Bryant Gruley's debut, STARVATION LAKE, is generating strong pre-pub buzz for a grim and compelling tale of newspapers, hockey and small towns.When a down-and-out reporter returns to his home town in Michigan and is caught up in a murderous mystery involving a legendary hockey coach, he and the townsfolk face secrets that change the way they look at themselves, their neighbors, and a sport they love.
Both Publisher's Weekly and Booklist gave STARVATION LAKE starred reviews and compared Gruley's debut to Dennis Lehane's MYSTIC RIVER. It's also been chosen for the March Indie Next List by IndieBound, and selected as a Killer Book by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association.
STARVATION LAKE is about small town secrets. Why do you think readers crave such tales?
Because we love seeing the scarred and bloody underbelly of anything that's generally exalted in our national consciousness, as small towns are. Reading these sorts of tales, people in small towns can feel like there's more to life than having Friday dinner at the Bob Evans restaurant, and people in big towns can reassure themselves that they don't hold a monopoly on creepiness and evil.
Tell us about your hero, Gus Carpenter, and why there's been such a strong reaction to him.
Gus is your average likable guy. He loves his Mom. He appreciates a good fried bologna sandwich. He drinks Blue Ribbon. He's devoted to his childhood pal, Soupy. But he's endearing, too, because he's flawed. He cost Starvation Lake a shot at a state championship, then went away to redeem himself in Detroit--and committed a much larger mistake that forced him to come home, humiliated. Gus's struggle to forgive himself is common to many of us who live with regrets small and large.
The name, Starvation Lake, sounds so bleak, it surely must be fictional, you mean to tell me there's a real lake?
Not far from my family's lake cottage in northern lower Michigan, there is in fact a real Starvation Lake where I've sipped many a cold beverage in the Hide-A-Way Bar overlooking the water. There is no town called Starvation Lake. As the legend goes, that lake was named for a trapper who got caught in one of his own snares and starved to death.
The fictional Starvation Lake is a much larger body of water and has a town named for it on its southeastern shore. My made-up lake was named for a drought that had nearly dried it up in the 1930s until the Civilian Conservation Corps built a dam to divert the nearby Hungry River.
Much of the country's perception of hockey is based on the famed "Miracle on Ice" moment when the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviet Union. What should readers take away about the sport from your book?
I hope they see, particularly in the scenes about Gus's early years with the River Rats, what a thrilling game it can be. But there's no avoiding or softening its toughness, its rough edges, its ability to bring out the best and the worst in people, because it's such an exhausting and therefore emotional sport. Jack Blackburn, of course, exploits this.
Tell us about the essence of Jack Blackburn.
Blackburn is the coach of the River Rats who built the team into the only team from northern Michigan that could compete with the powerhouses from Detroit. A shrewd tactician as a coach, Blackburn is the charismatic stranger who comes to Starvation Lake and changes it for what appears to be the better.
Because you're the Wall Street Journal's Chicago Bureau Chief , did your friends expect you to write a thriller about corporate greed?
I don't think most of my friends expected me to write a novel about anything, let alone corporate greed. One of my friends, upon hearing that I was writing a novel, said to me, "Please tell me it's not about a hockey-playing journalist."
With the economy tanking and Americans looking for villainous CEOs to hate, do you wish you had written of financial betrayal by big business?
I don't like topical novels. They feel contrived and passé, especially because by the time they're published, the news they're pegged to is usually ancient. But I do think my novel contains an important element of greed, albeit not technically corporate. It was important to me that the evil deeds done in Starvation Lake not be dismissed as simply the behavior of an aberrant character.
Booklist calls STARVATION LAKE "a wonderfully polished and assured first novel," how did your work as a journalist help you become a novelist?
Newspapering taught me to look and listen and smell and taste. It taught me to strive for simplicity and clarity, to use more verbs than adjectives, to favor the active voice, to look for concrete ways to describe things: Instead of "it made a loud sound," say "it made a sound like a fridge falling off the back of a pickup truck." At the Wall Street Journal, I've learned a great deal about editing and rewriting; I love cutting my writing. It's fun, and I know I'm making it better. I think I also learned enough about the newspaper trade to be able to create a credible character.
You're an aging news guy who likes to play hockey...and you wrote your novel in first person...did you ever consider calling STARVATION LAKE a memoir just to get on Oprah?
I have little doubt that the words "A Memoir" instead of "A Mystery" on the cover of the book would guarantee it a splendid run on the New York Times bestseller list. But none of what happened to Gus ever happened to me, thank God.
You have a three book deal with Simon & Schuster, what's next?
Book Two, as yet untitled, returns to our heroes as someone is terrorizing Starvation Lake. Could it be that a mass murderer who savaged another town and escaped fifteen years before has returned to torment Starvation Lake? Gus Carpenter is on the case.
Skate along with Bryan Gruley in this book trailer: http://www.starvationlake.com/
Learn more about him and STARVATION LAKE at his website: http://www.bryangruley.com/
Contributing editor Julie Kramer's debut, STALKING SUSAN, is a finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award. Doubleday will release the sequel, MISSING MARK, July 14. www.juliekramerbooks.com
Not far from my family's lake cottage in northern lower Michigan, there is in fact a real Starvation Lake where I've sipped many a cold beverage in the Hide-A-Way Bar overlooking the water. There is no town called Starvation Lake. As the legend goes, that lake was named for a trapper who got caught in one of his own snares and starved to death.The fictional Starvation Lake is a much larger body of water and has a town named for it on its southeastern shore. My made-up lake was named for a drought that had nearly dried it up in the 1930s until the Civilian Conservation Corps built a dam to divert the nearby Hungry River.
Much of the country's perception of hockey is based on the famed "Miracle on Ice" moment when the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviet Union. What should readers take away about the sport from your book?
I hope they see, particularly in the scenes about Gus's early years with the River Rats, what a thrilling game it can be. But there's no avoiding or softening its toughness, its rough edges, its ability to bring out the best and the worst in people, because it's such an exhausting and therefore emotional sport. Jack Blackburn, of course, exploits this.
Tell us about the essence of Jack Blackburn.
Blackburn is the coach of the River Rats who built the team into the only team from northern Michigan that could compete with the powerhouses from Detroit. A shrewd tactician as a coach, Blackburn is the charismatic stranger who comes to Starvation Lake and changes it for what appears to be the better.
Because you're the Wall Street Journal's Chicago Bureau Chief , did your friends expect you to write a thriller about corporate greed?
I don't think most of my friends expected me to write a novel about anything, let alone corporate greed. One of my friends, upon hearing that I was writing a novel, said to me, "Please tell me it's not about a hockey-playing journalist."
With the economy tanking and Americans looking for villainous CEOs to hate, do you wish you had written of financial betrayal by big business?
I don't like topical novels. They feel contrived and passé, especially because by the time they're published, the news they're pegged to is usually ancient. But I do think my novel contains an important element of greed, albeit not technically corporate. It was important to me that the evil deeds done in Starvation Lake not be dismissed as simply the behavior of an aberrant character.
Booklist calls STARVATION LAKE "a wonderfully polished and assured first novel," how did your work as a journalist help you become a novelist?
Newspapering taught me to look and listen and smell and taste. It taught me to strive for simplicity and clarity, to use more verbs than adjectives, to favor the active voice, to look for concrete ways to describe things: Instead of "it made a loud sound," say "it made a sound like a fridge falling off the back of a pickup truck." At the Wall Street Journal, I've learned a great deal about editing and rewriting; I love cutting my writing. It's fun, and I know I'm making it better. I think I also learned enough about the newspaper trade to be able to create a credible character.
You're an aging news guy who likes to play hockey...and you wrote your novel in first person...did you ever consider calling STARVATION LAKE a memoir just to get on Oprah?
I have little doubt that the words "A Memoir" instead of "A Mystery" on the cover of the book would guarantee it a splendid run on the New York Times bestseller list. But none of what happened to Gus ever happened to me, thank God.
You have a three book deal with Simon & Schuster, what's next?
Book Two, as yet untitled, returns to our heroes as someone is terrorizing Starvation Lake. Could it be that a mass murderer who savaged another town and escaped fifteen years before has returned to torment Starvation Lake? Gus Carpenter is on the case.
Skate along with Bryan Gruley in this book trailer: http://www.starvationlake.com/
Learn more about him and STARVATION LAKE at his website: http://www.bryangruley.com/
Contributing editor Julie Kramer's debut, STALKING SUSAN, is a finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award. Doubleday will release the sequel, MISSING MARK, July 14. www.juliekramerbooks.com
