Interview: April 3, 2025
When the shadowy circumstances of a relative's death are brought to light, Jane and Lila are plunged into the recesses of an underground drug operation with links to a burgeoning fascist movement. That’s the thrilling premise of BUZZ KILL, the second book featuring the Pool sisters, following the 2024 release of HARD GIRLS. In this interview conducted by Michael Barson, Senior Publicity Executive at Melville House, J. Robert Lennon talks about his decision to produce a crime series after years of writing stand-alone titles; gives a shout-out to some of his favorite noir novels; and explains how the publishing industry has changed since the publication of his debut in 1997.
Question: Your first novel, THE LIGHT OF FALLING STARS, was published in 1997 to considerable acclaim. At that point, could you ever have foreseen moving from that literary perch to the hard-edged crime that is the realm of BUZZ KILL?
J. Robert Lennon: I appreciate the scope of the question, but I don't think these books are all that different. I do hope, though, that my writing is much better now! This series really was conceived as a family drama, the kind of thing I addressed often in my early work, especially THE FUNNIES and ON THE NIGHT PLAIN, but to an extent in that first book, too. I seem to keep applying my preoccupation with familial complexity to different styles and subgenres.
The earlier drafts of HARD GIRLS were actually a little short on action. I was so allergic to the clichés of crime fiction that I forgot I could subvert them or just outright embrace them in my own way. I loved crime fiction even in those early days and always kind of wanted to try it. So maybe it wasn’t so unpredictable, ultimately!
Q: The first appearance of sisters Jane and Lila Pool was in HARD GIRLS, making BUZZ KILL the second in a de facto series. What made you decide to create a crime series after so many years of writing stand-alone novels?
JRL: A few literary-writer friends were trying their hand at crime --- pretty successfully, too --- and I found myself getting jealous of the freedom they felt they had to try another genre. I was complaining about this to my wife, and she pointed out that, of course, I could write whatever I wanted. I conceived HARD GIRLS as a collection of character relationships that could grow and change over time, giving me new kinds of psychological drama for each book, as the players' lives changed. Basically, it sounded fun to me. And it was!
Q: Over your 28 years as a published novelist, you’ve worked in so many genres. Which of your earlier books was the easiest for you to write? And which proved to be the most challenging?
JRL: I'll take "easy to write" to mean "came naturally" here, because they've all been challenging, but also all enjoyable. The hardest ones for me were the ones that depended on research. I always feel like something of an impostor when I'm out of my depth on a subject, and I really labor over that material to try to fake it persuasively. ON THE NIGHT PLAIN is a good example.
But I'd say that SUBDIVISION was probably the easiest. The whole thing came in a sustained fit of inspiration, during an unprecedented break in my life between two marriages. I was living alone in an unfamiliar place, and it all felt like a dream --- both the book and my life. I don't want to live through a time like that again, but I'd love to find a similar mental space somehow.
Q: Have you always been a reader of crime fiction? Who are your favorite noir novelists from the 20th century? And who do you most admire from the past 20 years?
JRL: I have to admit that I'm a little disdainful of noir as a subgenre, despite the classics you could put in that category. I usually don’t like books that depend on a specific extrinsically determined style, as opposed to the general structure and form of a genre.
But the noir novels I love are the ones that do things that aren't on the required-motif list. Elliott Chaze's BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL and Don Carpenter's HARD RAIN FALLING spring to mind. Two only incidentally noirish series I love from more recent years are both Irish: Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad books and Adrian McKinty's Sean Duffy novels. (I like McKinty's thrillers too, but the police procedurals are my favorites.)
Q: What would you say are the biggest changes in the book publishing industry since your late-’90s debut? Which one do you most rue? And which are you most glad for?
JRL: Well, anything I say will sound like sour grapes. But I do think that with every passing year, commercial publishing plunges farther and farther into a capitalist death spiral, as more and more houses embrace the foolish notion that books ought to be profitable. The pressure on editors and publishers to mint star writers seems unbearable, and less and less effort is being put into the midlist. I'm grateful for the existence of publishers like Graywolf, who have been putting out my literary fiction for 15 years (and I hope that will continue in the future), and who don't need smash hits to stay in business. (Luckily, Graywolf's focus on actual quality has given them some hits anyway.)
Literature has lost some of its cultural capital, too, to other art forms, so I think the future is in small publishing. There should be a thousand Graywolfs, Tin Houses, Coffee Houses, Milkweeds and New Directionses! And maybe there will be. Meanwhile, although I'd love to be making more money and attracting more readers, I am enjoying the freedom that comes from semi-irrelevance. I suspect that if I were more famous, I would like writing less.
Q: Do you see yourself continuing the Jane and Lila Pool series for a third case, given its positive critical reception?
JRL: I'd love to produce more of these. I have several chapters and an outline for a third, as well as notes for a fourth. I just don't think I'll be able to resist coming back to these characters.
