The Way Home, much like The Turnaround, seems to be a bit of a departure from your earlier work. You seem to be veering away from the “traditional crime novel” and into a genre that is not so black-and-white. Is it an intentional change that you’ve made in the type of stories you’re interested in telling or is this just where the characters have taken you?
Honestly, I’ve never had a master plan. The subjects I want to explore are changing, and that’s resulted in a kind of hybrid form in my latest novels. I’m not doing this to be different, but I realize that what comes out is a bit unconventional. There are no police or private detectives in The Way Home, but there’s earned emotion and, rest assured, narrative tension and some righteous, get-back violence. You’ll feel something, man. I guarantee it.
Do you think this will ultimately lead you away from crime in your novels?
I don’t think so. Conflict drives good fiction, and crime fiction presents the highest form of conflict: life-and-death. Also, the form best allows me to explore the social issues that get me jacked up. I might take a different path now and again, but I’m not going to walk out of the arena.
One of the primary relationships in The Way Home is between a father and son. Obviously you’ve been a son and you are a father: how much of the characters is drawn from your own life?
The characters and situations in The Way Home are imagined. If anything, there is as much of me in the son as there is in the father.
Having said that, the books do come out of my psyche, so naturally (and often unconsciously) I draw from my life experience. I’ve always been very interested in the relationship between fathers and sons and issues of masculinity. Because I’ve been a father for eighteen years now, I felt like the time was right to tackle the subject head-on.
You seem to have a lot of knowledge about life inside a juvenile prison, which is one of the settings in The Way Home. How did you research that part of the book?
I had done some speaking at D.C.’s juvenile prison before I got the idea for the book. Vincent Schiraldi, who heads the district’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, is a reform-minded director who’s doing great work. He granted me access, which is what one needs to write a book like this. But I’ve been doing work in adult and juvenile prisons for a while, locally and even overseas. My approach is the same as it is when I go to D.C.’s public high schools and speak to the students. I’m just trying to show people, by example, that they can turn things around. I certainly had my share of misfires when I was coming up. The point is, sometimes you stumble, and sometimes you screw up really badly, but it’s not necessarily the end. It can be just one chapter in a long life.
You’ve been writing about D.C. for years—so much so that the city is another character to your readers. How do you go about finding the areas of that city in which you’ll place your characters?
I do wander around the city. I’m curious by nature and I like the uptick in my pulse when I’m off my turf and not where I’m supposed to be. In that respect I’m very suited for this job. Sometimes I deliberately choose a location or a neighborhood that I am unfamiliar with, just so I can force myself to get an education. Then I get out there and check it out. The street-research phase of my writing, acquiring new knowledge and experience, is the fun part for me.
Do you ever think you’ll leave D.C., either in life or in your books? Can we expect a Pelecanos novel that takes place in Chicago anytime soon?
My life’s work is here. Also, my family, my closest friends, and my memories. What’s happening in this town, both on a day-to-day basis and in the continuum of time, is what gets me stoked to write. So, no, there will be no novels set in Chicago from me. Or in space. But maybe a western.
Music is an important part of each of your books. So who are you listening to right now?
My iPod is so all over the map, the playlist looks like it was programmed by ten different people. Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of music out of New Orleans, both traditional and new, as I’m currently working as a writer on an upcoming television project about musicians and just plain folks in post-Katrina Louisiana. Otherwise it’s guitar-based rock, soul, and movie soundtracks for me.
While I was writing, I often played a great surf guitar compilation from the crew at Route 78 West, including tracks by the Revelaires, Los Straitjackets, Slacktone, and “Guitar Nocturne” by Ennio Morricone.
“Lord, I’m Discouraged” by the Hold Steady is a beautiful song with devastating lyrics, wrapped up in a power-ballad package. “Slapped Actress,” from Stay Positive, is another track to check out from this always interesting and rousing band.
The Nighthawks’ cover of Dylan’s “She Belongs to Me,” from their new one, American Landscape, should be turned up loud. I was late to the party with the Silver Jews, but once I got there, American Water and The Natural Bridge were the two most heavily played records in my house last year. A friend turned me on to some old, classic deep soul singles by Annette Snell and Jackie Moore.
My older son got me back into reggae and one of my old favorites, Gregory Isaacs (for the uninitiated, More Gregory is the one to own). If you get Sirius/XM, check out their reggae/ska/dancehall channel, The Joint. “The News,” the first track off Anthony Hamilton’s latest, is the best blaxploitation cut since Bobby Womack’s “Across 110th Street.” John Barry, Henry Mancini, Jerry Fielding, Jerry Goldsmith, and others inspired the moving pictures flowing through my head.
I’m looking forward to the new Richmond Fontaine record and hope to catch the Drive-By Truckers when they come through D.C.