Interview with Tod Goldberg, Celebrating the Release of ONLY WAY OUT.
Congratulations to Tod Goldberg on the release of ONLY WAY OUT, a Kindle First Reads pick for November! Today, we’re celebrating the physical release of the novel with some thrilling questions about heists, windfalls, and writing craft.
If you were to stage a heist, who would you want on your team and why?
I’d probably bring my wife Wendy along, so she could stop me from stealing anything she really didn’t want in the house. The same reason I bring her to Target with me.
What prize could (almost) tempt you to try a real heist?
It would probably be some arcane piece of sports memorabilia. Rickey Henderson’s shoes. Ken Stabler’s bloodied jersey. Something that takes me back to a nostalgic feeling of rooting for teams and actually having them win.
What’s some advice you’d give to a rookie looking to pull off their first robbery?
Don’t hang out with other criminals. You really can’t trust them to stay quiet.
Crooked cop or career criminal?
Career criminal. A crooked cop has no code. A career criminal only gets to that place if they have devotion to the task at hand.
Most absurd but effective weapon?
A clipboard or a ladder. If you walk into Fort Knox with a ladder, they’ll open all the doors for you. There’s much to be achieved simply by looking competent at something other people don’t want to do.
If you suddenly came into millions of dollars, where would you go and why?
Oh, I don’t know if I’d go anywhere per se. I more likely would just buy more cocker spaniels and a yard big enough to sustain them all.
What was your favorite heist / crime fiction novel growing up?
I read a lot of real pulp fiction as a kid. That was my YA fiction in a very real way. I remember reading a lot of early Elmore Leonard well before I should have, for instance. But my main go to growing up, outside of Stephen King novels, were the Spenser novels by Robert B. Parker.
How about as an adult?
It’s hard to pick just one. But I think probably Out of Sight by Elmore Leonard.
Were there any novels you read or re-read before diving in to write ONLY WAY OUT?
Yes – I kept a copy of Swag by Elmore Leonard on my desk while I was writing to remind myself that I was writing a fast, dark, weird, black-comic crime novel and not, say, another 450 page novel about a hitman-rabbi. Plus, when I was stuck, it was good reading.
ONLY WAY OUT was selected as part of Amazon’s First Reads program, can you tell us what that’s meant to you?
Well, the tangible thing is that it means the book reaches an audience that perhaps was unfamiliar with my work previously and who might take a chance on this book and realize, oh, I like this guy! To get access to such a significant, captive audience is a hard thing to achieve in the book world, so it was a very nice opportunity for me.
When coming up with a new story idea, where do you usually start? Is it an image, a line of dialogue, a setting...?
It’s always a character and then a setting. A person in a place with a problem. That’s usually enough to get me going.
Tell us about your editorial process. How does your editor push you to be your best?
I tend to write big and cut back. I’ve had amazing editors over the course of my career who have let me indulge my passions for over-writing…and then have helped me find that good bit buried under all the words. I can fall in love with a long, digressive thought for pages and pages…and even if the writing is great, I’m usually more interested than a reader might be. So I really need a great editor who can get me to cut and cut and cut. Eventually, you move enough stone, you’ll have David there.
While you’ve written many crime novels, this is your first thriller. Was there anything new or unexpected that came up in your writing process?
Oh, I don’t pay any attention to those labels. I have no idea if this book is a thriller or a crime novel or a mystery or a noir or psychological suspense or…or…or…I’m just writing stories about people who are forced to reckon with the consequences of their actions and/or who make poor decisions that end up being fun to watch. Is that thrilling? I don’t know. I hope you keep turning pages even if nothing blows up.
