Recently, I sat down with Alan L. Moss to talk about his debut novel, Island of Betrayal.
Alan, you've written a couple of books of nonfiction. What were the differences in writing your first novel?
First, with fiction, the author has the opportunity to manufacture the story and its characters, create conflict and tension, and lead the reader to an unforgettable climax. For example, in Island of Betrayal, I was able to combine the exotic South Pacific location of American Samoa with a stem cell conspiracy and government corruption to create a story that is exciting but far from any historical record. Second, after spending many years in nonfiction I found it difficult to sacrifice truth for story. Although freedom to create was what attracted me to fiction, the most difficult task in developing the novel was overcoming my instinct to include story components as they actually occurred rather than revising them to fit the storyline. And third, in fiction, readers demand to be entertained - they want to see rapid progress toward the story's conclusion. As the many storylines of my novel were converging and the climax approached, I employed short chapters, eliminated unnecessary words, avoided passive language, and let the reader fill in the blanks.
Michael Bloom, the hero of Island of Betrayal, shows up on American Samoa to conduct public wage hearings for the U.S. Department of Labor. You yourself conducted just this kind of hearing in 2001. So how similar is Michael Bloom to Alan Moss?
I'm afraid if I were the protagonist of my novel, few readers would make it beyond the first chapter. What makes Michael a fascinating character is his limitless devotion to the mission of raising the poverty wages of Samoa's workers and his inability to resist the advances of the beautiful Director of Samoa's Visitor Information Bureau. Although Michael believes in the bureaucracy and the law, when results don't go his way, he refuses to accept them and threatens to expose injustice outside bureaucratic channels. Although Michael loves his wife and depends on the sanctity of his marriage, when Stephanie seduces him, he cannot turn her away and they begin an affair driven by sex and Michael's need for an ally. These two instances of Michael not playing by the rules drive the story forward and place Michael into unknown and deadly circumstances.
You don't see too many thrillers with a government bureaucrat as a hero. What's that all about?
I understand that readers admire the exceptional knowledge and skills of more traditional heroes, those involved in law enforcement, intelligence work, and the military. But there is an added thrill, I think, when the hero is an average person placed in exceptional circumstances. To be sure, Michael is no slouch. He is good-looking, athletic, bright, and knows his way around women. But he is more like you and me than James Bond. This makes it easier for the reader to walk into his shoes and experience Michael's highs and lows. The other more obvious advantage is that I know the world of bureaucracy well, having lived there for many years. And so, the novel spans the environments of both government high jinx and violence perpetrated by the stem cell conspirators.
Not too many people know anything about American Samoa beyond the exotic name of its capital. Why is it a good place to set a thriller? Does having your book set on an island amp up the suspense?
American Samoa is a fascinating land of contrasts. The people are open and friendly and yet women and children are too often abused and drugs and suicides are growing problems. Physically, it appears to be a tropical paradise, and yet the harbor is polluted and sick dogs and clucking chickens are everywhere. Samoans practice a communal lifestyle with great regard for the extended family and yet The Samoan Way requires individual citizens to accept what comes and not protest inequities. American Samoa is in economic jeopardy with half the population living in poverty, 40 percent with inadequate plumbing, educational attainment well below U.S. minimums, and a population that is expected to double in the next 20 to 40 years. The private sector economy has depended on tuna processing, an activity moving to lower cost areas.
Island of Betrayal actually takes place on five Islands: Samoa's main island of Tutuila, the South Island of New Zealand, two of the Hawaiian Islands, and Long Beach Island, New Jersey. Other locations include the Ventana Trail outside Tucson, Arizona and Washington D.C. As the novel draws to a showdown, having the players meet back on Tutuila definitely adds to the tension.
Alan, thanks to novels by Nordhoff and Hall, Maugham, and Michener along with paintings by Gauguin, the islands of the South Pacific have a reputation in America and Europe as something close to paradise. How does Island of Betrayal fit in with this tradition?
American Samoa, as indicated above, has two faces and Island of Betrayal captures both. On the more pleasant side, beautiful beaches and flowers and the light blue waters of the Pacific and establishments such as Sophia's Barefoot Bar and the Agelu Lodge provided romantic settings for Michael's affair with Stephanie. On the other hand, the poverty of the territory and its impact on the population is dramatically portrayed in hearings testimony by a mother who has lost her son to abuse and suicide.
What do you want your readers to take away from Island of Betrayal?
First and foremost, I would like my readers to come away from the novel feeling that they have lived a unique and provocative adventure that has kept them thoroughly entertained. After that, I suppose there are many moral, political, and economic issues raised by the story that may well lead to discussions with other readers and even additional reading to explore matters of substance.
Your book is being published by Gauthier Press. How did you find them? How are they to work with?
I found Gauthier through Writers Market. They have been very pleasant to work with and extremely supportive. While many publishers are contracting in these tough economic times, Gauthier is expanding, signing new authors and publishing more diverse offerings.
Alan, you're doing your writing now on the Jersey Shore, not a place known for its literary culture. Are you setting a trend?
I grew up not too far from the Jersey Shore and being able to live close to where we used to vacation has been a real joy. We live in a quiet neighborhood that's a 20-minute drive from the beach. My wife, Penny and I and our Golden Retriever, Ginger are all beach bums and we love to walk by the ocean year-round. As far as setting a trend there are a growing number of authors and literary agents at the Shore and I'm privileged to be among them.
What's next on your literary to do-list?
I'm at the halfway point writing my next novel, titled Island of Hate. It will be the second in a series of thrillers that use global issues as the story backdrop. While Island of Betrayal concerned poverty wages and stem cell research, Hate deals with a Middle East conflict and the mining of rare earth minerals. The hero of that novel is a brilliant college professor who lands a Congressional fellowship and finds himself responsible for defusing the Middle East powder keg that is ready to explode.
Keith Raffel has held a top secret clearance to watch over CIA activities and has founded an award-winning Internet software company. Steve Berry called Keith's latest book, Smasher: A Silicon Valley Thriller, "taut, tight, and suspenseful" and said it "skillfully carries the reader triumphantly from one climax to the next."
