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Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Books Furst of Many

Posted by Paul Constant on Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 4:26 PM

cbea/1244667555-spies-of-warsaw-190.jpg This week, in an online-only feature, I interview popular mystery novelist Alan Furst, author of 10 historical espionage thrillers set in the 30s and 40s. Here is the part of the interview that I am by law required to perform—the obligatory "where do you get your ideas from" portion, which Furst deftly combined into the "do you have any advice for aspiring writers" part of the interview:

How did you get into writing historical novels, then?

That was a complete, insane accident. I went to Moscow for Esquire. I had never been in a police state before. It had a very heavy effect on me. I came back, and it occurred to me that I wanted to read a panoramic spy novel set in Europe in the 1930s and '40s. And when I went to find it, I found out that it didn't exist! So I thought, well, I'll write one. You talk to writers all the time, right?

Yeah.

They will tell you that they'll write the book they've always wanted to read but they have to write it themselves. It sounds weird, but it's very true.

But there's much more to the interview, including Furst's memories of working for the Seattle Weekly back in the very beginning of the paper (he wrote a serial novel for them), the thing that bookstores and libraries have over the internet, why fighting Nazis is so satisfying, and his feelings on chick lit. I hope you'll read it.

Furst will read at Third Place Books tomorrow from his new-in-paperback novel, The Spies of Warsaw.