Bill Denton asked:
>
>How much of Stefanos's life and history did you have
in mind when you
>started writing about him, and when did the rest fall
into place? In DOWN
>BY THE RIVER (1995) he sees his Uncle Costa, who
tells him about the
>shootout in Big Nick's cafe that we read about in THE
BIG BLOWDOWN (1996).
>In NICK'S TRIP, I think it is, he tells about the
time he and his friend
>went on a road trip in 1976, and that's where we
leave him in KING
>SUCKERMAN. You've got early books that flash back to
events described in
>later books and later books that draw on the earlier
books. I'd love to
>hear how much you knew about Stefanos (I know you've
said he's an
>autobiographical character) when you started writing
and how much of his
>life, and how it ties in to everything else, came as
you wrote.
>
Bill, I've never had a master plan, and I don't outline my
novels. It doesn't work for many writers, but it works for
me, and finding out what is going happen as I write it is the
major source of pleasure in all of this. When the scene with
Uncle Costa "came up" in DOWN BY THE RIVER, I knew I'd use
that event he describes in a prequel book (THE BIG BLOWDOWN)
that at that point was only beginning to take shape in my
head. It was just too good to throw away.
Obviously, the thread that connects the novels in the D.C
Quartet is Nick Stefanos. When he "showed up" as a toddler at
the end of BLOWDOWN the whole idea of doing a series of
period novels spanning the second half of the century became
clear to me. Stefanos is a ghost who haunts all of the books.
At the end of SUCKERMAN he embarks on the "trip" of NICK'S
TRIP
(with his friend Billy Goodrich, who will eventually betray
him) with all of the optimism and enthusiasm of a young man,
thinking (wrongly) that he'll never turn out like the
depleted Dimitri Karras. In THE SWEET FOREVER we see the
roots of Nick's career path (and the beginning of his
addictions), as he and stoner pal/mentor Johnny McGinnes
"find people" for pocket money and kicks. All of this was a
way of saying thanks to the (few thousand or so) readers who
had come along for the ride with the earlier, first-person
novels. Hopefully the later books have more resonance, too,
because the reader already knows the fate of Nick Stefanos,
even though he does not. Consequently, I've learned over time
that no character detail in a book is trivial. Those small
details might shape or influence entire novels later
on.
George Pelecanos
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