Interview: Thomas Mullen
Midwestern Gothic staffer Kristina Perkins talked with author Thomas Mullen about his novel Darktown, crime in history and present time, the choices a writer must make, and more.
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Kristina Perkins: What is your connection to the Midwest?
Thomas Mullen: I went to Oberlin College for four wonderful years. Like a lot of colleges, it could feel very set apart from the town, and I imagine a lot of students graduate from the school with little perspective on the town itself. I had a different experience; my work-study job for all four years was at a second-hand clothing store, Senior Thrift, run by the local senior citizens’ center (the school paid students to work some jobs in the community). Senior Thrift received donations of old clothes, often from folks downsizing from a home as they prepared to move into small apartments in assisted living facilities or nursing homes. So not only did I work with a lot of senior citizens from the town (black and white, poor and well-off), some of the seniors and I often went to people’s houses to pick up stacks of clothes, furniture, and various knick-knacks. I saw inside dozens and dozens of houses all over town, met a lot of people, heard a lot of stories. I learned that retired folks really, really like to gossip. And that out-of-style plaid pants and blazers from the ’70s were really quite amazing to wear again in the ’90s.
And my wife was raised outside Chicago; she has a deep fondness for the area, and we travel back when we can.
I set my second novel, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers, in a fictional Ohio city; it’s about a pair of Depression-era bank robbers. The Midwest was particularly fertile ground for such thieves, like John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd, so in a lot of ways that book was an homage to my time in Ohio.
KP: You were born in Rhode Island, attended college in Ohio, and currently live in Atlanta, Georgia. How has your understanding of place — as well as the memories, people, and values tied to place — influenced your approach to the settings in your novels?
TM: I love to travel. This might partly be due to the fact that I’d never flown ’til age 17 and never left New England and New York ’til age 17 — I desperately wanted to get out and see more of the country, the world. I’ve now lived in several places, and yes, I certainly pick up on regional differences, cultural markers, political opinions that may differ from place to place. On the one hand, I think your average RI town and OH town are more alike than different. On the other hand, part of the fun of setting a novel in a certain place is fully building its world, and a strong sense of place is so important. What jobs do people there work? Where do they go to church, if they do go at all? What are their biggest hopes and fears and obstacles? Particularly with fiction set in the past, I ask myself these questions constantly.
KP: Your newest novel, Darktown, blurs the lines between traditional genres, combining elements of crime fiction and historical fiction as it follows the narratives of Atlanta’s first black police officers. What initially drew you to this particular blend of genres?
TM: There was never a conscious attempt to combine genres. This book came about when I heard the true story of Atlanta’s first black cops in 1948 and all the ridiculous Jim Crow restrictions they had to work under, and I wanted to write about it. Because they’re cops, it’s a crime story, and because it’s the past, it’s historical, but I didn’t come at it from that angle. I just loved the story and went from there. (And I’d argue that historical fiction isn’t really a genre, it’s more of a setting; it’s like calling novels written in second-person a genre, or books with multiple protagonists a genre… but that’s a digression!)
KP: In a previous interview with Publishers Weekly, you mentioned that you considered approaching Darktown through nonfiction. Why, ultimately, did you choose to fictionalize this story? And, when planning the novel, how did you navigate the relationship between fact and fiction?
TM: I considered it as nonfiction, or even a magazine story, mainly because I was at a point in my career where I felt like trying something new. I’d just written a long-form true crime story that had gotten some attention, so I wondered if I should try a true crime book, but ultimately I decided against it. I’m a fiction writer. The two are very different types of writing, and, although I do a huge amount of research, the amount of research required for a nonfiction history book would dwarf that. I didn’t want to live in libraries for years. I enjoy research, but as a means to an end. I would always rather be writing.
KP: Darktown is your fourth published novel. How do you feel you’ve grown as a writer between and among books? What did you find most surprising — or, perhaps, most challenging — about writing and publishing Darktown?
TM: I like to think that I’m better at it, that I’ve learned from certain mistakes, failed manuscripts, bad ideas, poor execution, etc. I think I have a better sense earlier on as to whether an idea will work or whether I need to tinker with it more. And I think I have a better sense of the marketing of fiction, which can sound mercenary but is, in fact, quite important if you want to keep writing books. My first three books were very different from each other — this was a conscious decision, as I love a lot of writers who change every time (Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, Margaret Atwood, Colson Whitehead). But that can make it very difficult for people to know what box to put you in, who to aim your work at, etc. With Darktown and the idea to write a series of crime novels set in Atlanta during the Civil Rights era, I realized it would be easier for people to understand who I was and what I was doing: oh yeah, he’s the guy who writes those literary crime novels about the South. I can always branch out from there, but I think people need a baseline understanding of what makes you unique.
KP: The story of Darktown is notable for its timeliness: much of this history of systemic police racism is reflected within today’s Black Lives Matter movement. How has writing Darktown influenced your understanding of current tensions between race, mass incarceration, and policing — if at all?
TM: These are huge issues that continue to shape politics and policy in this country. Part of why I find 1948 fascinating as a setting, and the idea of a series so fun, is that it’s just before the first victories of the Civil Rights movement. But those victories also led to a massive white backlash, white flight, the new conservative movement with anti-tax and anti-urban policy, and so many other things that would shape the world of the 1980s and 1990s, when I grew up. And it informs much of what we’re seeing today, with another white backlash and the reshaping of a Republican party that was last reshaped in the late ’60s, partly in reaction to the Civil Rights movement. So in drilling down into 1948 and the following 15-20 years, I can better understand the world I inherited and the one we’re all dealing with today.
KP: You’ve spoken about your plans to expand Darktown into a series of books; however, you’ve also mentioned that you had previously been weary of literary series. What changed your mind?
TM: I don’t think I was weary of them, I just hadn’t really thought about them much. But for the reasons I just mentioned, a series here makes a lot of sense. There’s so much I’d like to explore, and I think it will be fascinating to trace the changes in Atlanta—and America—that come with 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education and the backlash to it, that come with the return to Atlanta of Martin Luther King Jr. 1960, that come with the big generational disagreements among activists in the early 1960s. There’s a lot to work with, and rather than feeling the need to write an overstuffed 900-page doorstop with too many characters and subplots, I can try to give each story the attention it deserves.
KP: You announced that Darktown will be produced by Sony Pictures Television as a TV series! How involved will you be in this process? What do you think may be the biggest challenge in transferring this story to the screen?
TM: It’s an ongoing process so a lot of the specifics remain to be seen, but I’m certainly thrilled and looking forward to it. I think that a lot of the better TV shows today (many of which have novelists as show runners, from True Detective to Game of Thrones to The Americans) borrow novelistic storytelling in exciting ways, and can even tell more complex stories than you can get away with in a novel without confusing or overwhelming your reader.
KP: What do you wish you had known before you started publishing your writing? Do you have any advice for young writers seeking publication?
TM: When my agent was trying to sell one of my earliest manuscripts (something we ultimately failed to do), she warned me that the process was an emotional rollercoaster. I thought she’d meant that in terms of selling a book (an editor likes it! But her boss doesn’t, etc). But it turns out it applies to a writer’s entire career (you get a great review! You get a poor review. You have a great event! You have not-so-well-attended event. You have a great day of writing! You have a terrible day). Pretty much the entire career is an emotional rollercoaster, with great highs and sinking lows, and you constantly need to adjust. So, to the young writers out there, don’t think publication will erase all that. The torturous experience of trying to land an agent is actually wonderful practice for what lies ahead!
KP: What’s next for you?
TM: I’m working on edits now for the second book in the series, called Lightning Men. It’s set in 1950 and involves tensions in a neighborhood turning from white to black, and a real-life Nazi organization called The Colombians, and the Klan, and bootleggers, and convicts readjusting to life after being released. Fun stuff.
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Thomas Mullen is the author of The Last Town on Earth – which was named Best Debut Novel of 2006 by USA Today and was awarded the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for excellence in historical fiction – The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers, The Revisionists, and his new novel, Darktown.
His works have been named to Year’s Best lists by The Chicago Tribune, USA Today, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Onion’s A/V Club, The San Diego Union-Times, Paste Magazine, The Cleveland Plain-Dealer, and Amazon. His stories and essays have been published in Grantland, Paste, The Huffington Post, and Atlanta Magazine. He lives in Atlanta with his wife and sons.
