what if Marilyn Monroe had left Hollywood and let's say she chose a small town life so picture this Hollywood royalty in a small southern town in the 1950s add in a teenage girl with big Ambitions throw in illegal gambling and the mafia and what you have is Lake County by celebrated writer Lori Roy Lori Roy is a two-time Edgar award-winning author I have been a fan since her very first book her latest book Lake county is really bold and it's a new direction for Lori putting an icon Marilyn Monroe into a fictionalized story and changing their traj vory of her life and I cannot wait to talk about this Lori welcome thank you so much it's great to be here I am so glad to have you back here all right so you put an icon Marilyn Monroe in your Southern Gothic crime stories first of all what a brave decision um yes and I was uncertain about it for a good while as I was doing the writing um um I knew I was going to have a character like Marilyn in the book and then it struck me what if it were Marilyn and so I I I just had to give it a shot I I started writing and I thought if there is a reason why it has to be Marilyn Monroe if she has something to say then that that means she wants in the book and right away almost from the first page she was saying hell yes I got something to say did you get any push back from anybody like an editor or publisher or somebody that said Marilyn Monroe we already know everything about Maryland you know I didn't that I that's the first time I've been asked that question um the editor who read the book um that no that was never never even broached as an issue the setting and the mood is vital to this story and Lake county is real it is a real place in Florida the town of haaka is your creation so tell me what it is that you created so Lake County I I really came to learn a lot about Lake County through the work of Gilbert King which a lot of Florida um readers will know Gilbert's written non-fiction work set in Lake County and explores um a lot about the ' 50s and 60s and that in that part of the of Florida so I had done a great deal of research there myself I had traveled a lot of Lake County and so haaka was just sort of an amalgamation of the feel of several places that I went there was not it was very um loose I guess my creation it anybody that that reads your books understands the feel because setting to your books is integral to the plot as it is is here it it it's Southern Gothic crime fiction what is it exactly about small towns that you gravitate to you know that that's that's a tough question um and it's kind of one of those in a way you don't want to think too much about it um because you don't want to talk yourself out as something that has a re a good reason um but the thing about a small town especially for a young woman like my main character who doesn't who feels she doesn't fit in if you don't fit in in a small town there is nowhere to hide um and so of course that UPS the stakes that UPS her desire to escape the small town and um and life is just it's closer to the to the earth almost a little simpler um it's simple and your books are gritty and I love a gritty setting yeah you do I do yes that's the perfect word to illustrate what a master you are in in this Southern Gothic genre I would love to hear if you could read just a a little passage for us and you can set it up we were we're going to talk about Addie and this is this is okay her story yes so I'll read just a short paragraph telling us a little bit about Addie here I thought I wasn't G to have to wear my readers to do this but I'm gonna break them out um Addie Anne is has just turned 18 and she comes from a great family she loves her mother she loves her father but she doesn't want to be her mother and she has dreams of following her very famous Aunt Aunt Jean who is known to the rest of the world as Marilyn Monroe she wants to follow Jean to a career in the movies so this is a little bit about adanne as I took long purposeful strides across the tile floor my footsteps ringing out I imagined the director was angry at me for being late to the set he shouted my name over and over Addie and Buckley to the stage where the hell is Addie and Buckley the store's overhead lights flickered as if a camera crew were setting up for the next shot I smoothed my hair and tucked my blouse neatly into my skirt once I reached the magazine rack near the back of the store I glanced down to make sure I'd hit my imaginary Mark so that's that's Addie is in the um little town grocery store small town grocery store with her Aunt Jean and she plays these imaginary games because Aunt Jean told her everywhere should be your stage and so she's marching through the um the grocery store the overhead lights flickering imagining like the cameras I'm seeing here um and that's been her dream since she was 10 years old she's been studying to become like Marilyn Monroe and she is promised something by her Aunt Jean Marilyn Monroe the timeline is the 1950s Lori I know you were not around in the 1950s so where do you do where did you do your research because there is so many elements in this book that are spoton well thank you for that um I back when I was in college I had this for whatever reason interest in the era the 1950s and I read a whole bunch of U biographies Marilyn Monroe The Rat Pack the organized crime of the time political figures of the time so I had a lot of that in the bank just general knowledge um I did quite a bit of reading of Ace Atkins work Ace is a he was a reporter for the Tampa Bay I guess Tribune is what it was back in the day and he did a great deal of reporting on Charlie wall who was a figure in the book Charlie wall was a real life gangster the kind of the grandfather of organized crime in Florida in fact and um so I yeah read a lot of AC's work and a lot of research in Lake County at the time like the orange groves back then were much different than they are now and so it's just sinking into that research and then finding the characters that bring it to life in the book as we said it's the 1950s Marilyn Monroe has just finished filming the seveny year itch and that for people who maybe have not seen the movie that's that famous uh where she's standing over the the subway great in the white dress this is a low point in her life and she in the book she goes back to haaka MH that with without getting we're not going to give anything away but why is she going back so Marilyn's connection to this small town is adanne who I was just reading about Addie Anne's mother and Marilyn Monroe when she was Norma jeene they grew up together in the Los Angeles um um system as they were both orphan or not orphan but they were in the um in the system together and so that's the connection this family is Marilyn's pseudo family it's not her real family and ever since she was 19 when she's had a a low point in her life a struggle for some reason she comes back to this small town and it's the one place in the world and this is what I wanted to give her the one place in the world where she is just Norma jeene and she's called Aunt Jee or Jean it's like the the collective town is in on it so to speak but that's just what she's always been so in this instance at the point in time when the book begins Marilyn has come back because that photograph has come out and she was married to Joe dagio at the time and Joe deio did not like that photograph she was criticized widely for it she loved the photograph and that criticism brings on this kind of low point in her life and she comes back home to Haw to to heal and that's where the book begins the backstory is so clever it's told by Addie Anne Buckley who is the 18-year-old niece and Addie's struggle is interesting she is a teenage girl she feels like she does she wants more she adores her mother but she doesn't want to be her mother she wants what Aunt Jean is yes and has was she a complicated character to write adanne yes you know she really wasn't I I think Addie had a lot of the feelings that I think many young women come up with she had that awkward stage where she was kind of taller than the other girls and she had the big feet which you know and just didn't feel like she fit in and that was her struggle and so her way out was to follow Aunt Jean to what felt like a very glamorous Amazing Life seeing this huge World Beyond haaka and seeing her the world her mother lived she saw that as very small and so knowing that about her and that's such an important thing about coming up with your characters and I'm kind of reminding myself of this as I sit here and I'm thinking about a new book you got to know what they want and what you want is that thing deep inside that just burns um and we feel that from Addie and it's not just because she has this glamorous family member but there an 18-year-old girl no matter who they are they are yearning for something yes yes she's yearning for a biger life and she thinks she knows what that is we talked about organized crime a couple minutes ago but there was a Tampa Bay Mafia there was gambling there was bolita which I was not familiar with but you explained that gambling game pretty well and the character of Charlie wall there was a whole Mafia scene and it's important in the story yes so that when I decided so Addie Anne has a boyfriend Tru it and I wanted truit he needed to be making a living somehow and when I decided on truit was going to be running his own little Bita game and for those who don't know Bita is kind of the precursor to the lottery it's a game but it's illegal but it's illegal and it is um even more so that the mob runs Bita so tru's running this small town game in Lake County under the nose of the mafia so once I knew that once I knew he's running this bolita game I'm like well that means he's got to have a showdown with a mob boss right I mean that's the inevitable Clash if that he's that he's destined for and that was intimidating to me to think about writing a gangster that's just not really in my strike zone so to speak a and a gangster who was a real person yes and then there because Charlie wall is also and Charlie wall like Marilyn is a real person and a very big personality um and so Charlie as with Marilyn in as much as possible I stuck to the truth of them you know Charlie wall wore these white L I think they were linen suits and a hat and he would flip coins and he'd give candy and money to the kids and he was a big talker he loved to tell stories and he loved attention and um I think ultimately in real life Charlie wall was murdered over 50 years ago in Tampa which remains unsolved um so in as much as possible I stuck to who they were and I don't know that I'd try it again because it went so well this time I feel like I just sort of got lucky I'm not sure about that I think I think you you you've got that one nailed Lori there are powerful men in this book quite a few MH but more interesting to me was the strength of the women considering the place considering the era yeah and the one who stands out to me the most is Addie's mother inz talk a little about her if you would I I will I so appreciate you raising the issue of the difference between power and strength because that that wasn't um brought up or discussed a lot when as the book came out in reviews and whatnot and that really is the heart of the book it's looking because they're two very different things power and strength are two very different things and inz is Addie's mother and so inz was the um orphan out in Los Angeles in the 19 1930s 40s who has made her way back she started a family and in Addie's eyes you know she's home with her children she doesn't have a job outside the home she's never traveled anywhere as far as Addie knows Addie sees her as just Mom but inz is so much more because inz has committed her whole life in part to being there for Marilyn Monroe as Jean to them and she she shows tremendous strength in the book which I'm not going to talk about because we're going to give it away but I these and and Addie comes to find her own strength and Marilyn you Marilyn has power in the industry of course because she's a powerful person in some ways she was also um not so powerful being a woman in the industry at the time but she also shows tremendous strength the difference being strength is an act of character and integrity and power from the powerful men in this book it's gained through not ethical means it's corrupt doesn't have to be corrupt but this power is corrupt um so I I really appreciate you raising that issue well they are two def definitely different power and strength there is a scene that was so scary and I'm not going to spoil anything but it has to do with children children and where one misstep could have ended in tragedy as a writer are you like just anxious to get to this place so you can let us have this or is it do you have to show restraint when there are children whose lives are are in the balance sure well I'm not one for gratuitous violence in my books um I'm I'm more intrigued by creative thinkers you know if you're going to get out of a jam you do it with your mind and not a big gun um so yeah the children is of course a delicate balance and suspense I mean for me good suspense also unrolls slowly but it never stops and it gains speed it's like the rock rolling down the hill and it gains speed and it gains speed because I want the readers reading through their laed Fingers um so I don't want to say too much but I'll just assure you that I take good care of the children I work and you have to re you you it is that rolling along with this book because when you start it you were going to want to read all the way to the end I want to look at character development if I could because to me the wicked ones must be the most fun to see rcks I mean was is it more challenging to write evil um no the thing about evil and I I learned this early on is the bad guy doesn't think of himself as the bad guy the evil person does not think of themselves by and large even if they know what they're doing is wrong they feel Justified um so again it's finding the character and their mindset and Sebert Rick is a man who was nothing without Marilyn Monroe and that makes for a dangerous person and he knows and deep down he'd never admit it to you but deep down he knows he's nothing without her he's her photographer he's totally fictional character um another one that she met in childhood um and they've been connected ever since so connected and he has this hold on her and he has this hold on her she feels that she owes him something because he was there taking pictures in the very beginning and um so yeah seber was fun to write I I I um I like to see Justice and comeuppence in the end and we'll see if that plays out and we'll see if that plays out for sa Ricks everything fits into the book perfectly I I'm curious how many different endings did you consider or did you know when you started that this is how we're going to do it you know I I didn't know a book can be a little bit of a runaway train on you when you get deep in that third act and they've all been different but with this book I could not type fast enough I wrote this faster than any book I've ever T written and I I specifically remember writing the ending I was sitting in my backyard and I could hear my neighbor next door he works from home and I could hear him out on his patio and I am just typing away full on sobbing as I'm writing the ending of this book and that's the best the best way I can say is I just couldn't type fast enough that just gives me chills has it ever happened to you before no and I I would like it to happen with every book because they um but I think a lot about why like is there an answer to why it was that way can I learn something about how you know I don't know the the work that went into the character I don't know what I don't know why I I think that that just there there are crazy mystical things that go on with the writer that I I was started out as a tax accountant so those sort of things that I can't explain that I I I don't like to get too close to them they scare me a little bit and I just roll with it because Marilyn Monroe is .. Central to this story I know you did research I know that that you watched I don't know how many of her movies what's your favorite oh probably a seveny year Ed um and I I watched a lot of or listened to a lot of interviews with Marilyn as well and did read some of her writings um there's a publication out there with from her a journal that she had and she was an Avid Reader she she was she was an Avid Reader and she wrote and a lot of things that that don't maybe fit in with the image of what people had of her she was very um a very bright curious person um very concerned with Justice and equal rights at a time when not many people were certainly not women you know when and and she used her position I think in as much as she could toward those those ends so what we see of Marilyn what we know it it's an act um so a lot of what people think of particularly from her movies or what they've heard of her you know the singing and and the F and we've all seen the the famous happy birthday it's the very breathy voice voice of of Marilyn and that was not her real voice um I went and search and it was kind of tough to find of an example of her real voice because in the book I I I wanted to find Marilyn as just just Jean it's kind of this very artificial environment um so that's that's who I wanted to write and in in one of the interesting things in that research was that very breathy sort of voice voice came out of a struggle she had with stuttering and that was suggested as a way to combat her stuttering um so yeah and she you know she she was is an icon absolutely you know to to this day I don't know that there's there's anyone else that will have faced the issues she faced um and I she was fascinating fascinating to write [Music] Lori I've known you since your very first book Bent Road since that was published this is your sixth book if I'm I think so counting correctly yes this is sixth how how's the progression how how did do you do you are you like totally comfortable now oh no um no that I the I think the big thing I've learned as a writer is just to accept the way it works for me it's not something you decide it's not something you choose um it's a little bit like you write with your left hand or you write with your right hand you don't choose that that's just who you are so my writing process is pretty halfhazard as much as I try to be organized because I got that tax accountant still burning inside me um it's disorganized it's chaotic my office spins out of control until I finish a first draft and then I clean it up this is nothing like I thought you you you would do do you write every day is there a routine I mean I I do I do when I especially when I'm when I'm writing a first draft I'll have sort of a word count Target maybe, 1500 words 2,000 because it's it's just fatiguing you know it's much like you can only run so far you know you you get fatigued when I'm editing um working on a second draft rewriting that I'll pretty much do all day but it's it's every day and it's it's you know not every day is great but you just power through them and it's just a little bit at a time is there a manuscript that's sitting in a drawer that's never seen the light of day oh there's a couple yeah um in fact a couple of the really early ones they got shredded when we moved about 5 years ago I wanted no proof of them um but that's okay that's just part of you know you got to start somewhere um so yeah there's a couple you are successful what does that feel like it's all about the story and the next book so yeah I've had the pleasure of some some wonderful things happening with my work and but it's all about what's next and what is one thing that you would tell your younger self start writing sooner but I also never thought I was going to be a writer I didn't grow up thinking I'm going so I don't maybe that's not realistic I don't know we are so glad you're a writer well thank you Lori Roy's latest book is Lake County it is extraordinary as always thank you so much Lori thank you for having me been great I'm Ann boock please join us on the next between the covers and check out new episodes on our podcast go between the covers [Music]