Shelly Frome is a member of Mystery Writers of America, a professor of dramatic arts emeritus at the
Tell us about your
latest book Twilight of the Drifter.
Twilight of the Drifter is a
crime story with southern gothic overtones. It centers on thirty-something Josh
Devlin, a failed journalist who, after a year of wandering, winds up in a Kentucky
homeless shelter on a wintry December.
Soon after the opening setup, the
crosscurrents go into motion as Josh comes upon a runaway named Alice
holed up in an abandoned boxcar. Taken with her plight and dejected over his
own squandered life, he spirits her back to Memphis
and his uncle’s Blues Hall Café. From
there he tries to get back on his feet while seeking a solution to Alice ’s
troubles. As the story unfolds, a Delta bluesman’s checkered past comes into
play and, inevitably, Josh finds himself on a collision course with a backwoods
tracker fixated on the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement and the bluesman.
By extension, Josh is also unwittingly up against the machinations of the
governor-elect of Mississippi .
In a sense, this tale hinges on the
vagaries of chance and human nature. At the same time, some underlying force
seems to be seeking closure and long overdue redemption.
Was there a part of
this story you found difficult to write?
The only thing that was difficult
was allowing the story to unfold while, at the same time, incorporating all the
threads. For instance, Roy, the backwoods tracker, often harkens back to the
tactics of his Confederate ancestor and his own escapades during the Civil
Rights days in Oxford , Mississippi Alice ’s
visionary aunt, who worries that Alice
may be in league with the devil. As things progress, Josh becomes involved with
LuAnn, a luncheonette manager who is also concerned about Alice ’s
plight when Alice takes off again.
Not to mention the growing tension between Josh and Dewey the bluesman who
becomes increasingly under the gun. And
on and on, it goes.
What inspired the
idea for Twilight of the Drifter?
It all started when a friend of
ours invited us down to the hill country of Mississippi
who’d inherited a backwoods cabin and was in the process of fixing it up. At
one point, he suggested that he and I take an exploratory walk. Following a
narrow overgrown path, soon we became entangled in briars, edged past some
barbed wire as the terrain sloped down and eventually came across waterlogged
limbs sticking out like menacing pitchforks. At that moment, I turned to him
and said, “Bob, do you have any idea where we are?”
He gave me
a half-wary half-mischievous look and said, “Shelly, I believe this here is Wolf
Creek
Then and
there something began to percolate. That selfsame feeling there were buried
secrets here that would never see the light of day.
What drew you to
write in the genre crime/mystery novels?
Perhaps the
best way to explain it stems from something the renown actress Julie Harris
once told me. “In one way or another, the given circumstances have to be a
matter of life and death. Otherwise, why go to all the trouble?” Put another
way, the journey has to be worth the candle. In the case of the Drifter, we’re talking about a
mysterious calling to right a great wrong.
As a writer
who is also a film buff, a movie critic, a professor of film as well as
theater, and the author of a book on screenwriting, there’s another major
factor. As the movie camera takes you anywhere and everywhere, so does the
central character. And the places you go have a distinct character of their own
affecting everything that happens. And that’s at least one reason that writing
within the parameters of this genre results in passages my readers find so
engrossing and vivid.
Does your experience
as an actor bringing characters to life help you to do the same with the
characters in your novels?
Absolutely. Every character who
appears has a through-line and a stake in the action. Everyone is coming from
somewhere, motivated and changes because of who they are and the ongoing give-and-take.
It’s all a process of becoming. In a wonderful, mysterious way there can be no
manipulation on my part because everything would stop until I backed off and
allowed people to be true to themselves. In a sense, there’s always the
question, Who am I? What do I want? What stands in my way? What now, given the
way things are going, in view of what I need and what I’m capable of?
And, needless
to say, I play every character.
What do you feel are
the key elements for a good mystery?
I think
there has to be a fascinating dilemma involving three-dimensional characters,
intelligent protagonists and antagonists and a provocative setting. Some unfolding
journey far beyond the puzzle solving musings of Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot
and the one-dimensional stock characters and stick figures they encounter.
What is your favorite
crime/mystery television show or movie?
I don’t
have any favorites. But I’m sure the same guidelines apply to crime shows and
movies I’m drawn to like the Inspector Morse series on BBC ,
old classic movies like The Maltese
Falcon and recent films like The
Talented Mr. Ripley and Michael
Clayton.
What is your writing
ritual? Do you write daily, have a word
count/page goal, have a certain time of day you write better than others or a
certain place that helps you focus?
In one way or another, I seem to be
always writing. Once a noted playwright told me that every time he’d ask
another noted playwright how his latest was going, the answer would always be,
“It’s coming along. I’m still working on it.” Eventually the answer would be,
“Ah, it’s finally finished. Now all I have to do is write it down.” I simply follow the energy. Perhaps it’s
polishing a scene and that usually takes place later in the day tapping away on
the computer. Research consists of going places, interviewing people and/or
experts in their field, looking things up, etc. But given the fact that I’m an
incurable storyteller, a lot of daydreaming goes on morning, noon or night.
Do you have any
projects you’re working on?
I've just
started a new project based on a character who looks a lot like James Dean who
unwittingly keeps getting in trouble and is now a person of interest in an
untimely death.
What would you like
to say to readers and fellow writers?
There seems
to be a flood nowadays of self-published e-books and print on demand. Writers
and would-be writers who seem to think it’s all about cranking stuff out and
then spending a great deal of energy on promotion tactics on the Internet.
There is a huge difference when the work is the result of a slow simmering
process, editorial oversight and more before the novel is ready to be distributed.
In other words, there’s a question here: How much heart and soul, art and craft
went into this final product? There’s a question here for both readers and
fellow writers to ponder.
Where can we find
Shelly Frome and Twilight of the Drifter?
Barnes and Noble (paperback and Nook)
@shellyFrome (Twitter)
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