We are delighted to welcome author Tom Pitts to Omnimystery News today.
Tom's new crime novel American Static (Down & Out Books; June 2017 trade paperback and ebook formats) is published today and we recently had a chance to spend some time with him talking about it.
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Omnimystery News: Introduce us to the lead character in American Static.
Photo provided courtesy of
Tom Pitts
Tom Pitts: The odd thing about American Static is the hero is the villain. At least in my opinion. The story starts off with a kid named Steven getting mugged and left for dead. It’d be easy to assume the naïve country kid swept up in a conspiracy is the protagonist, but he’s only a vehicle, a catalyst to the main event: Quinn, the charismatic sociopath with a secret agenda. Quinn has what men want. He’s handsome, cool, and decisive. The problem is — as it is so often in life — he’s too good to be true. I think that’s what appeals to me and my view of the world. There’s something unsettling under the surface with Quinn. I’ve been around guys like this. Guys who have killed and may kill again, but they’re so comfortable in their own skin you can’t help but like them.
OMN: Do you see American Static as the first in a series?
TP: Don’t get me started on series. I wonder if we treated our favorite filmmakers the way publishers treat our favorite authors how things would have turned out. What would have happened if they asked Scorsese for a Mean Streets 2, then 3, then 4 and 5 and 6? We’d have no Goodfellas, no Departed. I don’t think the world necessarily needs another Jack Reacher novel.
OMN: How would you characterize American Static?
TP: I guess crime thriller. But what I’m really trying to do is undo crime thrillers. Coming from a kind of sketchy background, I know what crime is really like down on the bottom rungs of life. It ain’t pretty, it ain’t glamorous. It’s filled with people you wouldn’t want to spend ten minutes with. And not because they’re scary — well, maybe sometimes — but because they’re annoying, awful people. There’s a reason they’re shut out from functioning society!
OMN: Did you base any of the characters in the book on people you've known?
TP: Ha! I can’t reveal which characters are based on who! There may be some blowback. I think for the sake of verisimilitude, we have to pepper our fiction with real people and events. But the trick is to only use a portion here and a portion there. Not so much as to hide their source, but to enrich the story.
OMN: Tell us a little more about your writing process.
TP: I absolutely do not plot. I don’t know if this says more about me as a writer or as a person. I’ve never been terribly organized and tend to fly by the seat of my pants, but the result is I get to watch the story unfold. It makes each day I write exciting. As for adding characters, yes, I think you have to go where the story takes you. Likewise, if things are getting to complicated, I’m not adverse to killing one or two off.
OMN: Where do you most often find yourself writing?
TP: We live in a tiny one-bedroom in San Francisco. My daughter’s bedroom is both the kitchen and the living room. An office or even a room with a door would be a dream come true. Presently I sit at one of those tiny Ikea laptop desks in the hallway. It’s noisy and chaotic. It’s not uncommon for me to write with my ears stuffed with toilet paper. In our last house I wrote in an unusable bathroom that was stacked high with boxes, sitting on the broken toilet for a desk chair. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have that setup back.
OMN: Did you have a mental image of the lead while writing the book?
TP: You know, I almost never do, and I don’t like it when authors use an actor as way of describing the character, but in the case of American Static, I did have someone in mind for the lead. Frank Grillo. He not only fits the physical description, but he’s got that spooky something threatening bubbling under the surface.
OMN: What's next for you?
TP: I have two more completed novels, Coldwater and 101. I’m anxious for the world to see them — and the world will — but right now I’ve got promo to do for American Static. Down & Out has been very good about filling my dance card, so I’ll be hitting the interview and blog circuit for several more weeks. There’s a script in the works for my last novel, Hustle, but the world of Hollywood is slippery and strange, who knows what’ll happen with that. But the biggest fish I have to fry is a new novel. That’s where the joy lies for me. I love to get lost in my own world and discover what fate has in store for my characters.
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Tom Pitts received his education on the streets of San Francisco. He remains there, working, writing, and trying to survive.
For more information about the author, please visit his website at TomPittsAuthor.com and his author page on Goodreads, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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American Static by Tom Pitts
A Crime Novel
Publisher: Down & Out Books
After being beaten and left for dead, Steven finds himself stranded alongside the 101 in a small Northern California town. When a mysterious stranger named Quinn offers a hand in exchange for help reuniting with his daughter in San Francisco, Steven gets in the car and begins a journey from which there is no return.
Quinn has an agenda all his own and he’s unleashing vengeance at each stop along his path. With a coked-up sadist ex-cop chasing Quinn, and two mismatched small town cops chasing the ex-cop, Steven is unaware of the violent tempest brewing.
Corrupt cops and death-dealing gangsters manipulate the maze each of them must navigate to get to the one thing they’re all after: Teresa, the girl holding the secret that will rip open a decades-old scandal and scorch San Francisco’s City Hall.
Steven finds Teresa homeless and strung out as their pursuers close in and bodies begin to pile high on the Bay Area’s back streets. Hand in hand Steven and Teresa lead the mad parade of desperate men to the edge of the void.
— American Static by Tom Pitts
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