1--What is the title of your latest release?
WALK THE DARK
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
An intimate and empathetic portrayal of the imprisoned, Walk the Dark goes behind the walls of a maximum-security prison in upstate New York, and into the life of a man who was convicted of murder when he was just seventeen years old.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
I taught for two years in Auburn Prison, and always thought I’d set a book inside the prison, which is one of the oldest maximum-security prisons still in use in the U.S.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Maybe. I’d certainly enjoy talking with him.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Scarred, lonely, decent.
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
That I had to dig deep into my own life to understand this character.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I wait until it’s done.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Chocolate.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
I write with a MacBook Air, at the end of an old leather couch, in our den. My cat, Pinky, often sleeps next to me as I write.
10--Who is an author you admire?
Don DeLillo is, for me, our greatest living writer. He writes gorgeous sentences, and takes on the big subjects.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, because of its power and intensity, and its moral complexity.
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
It was gradual. First, send fifty pp, then the whole manuscript, then fill out an author questionnaire, then a Zoom meeting, then an acceptance email.
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
Literary fiction; noir; history.
14--What’s your favorite movie?
Fellini's 8 1/2
Chinatown
Nashville
15--What is your favorite season?
Fall, because of the colors, the smell of the air, the quality of the light.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
Dinner at home, then a few friends over to eat cheesecake.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
I love The Generation Why podcast, because it’s thorough, even-handed, and brings much more light than heat to the subject of true crime.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Asian, Indian; Italian.
19--What do you do when you have free time?
Read, listen to music, nap, walk, hang out with friends.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
Something more autobiographical, and a little less edgy.
Oliver Curtin grows up in a nocturnal world with a mother who is a sex worker and drug addict, and whose love is real yet increasingly unreliable. His narration alternates between that troubled childhood and the present of the novel, where he is serving the last months of a thirty-years-to-life sentence in a maximum-security prison in upstate New York, for a crime he committed at age seventeen. His redemption is closely allied with his memories, seen with growing clarity and courage. If he can remember, then life in the larger world is possible for him.
Fiction [Regal House Publishing, On Sale: May 28, 2024, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781646034482 / ]
Paul Cody was born in Newton, Massachusetts, graduated from Newton North High School and from the University of Massachusetts at Boston, magna cum laude, With Distinction in English, and Senior Honors in Creative Writing. He worked at the Perkins School for the Blind for three years, and earned an M.F.A. from Cornell University, where he was twice co-winner of the Arthur Lynn Prize in Fiction. He has received grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Saltonstall Foundation, and was awarded a Stegner Fellowship by Stanford University (declined). He has worked as a housepainter, teacher, editor and journalist, was associate editor and staff writer at Cornell Magazine, where he twice won CASE awards for articles; and has taught at Cornell, Ithaca College, Hobart and William Smith Colleges and the Colgate Writing Seminars, and in Auburn Prison. His four published novels include The Stolen Child (Baskerville, 1995), Eyes Like Mine (Baskerville, 1996), So Far Gone (Picador USA, 1998), Shooting the Heart (Viking, 2004), and the forthcoming Love Is Both Wave and Particle (Roaring Brook, 2017), as well as a memoir, The Last Next Time (Irving Place Editions, 2013). His work has appeared in various periodicals, including Harper’s, Epoch, The Quarterly, Story, the Boston Globe Magazine, and Cornell Magazine, and he has appeared on Voice of America as a Critic’s Choice. He lives with his wife and two sons in Ithaca, New York.
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