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An Interview with Dan Leissner, Writer of The Big Farewell

by Mike Haberfelner

April 2021

Dan Leissner on (re)Search my Trash

 

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Your new novel The Big Farewell - in a few words, what is it about?

 

It’s a “hard boiled”, “noir” crime story, a murder mystery, set in New York City, in 1927, at the dizzy heights of the Roaring Twenties. The mysterious death of a beautiful and debauched “Jazz Baby”, who, after she dies, comes to the hero in supernatural form and tasks him with solving the puzzle of her death. Her motive: to seek revenge on those who used and abused her. He is a disillusioned World War One veteran badly scarred both physically and mentally, who earns his living as a hit man and muscle hired by gangsters. With her guiding him, he sets out on a quest to resolve the riddle of her death and find redemption for them both.

 

With The Big Farewell being somewhat inspired by the mystery surrounding the death of Starr Faithfull - do talk about the actual story for a bit, and how did you happen upon it, and what can you tell us ab out your research on the subject? Also, how close did you stick to the facts in your book?

 

Starr Faithfull was the real-life beautiful and deeply damaged “wild child” whose body was found washed up on Long Beach, Long Island, New York, in 1931. Her death provoked a “murder or suicide?” debate that was never solved. Being interested in that period, I came across her story and wanted to know more about it. I was midway through the definitive book on the case, Jonathan Goodman’s The Passing of Starr Faithfull, when the concept for my story just popped into my head. The catalyst was a photo of silent screen icon Louise Brooks. I was reading Goodman’s book and I happened to glance up at Louise’s picture framed on my wall, and the whole idea came to me. I created my heroine as a part for Louise Brooks. The Starr Faithfull case gave me my basic framework, which I adapted and re-shaped, and into which I wove elements of my own. I stuck to the facts of the Starr Faithfull case in as much as I cast some real-life characters from Starr’s life in my story and adapted some of the central themes in Starr’s tragedy and dramatized some of the key events that happened to her. I did a great deal of research into Starr’s story while writing my book, sourcing materials about her case, and accumulated a large library on the subject dating back to 1931. That said, my heroine is not “Starr”.

 

Other sources of inspiration when writing The Big Farewell in terms of story?

 

My physically and psychologically scarred “anti-hero” was suggested by the character of Richard Harrow, the disfigured WW I Army veteran in the television epic Boardwalk Empire. And the scarred protector Marvin in the movie Sin City. And Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer. Certain aspects of my heroine’s damaged psyche were informed by my own experiences of mental illness and by my encounters and close friendships with people with various forms of ill mental health. I also found inspiration in Quentin Tarantino’s radical re-imagining of the Manson/Tate murders in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.

 

What can you tell us about The Big Farewell's writing style and stylistic influences?

 

My writing style has been described as “cinematic”. I immersed myself in the styles of the period, both in books and cinema. I watched “Jazz Age” cinema from the 1920’s, on the subject of “Flaming Youth”. Such as My Lady of Whims (1925), The Plastic Age (1925) and It (1927) with Clara Bow, and Our Dancing Daughters (1928) with Joan Crawford. And the films that Louise Brooks made with G.W. Pabst in Germany in 1929, Pandora’s Box and Diary of a Lost Girl, A Girl In Every Port, directed by Howard Hawks (1928) and It’s The Old Army Game with W.C. Fields (1926) [W.C. Field bio - click here]. I read a lot of period “pulp” fiction such as Paul Cain’s definitive hardboiled classic Fast One (1932) and stories published in the old pulp magazines (and The Great Gatsby and Flappers and Philosophers by F. Scott Fitzgerald). And Raymond Chandler of course. The title of my book, "The Big Farewell", evokes two of Chandler’s classics, The Big Sleep and Farewell My Lovely.

 

You've set The Big Farewell in the 1920s - why then, and what are some of the challenges of writing about a period one has never lived through?

 

I chose the Roaring Twenties because it provided the decadent backdrop I wanted for my story; and because my heroine was inspired by an icon of the Roaring Twenties, Louise Brooks, someone who embodied that decade. I was already quite familiar with the period, having a lifelong interest in it. However, I needed to narrow that down to the USA, and to New York, and to 1927. Again, it came down to a lot of research, e.g. One Summer: America 1927 by Bill Bryson; Capital of the World: A Portrait of New York City in the Roaring Twenties by David Wallace; Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and The Women Who Made America Modern by Joshua Zeitz. Sometimes, that research went as far as providing new real-life characters for me, to inhabit my story. And it’s the characters, their personalities, and the way that they speak, that brings a story to life and makes it authentic.

 

Do talk about the writing process as such!

 

This was an odd one. It normally takes me a long time to grind out a book, up to two years. With The Big Farewell, I amazed myself by having a workable first draft in about one month. And it was finished in about six months, but that became eight months because I couldn’t make myself stop tinkering with it. I think it had all to do with the pandemic and the country being in lockdown and all the grim news and anxiety. It shows how much I needed escapism, and so I escaped every day, every chance I got, into 1927. As for the actual writing process, I don’t sit and strain and force it. The way my brain works, often an entire scene will pop into my head almost fully formed and then all I have to do is write it down. Or other times, the opening line or two of a scene and then the rest just flows. So, I just wait for that to happen. My writing tends to be very “character-driven”, once I have the characters clear in my mind, and a scenario, I know what they’ll say and what they’ll do given that situation, they’ll just take over and get me there.

 

The $64-question of course, where can The Big Farewell be obtained?

 

I self-published it on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback. I assume that it’s available wherever there’s an Amazon, although at present my sales have been on Amazon USA and Amazon UK.

 

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B091XPF2VQ

USA: https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B091XPF2VQ

Germany: https://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/B091XPF2VQ

 

Anything you can tell us about audience and critical reception of The Big Farewell?

 

It’s only been out for a few weeks, and so far has two five-star reviews, one on Amazon USA and one on Amazon UK. I know that some other reviews are pending. As far as I know, those who are in the process of reading the book are really liking it.

 

Any future projects you'd like to share?

 

Potentially, The Big Farewell could have a sequel, or even a series, if I could ever come up with storylines. I do have another possible project that’s quite well advanced and could be ready for self-publication on Amazon in the near future. A fictionalised account of the Wild West outlaw gang, the Daltons, who in 1892 tried to outdo their hero Jesse James, by robbing two banks at once, and came to a bloody end.

 

Your/your book's website, social media, whatever else?

   

Feeling lucky ?
Want to search for books by
Dan Leissner
yourself?

The links below
will take you
just there!!!

(commissions earned)

I’ve yet to explore the potential for promoting The Big Farewell online, be it social media or the book promotion websites. First, I need to accumulate some good reviews on Amazon. Many of the book promotion websites demand that a book has so many five-star reviews before they’ll promote it. Meanwhile, I am on Facebook.

 

Anything else you're dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask?

 

Yes, when is your next book coming out?

 

Thanks for the interview!

 

© by Mike Haberfelner


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Thanks for watching !!!



 

 

In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

 

There's No Such Thing as Zombies
starring
Luana Ribeira, Rudy Barrow and Rami Hilmi
special appearances by
Debra Lamb and Lynn Lowry

 

directed by
Eddie Bammeke

written by
Michael Haberfelner

produced by
Michael Haberfelner, Luana Ribeira and Eddie Bammeke

 

now streaming at

Amazon

Amazon UK

Vimeo

 

 

 

Robots and rats,
demons and potholes,
cuddly toys and
shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

is all of that.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to
-
a collection of short stories and mini-plays
ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic
to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle, all thought up by
the twisted mind of
screenwriter and film reviewer
Michael Haberfelner.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

the new anthology by
Michael Haberfelner

 

Out now from
Amazon!!!