditto Joe Lansdale.

Tom gives some interesting pointers about dramatic reading, and, particularly, about voice and subtle ways in which to give distinct voices to different characters when reading aloud.

There are also some interesting details about the process of recording an audio book, and the preparation an actor goes through in order to record a particular work. You can check out Tom’s interview here.

REVIEWS COMING IN
Print the Legend (February 16, 2010, Minotaur Books) reviews are now starting to come in from various quarters.

I’m thrilled with the reaction the book is receiving and grateful to all those reviewers who have taken the time to read and write about my next novel, particularly in these times when review space — and voices — are at a premium.

ALTERED POV

When you’re writing a novel, it’s wholly your world.

Your characters, your vision, your story.

If you sell that story, then it goes out into the world and in a real sense you sacrifice dominion over “your” world — the book becomes each reader’s world.

But most of that alchemy is transparent to the author. You might get some vague soundings back via reviews or thumbs-up/thumbs-down on Amazon and the like, but nothing too concrete ever really comes back to you.

My position in relation to my current, ongoing character’s presentation is a bit unusual by industry standards. I sold the audio and the graphic novel rights to Head Games — the novel that introduced crime novelist Hector Lassiter — before the book had widespread attention.

It’s very unusual for an author to have a say in the selection of an audio book’s reader, but I got my first and only choice: actor Tom Stechschulte. Tom, whose masterful readings include Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men and The Road, is now the official voice of Recorded Books’ exclusive, unabridged recordings of my Lassiter novels. (Head Games and Toros & Torsos are available; Print the Legend is forthcoming.)

I also wrote the script for Head Games, the graphic novel (coming autumn 2011 from First Second). I was given a voice in artist selection and have a voice in character depiction.

My character…my idea of his voice…my visual image of Hector Lassiter.

And yet…

This week I had the surreal experience of “talking” to Hector Lassiter.

Monday morning, I interviewed Tom Stechschulte for a piece to appear soon on my official Website.

We talked about recording logistics and interpreting the works of writers in an audio-only format. We talked about shaping character with sound.

We talked Hector Lassiter.

Tom shared his strategy for shaping Hector’s voice. He talked about whisky and Pall Malls and how Hector’s affection for both made young Hector sound different from older Hector in his sublime reading of Toros & Torsos. Tom gave me some samples of my own characters back…Hector…John Huston…Orson Welles. And George W. Bush.

I realized, talking to Tom, how much his take on Hector has infiltrated my own.

As I told Tom, as author, I can’t ever experience my own works as a reader might. I remain shut out, in a real sense, from the stories I create. Except, that is, when I listen to Tom read my work. Then, and only then, I can come strangely close to experiencing my own novel as a kind of virgin.

The Lassiter series consists of eight novels. Those books are all written; four are currently optioned/published. Despite the fact all the books exist, there is an editing process that continues as the titles go to print. I’m still dipping back into Hector’s world, here and there.

When I wrote the first drafts of each book, I was seeing a guy who looked like a taller Bill Holden and had Tom Russell’s speaking voice from Hotwalker.

Now, when I read Hector, or write new dialogue for him, he sounds like that other Tom — Stechschulte.

This afternoon, I got a batch of sketches emailed me from official Head Games graphic novel artist Kevin D. Singles.

There’s been some back and forth about character depiction for this project. There may be some more. But I love Kevin’s take on “my” characters.

Or maybe I should say the characters formerly known (to me) as Craig McDonald’s characters.

Kevin’s Alicia Vicente has already supplanted my vision of Hector’s first leading lady. His Hector is already well on its way to doing the same.

I’ve interviewed authors who have claimed to “lose” characters or series when actors put their stamp on a property. Peter Lovesey insisted to me actor Alan Dobie’s portrayal of Lovesey’s character, Cribb, got between author and creation to the extent he couldn’t continue writing his own series. “You see that image, then, when you come later to try and get back to your original character, all you can see is the actor rather than the character you thought of in the first place,” Lovesey told me.

My own creator’s vision isn’t quite that fragile or susceptible to outside influence. And anyway, the Lassiter novels are all written.

But by the same token, my vision isn’t evidently as rigid as I might have thought.

My characters?

Not so much, anymore, it seems.

Not like it was when they lived only on my iMac or in my head.