Let's Do Lunch! Interview with Robert Fate

Yes, I know ... it's been too long. If you're dropping in after having been gone for a while, welcome back! The decor has changed a bit here in the Lunch Room, so feel free to have a look around.

I'm very excited to have Robert Fate as my guest today, and I know you're going to love him as much as I do. So find a seat, order a glass of iced tea, sit back and enjoy ...



Robert Fate, author of BABY SHARK and BABY SHARK'S BEAUMONT BLUES (May 2007), is a member of The Writers Guild of America – West, Mystery Writers of America, the Los Angeles and National chapters of Sisters in Crime, and the North American Branch of the International Association of Crime Writers.




JB: So, here we are at last! First, let me congratulate you on BABY SHARK and BEAUMONT BLUES – these are fantastic books.

You've written poetry, short stories, magazine articles, journals, stage plays, and TV and Motion Picture scripts, and if I may quote, you've said "it was a long, scenic road to novels." Can you share a little of that journey with us?

BOB: For you, JB, anything. Let's see. I have made up stories as long as I can remember. My older sister encouraged my imagination by taking me to two double features on most Saturdays as I was growing up. Writing plays and skits started early, too, and seemed a natural thing to do. Acting was a part of that, too. I was in so many school plays I am amazed that my peers didn't rise up and put a stop to it – enough of him, already. So, I have always been a writer – and it has taken different forms. Here's an example. A friend of mine became head writer for a soap opera – and that's not an easy feat, let me tell you. Anyway, he called me in L.A. and asked if I would come to New York and write scripts with him. I requested a week to watch the show (since I had never seen a soap) and called him back. "It's all middle," I said. "No beginning. No ending. All middle." Anyway, I did it. And I gained a lot of respect for the writers of soaps during the time I did it, too. Just like anything else, it's all work, work, work. I guess my point is that each time an opportunity to write something has presented itself, I have seriously tried to meet the challenge. You know, learn the form and write. And then, finally, came the novel – a format that had always frightened me. My good friend, Bruce Cook, told me to stop whining and get busy. Uh huh, well, it still scares me, but as usual I will stick with it until I learn how to do it.

JB: Tell us a little about Kristin Van Dijk – you do such a wonderful job of portraying this 17-year-old girl from her own point of view – what made you decide to take this approach with your protagonist?

BOB: Who knows where ideas come from? But I think Kristin grew from a desire I had to do something different. I wanted to write crime stories. I was sure of that, and it seemed to me there were enough well written burned out cops, hard drinking P.I.s, and rogue assassins, so maybe a young woman – nice working class background, but with a few issues. It might work – if she could somehow be dangerous enough to take her adversaries off guard. So then it was a matter of approach, wasn't it? Since I value realism I wanted Kristin to become a believably tough customer right before our eyes – high school girl grows up fast, but remains vulnerable. If the young men we send off to war can be trained to kill, why can't a young woman be trained in a similar fashion? But why would she learn to kill? What would give her the desire, the resolve? Thus was born the story Baby Shark: a woman's worst nightmares, the recovery, and the revenge. And, from that, a protagonist for a series – well, there was the part about how does a guy my age write for a young woman. That was the most exacting work, but putting an ear to it got it done. Growing up, I knew my mother and two sisters were strong, intelligent women. My wife and daughter are strong and intelligent, as are my women friends. You're a writer, JB. You know. It's research and rewrites until it meets the standard you've established.

In reference to the point of view – I like the idea of Kristin and the reader moving at the same speed, hearing, seeing, smelling – experiencing everything together. I like the urgency that it creates. And besides, one head is plenty for me to be into.

JB: Why set the books in 1950s Texas?

BOB: The 50s and Texas – well, I knew that I didn't want drug dealers or cell phones or computers in my stories, so that was part of why the 50s. Also, I liked that period after WWII when women were being asked to go back home and be wives and mothers, after Rosie The Riveter has just shown them how to earn the same money as a man doing the same kind of work. It wasn't all Ozzie and Harriet like TV and movies would have you believe, although women still had doors opened for them, and men took off their hats and stood when a woman entered the room, etc. The 50s were a time of decision for women, an edgy time, when many believed the bounds of convention needed some pushing around, while others thought women should "stay in their place." I wanted Kristin to be a woman ahead of the curve, and the 50s seemed perfect for that. Women were growing wings, but they weren't flying yet – the 60s and 70s would see women breathing oxygen.

And Texas? If you have traveled the state you know the drama that exists there in the geography alone. From the eastern forestland to the western prairies to the high planes of the Panhandle – the state has it all, and also it's just big. Big in an anything-is-possible kind of way. It's seriously wild and woolly there. People carry guns in Texas. Don't think they don't. They especially carried guns in the 50s. If you will recall, national public figures were being assassinated in Dallas in the mid-60s. I rest my case.

JB: You've studied extensively, including at universities in Greece and France. How did living in a different culture influence you?

BOB: It made me sooo sophisticated. Uh huh. I suppose I could carry on about being humbled by the art and architecture, but the fact is I was eighteen and nineteen when I was living in Japan, Korea, and China and in my early twenties when I was living in London and Paris and not that much older when I was living in Greece. So, rather than being humbled, I was mostly blown away – or maybe stunned would be a better way of putting it – by environments and situations that could not have been more different from those I knew as a boy in Oklahoma. The people, I came to learn quickly enough, were pretty much the same everywhere. That is why a good story works universally. I am asked how proficient my French is, since I lived in Paris for two and a half years and studied at the Sorbonne, and I remind folks that until they have heard French spoken with an Oklahoma accent, they haven't lived. Once in Paris, a butcher shop owner had me wait a minute while he called his wife from the back room. When she appeared, he asked me to ask for the chicken again. He either thought an accent as bad as mine deserved a larger audience, or he knew that he would never be able to imitate it.

JB: Among the various jobs you've held over the years, you list an oilfield roughneck and a TV cameraman in Oklahoma, a fashion model in New York City, and a chef at a "chi-chi" L.A. eatery. What was the most interesting or unusual job you ever held and what made it so?

BOB: Hands down, writing novels is the most interesting work I have ever done. I not only love doing it, it involves everything I have ever experienced, everyone I have ever known – as well as fictional characters. I have never been more challenged, never taken my work more seriously, and never been as anxious to sit down and get to it. Now, unusual – that's a different matter. Helping to develop an underwater vehicle? Dubbing English dialogue onto the sound tracks of French films? Working on the construction of a 13' tall animated Tyrannosaurus Rex? Filming Hawaiian waterfalls from a helicopter. Shoveling wheat in a Kansas grain elevator? Acting in a film with Penn & Teller? Frankly, JB, I don't know.

JB: Let's talk about the Oscar. As a Hollywood F/X technician, you received an Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Sci-Tech Award for Technical Achievement (1984). Our readers would love to know more about this impressive honor. Without giving away any trade secrets, can you tell us a little about the screen design that earned you and Jonathan Erland this award? Is it being used today?

BOB: The screen design and construction that earned us an Academy Award was part of a projection system that was developed to accommodate objects that were widely different in size. An example would be the huge worms and the normal-sized actors in the film Dune, or actors working against a backdrop of outer space, as in 2010. My wife, Fern, and I spent a wonderful year in Mexico while I oversaw the construction of two screens that were 38' tall and 104' long. They were built in place on sound stages at Churubusco Studios. It was an honor to have the Academy's recognition, and the evening John and I received our awards was quite memorable. I particularly remember how lovely Fern looked in a beautiful silk dress.

No, the technology is no longer in use. It has been replaced by CGI, computer generated images.

JB: I love the story about Penn Jillette's nickname for you. Would you share that with our visitors?

BOB: Sure. It is quintessential Penn. In 1984 or so, Fern, and I met with Penn & Teller, the Bad Boys of Magic, in advance of doing a theatrical project with them. At that meeting Penn asked me which I preferred being called, Bob or Robert? I said that I didn't care what he called me. And he said, "All right then, I'll call you Fluffy." So "Fluffy" I have been all this time. It teaches a lesson about being wishy washy, I'll tell you that.

JB: Okay, the dog and four cats I understand, but how is it that a turtle helps with the empty nest thing while your daughter is away at college?

BOB: What a life Pharrell, the turtle, has at our house. He owns a heat lamp, a delightful waterfall, and a piece of flat-topped furniture on which he suns himself between swims. Who ever had it so good? But let me tell you about this guy. He is all personality when my wife and daughter approach him, but hides under his furniture when he catches sight of me. So, that would imply he is a good judge of character, as well as being a Riviera bon vivant, would it not? So, naturally I want to be his friend. So, you see, the challenge of getting on the guy's good side is a full-time job for me now that Jenny is away at school. I think I'm making progress. However, my wife said recently, "I wouldn't put my hand in the water, if I were you." Stay tuned.

JB: You're hard at work on the third installment of the Baby Shark series, but you say you're "being a fussbudget about the title"? Are you having trouble deciding on it or agreeing on it?

BOB: It was back and forth with friends and publisher, but I ended up getting what I wanted. My disaster or my success, as it turns out. The discussion centered on the second word in the title. No one argued against Panhandle, it was what followed it that caused the heat. Caravan was considered too soft. The fear was the book would be mistaken for a cozy. "Too many brutal murders for a cozy," I pointed out. "Oh, go ahead then," I was told. "You'll see." I don't know. What do you think, JB? Does Baby Shark's Panhandle Caravan sound like a cozy or just a musical comedy? We could up the number of dead bodies if that would help.

[Personally? I think anyone who's read the books will picture a line of vintage 1950s midnight blue Cadillacs with pistols hanging out the windows, heading for north Texas ...]

JB: What's next for Kristin? You've said you're going to stick with the novel writing for at least the immediate future – are you planning to continue the Baby Shark series a while or do you see yourself writing something different in the coming years?

BOB: Kristin has some more adventures in her cue case, but there is a standalone I have in mind, too. Maybe I can slip it in somewhere over the next year or so. I would like to. It's a story that contains some woo woo, as a marvelous online mystery group likes to call the paranormal. But, for right now, as long as Kristin has something new to say, I think I'll stick with her.

JB: Bob, thanks so much for stopping by the Lunch Room. It's been a pleasure having you here!

BOB: It has been my pleasure JB – but one question for you about what you served at lunch today.

JB: Yes?

BOB: How did you know that I liked fried okra?



Robert Fate's BABY SHARK is available from Capital Crime Press through your favorite bookseller. BABY SHARK'S BEAUMONT BLUES will be released in May. Visit Bob's website at www.robertfate.com.