A Cold Night for Alligators

Author Q&A

20 Writerly Questions for Nick Crowe


1. How would you summarize your book in one sentence?
Missing brother page turner set amidst Florida’s dark side: alligators, southern rock and backwoods treachery.

2. How long did it take you to write this book?
Eesh…six years from the first notes to final delivery.

3. Where is your favorite place to write?
My basement.

4. How do you choose your characters’ names?
Baseball Reference Guide (1984 edition).

5. How many drafts do you go through?
Fifteen for Alligators.

6. If there was one book you wish you had written what would it be?
The Paperboy by Pete Dexter, Russell Banks’ Affliction or Cockfighter by Charles Willeford. The latter is a retelling of Homer’s Odyssey through 1970s cockfighting in Florida. That’s three and I could keep going.

7. If your book were to become a movie, who would you like to see star in it?
Jake Gyllenhaal as Jasper, Joaquin Phoenix as Coleman, Justin Timberlake as Hoyt Lee and Woody Harrelson as Rolly Lee.

8. What’s your favourite city in the world?
I’m more of an island guy – Hatteras and Sanibel.

9. If you could talk to any writer living or dead who would it be, and what would you ask?
Hemingway or Cormac McCarthy. I’d be afraid to ask them anything and would just follow them around for a day at a safe distance. Maybe I’d gather the gumption to ask Mr. McCarthy where he buys his western shirts or for his favourite burrito recipe.

10. Do you listen to music while you write? If so, what kind?
Depends on what I’m working on. With Alligators, music was crucial and about what you’d expect given the setting and subject matter: Lynyrd Skynyrd, Charlie Daniels, Steve Earle, acapella mountain music, Townes Van Zandt, Son Volt and Chris Whitley.

11. Who is the first person who gets to you read your manuscript?
My wife.

12. Do you have a guilty pleasure read?
No guilt as to what I read…although my wife sometimes wonders why I’m reading Curious George aloud when my son’s upstairs in bed.

13. What’s on your nightstand right now?
Three volumes of the Paris Review’s Writers at Work interviews and a stale glass of water.
 
14. What is the first book you remember reading?
Dr. Seuss’ I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sellew. First adult book was Stephen King’s Pet Semetary.

15. Did you always want to be a writer?
I’ve always loved to write but even at 36 I’m still holding out for that major league baseball career.
 
16. What do you drink or eat while you write?
Coffee. I’m worried that allowing snacks into the process might make me soft and complacent and I’m also concerned about getting flavour dust on my keyboard.

17. Typewriter, laptop, or pen & paper?
Computer or 32 page Hilroy notebooks (non-spiral binding) when I’m away from home.

18. What did you do immediately after hearing that you were being published for the very first time?
Found something solid to brace myself against.

19. How do you decide which narrative point of view to write from?
Generally it’s a question of whether what I’m embarking on is primarily plot-driven or character driven. Third person gives you more room to maneuver but then some stories demand to be told through a single set of eyes.

20. What is the best gift someone could give a writer?
An extra hour in the day and the cure for self doubt.