| Author Interview
A Conversation with R.H. Martin
- When did you first decide to write Children of Abraham?
It was March of 2006. Although I can't say that I actually made a decision to write it. It was more just the way things happened. I had just finished working on a project in Costa Rica and I was back in the states without a job. The idea for this book had been bouncing around for a long time. My wife and I were visiting New York and I decided to look for some of the locales for the book. I found an area of Manhattan around 112th St in East Harlem that was perfect. It had the requisite combination of being multiethnic and home to both low-income housing projects and high-priced condominiums on the East River. It was a place where all my characters could come together as I had envisioned. When we came home I picked up a pad of paper and started writing. After that, it was off to the races. The fact that I started writing dictated that I take the time to write rather than having made a conscious decision to do so. Like many of the major decisions in my life, writing Children of Abraham seems to have been presented to me in a way that left me with little choice in the matter.
- Is there any other book on the market you could compare to your book?
Not really. There are other books that blend together the ideas of religion, mystery, and fiction such as The Da Vinci Code or the Left Behind series. There are other books that use the same technique of interweaving the lives of various characters as was done in the movie Crash. I don't believe there is anything out there that puts forward the premise of how the world would change if God were to make his presence undeniably known.
- How long did it take you to write the book?
It took 15 months to research and write, but that wasn't 15 contiguous months. I wrote for about 12 months and then experienced the famous writer's block. I had created the basic plot but came to a situation where there were a host of threads to weave and nothing seemed to come together. I had to walk away from the project for a few months and get a job. When I came back it fell into place. I finished the first draft of 118,000 words three months after that. The final draft runs a little over 100,000 words. Cutting out my own excesses was the most painful part.
- When you’re writing, what does a typical day look like? (hours writing, early or late, etc.)
There's not a typical day. Some days I might write a paragraph or a page; other days I might write nothing at all. Some days I'll start out early in the morning and be amazed that it's become dark outside and it's way past bedtime. The days when I don't write actually tend to be the most productive because I'm in a freethinking mode when new connections and plot twists seem to bubble up from I don't know where. My wife, who is a very task-oriented and productive woman, would sometimes see me lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, and prompt me to get to work. I would reply, "I am working." She would shrug and walk off. I guess she just had to take it on faith. There were times, at night, after the lights were turned off that I would think about sending a character in a new direction. I'd turn over to her excitedly and tell her about my new insight, only to realize that she was already asleep. She was always kind under those circumstances and would tell me, "That's nice, Dear, that's nice."
- Do you work from an outline?
Yes. There are a couple pieces of software that I found very helpful. One is Storycraft and the other is Writer's Café. Storycraft is a program that guides you through the basic storylines of different genres and helps create the skeleton of your story. Writer's Café is an index card system that tracks storylines with electronic index cards that can be moved around and re-placed within the overall plot line. The outline was only a framework. I prefer to think that I work by inspiration.
- Where did you get the idea for your book?
I heard a song by Tracy Chapman called Change. It starts off, “If you knew that you would die tonight and stood in the face of God and Love—would you change?” I thought the question was fascinating. Living in the Bible Belt I came to know many sincere, devout people. However, I also often saw people who attended church and claimed to be people of faith, yet behaved in inconsistent ways. I thought it curious to hear preachers supporting divisive thinking and advocating war, while at the same time proclaiming the Prince of Peace to be their savior. I wondered why, if someone believed God was all seeing and all knowing, a person would sneak into a motel room to have an affair. Why sneak?
I didn't really think about it much more until 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. At that point, conflicts between religions became a part of our everyday lives. In wondering what God would actually think of all the fighting that was being done in His name, I began to think of the question posed by Ms. Chapman. I began to wonder how things would play out in this day and age. That question gripped me and it was actually several years that thoughts were bouncing around in my brain. I would often ask people, "What do you think would happen if God were to make His presence known?" The question would often lead to interesting conversations and those conversations became the basis of the book.
- Did you have support from friends/family? Please share an experience.
Absolutely. My poor wife—every time I would write a few pages I would come running down the stairs pushing the papers in her face saying, "Here, read this. Read this." She would dutifully do so and encourage me. Finally she asked me to get the bulk of it written so that she could sit down and read it as a complete story. My daughter was very helpful in helping role-play parts and working out plot lines. She is an aspiring actor and enjoyed working on the creative aspects of the drama. My son enjoyed reading the book and giving me feedback. My sister-in-law, Ida, worked with me as my editor. We spent many, many days going over the manuscripts and correcting it. The acknowledgments at the beginning of the book cover four pages. That might give you an idea of how many of my friends contributed to the work.
- When you aren’t writing, what do you like to do for enjoyment?
By profession I am a lawyer and therapist. The true blessing of my work is the opportunity to be with people at a time they are willing to share their lives and be receptive to guidance. That honor is a true enjoyment. Beyond that, when I'm not writing, I enjoy thinking about writing and going to movies. I believe that movies —at least well made movies—are underrated showcases of human dynamics. Through movies we can expand our repertoire of experiences and better understand human beings and the dynamics that drive them.
- What have you learned during the time you’ve been writing your book?
Two things. One, I learned how wonderfully complex human beings are. Second, I've learned how much fun it is to be an author and be in complete control of the world that you've created.
- What suggestions would you have for someone who wants to write a book?
Be passionate. The first time you sit down to write a major work, be sure that it's about something that moves you emotionally, something about which you have a fire in your belly. You need to have the passion in order to carry you through the times where boredom and exhaustion set in and the remainder of the task seems to stretch out endlessly in front of you. It's passion that carries you through those times.
- What are your future plans? Any more books, or perhaps a sequel?
Yes. I’ve got five other books I'm itching to get started on. One of them is a fictional account of where Jesus may have been between the last mention of him in the Bible at age 13 and his baptism at age 29. Another is a work of creative non-fiction about a young lady who lived in rural West Virginia up until the time she was recruited by Herbert Hoover’s FBI in the 1930s. I am also collecting lectures from a course I teach at our community college called The Art and Science of Happiness.
- Tell us a bit about your book.
The theme of Children of Abraham is driven by the question of redemption, but the action is character driven. Most of the characters are flawed, grappling with the seven deadly sins. Al Khalil (hatred) carries around the wounds of having been orphaned by Israeli military action. Louis the Cop (envy) is 20 years past burned out and never got a break in life. Tomás (anger) vowed to never be under anybody's thumb, yet finds himself losing control over his life. Claire (sloth) can't stand confrontation, yet finds herself sucked into enabling illegal behavior. Clay McRae (greed) a sociopath CEO of an Enron-type corporation is trying to complete the rape of his company before forces unleashed by the God messages catch up with him. Max Silverman (lust), a Congressman who is also a sex addict, tries to keep his addiction private in his very public life. Joe 24 (pride), a Harlem football hero, who suffers a career ending injury, can’t seem to adapt to losing his celebrity status. Add to the cast a mobster, gang-banger, Turkish money launderer, and others wrapped up in a plot that takes unexpected twists and turns, thanks to the messages from God and you have a fast-paced story that will surely entertain—and provoke thought.
- Who has been the greatest influence on your life?
I don't think there's any one person; certainly, my father. In a small, but significant way there was my third grade English teacher, Mr. Geezy, who gave me a pat on the back and an ‘Atta boy!’ when very few others had. He helped me to believe that I had some capacity for artistry—not in the visual sense, but with words.
- Tell us about the research you did, who you contacted, and why.
Research is vital in writing a book. First of all, the more research you do the more story you have. Every conversation leads to more information that can be wound into the plot of the book. The Internet is an invaluable source for information. If you need to know the map of a city, what a building looks like, or the name of a luxury hotel in Istanbul, Turkey, the information is at your fingertips. Beyond that, in this book I needed to know the nature and culture of different religions, beliefs, and faith systems. Not only between Christianity, Judaism and Islam but also the different sects within the branches. I interviewed pastors, imams, priests, and rabbis. I interviewed police officers for technical information, doctors for information about wounds, and judges for their opinions as to the legal ramifications of the God messages. I traveled to Washington, DC and watched sessions of Congress. I visited the offices of my Congressman to see how business goes on within the Rayburn office building. I walked the streets of Manhattan to find settings for the scenes. Not only was research involving technical questions important, but it was also important to get the input from women concerning my female characters (and I was often surprised to find out how much I didn't know).
- What would you like to leave a reader with once he has read your book?
A commitment to understanding other faiths and finding ways of living harmoniously with people of different belief systems. What I discovered in writing this book is that there are differences between faiths in terms of history and culture, but there is a great deal of commonality between the faiths in terms of their values. We hear a lot about values these days, especially in the political races and campaigns. I think too often we overlook the sameness, that commonality between us because the differences are so much more obvious. Values like kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and empathy are fundamental to all belief systems. They are the signposts that lead us to find those golden seeds within us. I would like to leave readers with the hopeful feeling that by looking at what is alike among us, we will find it easier to overlook the superficial differences
- Do you have a website?
www.RHMartin.net
- Are you available for speaking engagements? If so, in what organizations do you envision yourself as a speaker?
Yes, I am available for speaking engagements. I would be more than happy to speak with civic groups, religious or church groups, book discussion or study groups. Any group that is interested in forwarding our progress towards a more peaceful loving world.
- Is there any other information about yourself, your family, your faith that you’d like to share.
I'm not really sure about why I've come to write this book at this time. Although I thought about the story at great length, that's not unusual for me. I often think about projects and ideas without actually taking them on. Why I finally set my hand to paper and where I got the discipline to write a 350-plus page book is a question that I'm still not clear on. I'm not an overly religious person, although I do consider myself a spiritual person. Becoming a social worker gave me the skill of being able to sit with psychic pain, feel it, and understand it without wanting to run away from it. There seems to be so much pain in the world and so many of our systems seem to be breaking down. I guess I felt there was just something to say and what I wanted to say was, "It doesn't have to be this way—we can do better. There is something larger and greater than us in the universe." Where the rest of it came from, I don't know--but I don't want to start getting too ‘new age’ here.
- Do you have hopes that this book will help people to look at the religions of others in a different, more open way?
Yes.
- You deal with religion delicately in this novel. Were you concerned about offending any reader’s faith?
Absolutely, yes. I was concerned that it not be offensive. I intended it to be controversial, but not offensive. That's why I refrained from using any of the more serious curse words and from being negative about any religion or belief system. I did highlight some differences in belief but only because I was interested in how the message of hope, love, and redemption were expressed in the different faiths. I was not overly interested in highlighting the differences that might exist in culture or history. This is not a time for us to point fingers and say ‘my way or the highway’. These times are times that call for us to understand each other on more deep and profound ways. Being offensive was not my intention. Being controversial, raising questions, and beginning a conversation was.
- You’ve turned the concept of Deus ex Machina on its head by using God as the McGuffin. The idea of God communicating with us is fantastical—are the communications a metaphor for something more real?
In the ancient Greek plays, whether a comedy or tragedy, sometimes the playwright boxed himself into a corner. To get out of the dramatic corner and get on with the play he would have to do something fantastical to keep the plot going. They would take a crane and lower an actor dressed up like a god onto the stage and he would magically change things to get the plot back on track. That's where the expression of deus ex machina, God out of the machine, comes from. A McGuffin is a dramatic device that keeps the plot moving forward. In an Alfred Hitchcock movie perhaps the McGuffin might be a pearl necklace that is the object of everybody's attention. In the Maltese Falcon the McGuffin obviously was the falcon. By actually bringing God in as the underlying motivator in the plot does kind of stand deus ex machina on its head.
Is it a metaphor? Well, in terms of the plot it's not. In terms of the theme of the book, that we as human beings often have some hypocrisy in what we say we believe and how we actually act in response to the temptations we experience, there is metaphor. The messages, on some level, we intuitively know are the things that God would want us to live by. These are the messages that the quiet voice within us calls out to be listened to. So, whether these messages come from an outside intelligence, or whether they come from an intelligence that dwells within us is metaphor
- Are any of your characters drawn from people you have personally known?
I am both a lawyer and a social worker, so the characters of the lawyer, Tomás and the therapist, Mark Jacobs, drew heavily on my own experiences. In the beginning of the book there is a disclaimer that says that the characters and places described are fictional and that any relationship between the characters in the book and real persons or places is strictly coincidental. I think I had best just leave it at that.
23. What does the R.H. in R.H. Martin stand for?
Robert Hall, but most folks call me Bob.
|
