Squealer by Christopher Calcara
Please welcome Christopher Cascara author of Squealer
Christopher Calcara will be awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
Squealer
byChristopher Calcara
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GENRE: Crime Thriller/LGBT
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INTERVIEW:
- What or who inspired you to start writing?
I’ve always enjoyed reading and making up stories. A high school yearbook instructor believed in me and fostered an interest in journalism, which I pursued to a Bachelor’s degree.
- How did you come up with ideas for your books?
They hit me when I least expect them. Usually coming from a single germ of an idea, or inspired by my or another’s experience. In the case of SQUEALER, it was exacting revenge without guilt or retribution.
- What expertise did you bring to your writing?
My education in composition, literature and journalism, specifically my love of a well-crafted sentence. In elementary school, I thoroughly enjoyed diagramming them. Is that still taught?
- What would you want your readers to know about you that might not be in your bio?
If I’d gone in for editorial rather than advertising journalism, I’d have made an excellent investigative reporter, but I was shy and didn’t relish interviewing subjects. Lesson: never let a negative social construct become a debilitating fear. Get help and turn it into a positive.
- As far as your writing goes, what are your future plans?
Writing more stories and then turning them into screenplays. I’ve already completed two.
- If you could be one of the characters from any of your books, who would it be and why?
Luca from SQUEALER is my type of guy. He’s fearless.
- If you were the casting director for the film version of your novel, who would play your leading roles?
Both the young and mature Luca and Leonard would be played by unknowns. Kevin Spacey would be Brother Simeon.
- Do you belong to a critique group? If so, how does this help or hinder your writing?
I don’t presently, but I did when I lived in Charleston, SC. It was very helpful in picking my words and ideas apart to make them better.
- When did you first decide to submit your work? Please tell us what or who encouraged you to take this big step?
Brazenly, I submitted my first crude short story to Playboy Magazine and The New Yorker back in the 80s. I’ve never hesitated from submitting my work. More than anything, it’s important for my gift to be acknowledged. Publishing is the reward. While many of the journals around today do not, The New Yorker still responds to submissions.
- What is the best and worst advice you ever received? (regarding writing or publishing)
Worst: One journal critic of a short story complained that I tried too hard to make every sentence a pearl.
Best: Keep writing.
- Do you outline your books or just start writing?
Both. Depends on the premise and how strong it is. If I see it going somewhere at the outset, as in SQUEALER, I start writing. I will outline when less confident or informed.
- Do you have any hobbies and does the knowledge you’ve gained from these carry over into your characters or the plot of your books?
I’m a Frank Lloyd Wright aficionado and have taken tours of his architecture all around the country. I’ve written a short story that occurs in a house he designed.
- Do you have an all time favorite book?
There are so many in different genres. I really enjoy anthologies (Like the Best American Short Storiesseries) because they give me a taste of each author and their unique story. They began in 1915 and still continue today. I’ve read them all.
- Have you started your next project? If so, can you share a little bit about your book?
I’ve returned to a novel I began a few years ago. It’s about a sister and brother, her mental illness, and their complex relationship over the years, climaxing in his adoption of her child. As of now, I’m calling it The Marchesi Girl.
- Who is your favorite actor and actress?
Again, too many to name, but I favor both the melodramatic and comedic actors of the 1940s.
- Can you tell us a little about the black moment in your book?
In SQUEALER, Luca the protagonist (as a young college student) is raped by an older man.
- What is your favorite reality show?
I have been addicted to several: The Real Housewives of Atlanta; and Naked and Afraidare two, but I no longer subscribe to their networks, thank God. I do miss Ru Paul’s Drag Race, however.
- Can you tell us a little bit about what it was like to write a series.
It can be a challenge coming up with what might come after (or before) the first. But whether or not it’s a linear storyline, I focus on constructing the story around events of the day. There’s always something going on in the world that one can link to their story.
- Anything else you might want to add?
Thank you for hosting me on your blog. Like most self-absorbed writers, I enjoy talking about myself.
BLURB:
With tongue-in-cheek and dark overtones, Squealer examines the life of an impressionable Midwestern Catholic Italian choirboy who grows into a mob-worthy assassin in order to avenge high school nemeses from his past.
As ‘Pete Casanova’ takes us on a journey through the heart-land, his early ethnic and religious experiences expose the motivations for his deadly actions. We come to realize why, for him, it’s never too late to seek revenge.
Squealer addresses topics of physical, mental, emotional, and sexual abuse inflicted on students by their teachers and religious authorities. It deals with the difficult subjects of homophobia, prejudice and bullying, but with wit … and suspense!
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EXCERPT:
Word had it that the mob boss controlled every rotten illegal operation between our quiet hamlet on the Missouri River and rough and ready Chicago to the east. Unlawful pursuits included prostitution, gambling (before it was legalized on riverboats), drugs, and booze (legal but susceptible to monopoly). No telling how many enemies he offed, or had offed.
I heard “the family” stuck their black hands in all the local gay bars, typical of controlling interests at the time. If you didn’t play hardball with them, you didn’t play at all. An adversary was typically dispatched in one of two ways: either their livelihood was lost to a mystifying incendiary fire or, if particularly scorned, they could be found dead, hogtied like a sausage in the trunk of their car, which was dumped at the airport.
On our journey across the river to Civella’s, Georgio would tell me how honorable a human being this mobster was, how generous a friend to his family the man had been. Having set up Georgio’s father in business, they were eternally and intractably indebted.
I was told of a secret tunnel in Civella’s basement that led across the street to the house of his brother, Carl “Cork” Civella. Georgio said that whenever the fuzz or the Feds visited Nick’s home, he’d have his punks run contraband through the underground to the safer surroundings at Cork’s. I suspected the reverse was pulled off if they hit up Cork. (Years later, I learned this hidden labyrinth never existed. With the law firmly in Nick’s pocket, there was no need for it. The fabled tunnel under my grandfather’s store probably never existed either, although I don’t doubt there was an excavator in our family.)
For all the buzz, I was afraid of the old man before I ever laid eyes on him. I pictured a menacing Marlon Brando type entangled in the tomato vines, brokering international power deals and assassinating those who crossed him with silencers in restaurant bathrooms.
We were let into the fortress by a tough disagreeable understudy who was plainly more than a butler or manservant. He had the bulk of a bodyguard, and I’m sure he was padded with impenetrable long underwear. Everything about this man said he was prepared to take a slug for somebody. Even his eyes seemed to say, ‘Do not fuck with me!’
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
After earning a degree in Journalism from the University of Missouri School of Journalism, Calcara created marketing campaigns for businesses and institutions featured in print and broadcast media.
He writes fiction and semi-fiction, short stories, memoirs, plays, novels, and screenplays. He has collaborated with composers to write plays with musical scores. Joan is one such musical play that lyrically exposes the soul of Jeanne d’Arc—Joan of Arc.
Calcara was the only Charleston writer to win the 2011 South Carolina Arts Commission Fiction Project. His short stories have been published by numerous literary journals. He has lived in the South, Southwest and Southeast, and currently writes from the Midwest.
YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNAGN_S_-Vr2s0JIn5nlYWw
Website
https://chrisjcalcara.wixsite.com/website
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21162911.Christopher_Calcara
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christopher.caruso.14
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CJCalcara
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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE:
Christopher Calcara will be awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
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