|
|
|
|
|
|
Narayan:
Author & biographer Lisa Rogak is passionate on writing biographies of famous modern day Great Men. Being a fan of Dan Brown & proud owner of all his works, I had the pleasure to conduct this eInterview with Ms. Rogak.
My first question, what prompted you to take up this task of writing about Dan Brown?
Lisa:
Once The Da Vinci Code hit big, I saw the worldwide attention — & criticism — speed towards Brown. Though it's usually the norm whenever a controversial book or movie becomes popular, it bothered me that people were criticizing him a) when they hadn't read the book, & b) they didn't know anything about who he was. I live in New Hampshire — as does Brown — & so I started to dig a little deeper. I passed the idea of writing a biography by my agent, Scott Mendel, who told me to go ahead with it & together we put together a proposal that sold to Andrews McMeel.
Narayan:
Did you get the chance to meet Dan Brown in person or conduct interviews with him — I ask because I understand he's a deeply private man, mostly inaccessible to interviewers & the press — post-The Da Vinci Code of course.
Lisa:
I contacted his office thoroughly expecting to be rejected, & I was. I contacted some friends & former colleagues at Philips Exeter Academy where he worked as a teacher while writing his first novel, Digital Fortress, & where he also grew up since his father taught math there — & was also rebuffed. He was actually pretty open to the media the first year that Da Vinci was out in March 2003. Eventually he became obviously overwhelmed & put a moratorium on virtually all interviews. I was able to talk to some people who had known him & relied on archival material for some of the book.
Narayan:
I am in particular impressed by an email quoted verbatim in the book — about an exchange between Dan Brown & some Usenet group — how did you get hold of this information?
Lisa:
About the time I started my research on the book, Google began beta testing a business it had just purchased that archived newsgroups — was it called DejaNews? I don't remember right now. Anyway, by typing in variants of his known email addresses, his books, & his names, & rooting around on a couple of groups he had mentioned, I found his posts.
Narayan:
The biography, rather the story, portrays Brown as a multi-faceted personality. Which trait, did you find most interesting?
Lisa:
I really admire all facets of the man -– none of which I knew anything about before starting my research — but the one that impressed me the most was his persistence in the face of adversity. He kept plugging away — first at school, then with music, finally with books -– & gave himself time to provide a real chance at making it in a particular field. Despite sometimes constant discouragement, he kept at it.
Narayan:
Did you read all of his works before embarking upon this project? How close, if at all there is, do you feel that the author's background is reflected in his fiction works?
Lisa:
I did read all four of Brown’s novels as well as his two humorous novelty books: The Bald Book, & 187 Men to Avoid. Plus, I listened to his two CDs where he wrote the lyrics & music & sang; you can hear snippets at www.danbrownbio.com. I discovered the CDs towards the end of my research. His background is clearly reflected in how he incorporates puzzles & codes into his novels, as well as pulling the curtain back on secret societies.
Narayan:
Having written about Dan Brown, the “king of art thrillers”, — or as I call it “artystery” have you ever thought of penning a thriller on these lines! I mean, were you inspired to write one?
Lisa:
I wasn't inspired to write a thriller, but Brown did inspire me to return to writing a novel that's been marinating in my brain for a couple of years. & so I'm juggling that with intensive work on my next biography on Shel Silverstein, who in turn is inspiring me to juggle many different projects at the same time. Shel will be the third full-length biography I've written, to be published in 2007 by St Martins Press.
It recently hit me that just as I start to get in deep into the research of each man's life, I unconsciously start to live like them in some ways in order to better understand who they were & what made them tick. With Dr. Atkins, I was mainlining steak day in & day out for months. With Dan Brown, I started to absorb his methods for how he writes & plots out his novels, not only into my own novel but in my biography of him as well. With Shel, since he was much more than just a children's author, with prodigious output in music, theatre, art, & writing, I find that I'm bouncing around more lately, going from working on nonfiction to fiction while also taking more time for my music — I play classical & blues piano — & to hang out with friends. I understand Shel didn't sleep much, & so my sleep has been reduced as a result. I don't do this deliberately, it's part of the organic process of learning so much about one person's life that I first have to become them in a way & only then am I able to accurately convey that life to a reader.
BTW, I write my biographies for fans of the subject, not their detractors. I'm not out to do a hatchet job, that's not my personality, I'll leave that to the Kitty Kelleys of the world. When researching Dr. Atkins, I tried to talk to people at his company, his wife, no one would talk to me, & I actually got a nasty note from their spokesman. After the book was published, I received a note from Mrs. Atkins who said she picked up my book with trepidation, but she was very pleased to see that I managed to capture his personality & who he was in his professional & personal life. That letter really validated all the hard work & my approach to it.
Narayan:
I understand that you had an opportunity to attend the Oprah Winfrey Show as a guest — so how was that — I know that Oprah is an avid reader & a lover of books.
Lisa:
I appeared as the featured guest on Oprah’s show in summer of 1997, for a show she did about small towns. One of my long-ago books was Moving to the Country Once and For All, & for a couple of years this topic was my specialty; I wrote a couple of books on the subject & published a newsletter. I also lived in a very remote area in New Hampshire, in a town with a population of about 1000 people. I now live in the middle of a New Hampshire town of 12,500 within walking distance to everything, & I love it.
Narayan:
I understand you have also authored other biographies including on Howard Dean, Colin Powell etc. Please do give me tell me something about them. What are your upcoming projects? Do you plan to write about other bestselling novelists in the near future?
Lisa:
The books on Dean & Powell were not biographies, but quote books, where I assembled books that basically organized their quotes into categories so people could get a better idea of who they were & where they stood. Each was published just before the primary season got into full swing. It was good practice for writing the biographies, but since I live in New Hampshire, the presidential election process never really shuts down completely, since we have the first primary in the nation. Potential candidates have already been crawling all over the state to appear at events that are just short of the opening of an envelope. I live in an area where it's not unusual for a cat-up-a-tree to be the lead story on the top-of-the hour news at some local stations. Well, during the last primary run-up two full years before the election, the cat up the tree story beat out John Kerry sucking on ribs at a local senior center barbecue the day before, which you think would humble these guys somewhat, but it doesn't. Some people in the state love the primary, I'm amused by how far these guys are willing to go and what they're willing to say to win us over. New Hampshire is a place where you can get right into a candidate’s face & grill them for the better part of the afternoon. Shows you how they stand up under pressure but also that they're human. It also makes me think, of all the millions of people in the United States, this crop is the best we can come up with?
Of course, I'm using the primary in my novel-in-progress and I'm also thinking about my next biography. Both Dr. Atkins & Shel Silverstein shared some strange commonalities: Both were Jewish, are now dead, were born in the Midwest (Shel in Chicago, Atkins in Columbus) in the fall of 1930, & both their fathers were entrepreneurs in food businesses: Atkins' dad was a confectioner, Shel's ran a bakery. Dan Brown was an anomaly because he wasn't a dead Jewish man born in the Midwest in 1930 with a father in the culinary field, but he still fit into the continuum in terms of what I learned from him about how to structure a book to keep readers turning the page. I don't know who'll be next on my plate, but if I find someone who shares a similar background to Atkins & Silverstein, I will have to look closely at him for consideration for my fourth biography.
Narayan:
Thanks Ms. Rogak for sparing your valuable time with us for this interview. Looking forward to more Rogak works.
Do catch Narayan's review of The Man Behind The Da Vinci Code - I hope it makes you go out & buy yourself a copy!
.
Narayan Radhakrishnan
2006©Narayan Radhakrishnan
Published 02/12/06
|
|
|
RebeccasiReads.com
