Dancing With Myself: ALLAN LEVERONE interviews ALLAN LEVERONE

Thanks for joining us. It says here your name is Allan Leverone. Now that’s obviously an alias. We’re not playing games here, why don’t you stop screwing around and fess up your real name?

You’re welcome. And, yeah, my name really is Allan Leverone. If I was going to pick an alias, I would choose something much better than that. Something like Lee Child, or maybe Clive Cussler. Something cool. Why would I use an alias, anyway?

To cover for those Penthouse letters you flooded the magazine with so long ago, of course. And I’m asking the questions here.

Uh, that must have been a different guy. Really. And, um, do you have one?

One what?

A question.

Oh. Right. Of course. Stop being so evasive, for chrissakes, and come clean. We’re supposed to believe you write novels, is that correct?

You don’t have to believe it, but it’s true.

If you say so. Okay, wise guy, have you written anything I would recognize?

You know the John Rain series of thrillers, with the Japanese-American assassin?

That was you?

I wish. That was some other guy. But I wrote Final Vector, the thriller featuring Nick Jensen, an air traffic controller who gets tangled up in a plot to assassinate U.S. President Robert Cartwright by blowing up Air Force One.

You really wrote FINAL VECTOR? No kidding. That’s the best book I’ve ever read!

Um, okay, thanks, but everyone knows you’re really me, so maybe you should just cool it.

Oh yeah. You’re probably right. Well, it’s still a pretty cool book. What the hell made a thirty-year air traffic controller decide to write novels, anyway?

Since I was a little boy I’ve loved to read, and always had a fascination with stringing words together in interesting and entertaining ways. I originally went to college with the intention of becoming a newspaper journalist, but once I began to realize the small percentage of journalists who actually earned a living wage, I decided to change majors. I know, I know, I was a sellout. Sue me.

After graduation, I got hired by the FAA as an air traffic controller in 1982, got married and raised a family, and writing just sort of faded into the background. Then, about five years ago, I started up a sports blog at Foxsports.com, kind of as a lark, and began to actually cultivate a small following. A year or so after that, I had an epiphany. I realized that as much as I enjoyed blogging about sports, what I really wanted to do was write fiction. So I did.

Listen, guy, take a breath will ya? Nobody wants to hear your life story.

But I thought—

—Never mind what you thought. Honestly, you’re really starting to try my patience. How about you share some of your literary influences with us?

Okay, well, that’s a tough one; it’s hard to narrow the list down because there are so many. I love thrillers and horror novels, and also mysteries to a slightly lesser degree, so my influences are spread out among those genres. I’ll say Lawrence Block, Lee Child, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Donald Westlake, Bill Pronzini, Tom Piccirilli, Barry Eisler, Sophie Littlefied. Man, I could use up the rest of this post naming authors I admire.

I believe that; you’re already using up my patience. What are your goals with this writing gig? Sell millions of books and retire, probably, am I right?

No! Well, I mean, I’d love to sell millions of books, don’t get me wrong, but I’m always going to write. If I go more than a day or so without writing, I start to get a little . . . I don’t know . . . twitchy.

Kind of like a junkie.

You said it, not me.

What are your plans following FINAL VECTOR?

Thanks for asking. I’m actively pursuing publication of a thriller titled THE LONELY MILE, in which a divorced hardware store owner stumbles upon the kidnapping of a teenage girl and manages to break it up, but in so doing, thrusts his own daughter directly into the sights of a sociopathic killer. I’m also working on a paranormal horror/thriller tentatively titled FLICKER, but that’s still a ways away from being ready for anyone to see.

Anything else you want to get off your chest before we release you on your own recognizance?

Yes, I’d like to say thanks to Nigel Bird and Sea Minor for giving me an opportunity to take part in this very cool experiment. I’m following in the footsteps of some real authorial heavy hitters, and I pray I didn’t just bring down the property values in this whole neighborhood.

Kiss-ass. Okay, that about does it. You can go. Just don’t leave town.

Don’t leave town? Why would I—oh, never mind, it doesn’t matter. I don’t get out much, anyway.

http://www.allanleverone.com/