Novelist looks at life in Detroit during Great Depression
Ferndale author Donald Levin needed to do something different after completing his seventh Martin Preuss novel, “In the House of Night.”
“(It) left Preuss and his son in a good place; I wanted to give the beleaguered detective some time to enjoy himself while I went in another direction,” said Levin.
Inspired by “L.A. Confidential” author James Ellroy, Levin penned “Savage City” (Poison Toe Press $19.95), which he will sign at the Color Ink Studio & Gallery in Hazel Park on Saturday, Feb. 5.
“(Ellroy) writes historical crime fiction set in Los Angeles from the 1940s through the 1970s, blending actual historical figures and events with fictional characters,” said Levin. “(Ellroy’s work) got me thinking about looking at historical Detroit in a similar way… examining the secret human substrate of historic public events with Detroit as background.”
“Savage City” follows four characters during a violent week of unrest in the bleakest year of the Great Depression. Against the backdrop of the Ford Hunger March on March 7, 1932, events hurl these four into the center of a political storm that will change them forever.
“Once I decided I wanted to write a historical novel, I knew I wanted to explore some of the key themes that helped define (Detroit) in the 20th century: union activism, political corruption, crime, racism, anti-Semitism, anti-communism, the grinding effects of inequality,” explained Levin. “The more I thought about it, the more 1932 called to me as the time where the story wanted to be set, in a city beset by the chaos of the Depression. The Ford Hunger March seemed like it brought many of those themes together and would — above all — help me tell a good story.”
Levin spoke about creating these four characters.
“I had planned for several real-life people of the period to have cameos — Maurice Sugar, Henry Ford, Fr. Charles Coughlin, Mayor Frank Murphy, to name just a few — so I developed characters that would represent the different worlds the
book would portray with a large cast of supporting roles. As I brainstormed a list of possible main characters, four rose to the top… Each chapter is told from one character’s perspective, overlapping with the others,” he said.
The first is Det. Clarence Brown of the Detroit Police Department. One of few Black cops in that time, he came to Detroit as part of the Great Migration. Throughout the book, he must navigate a thicket of lies and harsh racism to find a young Black man’s killer.
The second is Ben Rubin, a young Jewish man who wants to move from petty crime into the ranks of Detroit’s notorious Purple Gang. Levin initially based Ben roughly on Detroit poet Philip Levine — a young man with poetic aspirations but also with a foot firmly in the labor movement.
“But Ben’s character evolved, as they all do, and he became not so literary and more rough-edged,” said Levin. “Sometimes characters are in charge of us and not the other way around.”
The third is Elizabeth Waters, an independent Communist sympathizer who’s turned her back on her privileged Grosse Pointe upbringing to join the workers’ fight for the American dream. Elizabeth feels isolated during a time when intelligence and independence in women weren’t prized.
The fourth is Roscoe Grissom, an unemployed auto worker enlisted by the Black Legion to sow terror as a night-riding emissary of hate. The Black Legion was a real-life 1930s white supremacist terrorist group operating in the Midwest, particularly in Detroit.
“As an author, I wanted to enter the dark psyche of a Black Legion member, and Roscoe was the result,” said Levin. “He did not exist as an actual flesh-and-blood person, but he might have. He was difficult to write because he’s such a repulsive character, but he was necessary for the book.”
Levin normally doesn’t outline his books but made an exception in this case.
“E.L. Doctorow said writing is like driving at night in a fog, ‘You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ That’s how I would proceed with the mysteries. Because ‘Savage City’ is a more complex story with four central characters from different backgrounds, each moving through his and her own separate reality, driving at night in the fog didn’t work out. I found myself resorting to outlining because there was more action to keep track of. I’ve always found outlining constraining, but I found a way to both outline and let the story unfold itself to me at the same time,” he explained.
“Savage City” allowed Levin to grow as a writer.
“That’s always good. I love researching, and the book gave me the opportunity to indulge that love,” he said. “I also discovered I enjoy working on historical fiction for a number of reasons, not least of which is that having to imaginatively recreate a period from 90 years ago freed me of the obligation to know much about the specifics of the current Detroit scene… I’ve started thinking about another historical novel set in the late 1950s. That might be what’s next once I catch my breath from ‘Savage City.’”