INTERVIEW GARY PHILLIPS: 2022 SNAPSHOT
FELLOW MYSTERY WRITER NAOMI HIRAHARA CATCHES UP ON NEW WORKS AND OLD HAUNTS
Veteran Los Angeles writer Gary Phillips signed “Violent Spring,” one of his early mysteries featuring his Black private investigator, Ivan Monk, with one of his trademark lines: “Writing is fighting.” That was back in 1995, when I was an aspiring novelist and editor of The Rafu Shimpo newspaper, seeking some words of wisdom from a more experienced professional.
Since that time, Gary and I have become colleagues in the mystery writing field. He's asked me to contribute short stories to some of his numerous anthologies, including the upcoming “South Central Noir” (Akashic), due in September. I used to collect all the books that he wrote or edited, but as that number has grown to more than 50, I've abandoned that endeavor.
I knew some things prior to this interview. I was well aware that he was a native of Los Angeles, a comic book nerd and former high school football player. And that his mother had been a librarian and his wife, Gilda Haas, a community organizer and economic justice advocate who has taught at UCLA.
A lot of Gary's Los Angeles touchstones have disappeared or morphed: the hospital where he was born, Queen of Angels, in Echo Park has closed; the original location of his mother's library, the Ascot branch (256 W. 70th St.), is now offices for the Legal Aid Foundation; and his high school, Los Angeles Lutheran, which James and Janice Hahn attended, is no longer in South Central.
Gary has always striven to keep Los Angeles' history in the forefront of readers' minds, and his most recent mystery novel, “One-Shot Harry,” which features a Black news photographer in the 1960s, perhaps most encapsulates his passion for the past.
Q
I view “One-Shot Harry,” perhaps more than any other of your books, as a quilt of your life. Touchstones of politics — not only Martin Luther King, Jr.'s visit to Los Angeles but Mayor Tom Bradley's City Council election campaign and also the mention of Julian Dixon. Do you feel a special affinity to this character?
A
My mom, who was a librarian, had multiple sclerosis, so it got worse and worse with around-the-clock care and here I was this little kid. A large part of my life was me and my dad.
I was an only child. My dad and I were pretty close. Some of Dad's characteristics and his drive show up in various characters. I realize that even though Harry's a Korean War vet — he's not a World War II vet — Harry may sound so true because he reflects my pop. My dad was a poor kid from Texas. During the Depression and the 1930s, he worked for bootleggers. On the other hand, he had a brother who stayed in France after the war. So in the 1950s he was going to France and dragging me, a little kid, along.
Buddies came over, played dominoes and drank beer in the kitchen, and I'd invariably hear their stories. They stayed with me. I'd reshape them and redo them. If I'm not factually accurate in all ways, there's truth in the emotions.
Q
Tell us about the development of Harry as a black freelance news photographer. Did you have to do much research?
A
Harry is based on two real-life folks. One is Harry Adams here in Los Angeles, who was a Black freelance photographer. He took what you would call society pictures of middle-class Black folks. His photos are in a collection at Cal State Northridge. He was also a part-time barber and I thought that was great.
The other influence is the legendary Arthur Fellig, aka Weegee, a New York City crime photographer from the 1930s to 1950s. He had a police scanner going on in his apartment and would race all over the five boroughs. He'd take a photo of a man in a vestibule with a knife in his head, men taken in a paddy wagon, people laid out after a drunken brawl, and somebody shot after a mob rub-out. He was that guy.
Q
We share the same editor at Soho Crime, Juliet Grames, who was bestowed the Ellery Queen Award at this year's Edgar Awards, and I wanted to know, was there anything in Juliet's editorial notes that markedly helped you to elevate your manuscript to the next level?
A
She challenged me on the ending in its first incarnation. I have a tendency to have loose threads in my ending, only because that feels more natural. I'm working on the second “Harry” mystery and I'm returning to tie up more loose threads.
I fooled around with shifting points of view in a couple of places that she felt didn't work and I thought she was correct. We did reach a compromise at the conclusion of the book; there's a scene that shifts to the female protagonist.
Q
In some ways, you're very different than Harry because I don't think that I've ever seen you take a photograph.
A
I'm a terrible photographer, but I have help from the built-in technology of today's cellphones. Harry's gotten the shot while being shot at or being beat up, so you're right, he is very different from me.
Q
Have you ever taken a photo or video of crime transpiring?
A
Funny that you ask me that — Gar Anthony Haywood and I have been working on an anthology, “Witnesses for the Dead,” inspired by Darnella
Frazier, the young woman who captured the murder of George Floyd. The unintended consequences of putting a camera on these phones is that we can capture misdeeds on these devices that we carry in our pocket.
Q
What's the last photo you took on your cellphone?
A
That's easy. My grandson, Silas, who is 7.
Q
Every writer has their own way to participate in the literary community. I think your most visible way is gathering writers for short story anthologies. When did the anthologies become a thing?
A
Writer Jervey Tervalon first recruited me to work with him on a collection of short stories revolving cocaine. That became “Cocaine Chronicles,” which Akashic published in 2005, a year after “Brooklyn Noir” launched Akashic's Noir Series. Once we did that one, I got a bug.
Although now I keep saying that I'm going to stop, I always seem to talk myself into doing another anthology. The draw is the intricacy of building a team of writers, assembling a book around a theme and telling them to go for it. I get a kick out of seeing what people come up with. It reinforces for me as a reader and writer that there are so many ways into a story. There's something about the short story form and reaching a satisfying conclusion in a short amount of time that I find enticing. I keep coming back to it.
Q
You have a lot of nostalgia for old Los Angeles. What places have we lost that you've really missed?
A
One place that I dearly miss is Teriyaki Suzuki. It used to be on Pico and Dunsmuir. It had a horseshoe counter and served fried ginger chicken with rice, spaghetti and Mexican food. I so cried when that place closed down in the 1990s. I consciously kept it alive in my fourth Monk novel.
I also miss the jazz spot Parisian Room, which is now the Ray Charles post office. And also Yee Mee Loo's bar in Chinatown on Spring and Ord.
Q
On your website, you have a tongue-in-cheek tally of how many doughnuts you've consumed. Right now it's up to 4,000. Do you think the real number is more or less? And where is your go-to for the most delicious doughnuts in L.A.?
A
The real number is too frightening to consider. In terms of chains, Winchell's. I go there once a week and get a chocolate twist and crumb glaze. In terms of a mom-and-pop operation, Magee's Donuts, where I order a mini-cinnamon roll and cruller. I also try to hit the gym a couple of days a week.
Q
You also have been working on the FX TV show “Snowfall,” thanks to an introduction by the late John Singleton and Walter Mosley, who also writes for the show. “Snowfall” will be entering its final season. Has working in TV affected your prose writing?
A
It's helped me to edit sharper. In writing a book, you have as much real estate as you need to tell your story. You can be elegant with the interior landscape that you want to explore. With a script, there's brevity.
Working in the “Snowfall” writers room was been a positive experience. We do deep dives into the psychology of the characters. But those scenes may not be seen on screen.
I do think more about what it is that my character wants. And I've always married dialogue and plot, but the writers room has fused that better together.
Naomi Hirahara's award-winning historical mystery set in 1944 Chicago, “Clark and Division,” is available in paperback. The second in her Hawaii-based mystery series, “An Eternal Lei,” was released this year.