Max Allan Collins Interview ...

Sean Chercover: You’re a product of the venerated Iowa Writers Workshop. What are the big things you took away from your time there?

Max Allan Collins: My mentor at Iowa was the wonderful writer Richard Yates. One big thing he taught me – I had a line in a book that said that somebody ‘broke a bottle over the table like a tough guy in a B-movie’ – and he said to me, “You pointing out that this is like a tough guy in a B-movie does not make it any less like a B-movie.” I have always remembered that. Another big thing was, don’t write black-and-white. He said, “You’ve chosen to write crime fiction. Remember that everyone is a victim. The cops are victims, the detective’s a victim, the bad guys are victims, the victims are victims. Everybody, in some way, is a victim.” That was a revelation to me. It completely changed the way I looked at fiction. Richard Yates was a great man and a great writer…he wrote REVOLUTONARY ROAD, a fine novel, and possibly the best American collection of short stories ever written, ELEVEN KINDS OF LONELINESS.

SC: Then the legendary Knox Burger was your agent…

MAC: Actually it was Yates who got Knox Burger for me. At first, the relationship was fine but…many agents have a tendency to fix you where you are, and that’s how they sell you. If you grow or change, they rebel and try to keep you where you are. I was writing paperback originals for Knox…then I wrote TRUE DETECTIVE on spec, which was a 125,000-word, first-person private eye novel. I’d been advised by him, by Don Westlake and by all kinds of people who were worth listening to, not to do that. They all said it was a great story but, for God’s sake, don’t put a private eye in it, and nobody writes a first-person novel that’s 125,000 words long. But I knew in my gut that that was the book, so I did it anyway. Knox didn’t exactly reject it but he said, “This first-person narration, you know, it isn’t exactly Holden Caulfield.” Knox was a wonderful guy but he was abrasive as hell. And I did something that I don’t know if any of his other clients ever did. I called him up and fired his ass.

SC: You fired Knox Burger?! How did that go?

MAC: I called him and said, “We’ve come to the end of the road…if you don’t see the potential in this book, then you’re no longer my agent.” Knox said, “Well I’m willing to send it out.” And I said, “I’m not willing to have you send it out.” I was furious, but I was professional about it. I went to my friend Bob Randisi and said, “What the hell am I gonna do?” He got me to his agent, Dominick Abel, who read the book and wanted me to cut 10,000 words. And I did. Then Dominick sold it to the first publisher he showed it to – St. Martin’s Press. I’ve been with Dominick ever since, and hope to be with him as long as we’re both on the planet.

SC: Let’s fast-forward to ROAD TO PERDITION. How has it changed your life?

MAC: I wouldn’t say that it’s changed my life in a huge way. Certainly it came along at a good time. I’d been doing the Nate Heller books since about 1983 and I was at the end of a contract. So it came at a very nice time because then I was able to go to William Morrow and do sequels to ROAD TO PERDITION.

SC: The experience of seeing your story turned into a major Hollywood film…

MAC: It was incredible. I got to go on set, and people always want to know if I met Tom Hanks and if he’s really as nice as he seems to be. The answer is yes to both.

SC: Yeah, but did you meet Paul Newman?

MAC: I met Paul Newman. He’s very intimidating. He was nice to me but he’s scary. Of all the people, he is the only one I would say is scary.

SC: How did the sequels come about?

MAC: I prepared a proposal for the two sequels…and as soon as the movie opened I gave the proposal to Dominick and said, “I’d like this to be on as many desks as possible, as soon as possible.” And he said, “I have a good relationship with William Morrow and I’d like to go there first.” We had a deal in 48 hours.

SC: The first sequel, ROAD TO PURGATORY, met with great success and is soon coming out in paperback. At the same time, the third book, ROAD TO PARADISE, will be released in hardcover…

MAC: I’ve been thrilled, so far. We had incredible reviews on PURGATORY, I mean much better than anybody dreamed. The response to the new book from my editor and publicist, who are young women – not, you know, guys smoking cigars and reading hardboiled books – these are young women, and they love the book. And that means a lot to me. I think it does have more appeal to women than a lot of noir books.

SC: Why is that?

MAC: Because the young boy in the first book, Michael O’Sullivan…well it’s now 1973 and he is going back on the road, but with his teenage daughter. So it comes full-circle, with a female character. This is a family story, about Michael, who is put in a position where he has to go into the Witness Protection Program with his family. It’s about what it’s like for a family to go into the Witness Protection Program, and have it not go well for them. Because if I’m writing it, you know it’s not going to go well for them. This much, we know.

SC: And you’ve signed another contract with Morrow for two more historical novels.

MAC: Yes…historical novels, but not Perdition-oriented and not Nate Heller, either. I don’t want to give any details yet.

SC: Oh, come on, give us a hint…

MAC: I’ll only say this: the first one has to do with Wyatt Earp, but it’s not a western. That’s it.

SC: Hard Case Crime recently reprinted your first two Nolan novels together as one, titled, TWO FOR THE MONEY. They read very well together.

MAC: Thank you. I always thought of the first two Nolans as one big novel and I’m very pleased with the way it came out. And God bless Steven King for wanting to do a book for them [THE COLORADO KID] because he really brought a lot of attention to this program. And it’s much deserved. Charles Ardai has done such a great job with those books, evoking the past and yet somehow having them feel modern. I think it’s a fabulous line.

SC: HCC will also soon publish a new Quarry novel, THE LAST QUARRY.

MAC: Yeah, Charles called and said, “I want to do another book with you, an original.” I couldn’t do an original, because of my contract with Morrow, but I am allowed to do media tie-ins and my movie, SHADES OF NOIR, is coming out. It’s an anthology that collects three of my short films and my Mickey Spillane documentary. One of the shorts is A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE, based on a Quarry short story. I’d been commissioned to write a feature-length version of it, so now I had a brand-new Quarry in the format of a feature-length screenplay. I turned that screenplay into a new novel, which will be a movie tie-in for both SHADES OF NOIR and the feature when it’s finished.

SC: As a Quarry fan, I find the title disturbing – I’d like there to be more in the future.

MAC: Yeah, I would too…next to Heller, Quarry is my favorite character. But I don’t think it’s bad that there’s not a whole lot of them. Quarry’s based upon a unique but limited premise. The title was Charles’ idea and I thought it was great…and it probably is the last one. Probably. I mean, I never say never on this stuff.

SC: Your Web site says that Heller is resting, for now.

MAC: He’s resting. Now that I’ve been lucky enough to have a major film, my stuff is being looked at a lot harder by Hollywood right now. Heller is 14 books but, in terms of Hollywood, it’s one property because they buy the rights to the character and not just a book. Basically he’s on hold, but he’s not done.

SC: While each Heller book stands on its own, together they read like Heller’s long autobiography.

MAC: That’s exactly my intention. The series is a long novel…and it’s not finished. So I’ll do Heller again, unless I die too soon. The endgame of Heller always was Marilyn Monroe and the John Kennedy assassination. There has to be at least a couple more books, because I want to finish it. If there’s a Heller movie or television deal, that could enable me to do it soon. I love doing them, but they’re harder than hell to write.

SC: Because of the research involved?

MAC: Yes…I’m fortunate to have my friend George Hagenauer who helps me – but basically, if I’m gonna do a story about Amelia Earhart, I have to get myself to the point where I could write the definitive non-fiction book about Amelia Earhart before I write page-one of the Heller novel.ß

SC: Blending the fictional Heller into real, high-profile historical crimes…

MAC: Here’s the secret on that. I’m always careful to substitute Heller for one or two real people who had a major role in the case. For example, in BLOOD AND THUNDER Heller is hired the way that a private detective was really hired to be Huey Long’s bodyguard. Long sent for a bulletproof vest and it was delivered to him by someone from Chicago. I made that someone Heller. Then there’s the insurance investigation into Long’s death…that really happened and there was an investigator, so I plugged Heller into that real role. By not imposing Heller on history but by saying, ‘here are all these real people, I’m gonna take this one out and put Nate Heller in his place,’ I manage to make the integration of Heller’s story and the real events relatively seamless.

Also, I try to make him real, and sometimes that comes down to the little details. Simple things, like, Heller uses condoms. I think I’m the first guy to have his detective use a condom in a sex scene. They may be doing that now, but they sure weren’t doing that in 1983.

SC: Speaking of which, you don’t shy away from writing sex in detail. It’s not the soft-focus and drawing-of-the-curtains, as we see in most mysteries.

MAC: No, it’s not. But it’s not quite pornographic, either. I just try to make it real.

When I wrote the proposal for ANGEL IN BLACK – and in it Heller is on his honeymoon – my editor said, “You’re not going to marry Heller off, are you? Because Heller is this randy, semi-amoral guy and that’s part of his charm.” I said, “You know, there are people who’ve been known to have sex after marriage – sometimes with their wives and sometimes not, but there is sex after marriage.” And actually there was a LOT of sex in that book and when I turned it in…it’s the only book that he requested I tone the sex scenes down.

SC: And did you? Because ANGEL IN BLACK still has some pretty vivid sex scenes.

MAC: I actually caved, and I wish I hadn’t. I did tone them down a little. But a huge aspect of that book was oral sex, and it was actually a characterization clue that had to do with the fact that, according to some evidence, Elizabeth Short was this wild, promiscuous girl who wasn’t able to have conventional sexual intercourse, because of her physique. She was basically a fellatrix, or blowjob queen, or…

SC: Headhunter…

MAC: Headhunter, exactly. And when Heller talks to her paramours, he finds out that they didn’t actually have intercourse with her…anyway, there was a LOT of oral sex in that book. Interestingly, the one scene that really offended my editor was actually between Heller and his wife. After being told, ‘don’t marry him off’, now I’m being told, “You’re way too explicit in that sex scene with Heller’s wife.” I felt vindicated.

SC: Any angry letters from readers about the explicit sex?

MAC: Well, sure. One of my favorite Heller books is FLYING BLIND, the Amelia Earhart story. It reveals that she was probably bisexual. And Heller has explicit sex scenes with her. This upset some Amelia Earhart fans and I actually got death threats. I wrote back and said, “I understand you’re upset, but keep in mind: this comes from research…what her relationship with her husband was, that she traveled with women and slept in the same bed with women. And by the way, Nate Heller is a fictional character. He did not REALLY have sex with her.”

On the other hand, I had a relative of Sally Rand write to me and say, “Cool. She probably would have had sex with Nate Heller.”

SC: Is there any subject that you consider 'off-limits' in your work?

MAC: No.

SC: After writing about malfeasance for over 30 years, what approach do you take in your work to the concept of evil? Do you treat it merely as a mental construct, or as a force which exists in the fictional worlds you create?

MAC: I don’t think of evil – I think of human beings who have their various needs, sometimes twisted. A major aspect of my approach is that no bad guy knows he’s a bad guy or thinks he is. And to some degree – this goes back to my writing professor, Richard Yates – everybody is a victim.

SC: Is there a portrait of you, ageing in the attic?

MAC: No, man, I’m getting older. I’m getting way older.

SC: So, no deals with the devil?

MAC: No deals with the devil. I will say this: even though I’m an old rock ‘n roller, I’ve never been a smoker and I’ve never been a drinker and I’m not terribly overweight. And I have some pretty good genes in the family. On the other hand, I’m not wasting any time. The older I get, the more I want to get done. This is all about not wasting any time.

SC: That’s putting it mildly. In addition to being a frighteningly prolific author, you’re also an independent filmmaker AND you play in a rock band. Do you ever feel…

MAC: …Tired? God, yeah.

SC: …Do you ever feel that, if you worked less, you’d get more respect?

MAC: Oh, there’s no question about that! Are you kidding? Come on!

SC: So there’s a prejudice…

MAC: If you’re prolific, you couldn’t be good. No question. The problem is, it’s way too late for me to change my ways. It’s kind of funny…I’ve gotten incredible reviews in my career but I’ve never been a critical darling. At the end of the year when they do their voting for awards, they go with someone who is less prolific and more of a hot name. The Shamus Awards have been very good to me, for which I’m grateful, but I’ve never been the flavor of the month or the flavor of the year.

SC: Even since ROAD TO PERDITION?

MAC: Oh yeah. Doesn’t matter. I’m a blue-collar, working-class writer. But what the hell…I came here to write. And I’ll take all this fun I’m having over being the man of the moment. The thing about being the man of the moment is, it’s just a moment. I’ve got a career going here, and I’ve been doing this for over 30 years, so I’ll take that if I have to choose. I’m 57 years old. I’ve got about 10 more years that I can work at this pace and then I’ll slow down. I’ll either be underground or I’ll have to slow down. But I have this real sense that this is the last of my prime-time and I’m going to make the most of it.

SC: You’ve seen a lot of changes in the publishing industry…is there any way in which you think it has changed for the better?

MAC: Not really. What I most dislike is that editors don’t have the power they used to have. It used to be that you submitted something to an editor and, if the editor loved it, done deal. Now the editor has to convince the sales people and so on and, frankly, it’s a nightmare. The editor becomes a glorified middleman and that’s not the way it should be. Editorial is such an important job – it’s not a science, it’s an art – and they need to hire artists to do it. I consider myself very lucky to be working with some of the best editors in the business.

SC: You’ve worked hard to get Mickey Spillane the respect he deserves for his contribution to crime fiction. Your non-fiction book, ONE LONELY KNIGHT, was the first time I’d seen his work approached in a thoughtful way.

MAC: He’s one of the Big Three, in my opinion. Hammett, Chandler, Spillane. Some people put Ross Macdonald there and I like Ross Macdonald but, to me, Macdonald’s a Chandler imitator – a damn good one – who had one story that he kept writing over and over. I’ve almost been in fistfights talking about Mickey Spillane, particularly 15 or 20 years ago.

SC: How significantly has the prevailing attitude toward Spillane changed?

MAC: Somewhat. And if I’ve accomplished anything in my life, it’s been to help make that collective attitude change. I just think Mickey’s a very special writer. One of the truly remarkable and rewarding things about life is knowing Mickey and having my literary idol become my friend. To have the phone ring, and it’s Mickey, is a thrill.

SC: Dogs or Cats?

MAC: Dogs. We just lost ours – a blind diabetic rat terrier. An insane, neurotic little beast that I miss every day.

SC: What question do you most hate being asked in interviews?

MAC: Probably my opinion of James Ellroy. Who gives a fuck what I think about Ellroy or any other contemporary writer? And I’m very tired of the, “how did you get the DICK TRACY strip” question. I thought once I’d been fired off the strip, that question would stop. It never has.

SC: What question would you most like to be asked, but nobody thinks to ask it?

MAC: "Would you come up here and pick up your Edgar, Mr. Collins?"

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NOTE: This article originally appeared in Crimespree Magazine. If you're not a subscriber to Crimespree, you should be.