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The Alternative Library

The Robert Palmer Interview

Author of "Beautiful Dead Girl"

Just in time for the Summer issue, JJ and I met with Robert Palmer, author of "Beautiful Dead Girl." Robert filled us in on everything from life in the big city of Ellsworth, Maine, to the inspiration for the vampire women in his life. For some great insight into the mind behind the fiction, check out another entertaining edition of the MT Author Interview. Time allowing and authors willing, JJ and I will continue to publish a new author interview in each issue of the Midnight Times. Enjoy! -- Jay Manning, MT Editor

THE INTERVIEW

JJ Collins: Greetings!

Robert Palmer: Hi there.

Jay Manning: I guess we're about ready to get going. Thanks for joining us for the interview, Robert.

Robert: It is my pleasure. I'm flattered you folks asked me.

JJ: Robert, tell us a little about yourself, such as where you're living and what you do.

Robert: Well, I live in a little trailer park just outside of Ellsworth Maine--a small town that likes to call itself a city. I work at a grocery store throwing eggs and milk in the early mornings.

JJ: Is it still snowing up there?

Robert: Last month it was. We're headed into summer if we can ever get out of the rain.

Jay: JJ lives way down south in Louisiana.

JJ: How long have you been living there?

Robert: I moved to Ellsworth three years ago with my girlfriend, but I've been in Maine all of my life. I lived in Aurora before this. That's an even smaller town--maybe a hundred residents year round.

JJ: Silly question, but do you ever see the Aurora Borealis up there?

Robert: Actually, you can some nights. Not very often, but when the atmosphere is just right you can see a glow in the sky. Once in a blue moon. It's a big deal. They announce it on the news and everything.

JJ: How old are you, Robert?

Robert: I'm 26.

JJ: Do you have a nickname?

Robert: I've had a few, but Robert fits me best these days. It's hard to be taken seriously when your mother and siblings still call you "Robbie." But I suppose I can't tell my mom what to call me.

JJ: So tell us a little bit about your writing regimen. How do you work that into your daily routine?

Robert: I wouldn't exactly call it a regimen. I try to sit in front of my computer for a half hour or so a day. In that time if nothing has come out of any use then I usually knock off. On the other hand, if I've found a little nugget I will dig at it for hours and hours. I do most of my writing on Wednesday nights because that's the night my girlfriend is at work and I'm home alone. Uninterrupted hours. It's either write or watch the paint peel.

JJ: Are you one who generates a lot of content and revises or do you tend to plan more and write more efficiently? I've found those tend to be the two main types.

Robert: I'm sort of an oddball you might say. I write a lot of bits and pieces, ideas for stories you might say, then tuck them away for days, maybe even years, and then one day I'll remember that little bit I started with and go add stuff to it. I definitely don't plan my writing. I tried that once and the result was totally boring. I end up with pages and pages of garbage and only a few good bits.

JJ: What types of things inspire your ideas?

Robert: I watch a lot of movies, read a lot of books, play a lot of video games. Some of the stuff comes from random thoughts running through my head at the time. This one time at work I saw a little girl in a shopping cart waving like she was in a parade. I wrote a little bit about her but it never turned into anything. Other times ideas come at me from my dreams or nightmares. If something really stays with me when I wake up, I try to write it down and then come back to it.

JJ: Would it be fair to say most of your inspiration comes from inside? It sounds like not too much is going on in Ellsworth, Maine.

Robert: I guess you could say that. Actually, I set the story in a fictional city that I'm building in my head. There's usually an external trigger, a lot of times from a movie or book, but then my mind just takes it and runs with it.

JJ: Who are some of your favorite authors.

Robert: Heinlein is probably my all-time favorite. I've been reading a lot of Neil Gaiman's stuff too lately. American Gods was just great. Phillip Dick is right up there on the top of the heap as well.

JJ: What do you like about Gaiman's work?

Robert: His ideas are really simple on the surface, but underneath it's just whacked. But that veil of simplicity makes these really weird worlds and creatures easy to swallow, as if they were natural.

JJ: I just have to say one thing about Gaiman. I read American Gods, and I can't really recall ever being freaked out by a book, but there was one scene when the protagonist was watching TV late at night, the Lucille Ball Show I believe, and the TV character started talking to him. Something about that freaked me the heck out. And of all the things that happened in the book--that stuck with me for some reason.

Robert: It was pretty twisted.

JJ: What's your favorite work of Phillip K. Dick's?

Robert: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

JJ: I haven't read that, but wasn't that the inspiration for a movie?

Robert: Blade Runner, but the movie isn't anything like the book unless you get the directors cut, and then still not so much.

JJ: Tell us a bit about your writing goals--long term and short. What do you want to accomplish?

Robert: Short term I'd have to say that I want to get more of my short stories out there, circulate my name a bit. You know, get so I can be taken seriously. Long term, I'd like to write a full-length novel (wouldn't we all) and maybe even grow my writing into a career. I don't want to be the next Stephen King or anything, but I would like to make a decent living with my brain and my fingers. My jobs up until this point have been rather mindless.

JJ: When someone reads one of your stories, what are you hoping they'll get out of it? Or what effect are you hoping for, if any?

Robert: Confused. I like to leave a little strange after taste in people's mouths. I don't really like happy, neat endings. Most of my stories have endings that are open to interpretation because I want people to believe that my characters are actual beings with lives separate from the text they've just read.

JJ: What was the inspiration for "Beautiful Dead Girl"?

Robert: You know, I wrote a story about a coroner that never really did much for me. He was seeing ghost and such. I liked the general idea but the mechanics of it all and everything just didn't work. Then one day I was in the bookstore flipping through some of those "sell your writing" type magazines, and on the same rack was a copy of Juxtapose Magazine. I thought it would be a good idea to make my protagonist a photographer. It would give an interesting perspective on a crime scene to see it through somebody other than a detective's eyes.

Jay: Earlier, you mentioned that the story takes place in a "fictional city that I'm building in my head." What did you come up with first, the characters or the location?

Robert: The characters definitely came first, but they fit so well into this city, Central City, I had "dreamt" of in another scrap of writing I did.

Jay: You did a great job with the primary characters. Have you written anything else that takes place in "Central City"?

Robert: Nothing published yet, but I have a couple of "Hard Boiled" crime stories that I'm circulating through the works. Also, I have an idea in the back of my head for a 1984-ish story about a girl.

JJ: Different writers have different strengths that are highlighted in their various stories. For me it was the overall ambiance. I liked the characters a lot, but for me it was overall feel that struck me, which actually impresses me even more since I found out you're in quiet Ellsworth. I can't imagine Ellsworth, Maine is like Central City.

Robert: Nothing at all.

Jay: Central City gave me the impression of a big city, along the lines of New York or Chicago. I don't think you ever actually referred to the city by name in "Beautiful Dead Girl."

Robert: I didn't use the name, but it is the backdrop. It's a little New York, a little Philadelphia, a little Dark City. Central City was born when I saw that movie with Sean Penn. It's the one where he plays a small time crook and his daughter gets killed. Blue River or something like that--set in Boston.

JJ: I haven't seen many Sean Penn films, but a few of the most recent ones. Recent as in the last 10 years.

Jay: Was it Mystic River?

JJ: Yeah. It's Mystic River. I'm familiar with his more recent stuff. I can see the similar ambiance.

Jay: You mentioned "hard boiled" detective fiction. I got a real sense of that style with the development of the main character, Jimmy.

Robert: I like that stark sense of cut and dry. Scrape by as you can sort of style. The story was also my first real attempt at writing an anti-hero. I mean, Jimmy clearly wasn't a "good" guy.

JJ: Elements of it reminded me of Frank Miller's work.

Jay: Usually authors don't mix detective with vampire, but I thought you did a good job with that. Can you tell us anything else about the inspiration for Jimmy--the characterization, that is?

Robert: Jimmy he's a bit of a sad case--lost his wife and all of that. He evolved from a character I was hammering out about my high school days, which weren't anywhere near as dark as this story. Maine doesn't get that dark I don't think, but the theme of losing someone you love replays a lot in my writing. He is where life put him.

Jay: You get a real sense that he's just a product of a harsh environment. Which brings me to wondering about Eva. Is it just coincidence that Jimmy is called onto the crime scene, or was that all set up by Eva?

Robert: You know, I never really though of it that way--interesting question though.

Jay: She stalks him as the story evolves. I thought maybe she had it out for him for some reason.

Robert: I figured it was just his bad luck to get called out that night. Bad, or good, depending on how you see it.

Jay: Eva almost seemed like something out of a vampire comic book. I like her. Kind of the traditional vampiress. Was there any real life inspiration for the Eva character, or is she purely a fictional creation?

Robert: Gotta throw that sex in there. Vampires are very sexy, especially when they're not Dracula-type stiff shirts. When they're real and dirty. I think Eva was a throwback to an old Melinda Clarke movie called Return of the Living Dead 3--great cheesy zombie movie. She's that dark little bit of something that you can see in all of those dangerous girls. I had a thing for a "dangerous" girl in school. That's really where she came from. Someone I pined for but could never have. Couldn't even talk to her. In the end I realized the whole thing was just a foolish childhood infatuation, but at the time it was probably the most real thing to me. Then I graduated high school. Those memories make good fodder though.

JJ: I would like to make a general comment about your writing: I thought your uses of metaphors and analogies and such were very professional. They worked really well and let me put my own color on a lot of things, which enhanced it all for me.

Robert: I had a teacher in grade school who used to harp on metaphor and analogy. I've been working hard to get them to sound like they weren't forced ever since. Sometimes I come up with things that are so awkward they just slap you in the face. I laugh at those and quickly dig out the red pen.

JJ: I think your investment in the environment shows. The teacher had a good effect on you in the long term.

Jay: I just want to mention that I loved the part in your story where Jimmy visits the art gallery and gives Gary Larouse the portfolio of his photography work--and it contains the crime scene pictures of Eva.

Robert: Yeah, that's when it all unravels.

JJ: That was a great scene.

Jay: How did you come up with the idea for that?

Robert: You know, I figured Jimmy was a photographer, so he had to sell his work somewhere. It was just a natural thing to make him more "real," but at the same time take the reality out of the story by substituting the photos. Did he imagine the film not developing, or did he hide the pictures in his portfolio, or did Eva do it? I don't even know. Just a neat little device that I think worked really well.

Jay: It did. Is there anything else you would like to mention about your inspiration for "Beautiful Dead Girl"?

Robert: Just that I pretty much stole the title from a Rob Zombie song, "Living Dead Girl." I listened to that a couple of times while I was writing.

JJ: I was actually going to ask if you listened to anyone when you were writing, in general or with this story.

Robert: Sarah McLachlin's "Building a Mystery" popped into my head about halfway through this story, so I played that a little bit.

Jay: Speaking of famous rock stars... Love it or hate it--that is, having the same name as Robert Palmer the musician?

Robert: Well, people always give me a hard time about it, but it doesn't really bother me. I was named after my dad and he was old enough to be "the" Robert Palmer's dad. It makes a good conversation starter, except with the younger folks who don't know who he is.

Jay: True.

JJ: All right, Robert, tell us about any upcoming projects you have going on. Or do you have any special plugs you would like to mention?

Robert: No plugs. I had a web site, but it went by the wayside.

JJ: That's unfortunate. Are you working on any stories right now?

Robert: Actually, I'm trying to put the finishing touches on a crime story I've been working on. I read a bunch of pulp fiction shorts in an anthology and got inspired. I still have that 1984-ish story about a girl rattling around in my head waiting to come out.

JJ: Are there any parting words you'd like to leave your fans with?

Jay: Any words of wisdom for fellow writers?

Robert: Well, the only wisdom I can offer is to keep at it. Nothing ever comes easy, and if it does, then there's something wrong with it. And in the words of one of my professors, "be true to yourself, be true to your characters, be true to your story."

Jay: Good advice.

JJ: Thank you for meeting with us, Robert.

Jay: Yes. Thanks for joining us for the interview, Robert.

Robert: Thank you very much. I enjoyed our little chat.

JJ: And thank you for submitting that great story.

Jay: Yes. Most definitely!

Robert: Good luck with Midnight Times!