PG LENGSFELDER LIVED HIS LIFE BY THE PEN
PG Lengsfelder has lived a varied life, but there’s been one thing uniting all the disparate places and occupations — writing. The subjects of his attention vary between the more mercenary (writing ad copy for a successful agency in his birthplace of New York City), to the artistic (making music and hanging with acid heads and people whose names are now recognizable to anybody with any sense of American rock ‘n roll during a stint in the music scene in early 1970s San Francisco.) Now, after bouncing back and forth across the country more than once, Lengsfelder has settled down in Loveland, where he has just released “A Bounty of Bone,” the second volume in his critically acclaimed Eunis Trilogy, and is continuing work on the third.
The book, which follows the story of Eunis, a young woman with a variety of traits that make her uncomfortable to look at and subject to superstition and alienation, is Lengsfelder’s way of getting thoughts of beauty, identity, acceptance and society off of his chest, as well as delivering what Bestthrillers.com described as “a jaw-dropping suspense thriller that is unlike anything you’ve ever read.”
We caught up with Lengsfelder to talk art, music, his characters, and what ties them all together.
1. You’ve been in a number of very different careers, but the one constant through all of them has been writing. Talk about its presence in your life even before you became a novelist. My father was a celebrated composer and playwright in Europe, but he wasn’t a great listener. I found my best way to communicate was writing. When my parents gave me a toy printing press, I talked my next-door neighbor Annemarie into co-editing a neighborhood newspaper with me. I was seven. We sold ten subscriptions at five cents apiece. I had readers!
A journalism major in college, I started as a copywriter in a New York advertising agency. Later, I co-wrote a best-selling nonfiction book, and wrote articles for newspapers, magazines, and stories for radio. I started a band in Boulder and wrote the original tunes.
In San Francisco I began writing and directing TV documentaries on social issues (AIDS, the environment). But when corporate TV began to limit the substantive issues I switched careers and—needing money—fell into a job as a national Trial Consultant, using my writing and storytelling skills to assist attorneys in presenting their stories to juries, and to keep those juries engaged throughout trial.
Now I get to tell the stories I want to tell.
2. The protagonist of your book series is somebody very different than yourself. What themes and experiences underlie your characters and their lives?
I tend to root for the underdog. I wondered how—in a country like ours where Beauty is a fixation—would a grotesque looking young woman fare? Despite being bright, gifted, and curious, how could she flourish despite the superstitious abuse she receives?
In my travels, I’ve met so many people with major conflicts in their lives—from blind gospel singers trying to make their way in the world to men and women conflicted about their identity. All my characters are real to me; I’ve met them. Or someone like them. Their struggles are not unlike mine and yours. In the Eunis Trilogy, Eunis is Everyman. How does she overcome her obstacles? I don’t know until I write.
3. How do you research your subjects?
Almost everything in my novels is real even though at first it may seem preposterous. That’s how fast the world is changing. The first thing I do is immerse myself in the locations and culture of my novel. In “Beautiful to the Bone,” Eunis grows up in rural Bemidji, Minnesota. So I traveled there and spent three weeks meeting people, talking
to the historical society, and cruising the terrain.
As Eunis grows she is fascinated by many things, taxidermy, genetics, the scientific parameters of Beauty. Before this novel I knew nothing about those subjects, so I researched them extensively.
In the newest novel, “A Bounty of Bone,” much of the action takes place in Tanzania. I planned to travel there, but COVID detoured me. I’m not young enough to put off writing a book for two-plus years. What I didn’t know about the land, the politics, the hyenas, the superstitions, I researched thoroughly. Then I spoke to the experts on albinism and hyenas and local superstitions. I research everything.
4. You spent time in the San Francisco music scene. Any interesting interactions that you can talk about?
So many, and some better left buried. But I was lucky enough to become casual acquaintances with the Jefferson Airplane. (I spent considerable time in recording studios on my own as a composer/producer; the first to bring Huey Lewis and the News into a studio when they were known as Clover.)
One day (1973) taking a break from what I was recording, Grace (Slick) and Paul (Kantner) were recording overdubs in another studio for their upcoming Baron von Tollbooth LP. They asked
me if I’d do some clapping on a track with a few others (including Craig Chaquico, who later became a member of the Jefferson Starship). There were already enough hands, so I told Grace I’d hangout in the control room gallery. I was alone. Enter a guy who introduced himself as “Bear.” He and I talked for about 45 minutes, maybe an hour. Then he left.
With the clapping track done, everyone dispersed, and Grace asked me what I thought of Ousley, the legendary (and notorious) perfector and distributor of LSD. I said, “I’ve never met him.” Grace laughed. “You’ve just spent the last hour talking to him.”
5. Music and writing might not seem to have much in common, but they’re more similar than people might think. Where do you see the similarities as somebody who has spent lots of time in both worlds?
There’s no question that music and writing are from the same family; they both depend on rhythm and space. James Taylor and Elizabeth Strout, come easily to us because they use those elements in a fluid way. Other musicians and writers can surprise you with unique technique that scrambles those essentials. If you listen to John Coltrane or Joni Mitchell, or read Ivan Doig or Robertson Davies, they have a cadence all their own. It may take a few listens or readings to get into their meter, but it’s well worth the time.