Dennis Lehane on his writing process, 'Shutter Island,' and new books

on Larry King now the acclaimed novelist Dennis Lehane I'd like to play with inform so this is really my my sort of Hitchcockian thriller and I did three historicals prior to it mr. quiver was my tragedy and shut around was my gothic so my next one I feel like a chase novel feel like doing a chase feel like doing just somebody running full out for the entire book you were happy with Mystic River that was so free insofar as you can be happy I mean what I what I was was I went all of the I can judge it by parts each of the pieces look fantastic to me I can't see it as a whole I never can there's a hell of a look what makes Boston a character in so many good books and films I have a theory that everybody in Boston is at least one can short of a six-pack well that's a little bit off and and I just feel it and I feel it makes in a very vivid place plus you know every every time they ran a commercial for 16 minutes there's Clinton carrying my book and that that bumped it all next on Larry King now [Music] welcome to Larry King now our special guests is New York Times bestselling author and screenwriter Dennis Lehane Dennis has penned 13 acclaimed novels most notably Mystic River Gone Baby Gone shutter island' lived by night all of which have been adapted into Hollywood films his latest is since we fell it's available now and guaranteed to be a best-seller cause he is one great writer this one I just started it I got advance copy the protagonist is a woman yes yes so you have to think like a woman yeah look how did you come up with the idea it was a our ideas born it every books different with this one I had an image and an image of a guy reflected in the glass I don't know if you've ever there's a this building in Boston called Hancock Tower I am paid designed it and it isn't yeah and those windows very I want to put this dig there's something cinematic about those windows and there's something cinematic about the way when you when you walk down the street you can see yourself several versions of yourself you know you put your approached him before you and that was that idea this multiple image of a guy walking out of the building in the rain and then I said okay what's the image and then I said who's seen it some reason I immediately went his wife and then that was from that point on I was off to the races I knew that was my lead character and then it flows then it flows it you know sometimes every book is different and sometimes I get character first and I kind of bang them around for a while let them walk around and talk to each other and after about two weeks I say would you go out and get me a plot and usually they're pretty cool then sometimes they come back with their pockets empty and they're like sorry what was it like being a woman for a while you know it wasn't that different I think that the place where I what I find hard to write so Rachel was a very easy character for me to get into her skin and stay in her skin I one of the other easiest characters I ever wrote was Luther Lawrence who was an African American baseball player in the 1920s and the given day and I think it's not a matter of color skin or gender for me it's it's where do you stand in society if you're on the outside I can write you if you're in the inside I have trouble huh okay about this book the Washington Post said a poignant story about a woman search for identity wrapped in a love story fair until yeah until the guns show up in act 3 and then it becomes wrapped in a thriller like so it turns to a thriller yeah I think it starts it starts always as a mystery and then it turns by the end the final third is just a rocket ship I mean it was meant it was built that way do you think when you write do you think film no I don't um I think about it afterwards what look we're all visual artists so but I always feel like the phrase and I kick myself even for using it on the show when people say you're very cinematic writer that doesn't make any sense we predate cinema cinema came from us so you know Shakespeare was a very cinematic writer do MA was a very cinematic writer Thomas Hardy was a very cinematic writer but there was they predated cinema I think what it means are you vivid and but unlike many writers who don't get involved with their films don't get involved with the making of films regarded as apples and oranges you get involved no I got involved with this I've got involved with this one I was a producer on Shutter Island and on the drop but um in terms of Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone I was my law and it's been my law ever since is here's my cellphone here's my email if you want to talk to me reach out if you don't I'm good I'm not one of those writers I remember a friend of mine who was a writer who said he was insulted when he didn't get invited to the set I said well why would they invite you to the set I mean you know the caterer is far more important than you make the coffee you know so we were happy with Mystic River that was and so free insofar as you can be happy I mean yeah what I what I was was I went all of the I can judge it by parts each of the pieces look fantastic to me I can't see it as a whole though I never can there's a hell of a movie thank you why people have told me and God may be gone the thing I love about Gone Baby Gone was I was the most distance from the actual book in terms of time so the book had been written quite some time ago so when Ben Affleck came to town we went out he was showing me pictures of all these people in the movie and he was saying this is gonna be cold oh this and then gradually he's eyes narrowed and he said you don't know what I'm talking about and I said no I really don't because you don't remember your own characters and I was like been terrific ten ten years ago you know no I don't remember it anymore so um I think that I could enjoy Gone Baby Gone in a way almost like a viewer because I was like I don't know what's gonna happen next cuz I didn't remember a shutter island' you were a producer yeah like Medavoy yeah yeah good guy fantastic or a movie that was you had to be happy with that it turned out great I mean was true to the book very true to the book very true to the book and then yet also it's filtered through that that vision which is Marty's vision you know Scorsese's vision which is not mine and so he's channeling like he told me later he was channeling Val Lewton movies 1940s and and and so it's a totally different experience it's not shutter island' it's Dennis Lehane shutter island' is on a shelf Martin Scorsese shutter island' is is in your film school what makes Boston a character in so many good books and films it's the great look I'm a Homer everybody from Boston is I mean we're all we're all departed yeah they would it's just a fun city omits a fun city to write about it's of we have us I think I have a theory that everybody in Boston is at least one can short of a six-pack well that's a little bit off and and I I just feel it and I feel it makes it a very vivid place and it's just a so good the town yep the town was terrific and then even the things that don't deal with sort of that the criminal element of things you know it's the social networks a terrific film I mean you know this is something something about shooting in that city and it's just yeah it's great who's gonna play Rachel don't know I have no idea but it definitely won't be a movie we don't know it'll definitely be a movie it is definitely a script it is definitely out to directors it is it I could see it you know easily go into production but it's not there yet next does Dennis Lehane ever suffer from writer's block plus one of the novelists ever inspire him the new one is since we fell guaranteed bestseller great writer would be right back the back with Dennis Lehane his new book is since we fell and you're only 51 right yeah that's and this is your 13th but their teen novel yeah yeah we did you ever write for newspapers of them to general you Michael Connelly no no Michael and I actually were in South Florida at the same time I was in grad school and he was at the sunset no but we didn't cross paths back so he's great he's terrific so I did a little tiny bit of journalism but I didn't do much when I was in grad school I did some but how'd you decide to be a novelist you know I tried journal I tried journalism and I tried to major in in journalism and I realized I didn't like facts and that was a problem for journalists back then so I dropped out there and then I then I said I'm gonna try and try and teach I'll get I'll be an English Lit so then I discovered after a year doing that that I didn't like really talking about books to this day I don't think I'm a good literature teacher I'm a good writing teacher but I'll just say read that book it's great and they'll say why and I'll say cuz it is you know no so then I said alright look at this point let's face the fact you're only good at one thing and you only like one thing and that's making up stories so when's my porn immigrant parents and I said I'm gonna try for a third college and do this creative writing thing and they said you know could you get it can you get a job with that and I didn't know any better so I said yeah but you can't I mean a bachelor's degree in creative writing literally qualifies you for one thing in this world and that's a master's degree in creative writing so I kind of went off on this journey that then took me to about 28 and then I published my first book I got my first book published when I was just yeah - 28 so the first hit my first hit was at a real street it was a hit with a certain way God may be gone because not that it sold a ton but it sold at a time when they were sure nobody would nobody would buy it because it came on the summit at a very dark cover in a very dark subject matter and 80% of book buyers of women and there's no woman wants to read a book about a kid in peril and it was a hit and reasonably it was within its own context it was a hit and part of that was because President Clinton by that point had he was videoed walking up to walking up the steps to Air Force One with it under his arm and it was used on an ad for 60 minutes because he was going to be on that weekend so you know every every time they ran a commercial for 60 minutes there's Clinton carrying my book and that that bumped it but then my first hit was Mr Gruber that was the first one that it was like oh this is what it's like I've never been on New York Times bestseller list I'd never had the sort of attention and I'd had before do you form your characters early and do they do what you want them to do before you start the book no no I formed them early I wouldn't say they do what I want them to do have you had a character die before you wanted him to die no I've suddenly realized the character was going to die and I was like oh I didn't know that was coming I spent an entire book trying to make sure the character didn't die and then I hated the book and I wouldn't release it I wouldn't I wouldn't give it to my publisher than anything what's the problem what's the problem what's the problem and then one night I was having a conversation with one of my idols the writer Tim O'Brien and we were just talking and he said you know I like that your stuff always stays organically true and I went Bing that's it I'm trying to avoid what needs to happen what should happen because I'm attached to the character and right after that phone conversation hung up and I said he's got to die and I went back and rewrote the ending in the book and then I was like there it is it's good and and then or for course it will gone by my last one prior to this so I just we just did a spoiler so anybody was in read world gone by doesn't end well the term creative writing is another kind of contradiction yeah it's you know look they got how do you teach create you don't you give them a toolbox that's all you can do give me a toolbox show him how to use the tools but you can't you can't plant the fire you can't yeah you fall in love with your characters all the time all the time I fall in love with some of the ones who everybody's like wow that's a bad bad guy that's a bad bad girl whatever it is but I I think it's some of my favorite characters or some of my worst people in Mystic River when Sean Penn screams yeah at this thought of his daughter began as I might honor and the screen goes up into the sky yeah was incredible it was and Sean Sean and I hung out a lot we were making a movie and a lot of talks about that just that that particular scene and I still remember him saying you know I'm storing it up I'm not going there yet I'm not going there yet and and then when it came time to do that see him we were on AH when he was shoot when they were shooting that one of the extras I think memory serves one of the extras who's trying to put was playing a cop was trying to grab him actually got like tagged like like Sean's elbow hit him or something like that because he was just went so crazy he's been so into it enough Kevin Bacon yeah right when we return is there another Dennis Lehane book in the works we'll find out I'll tell you about another thing he's doing with a Stephen King novel don't go away back with the great Dennis Lehane the new one is since we fell it is almost a guaranteed bestseller it will be I'm sure it'll be a film right we think so damn there's a script writing is a lonely profession read Smith once said writing is easy put a piece of paper in the typewriter roll it up and bleed and lead yeah yeah is it tough yeah if it's good it should be yeah I think it is I think if you're doing if it's too easy you you're being glib you're me and facile you're skating the surface you know if you're good it should be a little or if the books good it should get painful if you get thrown it should get difficult it should get it should start to cost you a little bit I do believe that does it bug you when a writer sells a hundred million books who and the cat know and the characters are never developed but thus the plots good and in Paterson no James Madison they roll along the book comes out every two months great this room under the tent for all it it's real London thanks for all doing the book with Clinton know and I know and you know I know people whose let me let me put this in in a perspective that I really get you know there are people there are authors whose careers have been allowed to continue even though they don't sell much at that publishing house because James Patterson makes the house so much money so you know there's a there's a place for all of it under the tent I just feel like you know there's different types of writings I know Jim I know Jim he's been hit is it easy to write the way he writes I don't know I don't write anything I don't write that way so I it wouldn't be for me and put it that way it would not be for me at all if I'm not 100 percent 100 percent engaged that this is the only story I want to tell and this is the only possible story I can tell then I can't write I just have to fall in love with what I'm doing now you're doing with mystic David Kelly mm-hmm a ten-part series of Stephen King's book mr. Mercedes yes for HBO no for DirecTV and oh they're owned or they're gonna they're gonna have their own this is their rollout so do you like the writing of this another guy wrote the book yep how did you get involved with this no no David's David and I have the same agent and he reached out and I went and I met with him and it just seemed uh it seems a really nice match not just me and David but Stephen I know Stephens work really well and this book in particular is in my wheel really hits my wheelhouse because it's about sort of the America that got left behind after the 2008 meltdown and set in the Midwest and setting up an unnamed city in Ohio so all of this this was the people I understand this is this is the world I understood have a three writers though right yeah my well is fourth as myself guy named Brian Ghalibaf David Kelly and am Holmes and so we're all you know we're all having the time of our lives it's great you each write a different section of um yeah we've written that we know David wrote a couple am wrote one Brian three I wrote for you know it's just been and then the way it works in shows this was always a case that when I worked on the wire we always just have a running joke that if somebody came up and complimented you on a scene it was somebody else's because what happens is like he'll you write an episode you're right episode three and then you go in your film it or you or you get to the production stage of it and then somebody says we'll wait a minute that's scene and we need to pull that scene out of three put it into four Paul that's need out of two and put it into three and that happens a lot and so it's just a nature of the beast and and then some someone will come up and they'll say I love that line and you know see you know season three where you wrote that and I'll be like now Richard Price wrote that it wasn't me since we fellas up now is there another one in the works are you only writing no I'm in very natal stage on the next one I leave everything on the field book by book that's why I only produce a book every two years after I finish a book I got nothing in the ever nothing in your mind yeah there's something in my mind now I have a story I think I think I'd like to play with in form so this is really my sort of Hitchcockian thriller and I did three historical is prior to it and mr. quiver was my tragedy and shadow Ryland was my Gothic so my next one I feel like a chase novel I feel like doing a chase I feel like doing just somebody running full-out for the entire book and that's my next thought we'll play a little game of if you only knew I'll just throw some questions okay first great book you read first great book I read The Three Musketeers last great book you read last great book exit West guilty pleasure ah I don't know if this a guilty pleasure I'll say Lana Del Rey a bad writer we should all be paying more attention to attend you would draw secret Talent I'm a good pool player favorite writer ever Richard price favorite novel character of all time novel Binks bowling from the moviegoer market Percy if you could have a superpower what would it be um the ability to see into the future yeah everyone being invisible oh that's good biggest risk you've taken biggest risk I've taken um geesh that's a tough call uh I think they've all kind of worked out so I would say at the time if you look back now the biggest Rick risk I took in my career was certainly Mystic River if you weren't a writer what would you be carpenter tell me something people don't know about you know Dennis Lehane in ten years hopefully doing exactly what I'm doing now may be my only final ambition would be maybe to run a show fully straight up I'll be in charge of everything being charge of everything yeah about it do you you do you like would you like to direct a film no I directed a film once a long time ago yeah I did never saw the light of day I took everything I made from my first book and I made it a little indie for $28,000 I destroyed myself financially and I made it um but it ultimately never saw the light of day and it taught me something I was a good director I was good enough but I didn't love it I love it I think you have to love it and I didn't love it I love right now in our final moments with the great Dennis Lehane we'll take your questions from social media stick with us the book is since we fell backward Dennis Lehane the new one is since we fell we have some social media questions grant us on the Larry King now blog who do you think the most underrated writer is today the most underrated writer um yeah I said I would say Daniel Woodrow yeah well you know he doesn't sell a lot of books and the people don't I didn't know the name yeah I mean he's somewhat famous for I mean what he's known for is the one the one is one movie called Winter's Bone which was Jennifer Lawrence's big bro yeah I was a good yeah that's that was based on one of his books I think it's brilliant grant also asks do you think being a good writer is inborn or learned I think it's I think there's a little both in play I think you can have you got to have some sort of talent or why would you do it but after that it's all work it's all work you got to learn your craft you know talents a little bit of talents on enough so if I have a great idea could you teach me to turn that into a book no no I can teach you the discipline and I can teach you back again I can teach you it I can give you a toolbox I can show you I can show you how to write a clean sentence I can show you a little bit about structure I can show you why scene might not be working you know but I can't I can't write it for you at Farley 14 aged 14 and shutter island' was that all in Leo's head or did it really happen I hate to break the heart of a 14 year old but it's the one question I never answered about my work I will never explain the ending of shutter island' never no you know what it is yeah Corey Anderson our the Larry King now blog of all your books what was the most difficult to write the giving day because of this just the scope of it and the size of it and the time it took whose would be number one second close second was mr. Kermit and Mystic River was hard why um because I was it was very ambitious and I knew that if I missed if I missed the mark that I was going to be stuck writing a certain type of book which I did not want which was the series you know I'd written five books in a series and so there was a lot on the table for that and he had three characters to write yeah and to equal four if you count the wife um oh yeah Dave's wife so I had that it was also very deeply it was everything I knew both about writing and the world in which I had grown up in crammed into one book so that was a lot drew button are on Facebook most of your novels are suspense and mystery if you ever thought about writing something lighter like a comedic novel no I've thought of writing something quieter a lot I think about writing every now and then I think about you know it's so funny my friend comb Tobin wrote wrote the book Brooklyn and and that is the type of thing that I was actually thinking about Muslims Magna or movie yeah and that's that's basically the story of my mother's life and so I was I was floating around an idea like that and I was like he did it you know I can't do it now so but it would be I feel like there's something in my parents past that that there's a quiet novel in there and I I just I'm thinking about it but but at the end of the day you know no a comedy never which is weird because I'm pretty comic guy but do you read as pleasure or do you read with where's this guy going and I think I know where he's going nope I read with total pleasure I'm you I am your dream audience I still read like a nine-year-old I never guess anything I never know where something's going I sit there I'm like you know I just want to be enraptured kjm 10:16 on Twitter what book are you currently reading this thanks because I can't remember the name of the title of titles really bothering me it's something to the blunt it's David Gran's book about about the murder of a bunch of American Indians and then in the 1920s and the formation of the FBI oh really yeah the modern-day FBI and it's bet it's a best-seller I just can't I just can't read a nonfiction as well that is not actually I read primarily nonfiction I don't read much you know it's I would say one of my best buddies is a contractor in the last house last thing he ever does is go home and work on his own house and and that's the way I feel about fiction it's like I think about fiction all the time I'm writing fiction all the time it's spinning in my head all the time I want to read it I want to take a break someone once said if you want to know the history of an era read it's fiction I agree I agree al doctor has said a book is about the time in which it was written not the time which was set Paul Raphael on the Larry King now blog was there ever an actor you wanted to play a character in your book who declined oh you mean in an adaptation yeah um not that I know of but I wouldn't know what the casting situation was I do know that that I'll just give you a perfect example the one actor who I've had thought for years for years I'm like if that guy didn't exist I would have created him like he's just so perfect for my world is the Irish actor Brendan Gleeson and then he showed up and lived by night playing Ben Affleck's father and now he's the lead in mr. Mercedes so that's a really nice journey because I can write for him I can hear his voice in my head I can write directly to him and it's a joy so the co-star in shutter island' was now a big hit on Broadway Mark Ruffalo what an actor he is what a performance nobody sees that performance that performances has to work on three levels it's it's an astonishing piece of work and Mark never calls attention to himself as an actor so he you don't get he doesn't get the raves I think he's like Matt Damon in that way I don't think he quite gets the raves because he makes it look so effortless boy does he yeah Leonardo's no you better be yeah yeah you gotta be on your game yeah and you know Michelle Williams I mean that was a pretty hardcore cast Ben Kingsley I go betty was just here thanks thanks to our guest author Dennis Lehane be sure to pick up a copy of his newest novel since we fell it's available now and as always you can find me on Twitter at Kings things that I'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Larry King

Views: 9,551

Rating: 4.909091 out of 5

Keywords: dennis lehane, writing, books, lehane, you and me this morning, new, book, reading, leonardo dicaprio, author, shutter island, writer, interview, entertainment, publishing, kindle most wanted, jeanne sparrow, melissa forman, wciu, chicago, amazon, shutter island (film), thinking, fun, movie, famous, hollywood, of, film (invention), film (film), stars, art, wanted, rinceyreads, smart, cuny tv, the, wire, mystic, river, crime, suspense, john banville, cuny, cunytv, irish writers, booktube

Id: yarBnYPRZLI

Length: 27min 45sec (1665 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 05 2018