The Lavin Agency
Perhaps best known for his book Bad Paper and work in the New Yorker, including a recent in-depth profile of Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, East Rock author Jake Halpern wears another hat: Young Adult (YA) novelist with friend and colleague Peter Kujawinski, a U.S. diplomat during the day and fiction writer by night. Their most recent novel, Nightfall, debuts across the country this month, and will enjoy a local homecoming Thursday night at Worthington Hooker Middle School on Whitney Avenue.
Earlier this week, I had the chance to connect with Halpern (pictured) to get the scoop on the release event, which will include spooky songs from the Yale Slavic Women’s Chorus and a full-blown Halloween party. The following is a selected portion of the interview we shared.
New Haven Independent: Tell me about the genesis of Nightfall. In reading some of the text, I was struck by how quickly it took me back to the murder scene in Donna Tartt’s A Secret History, that spooky-scary feeling. I’m curious about your influences.
Jake Halpern: I did read A Secret History years ago, but I didn’t see the connection. Other things came to mind but not that. I thought of José Saramago’s Blindness, Game of Thrones … a master force of nature. There’s a book by John Demos (A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony) … where he relied on kerosene and wood-burning stoves for heat, and around twilight, a sense of uneasiness came around him — like he was at the mercy of the darkness. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about it. The power that night once had.
New Haven Independent: You keep saying night had a power on us. Does it not still?
JH: Nightfall totally has a power over us. I live in one of these great old East Rock houses — my kids’ rooms are up on third floor. At night, they’re spooked. My son will say: dad, I’m scared of ghosts … the ghosts in my brain. Our brains are hardwired to be scared of the dark. At one time it probably enhanced your chances of survival.
There are times in New Haven when you’ll go out at night and there isn’t a soul on the street. You could be the last person on earth.
New Haven Independent: What was the timeline for this book?
JH: Peter [Kujawinski] and I started talking about the book three and a half years ago. Ideas incubate for a while; they kind of sit in the back of your subconscious. There are a few things that got us thinking about it. Six or seven years ago, Peter was stationed in Paris, and we went to Dans le Noir, where the waiters are blind and you dine in total darkness. Going to the bathroom is a small adventure … the waiter would take you hand and lead you through this maze of chairs, and you start to think: What would happen if there was a fire, murderer? It grew from there.
New Haven Independent: There’s such a strong collaborative angle. In your initial email to the Independent you wrote: “We write our books by tossing the manuscript back and forth on email and by skyping. On any given day, he might be working on a Security Council resolution on Iran and I am profiling a former bank robber, and we will interrupt our schedule to have an in depth chat about how many claws and fangs our main monster has.” Which actually sounds really whimsical. Does it feel like a relief at the end of a workday?
JH: Yeah! For both of us, even though this story was a dark story, it was always a nice escape from the sobering aspects of our day jobs … we just do a little bit each day, and it always feels light and playful. At the end of the day I offer to read to him what I’ve written.
New Haven Independent: Were you still working on the book when you were in Ferguson in March, spending time with Wilson?
JH: Yes. I was probably working on final copyedits and end stage editing — it wouldn’t have been in the super creative process. But it was interesting — I was trying to get Darren Wilson to talk to me … and I said: ‘the best sense of what you’re going to get is to read my other work,’ and I gave him one of my YA books [from the Dormia trilogy]. It was a strange crisscrossing of worlds.
That Monday morning [after the article came out], the Twittersphere was buzzing pretty negatively about the article. I was bombarded immediately with media requests and said no to basically al of them (except this one) … there was a moment where I wondered if I’d put an end to both projects. But the people at Penguin were great: they said: ‘go on All Things Considered, be a spokesman for your work, and we’ll be proud of you.’
New Haven Independent: Does your fiction writing influence your journalism? You hear people say “look through a child’s eyes and it’s a revelation,” and essentially you’re writing to do that.
JH: Totally. I think [my] nonfiction benefited more, actually. In a YA novel, it’s all about story. You need characters, but so much of it is plot and pacing and connectivity so it keeps on moving. You are driven by some central question. There are a lot of smart people who can write nonfiction. There are few who can write a fiction. The commonality between the two is storytelling — can you condense it? For every story you should be able to tell what the arc is in a way that a six-year-old is going to be able to understand.
No matter how fantastical your world is its gotta be real. It’s gotta have rules. Also dialogue. Also a matter of dialogue … people don’t talk in a logical way. Conversations jump … they have a kind of rhythm that fees like — they gotta breathe. Sometimes I read dialogue and it’s totally contrived, snappy. Fiction writing makes me think about story and plot and movement. Is there sense — made me attuned to that in a way I don’t think I would be.
New Haven Independent: So you’ve done this before. What are you most excited about?
JH: This is my seventh book, and this is going to be the happiest book event because this book is dedicated to my kids. I’m doing this entirely for my kids. It’s at my kids’ school … I love being there, I love my community — it’s one of these things where I wanted to create this moment where I enjoyed it and my kids enjoyed it. There’s so much stuff with the book that you think should be awesome that isn’t necessarily awesome. I made the New York Times Bestseller list … That moment comes and when it passes it doesn’t really make you happy. You think: ‘If I achieve this, it will make me happy.’ Then they don’t make you happy. I guess that’s one of the few advantages of turning 40, and having a better sense of what makes you happy, and seizing upon it.