Today’s special guest is author Martin Ott and we’re chatting about his upcoming urban noire thriller, Shadow Dance.
Bio:
A former US Army interrogator, Martin Ott is the author of eleven books of fiction and poetry. He won the De Novo and Sandeen prizes (University of Notre Dame Press) for his first two poetry collections. His work has appeared in more than three hundred magazines and twenty anthologies.
Welcome, Martin. Please tell us about your current release.
West is a man looking to flee from the past, barely old enough to drink, looking to rediscover himself after several tours in Afghanistan as a POW prison guard. Written by former US Army interrogator Martin Ott (author of The Interrogator’s Notebook), Shadow Dance explores the life of a young man who joined the Army because of a family tragedy only to experience further PTSD as he encounters advanced interrogation methods, many of which revisit him as flashbacks. After going AWOL, West looks to reunite with Solomon, his childhood best friend, who exists in the dark underworld of a Los Angeles gentleman’s club.
West soon finds himself caught in the web of the Iranian family running the castle-themed Club Paradise. Big Z Pourali is a former wrestler with a dark side and side businesses that put his dancers, employees, and family in peril. West stays in LA to look after Solomon, but soon falls for the club owner’s daughter Nikki. West must come to terms with the raw underside of a Los Angeles crime family and his own past, all the while hoping to maintain his sanity in the process.
What inspired you to write this book?
Once the twenty-year Afghanistan war ended, there were still important issues to consider. Nearly a generation of US soldiers returned home, scarred physically and mentally, many with ailments or issues not easily supported by society or the government. I also felt like the issue of enhanced interrogation, given my background, had disappeared from the public eye. We also have seen far too many novels, shows, and movies that show easy transitions, romantic reunions, and redemption for these soldiers. How about those who struggle and hit rock bottom? They deserve to have their stories told, too.
Excerpt from Shadow Dance:
Opening:
You’re not invisible. You may think you’ve snuck away, dropped off the grid, kept it all on the down-low. Don’t fool yourself, though. You’ve left a ripple of your presence wiggling in the intersection of darkness and light like a villain’s gloved fingers. Sometimes people squint at you as you dart along the periphery. Whether you try to do the wrong thing or the right thing, you ping along the moral axis of yesterdays and tomorrows. Up until now, I’d always counted myself with more rights than wrongs. And like everyone, I was followed by a shadow. Mine was barely the size of a dog. At first, I thought it was Pops who spun tall tales with a fluency not unlike a second language. Later, I kidded myself that it was women looking to bed me, the ones I tried to ignore. But it was something else, a fleeting passenger that hounded me as a boy and haunted me as a man.
I joined the army the day I turned eighteen and ordered the shadow to stay home. Strangely, it listened for a time, losing itself in the sunset on the bayou, a dull fire shimmering in the eyes of everyone I left behind. There was no family to see me off (a story for another day) and my girlfriend Deirdre had told me I was a fucking idiot. Not that I blamed her for calling it like she saw it. Suffice to say that Private Buddy Rivet was looking to reinvent himself, and had to get himself sent to a damn war in the process.
What exciting project are you working on next?
Working with my agent on final edits to a speculative novel Future 2.0 – part mystery, part apocalyptic coming-of-age story. It explores current topics such as artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, and the eternal conflict between the head and the heart.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
When I co-wrote a comic strip in the Michigan Daily college newspaper, when I went to the University of Michigan. It gave me confidence that I might be able to reach a wider audience in my writing.
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your workday like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
I have a full-time job as a technical project manager for a large company. I write in the margins: first thing in the morning, during lunch hour, at night, on the weekends.
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I get my very best ideas in the shower – whenever I have a block about an idea or a scene, it is often resolved by letting my mind wander beneath hot water.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A traveler or adventurer – not sure how I would make money doing it. I always remember wanting to leave the small Michigan town Alpena I grew up in.
Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
Shadow Dance has a cast of characters that appear in other novels. There is a scene in my first novel The Interrogator’s Notebook, featuring Norman Kross,that appears in Shadow Dance, only from a different POV. There is a filmmaker couple who appear in a recent, unpublished short story. The dancer Tarzana is actually Heidi Radar, one of the main protagonists in my most recent novel Dream State. The artist Judd is one of a half-dozen protagonists in the unpublished novel Lifelong. Like many writers, my characters exist in a larger universe, and show up in different stories, clinging to life and to tell what’s next.
Links:
Website | Twitter | Blog | Shadow Dance Pre-Order