Q. At one point in the novel, Lucy wonders if it’s okay to ask Miles how much of his book is autobiographical and he responds, “You may not.” Do you also bristle when people ask how much of your work is autobiographical? In the case of a book like Hollywood Savage, do you have to make a conscious effort to separate your personal life from your work?

A. Well, I think the book speaks for itself. I’m not a man; neither am I—nor was I—separated from my spouse while suspecting infidelity and adapting a bestseller (that hasn’t—yet—been my privilege) for the screen, nor have I ever worked with a European director. Basically, I always try to find some way that will automatically turn what I’m writing (particularly in the first person, which does make it hard not to identify) into fiction, not journalism.

Q. The book criticizes Los Angeles and Los Angelnos. What is it about the city that rubs Miles the wrong way? Do you share Miles’s opinion on the city and its inhabitants?

A. Absolutely, I do. I found LA to be a one-trick pony (“the Industry”—nothing but TV and movies) and the people who lived there all enslaved to the notion of fame, ranking everyone according to their position in the fame line. Everybody was thinner, younger, and cooler than thou; worst of all, the only possible reaction to this was to act just like them. “Hey, you turn your nose up at me when I walk into a dining or drinking establishment, and then immediately your back? Well, fine, I’m not in any way interested in you, either.” Thus, nobody interacted. It was all emotional detachment and disdain. After a while, it was very difficult not to take it as a blow to your self-esteem; you simply were not worthy.

Q. Early in the novel Miles mentions the “writer’s fury to get it down” (p. 10). What does “it” mean to you? Do you think you captured “it” with this novel and this particular set of characters?

A. “It,” I guess, is what you feel particularly passionate about—in this case, I would have to say I was trying to get at the root of infidelity, from every angle possible: from the plot of Miles’s own book (the young man in it, whose name is Savage, becomes a double agent when forced by the CIA—who imply his own now-dead father told them where he could be found—to work for them during the Vietnam War, ultimately defies this dictum by becoming a double agent, something Lucci refers to as “monstrous”). And the adultery is compounded; not only does Miles cheat on his wife, he cheats on his mistress too, as if the latter will cancel out the former. My own question, I think, was ultimately this: Should one be true to one’s vows, said long ago, or to one’s self right now? (Or, put another way, was Shakespeare right when he wrote, “To thine own self be true”?).

Q. Miles can occasionally be a difficult character to root for. Could you discuss some of the difficulties that arise from writing a character who isn’t always likable? Were there times when you yourself didn’t like Miles much?

A. I must confess, I never found Miles unlikable. I think he’s just a human being, who has every human being’s weaknesses and ambiguities, who is reacting to his own feelings—of course it’s not rational, necessarily, but isn’t that the definition of emotion? I also think that this tendency to sanctify and idolize the main character is very much a Hollywood thing; it is just verboten ever to let us see the lead in any other context than likeable, and frankly, I think that’s nonsense—who is likable all the time? Do you yourself always act beautifully to other people, never gossip maliciously, never goad or gloat, never be pompous or hateful or envious? What person doesn’t have a dark side? Nobody I’ve met, myself included.

Q. The book has a very distinct male voice at its center. Did you find it at all difficult as a writer to write a character of the opposite sex?

A. None. When people have asked me the same question previously, I liked to quip, “No, because I realized I may not have a man’s main equipment, but I do have balls.” I know that makes it sound trivial, but in effect, it’s as close to the truth as any other answer.

Q. Miles really runs through a wide gamut of emotions in this book, and most of them are less than pleasant. Did you ever find yourself becoming emotionally involved or affected by what he was going through—what you were putting him through?

A. I don’t think the rough patches of life—for example, doubting your wife, then acting the way you think she is (a form of revenge)—are “ever less than pleasant.” Who, after all, has never been pushed into a corner, made to feel low, filled with doubt, and found themselves reacting according to the saying, “The best defense is a good offense”? (Especially true, I think, for men.) No, I wouldn’t say “less than pleasant”; I think the more accurate term is more like devastation, the shaking of one’s identity’s cornerstone, a form of desperation. Then again, that’s where the real drama lies; who after all wants to read about someone whose life is all sunshine and roses? Wouldn’t that character be the truly hateful one?

Q. Why did you choose not to divulge whether or not Maggie and Connor actually had an affair?

A. I was writing from Miles’s point of view, and since he refused to confront his wife directly, even cutting her off when it seemed she was about to confess, he himself never knows for sure. The reason for his inability to confront the question is twofold: first, if she says she is, he, as a proud male, would have no choice but to say “then it’s divorce.” And second, he is not ready to cut her off, to let her go. He has loved her too long. And let’s not forget at that point that he is deep into his own affair; how can he castigate or confront or convict his wife when he is behaving exactly as he believes she is? It would make him truly hateful: a real hypocrite. So he refuses to bring everything out into the open—the only result of such behavior is surely nothing but destruction.

Q. At one point Lucy says that she hopes all of her philosophy classes will teach her to “learn how to die.” Can you elaborate on this? What does this mean in the context of Lucy’s character?

A. Maybe here I do veer into autobiography; I was a philosophy and psychology double major at Duke, and I came to that same conclusion (re: philosophy) on my own; and I think, insofar as Lucy is concerned, she is trying, in as clear-eyed a way as possible, to address and confront her own—everybody’s own—inexorable fate: mortality. She refuses to deny its absolute reality, or to pretend it does not exist. She is trying as hard as she can to prepare herself for it, and she is exploring every philosopher’s point of view throughout the ages, trying all the while to distill her own.

Q. Your writing has such a specific edge to it. Are there any writers that you’re particularly fond of or whom you had in mind while writing this book?

A. Actually, while I have often had certain novelists right next to my laptop while I worked (and no, I will not say whom), this time the inspiration for the voice actually came from my own—the one I found while flipping through twelve or more years’ worth of journals. As they went along, I found my own writing becoming more and more telegraphic, the sentences shorter, skipping the dreary details, getting right to the point (which, in itself, I think came from writing with a pen rather than a computer); I got impatient with how slowly I could get my own thoughts down, and simply trimmed what I wanted to say to the absolutely essential. Details were skimmed, and non sequiturs abounded. At times, especially in the later journals, I found the writing almost startling; I did not remember having written them (always, I think, a good sign), and I found I really liked the style. So, no, this time I had no one to rely on but my own self (talk about scary!).

Q. The characters in this novel have a real dexterity with words. Language is their emotional currency and, in some cases, their livelihood. And yet, when it comes to the most basic questions, they all seem to be at a loss. I’m reminded of Maggie and Miles’s confrontation in the car after their disastrous dinner in LA. Maggie is really trying to communicate something to Miles but can’t find the words. Are you trying to say something here about those people who devote themselves to the use and manipulation of language?

A. Just because you can be the soul of erudition on the page does not mean that, having come to your own crossroads in life, you are not rendered speechless yourself. Being flooded with a lot of different emotions all at once tends (at least it does in my own experience) to render us unable to speak.

Q. This is your third book. Are you working on anything new?

A. First of all, this is a question one should never, ever, ask a writer (actually, it’s okay to ask about theme; it’s the “Are you writing?” question that really turns us murderous). Second, yes, I am. I want to write a book of interconnected short stories using the same characters in Hollywood Savage (Miles, Maggie, Lucy, Izzy) in other times of their lives, both past and future, but I am trying to write it so that you don’t need to have read this book to enjoy the next. Pray for me.