James Dawson has fought hard to win the title Queen of Teen 2014. And now he has been crowned.
All rise for his majesty the queen as James Dawson, the author of Hollow Pike and Say Her Name, becomes the first male winner of the Queen of Teen award for his latest book, Cruel Summer.
After a vigorous social media campaign, Dawson topped a shortlist entirely nominated by teens (Cathy Cassidy, Beth Reekles, Holly Smale, Cassandra Clare, Veronica Roth, John Green, S.C. Ransom, Tonya Hurley, and Natasha Farrant) to join an illustrious cast of previous winners including Louise Rennison, Cathy Cassidy and Maureen Johnson.
Watch out for our report from the awards ceremony and interview with James by site member Alannahbee coming up!
Cruel Summer is a psychological thriller focusing on a group of teens who, one year on from the suicide of one of their friends, try to get over it by going away to a holiday villa in the Mediterranean. But when a new guest, claiming to have evidence that the suicide was actually a murder, is herself found dead, it's clear that one of them must be the killer…
Helloitsheath called it the "perfect balance of murder mystery, teen fiction and horror movie', which at the same time 'manages to be funny, heartwarming and – murder aside – easy for teenage audiences to relate to".
While XoXo Bookworm_98 gushed, "there were SO many times I just HAD to put the book down to take a breather, so that I could process what had just happened – there were just about a million twists that you will Never. See. Coming".
Dawson has been a vocal supporter of LGBT rights (including supporting Eurovision winner Conchita Wurst) and XoXo Boomworm_98 noted that "the LGBT aspect of the book was so different from others I've read, and was a vital, beautiful, heart wrenching part of the tale".
Buy Cruel Summer at the Guardian Bookshop or join the site to get your copy to review!
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A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. A tweet has been posted to your Twitter account. A link has been sent to your friend's email address. James Patterson talks with his editor about Amex Cross, writing, favorite books and more. (Photo: Deborah Feingold)
As any thriller fan knows, James Patterson is a megalith of fiction writing: His crime and suspense thrillers, love stories, nonfiction, middle-grade and young adult novels have all been No. 1 bestsellers--and he writes a dozen books a year. His marquee character Alex Cross, who was brought to life on the big screen by Tyler Perry last fall, is on a new, deadly chase in Alex Cross, Run. Patterson sat down with his longtime editor and publisher, Michael Pietsch (who has given Patterson "scars from the beatings," according to the author), to talk about Cross' surprising beginnings as a woman, what interests Patterson more than murders, the author's future plans to pen a "bodice-ripper" and writing in a "white heat."
Michael Pietsch: Jim, can you take us back to the moment when the character Alex Cross first appeared in your mind?
James Patterson: The weird thing about it, when I first started with Alex, it was a woman. The first 60 70 pages, it was "Alexis," and it wasn't "Cross." There was something about creating an African-American character in a woman that just felt a little too daunting for me. And I changed to "Alex," and the rest is mystery (laughs).
JP: Oh, yeah. She was a detective.
MP: And she was an African-American woman?
JP: Yeah, it was the same basic thing: She was going to get involved in the same kind of murder case.
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MP: Where did this idea of an African-American woman who was a police detective come from?
JP: I think part of it was that I had written an earlier book, The Midnight Club, which dealt with a handicapped man in a different way. He just doesn't act as though he's a victim. And it struck me that, especially at that time, and especially in the movies, African-American men in particular were just being stereotyped as these hoodlums--the people with boom-boxes on their shoulders, etcetera, etcetera. And I didn't feel that was representative of African Americans, and so I wanted to write a character who was the opposite of all the stereotypes.
So: well-educated, responsible, taking care of his family, a good dad, conscientious, solves problems with his head rather than his fists or a gun--although that's evolved. He's become fairly good with his fists, but a thinker. But, different from the stereotypes that certainly were prevalent when the Cross series started.
MP: Did you grow up reading detective and police novels? Was this a form that you'd always loved?
JP: I was always a good student, but I didn't read that much until I was 18 and I was working my way through college. But I never read detective novels. I started out in graduate school writing a more serious book. Right around that time I read The Day of the Jackal and The Exorcist. I hadn't read a lot of commercial fiction, and I liked them.
It seemed to me that I could write commercial fiction. I wasn't sure whether I could, or whether I wanted to write serious fiction at that point. So I said, "Let me try something else," and I wrote a mystery--but I didn't know much about it. The first one, The Thomas Berryman Number, won an Edgar Best First Mystery, after it was turned down by 30 publishers (laughs). But I think part of the reason that it won the award and that it was a good book is that I didn't know anything about detective stories.
MP: Your major theme seems to be the police detective investigating murders. You have the Women's Murder Club novels, the Alex Cross novels, the Michael Bennett novels and now a new series called "Private," all based mostly on a murder being investigated.
JP: What I find most interesting in those books is not the murders. I always try to make sure that they hook you and they keep surprising you. But I think [the murders are] useful. I just find the characters interesting and different. You know, Alex and his family and what's going to happen with them, and how he's relating to them, I find compelling.
Michael Bennett is growing faster than any of the others as a character. I think the voice is getting better, and the way he relates to his family and the way he relates to his very strained situation in that he is a father with 10 adopted children and also a New York City cop. And that has to be one of the most unique situations in all of crime fiction.
Now, the Women's Murder Club is, I think, very distinctive because it's four women in different fields: a police detective, a medical examiner, a newspaper writer and an assistant district attorney, who are all best friends, which is credible. It might be a little bit of a stretch that they'd be friends with a journalist, because the question would be, "Can we shut her up?"
But there's always something that drives these things: the frustration that people have with most of the institutions in our society--government, police work, etc.--to set up an investigative company that's so much better than the FBI or your police department, or Mossad. They're just better because they can afford to pay better people and get better technology. And that, to me, is a cool thing to work with.
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MP: I read that you write nearly 365 days a year. Is that true?
JP: Pretty much. Somebody said you're lucky if you find something you like to do, and it's a miracle if somebody will pay you to do it. I love to tell stories. It's a delight for me. I am very devoted--I really enjoy my wife and my son. So that's a big part of my life. I run around the golf course very early in the morning, for an hour and a half, which is a little bit of exercise. You just go and chase the silly little ball for an hour plus. Most of the rest of the day is writing and storytelling, which I love. Not a lot of socializing.
MP: How do you feel when you put pencil down at the end of a day of writing?
JP: Depressed! (Laughs.) I messed up again.
MP: Do you feel exhilarated?
JP: It really depends on the day. I think that's true of all writers. If it's a good day, you're flying. And if it's not such a good day…. The only thing now that's different than what I faced earlier, and what a lot of young writers face, is I'm very confident that I will solve the problem at some point. Whereas, when most of us start out, unless we're unbelievably arrogant, we're not sure.
MP: Are you always working on many different novels at once?
JP: In terms of outlining, I'll go on little streaks. I just went on a streak and I did four outlines in about five weeks. The reason that I will do outlines in a white heat is that I'm letting stuff flow through my system. I'll go back and read one over and add to it, and subtract and let it percolate a bit. I'm to the point now where I've put down five or six or seven potential storylines.
MP: One thing I've noticed that, for me, connects all the novels, is a real sense of your characters' working lives, how the work that they do helps them understand who they are and what matters in the world, and how the job feels to them day by day, how hard it can be sometimes. And how work life intersects with family life.
JP: That's pretty much where I'm at in terms of most of the characters that I'm interested in. I read an awful lot of novels where it's the lone wolf who goes home and drinks and smokes him or herself to sleep. And I think that certainly happens. I think it happens more in detective fiction than it happens in the real world, based on the cops and the FBI people that I've met and socialize with. I think their family life is a little bit more connected.
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MP: You've written some amazingly moving love stories. After a long track of writing suspense novels and thrillers, were you surprised when a love story came to you?
JP: No, I wasn't surprised. It's a kind of story that I like to read occasionally. And I felt that I could write one because one of the hallmarks of what I do is a lot of twists and turns and a fair amount of emotion--more than you'll find in most mysteries or thrillers. So I did feel like I could write a love story--not the so-called "bodice…" whatever they call those….
MP: "Bodice-rippers" is the typical term.
JP: (Laughs.) I've read one or two, but I don't quite get that genre. I don't know that I could write that. But a more human love story, I thought I could. But the interesting thing is, I brought the story into Little, Brown just when I was starting to consider doing more than one book in a year. I brought in Suzanne'sDiary for Nicholas. It was just that idea, and a book called Beach House.
And the man that ran the company actually started to cry when I told him the story for Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas. And then he said, "I don't think I want to do the book, though, because that's not your genre." (Laughs.) I always felt that was most publishers' point of view: You're a mystery writer. You're a sports writer, or whatever. I always felt that what people look for in my books is that you will turn the pages when you read them. So whatever it is, if it's going to be a love story, it will be a page-turning love story. At any rate, the powers that be did let me write the books.
The love stories are harder to write for me. Sundays at Tiffany's, I wrote with another writer. I wrote like nine to 11 drafts of that book. They're just harder, especially if you set the bar at "You must keep turning the pages." Because, usually, not enough happens in those books to keep me keep turning the pages. (Laughs.)
MP: I've been your editor for more than a decade now. And I'm still here.
JP: Yes. And I still have many of the scars from the beatings.
MP: After all these books, is it hard for you to get editorial notes, to have someone suggest to you to change a plot line, or a character? Or to say that something's not working?
JP: No. I really prefer that editorial letters come in the form of, "Here are the big issues." I think some editorial letters are just like, "Here are 300 things." And it's kind of overwhelming and you get this feeling that all of these things are equal and this is hopeless. As opposed to, "Now here the big issues"--and then a lot of little things. But, no, I like to get them. I trust your instincts. I think you understand what my strengths and weaknesses are. I don't think you really try to get me to do things that I might not be able to do. Every once in a while, we disagree. And I curse at you, and you curse at me. No, you don't curse back, which disappoints me a little (laughter).
MP: You manage to do a huge amount of reading for pleasure. You're always telling me about books you've read. Do you read fiction and nonfiction?
JP: In the last two years, I've cut way back. Between the adult and the young adult stuff, it really has gone over the top a little. But I'll still do 30 to 40 books a year, so it's still a fair amount of reading. Back and forth between nonfiction and fiction. I usually have three or four things that are open on my desk, on my bed, on audiobook in the car.
MP: You're passionate about getting books that kids find exciting into their hands. Besides writing your own novels for them, do you have other ideas about how parents can encourage their kids to read?
JP: Parents and grandparents have to understand that it's their job--not the schools' job--to find books for their kids. They don't realize that they have to find books for their kids. One of the reasons it's so important early on, until the kids reach a certain proficiency with reading, is a simple-minded thing, but common sense: The more kids read, the better readers they become.
So with our son Jack, he did very well in school, and he was a good reader, but he just didn't read much. So my wife and I said, "This summer, you're going to read. You're going to read every day. You don't have to mow the lawn, but you do have to read." The first summer, he said, "Do I have to?" And we said, "Yeah, you do have to, but we're going to go out with you and we're going to find a bunch of books." So we got Percy Jackson and A Wrinkle in Time and one of the Warrior Series books. And, well, my own Maximum Ride, and he read every day, or pretty much every day.
And, at the end of the summer, his reading ability had quadrupled. He was so much better. And he had read half a dozen books that he loved--a big deal. There are millions of kids in this country who have never read a book they loved. Never, ever, not one. That's a disaster. But parents: it's not so hard to find the books. That's why I started a site called www.ReadKiddoRead.com.
WASHINGTON – Halfway through a two-week tour to promote Fifty Shades of Grey, British author E.L. James is 50 shades of shellshocked about the supercharged success of her erotic trilogy. By Forrest MacCormack, for USA TODAY
E.L. James signs books at a Barnes & Noble in Bethesda, Md., while on a two-week tour.
By Forrest MacCormack, for USA TODAY
E.L. James signs books at a Barnes & Noble in Bethesda, Md., while on a two-week tour.
"It's really exhausting, and I find all the hoopla around it extraordinary," the fortysomething married mother of two teenage boys says in an interview with USA TODAY at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in the nation's capital. "But it's great to meet people who really love the books, just to say thanks, if nothing else, and just exchange a few words. I really enjoy that."Thousands of fans have lined up in Miami, Chicago and Philadelphia to have copies of Fifty Shades autographed since James' book tour began in late April.And it's not just books she's signing. Fans are asking her to sign gray neckties, T-shirts, even iPads, Nooks and Kindles. Police officers, she says, laughing, have had her autograph handcuffs.'I'd rather be writing'Despite all the fan enthusiasm, James (whose real name is Erika Leonard) says the depth of her newfound fame and fortune hasn't sunk in. "It's very strange," she says, brushing her brunette bangs off her forehead. "It's just that everything has happened so quickly. It's like it's happening to someone else. They've just been shipping out books like nobody's business."And that's no overstatement. The erotic novels, about a virginal college student named Anastasia who enters a submissive sexual relationship with Christian Grey, a handsome young billionaire, were first published by a small Australian publisher last May, largely as e-books.They became such hot properties — dubbed "Mommy porn" by some wags — that Vintage, a division of Random House, bought the rights.In April, Vintage's paperback editions began selling here. In less than a month, Vintage has sold 3 million copies (digital and print) of the trilogy.Fifty Shades of Grey, first in the series, is No. 1 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list, a spot it's held for two weeks. They are best sellers in the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, and nearly three dozen other countries will be selling them in translation soon.All the attention, James says, is sometimes overwhelming. "In New Haven (Conn.), I went into a room and there were about 1,000 women in there, and they all started applauding, and I started to cry. The response has been so extraordinary, so no, I'm not used to it yet. Part of me loves it, but I'd rather be at home writing."James, a former BBC production executive, is beginning to understand what people like about the books."It's a combination of things. Fundamentally, people like a good love story. That's it," she says. "They like the sex as well. They love Christian Grey, a complicated, damaged, talented man. He's very capable and strong and domineering but broken. So he's a fixer-upper. I mean, it's a fantasy — the whole book — and so they bought into it and suspended their disbelief. Gone on a vacation really."Stella Lee, 27, of Baltimore brought her husband, Nelson, with her to James' book signing at the Bethesda, Md., Barnes & Noble last week.While waiting in line to meet James, she laughs and reveals she has read the series five times. "There's so much talk about the S & M, but it's just so romantic. The love between the characters is so endearing. I just love Christian Grey."Robin Preston, 50, of Alexandria, Va., also waiting to have her books signed, says the series "consumed" her. "I fell in love with the characters. I'm not much of a fiction reader, but this kept my interest. I could not put them down."And how James came to write her famous erotic trilogy is equally fantastic.After reading Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, about a high school girl who falls in love with a handsome vampire, James began writing fan fiction about Edward and Bella, the Twilight protagonists.But it was far less chaste than anything Meyer ever wrote. "It was very sexy," James says, and the story of Christian and Anastasia is basically that fan fiction. "I had to tone it down and alter certain bits of it for publication, but fundamentally, it's the same sort of story."Fever-pitch excitement for the novels heated up more after Universal and Focus Features bought the movie rights. As for who she thinks would be the perfect on-screen Christian and Anastasia, James will say only, "I'm keeping very quiet about all of that."Don't ask, don't tellShe's also deflecting questions about whether she and her husband have experience with domination — "I've a little bit of experience, but I think that's mostly between me and my husband" — and says most of her research for the books was done on the Internet, "but also just thinking things through in my head."She also knows she's influencing the sex lives of her fans."Yes, oh, God, yes. They say: 'You've really spiced up my marriage. Thank you very much, and my husband thanks you, too.' Of the thousands of e-mails I get, that's the main tenet. I get so many lovely e-mails. I think it's great. I say go for it. I think that's wonderful."But she's not, she says, "making any huge statements" about lifestyle. "It's about having fun. What people get up to in the bedroom is entirely their own thing, and as long as it's safe, sane and consensual — those are the watch words of the BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism, masochism) community — who are we to judge?"For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
James Brown was never a big man, but even as a troubled young man growing up in abject poverty, he was larger than life. RJ Smith's The One: The Life and Music of James Brown crackles with the same intensity Brown used to overcome his destitute beginnings to become the Godfather of Soul, who could whip audiences into a sweat-drenched frenzy with his primal screams and electrifying dance moves.
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"He was pint-size, lacking a formidable build, but Brown compensated with a way of moving that gave off waves of energy," writes Smith, a music writer based in Los Angeles. "Even as a teenager, he was able to command attention just by skimming along. He communicated that he was not to be trifled with."
Brown, who was born in Barnwell, S.C., in 1933, was the hardest-working man in show business (at his peak, he did more than 330 one-nighters a year), but he was also a hard man to work for and an even harder one to live with. He was a taskmaster who kept his bands in line with fines, firings and fists. He was also a possessive, abusive womanizer. He had a need to be in control and have things his way. That was reflected in his music, which defied conventions with its driving rhythms. It reshaped R&B in the 1960s and 1970s and had lasting influence beyond.
Smith's excellent biography draws upon more than 100 interviews with band members and studio musicians, ex-wives and girlfriends, business associates, record executives and his inner circle of friends to piece together the story of a musical genius who became a cultural icon and a lightning rod for controversy. He grounds the story in the context of the times through which Brown lived — segregation, the civil rights movement, the disco era — and illustrates how events and social conditions influenced the choices he made.
Through firsthand accounts by those who knew him, Smith digs out the truth behind the many legends surrounding Brown (the genesis of the cape act; the motivations by the famed Boston concert in the wake of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination; rivalries with other singers). Those stories also explain Brown's obsession with grooming (he had his hair done every morning and before and after shows) and how his need to be the center of attention affected everything he did. He once told protégé Al Sharpton: "Whatever you do, don't follow the crowd. You got to stand alone and have your own style, your own way of doing things."
In later years, Brown found doing things his way increasingly difficult. In the late '70s, disco slowed his momentum, and his artistic progeny attracted younger fans. Smith chronicles his decline with the same rich detail that he traces the glory years. Despite sporadic hits and renaissances fueled by such films as The Blues Brothers and Rocky IV, the former trendsetter was suddenly desperate to keep up. Tax troubles, a tumultuous marriage to Adrienne Rodriguez and an addiction to PCP took their toll, but Brown was still performing a month before he died at 73 on Christmas 2006.
James Garner's memoir is as easygoing and plain-spoken as his acting persona. The Norman, Okla., native, now 83, obviously wouldn't have it any other way.
From Bret Maverick and Jim Rockford on TV — his two signature roles — to The Great Escape's Hendley The Scrounger and The Americanization of Emily's Charlie Madison, the hustler on the big screen, Garner has personified what he describes as "the reluctant hero." He's cool and calm on the outside, but deep down he's a good-hearted maverick. When pushed, he will shove back. He's particularly wary of bullies and bigots, and proudly recalls attending the March on Washington in the summer of 1963, and to this day remains "a bleeding-heart liberal."
Garner recounts growing up fast and hard in Norman during the Depression. In fact, "he was abused, lonely and deprived," as his wife, Lois, succinctly puts it. No wonder Garner (born Bumgarner) escaped to Hollywood after serving in Korea — but not to become an actor. He was just looking for decent, honest work. He fell into acting serendipitously when he ran into fellow Oklahoman Paul Gregory, a producer and agent, who signed him.
Garner had the good fortune to work with Henry Fonda on Broadway in The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (where, as a silent judge, he learned the craft of listening). Later, when actor/director Charles Laughton took over the production, he told Garner that he needed to overcome his fear of being bad. It was a revelation.
But stardom came to Garner on the small screen when he appeared in Maverick from 1957-60. The hit series turned the Western upside down with irreverence. Garner played the con artist with a sense of humor and a code of honor, and the image stuck.
He then honed his persona on the big screen in two World War II dramas: The Great Escape (1963) and The Americanization of Emily (1964). Although the popular Escape is best known for Steve McQueen's famous motorcycle jump, the dramatic highlight is the tenderness displayed between Garner and Donald Pleasence.
Meanwhile, Emily deservedly remains Garner's favorite film, about a coward who ironically becomes a hero. Co-starring Julie Andrews, who also reached new dramatic heights, the brilliant but unsuccessful anti-war drama was scripted by the great Paddy Chayefsky, who had a poetic flair for dialogue.
"Audiences have come around to it, and it's now a cult favorite and a minor classic," Garner says. "Unfortunately, it hasn't put war out of style."
And, unfortunately, Garner is a little too hard on himself about his best scene (a 12-page speech against sentimentalizing war).
However, The Rockford Files (1974-80) embodies everything that Garner represents. His iconoclastic and likable private eye survives every crisis thrown his way. But Garner's devotion to the successful Rockford was more than just an acting job: He also produced it with his own company. Fittingly, it's the highlight of this memoir as well as his career.
Bill Desowitz covers movies for indieWIRE and his blog, Immersed in Movies (www.billdesowitz.com), and is writing a book about the on-screen evolution of James Bond from Sean Connery to Daniel Craig.
James Patterson, who has broken most bookselling records, is about to try something his publisher believes has never been done before: release two new books on the same day. Deborah Feingold
Patterson: One for adults, one for kids.
Deborah Feingold
Patterson: One for adults, one for kids.
Patterson's murder thriller, Now You See Her, written with Michael Ledwidge, goes on sale Monday encased in a narrow wrapper that urges: "While you're here, don't forget the kids." It shows the cover of Patterson's other Monday release: Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life, written with Chris Tebbetts and illustrated by Laura Park, aimed at readers 8-12. Patterson, who has had 19 titles hit No. 1 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list in the past decade, says he can't remember who suggested the dual release. "But it's a good way to remind parents that it's part of their job to find books their kids will enjoy," he says. "Books that they'll finish and say, 'Give me another one.' Reading is a kind of muscle you need to use." Patterson says his son Jack, 13, who has turned into a voracious reader after a slow start, inspired him to write for kids, including sci-fi series Maximum Ride and Daniel X, and to create a website, ReadKiddoRead.com, which Publishers Weekly praised as "clearly not a cynical ploy to sell more of his own books." Middle School is designed as if it's written and drawn by an artistic/mischievous student out to break every school rule. Patterson says there's a "connection" to Jeff Kinney's best-selling series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but his inspiration was Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret, an award-winning 532-page kids' mystery set in Paris, told with 300 pages of drawings, photos and old movie stills. (The Martin Scorsese film releases Nov. 23.) "That took the ceiling off for how the visual stuff can enhance the text," he says. "That got me going." Not that there are signs that Patterson, 64, is slowing down. He has five more novels out this year, three for adults and two for teens, but may end his Maximum Ride series. More kids' books are coming, he says, including a Middle School sequel and a new series with a girl detective, written with Maxine Paetro. His growing list of collaborators raises questions about his role. Last month at a sold-out reading in New York's Lincoln Center with Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians), a young girl asked Patterson why he didn't write more books by himself. He said he has too many ideas to keep up with if he worked alone, adding, "There is nothing that I put my name on that I don't put through several drafts."
James Dawson has fought hard to win the title Queen of Teen 2014. And now he has been crowned.
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James Patterson talks with his editor about Amex Cross, writing, favorite books and more. (Photo: Deborah Feingold)
By Forrest MacCormack, for USA TODAY
Deborah Feingold