I shouldn’t be surprised when an author tells me what he read as a child, and the books turn out to be ones I remember fondly. Carl Vonderau’s answer to that question jumped out at me. Today, I have an interview with Vanderau, author of a debut novel, Murderabilia. Thank you, Carl, for taking time to answer questions.
Would you introduce yourself to readers?
I grew up in Cleveland in a Christian Science family, where we were taught that we could heal our own bodies without medicine. Maybe that’s why I went to college in California. I studied economics but was always interested in the arts and international travel. That led to studying in Colombia and a year pursuing music. Then I went into banking, where I spent my entire non-author career. Banking took me to Canada, Latin America, and North Africa and gave me the chance to do business in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese. At the same time, I developed a love for writing fiction. I am now a full-time writer. Murderabiliais my debut novel. As you might expect, my fiction uses international locations and is centered around people associated with the financial services industry. But it also involves serial killer art, photography, and Christian Science.
Would you introduce William MacNary?
William has been hiding a terrible secret. When he was eight years old, his father was arrested for killing thirteen women and creating black and white photos of their bodies. His family instantly became pariahs. William’s mother changed their surname and fled with William and his sister to San Diego to escape the stigma. Staunchly religious, she refused to even talk to her children about what their father did. They have had to come to terms with it by themselves. They still feel terrible guilt and anger at what he did.
William now works at a boutique bank for the very wealthy. No one knows that his father is the infamous Harvey Dean Kogan, the Preying Hands. Kogan is in prison and William has not seen or spoken to him in thirty-one years. William and his wife have two young children. He would do anything to protect them from his father’s legacy.
Tell us about Murderabilia, without spoilers.
No one but William’s wife knows that he is the son of an infamous serial killer. Until a stranger calls and claims to be his brother. William doesn’t have a brother. The man on the phone threatens to expose him and his past. Then the killings begin and the M.O. looks similar to that of William’s imprisoned father.
Everyone’s journey to publishing is different. Tell us about your journey to publication of Murderabilia.
I wrote two books before Murderabilia. Both are unpublished but helped me improve as a writer.
I’ve revised this book more than twenty times. It took about four years to write. I was fortunate to have Jacquelyn Mitchard, the first Oprah winner, help me with extensive developmental editing. She taught me so many things—particularly around structure. I also had a very valuable writer’s group that pushed me to deepen the characters and to improve the manuscript.
I needed an agent and so went to the Algonkian Conference in New York. I had to learn how to boil down the novel to a compelling pitch, and then to a sentence. After a whole weekend of that, I thought, Really? Then I went to the San Francisco Writer’s Conference and an agent asked me to describe my thriller in a single sentence. I had it. The person who asked, Michelle Richter of Fuse Literary, became my agent.
We pitched the book to many editors and received a lot of interest. Midnight Ink ended up being the best venue for publishing it. We signed the contract a year ago and it is coming out on July 8.
What did you do to research a book about the son of a serial killer?
I read as much as I could about actual children of serial killers. Melissa Moore is the daughter of Keith Jessperson, the Happy Face Killer, and wrote a compelling book about her difficult life called Shattered Silence. I reviewed numerous articles about Kerri Rawson, the daughter of Dennis Rader, the BTK killer, as well as articles about others such as the children of Fred and Rose West. Books by experts on serial killers also helped. These authors included Jon Ronson, Martha Stout, Kevin Dutton, Adrian Raine, John Douglas, and Peter Vronsky.
Photography also figures in the story. I took a photography course and studied books of famous black and white photos. Two noteworthy authors were Peter Stepan and Tom Ang. I have admired Robert Frank’s book, The Americans, since I was a young man and his trolley picture informs a key plot element in Murderabilia.
In developing the photography aspect of Harvey Dean Kogan, I discovered “murderabilia.” This is paraphernalia associated with serial killers that is bought and sold on the web and through dealers. It is a very creepy underworld where John Wayne Gacy’s painting of his house, complete with crawl spaces, is listed for $175,000. You can buy Ted Bundy’s glasses for $75,000. My protagonist’s father fit perfectly with this unsettling market, so I pretended that his photographs had given birth to it.
Can you tell us what you’re working on now?
Murderabilia is about a son with a very difficult father. The book I’m writing now deals with a father—also a banker—who has a very difficult son. My books revolve around people stuck in the middle of a family member’s crimes.
If you had to recommend 5 books for a person to read so they could get a feel for you and your reading taste, what 5 would you pick?
Winter’s Bone—Daniel Woodrell
The Things They Carry—Tim O’Brien
The Rules of Civility—Amor Towles
The Silence of the Lambs—Thomas Harris
The Gold Coast—Nelson DeMille
What books did you read as a child?
One of my schools had about fifty blue, cloth-bound accounts of the childhoods of famous people. They had silhouette drawings inside. I read all but the ones about people who grew up to be doctors. I was a Christian Scientist, after all. Tom Swift books were also favorites. For some reason, the Hardy Boys never appealed to me. For awhile I loved comic books: Rip Hunter and the Time Machine, Classic Comic Books, Spiderman. One of my favorite novels, when I was about twelve, was The Prince of Omeya, by Anthony Fon Eisen. I recently bought a used copy and it sits on my shelf. I don’t want to open it and taint the joy I had reading it as a boy.
What author or book do you think is underappreciated?
Winter’s Bone, by Daniel Woodrell. It is a thriller that rises to a literary level. Great descriptions of winter, wonderfully drawn characters, and a plot that propels the teenage girl protagonist forward. All in a third person voice rich with the sounds of the Ozarks. It’s one of those rare cases where both the book and the movie are terrific.
I’m a librarian, so I always end in the same way. Please tell us a story about a librarian or library in your life.
I was slow to read. My first school had no library. When my family moved to a new suburb of Cleveland I started third grade at another school, where I discovered their library. So many adventures were now available to me. My family prohibited me from watching TV after dinner. That year I read ninety books.
Thank you, again, Carl.
*****
Murderabilia Midnight Ink – July 8, 2019 Paperback: $15.99, Kindle $11.99 ISBN: 978-0738761305
Carl Vonderau is the author of MURDERABILIA, a thriller that takes place in the upper crust world of private banking. Like the protagonist, William McNary, he has been a private banker and was raised in a Christian Science family. On the other hand, his father was never a serial killer whose photos launched the “murderabilia” market. Nor did Carl’s family use Christian Science to heal his childhood illnesses—well, not most of them, anyway.
Carl’s love of books started in elementary school. Forbidden to watch TV after dinner, he had his head in a book most every night. That led to ghost stories that scared the bejesus out of the other kids in his elementary school. Carl always loved to write but never had the time or money to do it full-time until recently. Carl says that fiction allows him to synthesize the seemingly contradictory parts of his life.
MURDERABILIA combines private banking, serial murderers, and Christian Science.
Nonprofit work also inspires him. He is a partner at San Diego Social Venture Partners, an organization that mentors other nonprofits to reach the next level.
Carl lives with his wife in San Diego. His two grown sons are close by and wonder how he knows so much about serial killers and banking crimes.
CONNECT WITH CARL VONDERAU ONLINE
Web: CarlVonderau.com
Facebook:https://tinyurl.com/CarlVanderauFacebook
Twitter:@VonderauC
Goodreads:https://tinyurl.com/AuthorCarlVonderau
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlvonderau/
Two more books added to my tbr library list!
Oh, Gram. Your list must be as long as mine.