Interview
with John Dunning
Interview by RoseEtta Stone
"Collecting
books is the second greatest game in the world; the first is writing
them."
John
Dunning's life has been composed of, but not limited to, many varied and
interesting careers. His Old Algonquin Bookstore in Denver, Colorado
housed old, used, rare, and collectible books-- all of which are his areas of
expertise.
Prior to owning then giving up his bookstore, Dunning was a press secretary to
Congresswoman Pat Schroder and District Attorney Dale Tooley during their
respective political campaigns. He was an investigative reporter, and
taught journalism, creative, and critical writing at two different colleges.
His book reviews and articles have appeared in numerous journals, magazines, and
newspapers.
What began as a hobby led to his becoming a radio historian, hosting a weekly
OLD-TIME RADIO program, penning his latest novel, Two O'Clock, Eastern
Wartime and the critically acclaimed, On The Air: The Encyclopedia
of Old -Time Radio. He also researched and produced the soundtrack
(scored solely with radio programs of yesteryear) for Robert Altman's 1973 film,
"Thieves Like Us." Last, but certainly not least, Dunning is a
successful, prolific mystery novelist whose bibliography is far too extensive to
be cited here.
What, however, may be even more exceptional than the entire list of all of
John Dunning's impressive achievements and accomplishments, is the fact that he
is, in the truest sense of the words: A self-taught, self-made man.
Having left school during the 10th grade to enlist in the Army, he never
graduated or earned a high school diploma. And although he took "a
few isolated classes," has no college degree either.
My interview with Mr. Dunning was based primarily on his award-winning,
perennial best-sellers, Booked To Die and Bookman's Wake.
"The
body was still in the doorway-- half in, half out, with blood running down the
steps."
Booked
To Die
and Bookman's Wake contain such fascinating insights about rare and
collectible books, which, combined with each books' mystery, make them so
engagingly compelling that my very first question has to be: Do you have
any other 'bookman' books in the works?
If you mean by "in the works," am I writing one now, the answer is
yes. I have what I think is another good Janeway idea, and I am hoping
I'll get it finished in August. That means that publication is at least a
year away-- next year at the earliest, assuming no problems. I will never
set world records for speed, but I keep pluggin' along.
Since
you're an admittedly slow writer, approximately how long did it take you to
write each of the first two Bookman books?
Booked To Die took a year-and-a-half. Bookman's Wake was
about two-and-a-half. But this is only the actual writing time-- doesn't
count false starts and no research time is added to any of that. In the
case of the Janeway books, my research was the years I spent in the book trade,
so you could say that each book took seven years to write. Split the ten
years I was in the book business evenly between them and that's about what it
comes out to. And really, there's no way you can separate that time I
spent actually living it from the writing time-- it all counts. Without my
years in the store, it would've been impossible to write either book.
As
a writer and rare book seller/dealer, books are both your livelihood and such a
vital part of your life. Your expertise in antiquarian books is,
therefore, easily understood. But how or where did you learn to write such
convincing mystery and crime novels?
I was a reporter for the Denver Post for a number of years beginning in 1966.
Among the beats I covered was the police. I got to know cops, rode with
them in their cars, and went to several homicide scenes. I remember one
vividly. A kid in south Denver had shot his father. The old man had
punished him for something and then left the house to get some cigars. The
kid got out a shotgun and loaded it and sat in front of the door waiting for the
old man to come back. When the door opened the kid opened fire. We
got there just a few minutes after the cops. The body was still in the
doorway - half in, half out, with blood running down the steps. I always
stayed out of the cops' way in times like that - they've got enough to do
without having press in their faces. But if you stand back and just watch,
you pick up stuff.
I
am also friends with a lawyer who used to be a county DA. He has given me
lots of help, not only with the court scenes, but with homicides. And I
have a pretty good reference library. All the stuff about the fire at the
Graysons' in Bookman's Wake came out of the arson section of one book,
and then was screened by my friend. I want to be as accurate as possible,
but no one is ever 100% right. Even cops make mistakes-- we see it all the
time on Court TV and in the newspapers.
"Sometimes
I think I was a writer in a former life; that's how strong the lure of the
printed word was."
Was
it that rare books inspired writing aspirations? Or did writing directly
or indirectly lead to your interest in collecting rare books?
I have always been a writer. Sometimes I think I was a writer in a former
life, that's how strong the lure of the printed word was. In my research
for my nonfiction book on old-time radio, I came across a quote by Burl Ives,
the folk singer, that has special meaning for me. Someone asked him when
he began singing and he said, "There wasn't any beginning."
That's how I feel about writing. It started so long ago that I can't
remember a beginning.
I do remember writing my own stories in my earliest school years, as soon as I
could put words on paper. I used to write in those old black and white
Royal notebooks - sometimes I'd go to movies with my parents and then later I'd
try to rewrite the film in my notebook. I was always in trouble with my
teachers. They wanted to teach me science and math and all I wanted to do
was write. Later I began telling stories to kids on my block.
At Boy Scout camp around 1954-- I must've been twelve then-- I would tell
stories way into the night. I'd plagiarize things I'd read-- Kipling
mostly-- and when I was finished with all the "Jungle Book" tales I
would make up new ones putting Kipling's characters in my own plots. I did
the same thing with the Walter Farley "Black Stallion" books. I
was reading everything then-- the dog books, the horse books-- and everything I
read caught my imagination and I'd do my own stuff in those fields. I got
into Zane Grey in the 7th grade and tried my hand at frontier tales.
Long answer to a short question. But the answer is, I've really never been
anything else.
So,
you became a rare book collector/dealer/seller while pursuing a writing career
because...
I was a frustrated writer who had published five books and then found myself
caught up in the mother of all dry spells. My agent literally couldn't
give my stuff away. I didn't know it then, but this was the beginning of
what has become the dreaded "midlist" problem. This is so common
today - writers with deep careers behind them suddenly can't sell their stuff.
Once upon a time, and not so long ago either, you could have a good and
relatively happy career if you could sell 5,000 hardbacks. Now, with a
major house, if you don't sell 10,000 minimum, you are in trouble. And
it's not easy to sell 10,000 hardbacks. So lots of writers in that
midrange are falling through the cracks.
Today, with the advent of the computer, every book store in the United States
has instant access to the sales figures of your last book, and if you didn't
sell well, your name-- which was once thought to be such an asset-- becomes a
liability. I know some desperate writers who have changed their names in
an effort to start over again. It's better to be considered a brand-new
writer than one who is being rejected because he can't break out of midlist.
The problem is far worse now than it was when I hit my dry spell in 1981.
I went three or four years without selling anything and then one day, out of
frustration, I decided to try something new. I had always loved books and
thought that if I couldn't be a writer, I'd like to have a bookstore. Talk
about jumping out of the pan into the fire! But that's what I did, and in
June 1984 we opened the Old Algonquin Bookstore in east Denver.
Aren't
writing and rejection synonyms?
Sometimes I think I single-handedly created rejection. I had one book
rejected 22 times before it was finally published as a paperback original.
Oh yeah, I had plenty of rejection. And I handled it like everyone handles
it-- it hurt like hell, and that's just for starters. You pour a year or
more of your life into a project and suddenly it's out there being turned down
by everyone. My early so-called career was so erratic. I would sell
a couple of books and then I'd have a dry spell. And yes, it was very
painful when those bad times came, because I was like any writer who believes in
his own stuff, I looked around me at what was being published and most of it was
such awful dreck, so I thought. I couldn't understand then that most of
those writers had already gone through what I was going through. Many had
paid their dues with rejections far more numerous than mine.
There's no getting around it-- this is not a business for the weak-hearted.
You've got to harden yourself to rejection. And then you do get published
and the critics have at it, and sometimes that's worse yet. I'll never
forget one of the first really rotten reviews I got. It started out like
this-- "What a good book this might have been if the author only knew how
to write." That was the good part-- it went downhill from there.
Well, you don't do any more writing that day. You open the bar early and
try to forget it.
"People
are sometimes crazy, and books are sensual and wonderful objects, apart
from the question of money."
Let's
go from rejection, back to your best-sellers: a far better place to be.
Which, of all the books you've written are you proudest of, and/or is your
personal favorite?
These are really two separate questions. The first is hard to answer
because I don't think of these books much after they are finished. I would
have to go back and re-read them, and then I might hate them all, so I never do
that; the trip back is too painful. I know that if I read them again there
would always be stuff that I could have done better. I would find places
that are clumsy and less than wonderful, things I would want to do over again,
so I avoid that, and relegate them to the archive once they are done. I like
them all for their strong parts, but they all leave me uneasy. So I look
ahead.
But Deadline has always been a favorite because it was soooo easy.
The only easy book I ever wrote. You've gotta love something that only
took a month and change and was your only book (at that time) that sold without
a single rejection. Looking back at it, I would say that Deadline
was easy because it had a single thread. It was a chase book, pure and
simple. If there was a mystery in it, it was a slender one. I didn't
have to grope around looking for reasons, and by the middle of the book the
mystery was gone and all that was left was the chase. I can do 10-12 pages
a day easily on a book like that.
I still like that book, but in a literary sense I don't know what my
"favorite" is. Probably not the greatest answer, but there it
is. There is no all-time favorite. I like Deadline for its
ease, Booked To Die because it gave me some freedom, and Two O'Clock,
Eastern Wartime (my toughest book) because it was a very different piece of
work.
Last
question: Do the crimes-- theft, murder-- in your Janeway books reflect
the dangerous reality of rare book buying, collecting, and selling? Since
certain books are actually worth thousands of dollars, does the lure of 'big
bucks' (as it does in all other facets of life) incite robbery and violence?
Or are they only rare, isolated occurrences in the literary world?
Thankfully, they are isolated occurrences, except for the crime of forgery,
which is rampant. Yes, books are sometimes worth thousands of dollars, but
few go much beyond a couple of thousand in the real work-a-day world.
You're not going to find a Bay Psalm Book, or a Tamerlane, or a Gutenberg
Bible in a thrift store, or on a house call. In fact, you and I will
never see one.
But for writers to build a plot that's at all credible-- if it has money at the
root of it-- they have to either use these true rarities or make one up. A
killer is not likely to murder someone over a modern first edition. In Booked
To Die I went the other way, and the motive was an entire collection of
modern first editions that were, together, wroth hundreds of thousands.
The idea was that you couldn't see the forest for the trees.
Having said all that, I should point out that there have been a couple of cases
of murder and mystery in the book business. About ten years ago a Texas
dealer named John Jenkins was killed, or committed suicide (they never really
found out to everyone's satisfaction), under very strange circumstances.
And then there was the case of Mark Hoffman, the Mormon forger. Hoffman
created several documents that threatened the tenets of the Mormon church, then
tried to sell his stuff to the church to keep it from becoming public. He
was an amazing forger. His work fooled everybody. But when the ruse
started coming apart, he began killing people with bombs to keep it from getting
out.
So it does happen. Almost anything you can imagine could happen in the
book world, just as in any other part of life. People are sometimes crazy,
and books are sensual and wonderful objects, apart from the question of money.
ORDER
BOOKED TO DIE BY CLICKING HERE,
or
ORDER
THE BOOKMAN'S WAKE BY CLICKING HERE.
*Note:
Janeway is the amateur sleuth in the 'Bookman' books.
A
condensed version of this interview originally ran in InscriptionsMagazine.com.
Reprinted with permission.
RoseEtta Stone is the Editor/Publisher of (the) X - RATED
CHILDRENS' BOOKS NEWSLETTER: Book Reviews and Interviews with Banned,
Censored, Challenged Authors of Banned, Censored, Challenged and Burned
Childrens' Books. Visit by clicking here: X-RatedChildrensBooks.
