Tuesday, October 25, 2016

What I Learned from Being a Woman; a guest post by Lance Hawvermale

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Yesterday, I toured two colleges with Youngest (yes, dear reader, I'm doing it again) and one of the things I learned was that incoming students are assigned rooms based on the gender with which they identify. Since I've known quite a few young people who are any sort of shade between male and female, this strikes me as useful. As an author, I know we all have the ability to identify with both men and women; if we didn't, how could we write believable characters of a different gender?

Why is this relevant for today's guest? I'll let Lance Havermale, author of the fascinating new thriller FACE BLIND, tell you himself.

I had to become a woman to get published.

When I was 19, I wrote one of the greatest action thrillers of the 20th century. Unfortunately, not a single literary agent in New York agreed with my assessment. So I wrote another, received more kind rejections, and wrote yet another. Result: several stacks of “no thank you” notes because this was pre-email and editors killed a lot of innocent trees on my behalf back then.

I spent a decade with an ever-rising pile of unpublished manuscripts crammed with derring-do and dashing male leads. Like James Bond or Indiana Jones, my protagonists were larger-than-life, and so were their adventures and love affairs. I couldn’t understand why the publishers weren’t driving one another off the highway in a race to get to my front door.

Then something happened. For no particular reason, I wrote a book about real people, saying real things, colliding with real challenges. The lead role in my women’s fiction novel Seeing Pink (Five Star, 2003) was shared equally by five female characters, heroines who fought everyday battles. In breaking out of their routines, those characters showed me what it means to be extraordinary. That novel was released under the woman’s pseudonym of Erin O’Rourke.

Becoming O’Rourke and writing as her for years eventually brought me here, to my thriller Face Blind (Minotaur Books, 2016), where I finally get to be myself. Here’s what my journey has taught me about writing and about being a man:

  • The best heroes are normal people forced outside their comfort zones.
  • Women talk to other women in a way very different than how men talk to other men.
  • Every horrible thing that happens should be balanced with something magical.
  • Romance is important, no matter your age.

These days the pages of my novels are shared equally between women and men. And those fictional characters frequently remind me that—in the end—gender doesn’t really matter at all. These are human problems we’re facing, both in books and in the real world, and human hearts that we’re breaking.

I’ve learned a lot from my lifelong love of reading and writing. What about you? What secrets of life can you share that you first found in a book?

FACE BLIND: A man with a neurological disorder that prevents him from recognizing human faces confronts an enigmatic killer in Chile's Atacama desert--the most lifeless place on earth.

Gabe Traylin is face-blind, unable to tell one face from the next. Content to earn his living well away from civilization, he works as an astronomer at an observatory in the earth's driest desert, where no rain has fallen in 400 years. But when he finds a man murdered, he is compelled to leave his self-imposed exile and avenge the dead. Gabe's investigation brings him face to face with the killer, but he's unable to provide a description to the police--and soon he becomes their suspect in a series of horrific and unexplained mutilations. To discover the truth before he's arrested for crimes he didn't commit, he must put his trust in three strangers: a fearless young adventurer, a washed-up novelist who thinks he's bulletproof, and a woman with a face he'll never see.
Together they unearth the secrets of Chile's fascist past, a time of kidnappings, torture, and political turmoil. Following the clues given to them by one of the country's most notorious war criminals, they venture further into the desert, discovering the secrets of revenge as well as the secrets of themselves.
 You can find out more about Lance Hawvermale and read an excerpt of FACE BLIND at his website. You can also friend him on Facebook and find him on Twitter as @LanceHawvermale.


  1. What an interesting publishing journey from Erin O’Rourke to Lance Hawvermale . . . I’m looking forward to reading “Face Blind.”
    Secrets of life from a book? Kindness counts and you can never be only what other people expect you to be . . . .

  2. Welcome Lance, I love your list of what you learned from writing, especially the bullet point about how horror should be balanced with magical events. We sure need that these days!

    One thing I've learned, taking off from Joan's kindness, is that people love loyal characters with a reliable circle of family and friends. True for real people too I think!

  3. Fabulous, Lance. Of course we need to write about read people - and I'm glad you discovered that truth. One thing I've learned along the way as a writer is that the bad guys need to be complete people, too, not just cardboard cutouts of villains. Still working on that one.

    Prosopagnosia is a perfect disorder for a sleuth. A former member of my critique group had started a novel with that premise some years ago and we all loved it. Unfortunately she never finished it. And now you've scooped her! ;^) I read an essay by Oliver Sacks in the New Yorker once - he had prosopagnosia, which I believe for him extended to recognizing places - and he was always getting lost in his own neighborhood.

    Best of luck with the new gig!

  4. "real" people, not "read" people - sorry, not enough coffee yet...

  5. SO tell us more..if her doesn't see faces--what does he see? or does he see and not remember them? Is it curable?

    An author friend of mine has prosopagnosia--she says it's terrifying, and she relies on nametags and "honey."

    And congratulations! what a story of perseverance.

  6. I have never heard of prosopagnosia - what a fascinating disorder for a sleuth!

    What have I learned from books? Everyone is the hero of his/her own story - at least in their minds and you can only understand a person's actions if you understand, or at least listen to, the story.

  7. So interesting - I was just reading about "super recognizers" (experts who are especially able to distinguish faces... just like scent experts might develop perfumes and taste experts might work with wine). There's so much about the human mind that we take for granted.

    Lance, an aside: I love the book cover.

    I've written a series from a male viewpoint and it helped that I was co-authoring with a man. Julia and Hank and Deb ALL write from men's perspectives. I couldn't have done it without him, so kudoes to you, Lance.

  8. What a compelling book. I knew a woman with prosopagnosia, she had an awful time until enough people in the neighborhood learned why she always met them for the first time. Great disorder for a sleuth--horror for those who really live with it. I think it might have been featured on a Homicide, Life in the Streets episode, too.

    Lance, your story is truly unique. Does Erin still write or has she hung up her pen?

    What have I learned from books? Seize life and shake it. There's generally a happy ending.

  9. Thank you, everyone, for your kind (and inspiring!) words. My mother has always been my voice of "you can do this" when I met with rejection along my path to becoming a novelist. I've always tried to incorporate her wisdom into my writing.

    @Kait: Erin O'Rourke does still write, but usually only in short stories when I need to work out a particular issue or spend a little time with my heart. I would love one day to write another women's fiction novel under her name, because I so strongly identify with those issues.

    @Hallie Ephron: Thanks for saying that about the cover. I love it, too! I had no input in its creation, but I'm very pleased with what the publisher chose.

    @Edith Maxwell: Yep, my "bad guys" still need work, too. : )

  10. Edith - I know, prosopagnosia is the perfect handicap for a sleuth, isn't it? As soon as I read about Lance's book, I said, "Damn it, why didn't I think of that?"

    Lance, I think the other wonderful thing about your story is that it illustrates how, if the writer is determined, he or she can make publishing work. Several of the Reds have written under other names, started with small publishing houses or switched publishers and editors. If you're willing to keep on writing, it can happen.

  11. I am reading the New Yorker essay that Edith mentioned. Really very interesting. Apparently Jane Goodall also has this condition. She says she needs to know the primate very well before she can recognize it. I wonder if a person with this condition can rely on sound of voice or scent to help them identify someone.

    I am really motivated to read this mystery, and glad that Ellen O'Rourke still 'lives'.

  12. I am partially face blind. If you change your hair, I have a hard time recognizing you. I see the lower left quadrant of your face, but the rest just doesn't stick in my head. So I go around introducing myself to the same people a lot! It's embarrassing. But I am very good at recognizing voices.

  13. @Julia: Yep, determination pays off. My mom actually cut out the word "quit" from my old dog-eared dictionary as a reminder to me of that fact. There is literally no "quit" in my dictionary. : )

    @Coralee: I hope you enjoy the story!

  14. What a fascinating concept for a story, the main character having prosopagnosia. It makes me want to read the book and more about this disorder. Jane Goodall has it? I can't imagine having to cope with it, although one of the great reading lessons is just how resilient people are. And, your journey to becoming you, Lance, is also fascinating, from Ellen O'Rourke to Lance Hawvermale.

    One of my aha moments in reading was putting the words to a thought I'd always had. In reading Lori Lansen's The Girls, a book also featuring a lead character(s) with an unusual condition, conjoined adult twins. In that story, there is an appreciation that there is extraordinary to be found in the ordinary and ordinary to be found in the extraordinary. So, while sitting here typing these comments and looking at a colorful picture of a grand piano, I see the piano as an instrument of soaring heights of artistry that fills the very soul with rich passion, and I also see wood and all the other ordinary items used to make that piano--the extraordinary and ordinary, an integral part of each other.

  15. Kathy, what an eloquent post. (As usual!)

    Lance, the lack of facial recognition is a fascinating premise for a crime novel. And the setting! What inspired you to write about Chili? And about an astronomer?

  16. @Deborah: As it happens, the novel's primary plot and setting are wrapped around the story's true heart: a pair of twins, one of whom has Down Syndrome. That's the real story I wanted to tell, the beauty of the relationship between those two siblings. Neither one is the novel's protagonist. But in reference to my guest blog post here, there are two parts of me in this book. One part writes the crime fiction aspect (Chile and the astronomer), and Erin O'Rourke writes the good, human stuff (the twins and the magic they share).

  17. Thanks, Debs. Hope you're having a blast across the pond.

    Lance, what a great combination, with both of your author identities playing a role.