Dumpster Bust Interviews: Robert B. Parker – Part I

Robert B. Parker, sometimes referred to as the Dean of American Crime Fiction, is the author of more than thirty novels featuring Spenser, the famously tough but refined private detective who can just as easily bust up thugs and crime rings as curl up with his longtime girlfriend Susan Silverman and their lovely child, Pearl the Wonder Dog.

I caught up with Mr. Parker before a book signing at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, California on March 13, 2005. “They make me do these things,” he said in reference to the book touring life, in mock grumble.

In this first part of the interview, Mr. Parker talks about his pre-novelist days, the magical fictional presence that is Hawk, writing “black,” the future of Spenser and Susan, and the latest installment of the Spenser series, Cold Service.

Read Part II of the interview here and Part III here.

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Eric Berlin: I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this before, but I assumed for many years that you were a cop and/or private detective.

Robert B. Parker: The question has been raised, yes. I’ve been neither.

EB: And then, of course, I learned you have a background in academics, which sort of led me to…

RBP: Ooh! You’re gonna let that out? [Laughs]

EB: We can edit that out if you like.

RBP: I’ve gone straight. I had a job in a lot of things before I finally found a job I could hold, including academe. But the academe was in the service of writing.

I had married young and had children early, and if I had to do it over again I would have married earlier and had children earlier. It was the best thing I ever did, but I had to support them. And I can’t write in little dribs and drabs – I need a large blocks of time, so Joan [Ed. Note: Joan is Mr. Parker’s wife] prevailed upon me after I had worked for Curtiss-Wright Aircraft and Raytheon Missile Systems division and Prudential Insurance Company of America… enough to make a maggot gag. Anyway, she prevailed upon me to go back to school and get a PhD and become a professor, which I eventually did. Then I had long hours of interrupted time to write.

EB: That leads me to a kind of related question. How do you block out your time? Do you write in the morning or the evening? I read that you write about five finished pages a day. Is that still true?

RBP: It’s ten now. It used to be five. You are not misinformed – you’re just not updated.

EB: Glad to be.

RBP: Well, “block out” makes it out to be more formal than it is. This is all I do. I don’t have any other job, so I get up in the morning and feed Pearl the Wonder Dog. I have coffee and read the Globe, do a little business, make a few phone calls. Somewhere in the 9:00 range I start writing… Pearl the Wonder Dog arises early.

EB: So Pearl the Wonder Dog does indeed exist?

RBP: Oh yeah. Pearl III. This is the third Pearl. And it’s the one on the back of the book.

So nine, ten I’m writing and I persist into the 3:00 range, or until whenever I get ten pages done. When I’m finished with my ten pages, I stop, I usually have a nap, I go to the gym, I workout, I come home, and that’s my day. I do that five days a week.

Article Author: Eric Berlin

Eric Berlin is the publisher of Online Media Cultist. He's also prone to referring to himself in the third person in author bios in an attempt to make it look like someone Less Important wrote it for him.
Contact: dumpsterbust@gmail.com

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