INTERVIEW WITH LORI WINDSOR MOHR, AUTHOR OF THE DEBUT NOVEL, ‘THE ROAD AT MY DOOR’

*** Note: Please also read my new piece about coping with literary rejection at MASH (click here)

“The Road at my Door” synopsis (according to Amazon): The Road at my Door follows protagonist Reese Cavanaugh on a dark journey to save her family without destroying herself. Set against the backdrop of the Cold War and the sexual revolution, Mohr examines cultural forces shaping family life in a decade of upheaval. Road is a perfect storm of conflicting beliefs about love of self, love of another, fast-changing attitudes about sex, and the toxicity of family secrets. Through Reese Cavanaugh, Lori Mohr explores the deep tension between appearance and reality, portraying a family in turmoil.

What David Corbett, New York Times Notable Author of “The Mercy of the Night” (2015) and “The Art of Character” (2013) says about “Road”: “Lori Windsor Mohr has created in Reese Cavanaugh a heroine with much more than a unique voice. Yes, she’s instantly likable. Yes, she has pluck and wit. But through a series of harrowing ordeals and misplaced allegiances that would break most young women her age – all in pursuit of just one person she can trust – Reese also demonstrates such an irresistible combination of spine and heart, insight and sheer humanity, that I dare you to pick up this book and not fall in love. Road at my Door is one of the most engaging novels you could ever hope to encounter.”

INTERVIEW

MM: Michael Mohr (interviewer)

LM: Lori Mohr (author)

MM: You worked on this novel for over a decade. What compelled you to keep at it, through an agent that couldn’t sell it, waning fears that you couldn’t write it, and draft after draft after draft?

LM: I knew it was a good story. I just didn't know how to tell it. Memoir? Narrative nonfiction? The agent who eventually represented my memoir couldn't sell the book because it wasn't the right book. I had yet to figure out the best form that would offer readers an emotionally satisfying experience.

What kept me going was belief in the story, and the realization that if I wanted to tell it I had more to learn about writing.

MM: The novel feels very autobiographical for the most part. Can you comment on that? How much of this is fact, how much fiction? It is in fact a “novel,” so we assume much is made up, but we know from reading the author bio that you dealt with serious depression as a teen, like the protagonist, Reese Cavanaugh. Like Hemingway said, we often, “Write what we know.”

LM: Writing what we know is one thing, writing what we want to convey is another. I didn't want to write about me. I wanted to write about the experience of depression, the destructive power of secrets. Memoir seemed an obvious choice. However, that form had limitations. It's true memoirists use a novelist’s tools to bring readers into the moment: dialogue, scene, descriptive detail, all of it, like Jeannette Walls’s The Glass Castle or Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. But as a literary form, it didn't allow the creative freedom I needed for writing the most compelling, fluid, readable story possible. In Road I manipulated time by compressing it, I reconfigured the family, combined two characters into one, left out a marriage, all techniques for building tension, keeping the emotional focus where it needed be. The form I chose wasn't about truth versus fiction. It was about what I hoped readers would experience.

The character of Reese Cavanaugh allowed me to create the best version of me that would move the story forward, draw readers in. Reese is prettier, smarter, funnier than I ever was! And she became her own person as the story evolved. I hated saying goodbye. In fact I kept tweaking the manuscript because I didn't want the story to end. Reese Cavanaugh brought magic to the writing, taking me to that sublime gray space between truth and illusion where reality is perception, and memory a creation.

If I've written well enough, readers will be too enthralled and moved to care much whether the story comes from real life or not. They'll go where Reese Cavanaugh leads them, connect on a feeling level with their own experience. That's the emotionally satisfying experience I wanted to offer. I couldn't get there with memoir.

MM: In terms of theme, what do you feel is the biggest, most singular and important theme in “The Road at my Door?” If there were one overarching point you wanted to get across in this novel, what would that point be?

LM: Connection, belongingness. Depression and secrecy are byproducts of the loneliness we grapple with every day. Look at your Facebook posts. We share ordinary moments, a beautiful sunset, a yummy meal, political views, pride over our kids, humor in cartoons, utter dismay at mass shootings, excitement over an upcoming event. All of those things take on added meaning when we share them with someone else.

Your question about theme ties into genre, another area where I was flummoxed. I never wrote the book as YA. The whole issue of genre assignment was difficult in querying agents. In the end, the universal themes in Road led me to consider it cross-genre in the same literary vein as other books with a young protagonist: Sons and Lovers, the internal struggles of a young artist coping with family relationships, early sexual experiences; The Brothers Karamazov, exploring struggles around morality, free will, faith; suicide in For Whom the Bell Tolls. The list goes on, but these are classic forms, stories about feeling lost, alone and unloveable, themes both adults and teenagers understand. A targeted audience makes for easier branding, so the wider scope of cross-genre for both adults and teens is harder to market.

MM: Can you talk about the title, its origin and meaning for you within the story? I believe it stems from a Yeats poem?

LM: Yes, it does. Actually, the poem is about war, not at all a metaphysical reference like Frost's The Road Less Traveled. My book is not about an external choice, but a crucial internal one. It's about core character strength, the fact that every single day we face decisions that have consequences, mostly seemingly inconsequential. But those decisions, large and small, continue to shape us. Reese Cavanaugh lives in a world with no boundaries, has no grounding for making what turns out to be a life and death decision. The idea of a road seemed a fitting metaphor in examining the deep tension between love of self versus love of another, appearance versus reality, the transformative power of empathy.

MM: How did you deal with the intersection of plot and voice and character? In other words, how did you create a compelling, relatively fast-paced book but with characters we care about, a strong voice, and a “literary” versus plot-obsessed, commercial sensibility? Donald Maass, NYC literary agent and writing manual author extraordinaire, in his book, “Writing Twenty-first Century Fiction: High Impact Techniques for Exceptional Storytelling,” says that the strongest stories interweave the commerciality of plot, structure and character, with the literary sense of voice and deep meaning. You seem to have accomplished this.

LM: This question, in my opinion, is about the heart of the writing process. I had misunderstood voice. Here I was looking to genre, form. I got that I needed a good story, the right structure for telling it, and a complex character. But even with all the structural elements in place, I didn't get it. I didn't understand that these aren't separate entities, but that voice comes from content.

I went back to the choice of fiction over memoir. I didn't want readers to shake their heads at a sad story. I wanted them to feel something. The only way to do that was to get them to care about Reese Cavanaugh. That's the answer I had been resisting. If I wanted readers to care, I had to get down and dirty. I had to inhabit Reese Cavanaugh's head, had to become her. Once I made that leap, I could offer readers that emotionally satisfying experience I keep talking about, tell the story I wanted to tell.

Ten years later, The Road at my Door is that story.

***

(“The Road at my Door” has been officially endorsed by Nancie Clare, former editor-in-chief of “LA,” The Los Angeles Times Magazine, and David Corbett, New York Times Notable Author of “Done for a Dime,” “The Mercy of the Night (2015) and the well-known and respected writing manual, “The Art of Character.”)

Lori Windsor Mohr’s bio, author of the debut novel, “The Road at my Door”: As a native Californian, my novels and short stories are set in Pacific Palisades, Santa Monica, Malibu. As you’ll discover in my writing, it’s not the beauty of Southern California that draws me back to life as a middleclass kid whose family was supposedly living the American Dream, but the power of the place in shaping me into the woman I am today. Thomas Wolfe said, “You can’t go home again.” It took 20 years for me to understand that I can go back, must go back, this time looking from the outside in, untethered from its history.

Michael Windsor Mohr is Lori’s son, a former literary agent’s assistant, freelance book editor and published writer. His work can be found in MASH; Alfie Dog Press; The McGuffin; Gothic City Press; Fiction Magazines; Flash: The International Short Short Story Magazine; Milvia Street; Mountain Tales Press; and more. His nonfiction has been published as guest blogger pieces for The Kimberley Cameron & Associates [literary agency] blog; Writers’ Digest; and the San Francisco Writers’ Conference Newsletter. He has written five novels (and is halfway through a sixth) and is currently submitting a punk rock YA novel and an adult suspense novel to agents. If you are interested in paying Michael to edit your manuscript, contact him at michaelmohreditor@gmail.com.

THE GIRLS (EMMA CLINE)

Emma Cline—27-year-old writer from San Francisco, CA—published her debut novel, The Girls, about the Manson family girls, in June, 2016, for a rumored $2 million advance, three book deal, and having sold the film rights. All with Random House.

The massive sale is part of a larger emerging [inner circle] status quo of debut literary novels like Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s 2011 debut, “The Language of Flowers,” Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s “The Nest,” “City on Fire,” by first-time novelist Garth Risk Hallberg, and Bill Clegg’s “Did You Ever Have A Family,” among others.

Cline had only published some personal essays and a few short stories prior to landing her book deal, one with Tin House and another with the Paris Review. She snagged her MFA from Columbia and became a reader for The New Yorker. Soon she signed on with NYT bestselling author and literary agent, Bill Clegg.

I actually met Cline randomly on a visit to New York back in mid March. My girlfriend and I were staying in Brooklyn before heading off to Berlin. I’d walked into a coffee shop one morning to read Harper’s and sip tea, when I saw the pale, attractive young woman waltz in, sit, and talk to a young man about her book. Being both a writer and book editor, I slid over and handed her my card, telling her I was an editor. She smiled politely, telling me she already had an editor and that her book was forthcoming in June. I asked her name and she complied.

When I looked her up, and read some interviews—discovering the hype and advance—I knew I had to read this woman’s book. The fact that I’ve held a fascination with Manson and his so-called Family Girls for a long time added to the desire. I began the book, seeing her do a live interview in San Francisco in the middle of it, finishing the book last week. Here’s my opinion.

Here is the Amazon book synopsis/summary:

Northern California, during the violent end of the 1960s. At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their freedom, their careless dress, their dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, Evie is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is its charismatic leader. Hidden in the hills, their sprawling ranch is eerie and run down, but to Evie, it is exotic, thrilling, charged—a place where she feels desperate to be accepted. As she spends more time away from her mother and the rhythms of her daily life, and as her obsession with Suzanne intensifies, Evie does not realize she is coming closer and closer to unthinkable violence.

First, a quote from the book. Page 56. This is referencing the 14-year-old female narrator’s insightful revelation when she realizes the truth about boys and their true desires.

“That was our mistake, I think. One of many mistakes. To believe that boys were acting with a logic that we could someday understand. To believe that their actions had any meaning beyond thoughtless impulse. We were like conspiracy theorists, seeing portent and intention in every detail, wishing desperately that we mattered enough to be the object of planning and speculation. But they were just boys. Silly and young and straightforward; they weren’t hiding anything.”

The novel is chock full of these beautiful, insightful, poignant paragraphs. The language flows wonderfully, sinuous like a snake, leading you to a special, magic place, and forcing you to reread certain sentences again and again, to make sure you really understood the powerful symbolism and metaphor. Depth can be culled from each phrase and languid page. It is obvious, after reading the page-and-a-half long prologue, that the woman can write. That she contains serious, no-messing-around talent. The advance starts to make sense.

I’m not going to say anything bad or negative about Cline’s novel. I don’t want to do that to any author. I don’t think it’s helpful. And in a sense, though I’m almost seven years older than her, I am proud of her and The Girls for becoming #3 on the NYT bestseller list, landing the advance she received, and for getting film rights and a three-book deal with RH as a so-called Millennial, a generation which I am, for better or worse, a part of. This makes me beam. Good work, Emma.

I will say that, though I found the book potent as a whole, there were certain machinations that I didn’t care for personally and from the POV of a writer and book editor I found some aspects distracting. For example. The book flashes back and forth—though it sticks mostly to 1969 and the Manson Family Girls—between Edie Boyd, the 14-year-old narrator, and her older self decades later. Seeing Cline live, she told us that for her, the “point of entry” was the older Edie, being reminded of her time in the Manson family cult, looking back. For me, as a reader, I cared less about the older woman reflecting and was more curious about the teen girl.

But there was another plot point that frustrated me. In the majority of the narrative—seeing the fictive world through the eyes of 14-year-old Evie—we go back and forth, once the story gets moving, between Evie and her home life with her single, repressed, in-denial mother, and Evie’s time at the ranch outside Petaluma with Russell (Charlie Manson) and the girls (Susan Atkins, Pat Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten, etc). I loved the ranch and Manson/girls sections. I felt the sections about her mother and home were mostly slow and I wasn’t sure why were were dredging through those sections. I get that her point was probably to contrast the two, show the tearing of consciousness between her two worlds, the middleclass protected one (albeit broken and sick, her mother dating bad men and being caught in her narcissism) and the cult at the ranch, the “free,” lurid landscape she’s discovered, as if a portal to some new dimension. I appreciate that struggle.

But for me, what was enthralling, what was mesmerizing, was the idea of leaving her mother—who we know is long gone emotionally—and entering the ranch. I kept expecting her to go to the ranch and stay, just be there for the rest of the story, enraptured, enshrined. It would be like Homer’s Iliad, the classic descent into hell and return. She’d jump through a portal and come out the other side changed. But instead she keeps going back home, describing what it was like to “be” home, after being at the ranch, with crazy Charlie and the bleating sheep girls. The problem for me was that by the time I really cared about Evie and wanted to keep reading to find out what would happen next, I didn’t want to see her go home; I didn’t care about home. Home was the ranch; home was her shocking love for Suzanne.

Structurally speaking I desired more ranch, more muscular experience from the POV of Evie Boyd in relation to the Family, and less mom. She even visits her father towards the end of the book, staying with him and his new girlfriend in Palo Alto. Again, the issue for me was that I’d already long ago given up on her parents. We know those parents. We know those homes. We know this landscape already; it’s engraved in our collective consciousness, our emotional awareness. For me, I felt the yearning for more rounded out focus on the ranch, the girls, and on Evie’s experience and struggle specifically in that realm. Every time I read the mother/father pages it felt sluggish and irrelevant to me. The ranch was what held my interest. These interim pages didn’t make me want to keep reading to find out what would happen next at the ranch, but rather had the effect of nearly making my skip these pages (though I didn’t) to go to the more engaging, exciting, driving areas of interest. The mother/father sections had too much back story, too much summary and explanation , too much “telling.”

And yet, the book is still stunning. I finished it with a chill down my spine and a deeper awareness in my heart of the pain, the loss, the grief of being a teenage girl in America. I wasn’t sure if I bought the 1960s feeling she tried to impose—neither she nor I were born in those days—but I’m not sure that was her intention anyway. The book wins in the end because it is gorgeously written by a new, serious, captivating writer with the clear talent Random House must have seen in the beginning. I think she writes the strongest when she describes and shows young female characters struggling to find some piece of meaning in the world that surrounds them, some understanding of the sickness, the complex humanity that confuses; ultimately when she writes from the heart about how young people try to face the challenge of growing up. And since she does this, or at least tries her best to, on just about every sentence, the whole book, even the sections I found to be slow and cut-worthy, ends up being a product of art in the deepest sense of the word. Cline has created art. To do that?

A worthy endeavor.

Give the book a read. I’m always curious to hear from other readers, authors, editors, agents, etc.

You said it. Let’s edit.

Write on.

Michael Mohr

***Michael Mohr is a Bay Area writer, former literary agent’s assistant and freelance novel editor. His fiction has been published in the following: Fiction Magazines; Tincture; Flash: The International Short Short Story Magazine; Aaduna; MacGuffin; Gothic City Press; Alfie Dog Press; Milvia Street; and more. His blog pieces have been included in Writers’ Digest, The Kimberley Cameron & Associates [literary agency] blog; and the San Francisco Writers Conference Newsletter. His writing/editing website and weekly blog is www.michaelmohrwriter.com.

Emma Cline resources online:

1. http://www.vulture.com/2014/10/faq-emma-cline-manson-family-novel.html

2. http://www.wsj.com/articles/betting-big-on-literary-newcomers-1447880214

3. http://thefederalist.com/2016/07/08/the-girls-depicts-our-manson-family-values/

MY BOOK EDITING PROCESS

I want to talk about my book editing style and process. First off, here’s my background. In a sense, I have been writing my whole life. Ever since I was a kid, I’d pen poems and prose like a mad-child, bordering on obsession. My mother and I would exchange apologies via long-form letter when we fought. Etc.

After landing my BA in writing from San Francisco State—and turning down an acceptance for the MA in Writing program—I decided to intern with a literary agent in the Bay Area. Here I learned everything I possibly could about the submission process, the dreaded slush pile, acquisitions editors, queries, rejections, and on and on. In the process I had been getting my short stories and nonfiction pieces published in little lit mags and journals. I eventually became the senior agent at the firm’s assistant and I learned from the inside out.

Eventually, that agent told me to go off on my own and do what I clearly did best: book editing. So I did. I’d been editing her acquired clients’ books for months by that point, many of whom went on to be published. I realized she was right and I knew I didn’t want to be an agent (too much business and finance).

In the last few years I have published many more stories and written several more books. And I’ve developed the unique editing style that many writers have come to respect. I focus on what’s called “developmental” editing. This means I focus mainly on the following: structure, plot, character-development, pace, logistical issues, dialogue, transitions, etc. Basically, I zoom the camera in and look at what is working and what isn’t. In today’s tough, competitive commercial writing environment this is key. You need and deserve a passionate editor who is backing you up and who knows something about the industry. I go to writing conferences year-round and know the agent submission process. Not all editors do.

So here’s my process. First off, I only handle fiction and memoir. Within fiction I will work with YA or adult, and pretty much any genre except for paranormal. Sci-fi fantasy is okay but I generally prefer more “realistic” novels; that’s just my taste. But if you’re unsure, email me (michaelmohreditor@gmail.com). For memoir, I take just about anything. A recent memoir client was Christian Picciolini, an ex neo-Nazi skinhead (one of the first in America) who got sucked into the scene in the mid-80s and got out in the mid-90s. He formed a non-profit called “Life After Hate” that helps young people (or anyone) disentangle from hate groups. He is a pro-diversity, non-violent, anti-racist activist now who fights for global change. His memoir was published in April, 2015 and is called, “Romantic Violence: Memoirs of an American Skinhead.” Check it out. It’s an incredible, important book that everyone, especially in America, should read. With the Sandy Hook, South Carolina, Oregon and now Florida shootings, his book is more pressing than ever. Order it on Amazon HERE.

I usually do a 10-20 page test edit for the prospective client. This is one-time only and is free. The point is that the client can then decide whether they want to work with me or not. Often they are knocked sideways at my skill and ability to locate exactly what needs work. A good editor always can and will do this. Once we’ve established that we want to work together, I’ll draft and we’ll sign a short, standard book editing contract. Then the client will pay me the first half of the total bill, based off my flat-fee listed on my website. As it stands currently I charge 2 cents per word. Multiply this by your word count and that’d be your total bill.

Once we’ve signed a contract, you’ve paid me the first half, and you’ve sent me the full, up-to-date manuscript as a word.doc, I then delve in. We would have agreed upon a certain deadline for me to have finished by this point, which will be listed in the contract so we’re both crystal clear. From here, I will edit the book and then send it back to you by the deadline, simple as that.

Now, you might be asking, What is the book going to look like upon return? Good question. Traditionally, I would mark up the “digital page,” so to speak, with red comments all over. I still do this to an extent. But lately (in addition to the “tracked” changes in red and red comments below paragraphs that I deem as “needing work”) I do the vast majority of my commentary “off the page.” This means I take extensive notes on a yellow legal pad as I go and then at the end I produce a [usually] 5-15 single-spaced page “editorial letter” that essentially documents every “issue” I have with the book and what I think you can and should do, in my professional opinion, to strengthen your work. This includes very practical methods for actually making the book stronger and tighter. Often the mistakes I see on newer writers’ books are very common and simple to fix. Sometimes it requires much rewriting and revision and sometimes it requires an entire rewrite. In any case, you’ll learn as a writer from my comments, that I can guarantee.

So if you have a novel or memoir you’re trying to take to the next level, please do send me an email. I prefer to hear a bit about you and your writing history (if any) and a little query or synopsis about the book, plus the first chapter, all in a word.doc attachment with your introductory email. Again: michaelmohreditor@gmail.com.

Remember: writing is a lot of work. Be patient, be willing to hear constructive criticism, and be open to revision and rewriting. It’s just part of The Process.

Write on.

“You said it. Let’s edit.”

Michael Mohr