An Interview With Peter Gadol By Steve Rudd

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Peter Gadol is the exciting author of a number of uniquely exhilarating novels including the deliciously dark, drama-driven thriller The Long Rain. His latest novel is Light at Dusk, and here he spares some time to chat to Steve Rudd exclusively about his life and times, and trials and tribulations as a highly respected and hugely talented writer of the type of stories that genuinely do have the power to change lives... Hi Peter, how are you keeping? Quite fine, thanks. It's been a lovely winter in Los Angeles.

You are the author of a number of amazing books including the dark thriller The Long Rain. What kind of things inspire you to write the books that you do, and is the thriller genre the one in which you find yourself most at home when putting pen to paper? The Long Rain was an atypical burrowing into genre fiction for me, and quite unexpected. I came up with a central conceit for the book, then characters, the plot and so forth, but at no point did I stop and say, Oh, I'm writing a thriller! I am more driven to examine ethical dilemmas and the daily conflict of the ordinary man wondering how to behave in an alien world.

What inspires me? Other writers and artists, from JM Coetzee to Gerhard Richter. Don DeLillo and Philip Glass. Philip Roth and Zaha Hadid. And so on.

Did you always aspire to be a writer from a young age, and how did you feel when your first novel actually got published? I can't say I always wanted to be a writer. Other professions occurred to me--especially architecture. I found my way to writing in college studying poetry with Seamus Heaney. My poetry became increasingly narrative and I was working as a fiction intern at The Atlantic magazine in Boston. After college, I started writing my first novel--and then I was incredibly lucky and sold that book when I was 24. When that happened, I think I felt as though there were extra oxygen in my apartment, I was breathing a lighter air.

I love what I do and am so very fortunate to have been able to pursue it my entire adult life.

Of the books that you have written, is any one in particular your personal favourite?? Well, I always think the one I'm writing is my favourite - how can it be any other way? But I think the best experience for me was working on my third book, Closer To The Sun. I felt in control of the tone all the time I was writing it - and while I'd change elements now, write in a different diction, I still think that at the time I was gratified by achieving what I'd initially envisioned.

Your Long Rain thriller aside, what other subjects and types of plot-lines have you grappled with in your other books?. I have to be honest--that's just to big a question for me to answer--I'd rather let the books stand for themselves, and quite honestly, they've all been so different, I wouldn't know where to begin. Are you working on anything right now, and - if you are - when can the general public hope to see such work?

I am never not working on something. Writing is a trade based in obsession. But I never talk about my work-in-progress; I prefer to be one of the crazies walking down the street ranting to himself about it. As for publication dates, none I can specify at this moment. But thanks for asking.

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