Dirty Harry’s Place…

DIRTY HARRY’S PLACE: First off, thank you for doing this. There’s a lot of interest in your new novel, Empire of Lies, among the readers as well as myself, so this is appreciated.

ANDREW KLAVAN: No, thank you. I’ve been so touched and pleased by the support for me and the book at Dirty Harry’s Place. Thanks to both you and your readers. It means a lot and it helps a lot.
 
When someone tells a story, in whatever art form, you can often tell the difference between a storyteller using their talent to tell a whopping good tale and a whopping good tale that came from a storyteller’s need to tell that story. Yours feels like a story you needed to tell. Something personal you had to get out.

It must’ve been because writing the book nearly killed me. I’m still not entirely sure why. The story’s not autobiographical in any detailed way, and the hero, Jason Harrow, isn’t me, but somehow he and I went through some sort of a Vulcan mind meld and his journey became my journey and by the end of it I was completely depleted, a total wreck. I told my wife it was too much, that I’d never write another novel. She said something like, “Sit down and eat your supper, dear.” Which I took to mean she didn’t believe me. God, I hate that woman. But she was right, of course, and I’m already at work on the next. So I guess the answer is: the book was personal to me in ways I don’t fully understand, that I needed to tell it in ways I don’t fully understand, and it cost me in ways, likewise, I don’t fully understand. Maybe that’s not too informative, but there it is.

Author Andrew Klavan

You never explain or define what the “empire of lies” is. You leave that up to the reader, allowing us to define it ourselves. How do you define it?

For me, I’d say it’s the culture – our culture – what’s become a structured culture of deception. Not a conspiracy or anything like that, but a set of values that’s been imposed on us by bullying elites that says there’s some kind of virtue in deceit. If you lie about Islamo-fascists – if you don’t make movies or write books where they’re the villains they are – that somehow makes you a better, more tolerant person. If you pretend that every woman is what feminists think women should be instead of what women generally are, then you’re one of the good guys. If you say that all cultures are equally good or equally culpable or that all morality is relative, then you’re nice, we like you, we won’t say that you’re racist or sexist or offensive. And it’s all baloney, all of it, it’s all lies. It’s like being forced to live in the Matrix – or better yet, like that scene at the end of Blow Up where they convince the photographer to pick up an invisible tennis ball and when he does, he becomes invisible too. There’s all this pressure to play the game, join the deception, pick up the ball. In the book – in Empire of Lies – Jason Harrow is a man who escaped that world of deceit and created a better one for himself… only now he has to go back to find a missing girl and it threatens his sanity. Hell, I feel that way every time I turn on the network news!
 
Jason Harrow, your protagonist, is a very flawed individual with a large bag of rocks to haul around from his past. Without my spoiling any story points, I found his ability to live with what he’d done — to forgive himself, which is often the hardest thing to do — a unique way to explore the salvation of Christ. I’m not saying Jason didn’t have regrets, but he was able to move past his past life and not get stalled punishing himself. Not forgiving yourself is not having faith in Christ — a sin in a way.

What a beautiful way to put it. I’m taking some flak, you know, about Jason from conservatives. Why does he think such dirty thoughts, why did he do such terrible things, why can’t your heroes be more likable and so on. But that’s just asking me to gussy up the world and that’s not my job. I believe art is a vehicle for seeking the truth of human existence, of the experience of being human. And the human mind is messy – sinful if you want to put it in religious terms, but even in secular terms, the fact remains. To quote the Bible: the imagination of man is evil from his youth. And I think that’s true in one way or another even of the best of us. I find a lot of people – maybe all people – will do anything, say anything, believe anything rather than confront the evil inside them or the bad things they’ve done. That means that forgiveness becomes our only means of seeing clearly, our only means of setting rationalization and self-deceit aside. It ain’t easy either. It’s a long road.

There’s a very moving scene where Jason takes us back to the moment he found God. He describes the moment he realizes that the saying of the prayer was the answer to the prayer. Without getting too personal, as a writer, where did that come from?

A lot of Jason’s experience comes from two intellectual places. One is my reading of the Marquis de Sade – you know, the guy who gives us the term “sadism.” I read his work many years ago, when I was an atheist, and I thought, you know what? That’s the only fully honest atheist philosophy I’ve ever read, the only book that truly acknowledges the consequences of that belief system. So I put an aspect of that sadism into Jason’s character. (Very difficult because, as you know, personally I’m a sweetie-pie.) And another inspiration for his character is my reading of the book of Genesis, the garden of Eden story. And no, I don’t take it literally, I don’t think Darwin got everything wrong. But I do think it’s a story of stupendous depth and wisdom. And one of the things it speaks about is the centrality of shame in human nature, the way in which, the moment we come to a consciousness of good and evil, we see ourselves as naked, as needing to be covered up and to hide. People who believe we should throw off the shackles of repression and all get together and screw each other silly or whatever are missing the point – the shame’s still there, it’s inherent in the human condition. So I wanted to explore that shame and explore the central spiritual response of our culture, which is salvation through Christ. And, look, I don’t consider this a Christian book but it is a book about a Christian man. And even though I’m not preaching or trying to sell that experience to anyone, it’s an experience I’ve had and I used whatever skill I have to fictionalize it and convey it. Even if you’re not interested in questions of God at all or religious at all, I hoped that I could make it moving to you to see how this man reshapes his life and why.
 
Did you have to go after William Shatner? My hero, Captain Kirk? One of my favorite chapters is the scene in the bar between a drunk Patrick Piersall [a character modeled after Shatner] and Jason. While the plot turns in that scene, at the same time we’re in Jason’s mind as he dissects this character to pieces. It was a fabulous piece of writing and a fascinating read. You do the same when Jason sees his old flame after so many years. Those strike me as the chapters that were either the hardest or most fun to write. Regardless, your penetrating insight makes me not want to not talk to you ever again.

LOL! Luckily, I only use my insight for good instead of evil. Also at parties to impress girls. And listen, while of course any resemblance between Piersall and Shatner is strictly in your demented imagination, the heroism of such characters as Kirk is part of the point. I’ve talked about this elsewhere, and you’ve talked about it on your site too, but fictional heroes help us figure out who we are, what we stand for, what we want to be like. And where have they gone? Lost to ideology, destroyed by what the left thinks we ought to be like instead of what we are like and what our deepest natures wish for. Piersall is a ruin of a man because the heroism he once portrayed is ruined. And yet – I won’t give anything away – but he plays a very interesting role in the story.
 
Your criticism of Hollywood holds nothing back. In my opinion, it’s all well deserved, long overdue, and even though your criticism emanates from fictional circumstance, none of the behavior seems at all fictional. Did a hopeful approach to that industry just seem too out there? Are they that far gone in your mind?

Interesting question. I’m never hopeless, Truly – never. The truth is like a sleeping rose, man. The day comes, the sun shines, the snow melts and there she be. Hollywood has been taken over by a small-minded minority, a group of lockstep conformists who cannot tolerate the sound of disagreement, who truly think you must be evil if you disagree. People like that can cause a lot of misery – and make a lot of really bad movies – but they always lose in the end, they always get overturned and shown the door. But Empire of Lies is about one man’s experience in one moment of time – this perilous moment of ours – and I just tried to tell it like it is, not as it once was and will hopefully be again.
 
You’re a successful screenwriter in Hollywood and one of the few to out yourself as a conservative through, among other things, columns critical of the industry in the L.A. Times and City Journal. What’s the reaction been? Or, is it too hard to try and figure out who’s not calling you?

Yeah, it’s hard to tell, but I think it’s cost me. I’m pretty sure it has. I think there are a lot of calls I don’t get because of it. And you know what? It works both ways, because there are a lot of projects I won’t work on too. Thrillers where the military is evil, where the country is evil. Some kinds of horror. I mean, I love ghost stories – just love them – and I started writing those kinds of scripts and selling them. And then, ultimately, if you write scary stuff, you start getting offered projects about, you know, a beautiful girl gets tortured. That’s the whole plot. A beautiful girl gets eviscerated and screams for two hours. And you’re just, like, oh, you know, thanks, I’d like to write that, but I have to wash my hair that night. And so you lose work because of that too, because of that attitude – especially after they find out I don’t have any hair. But there’s a price to everything. A lot of guys are taking far bigger risks and make far more terrible sacrifices for the things I believe in and love. They’re getting shot at, I’m losing some work – doesn’t really behoove me to start complaining. And fortunately, I have my love to keep me warm, lol.

What should Hollywood be doing?

You know, it’s all about questioning assumptions. I think art is all about that. Just because all your friends think the Iraq war is evil – is it possible it’s the best thing George Bush ever did? Just because all the cool kids think patriotism is a form of bigotry or that Islamo-fascism is no worse than Christianity – is it just possible those are fashionable assumptions that might be challenged, that might be wrong? I’d like to see artists act like artists and break the chains of ideological conformity that’ve turned them into carping dullards.

Here’s a true story. I once pitched a thriller that involved a housewife, a sweet, tender, generous woman who dedicated herself to taking care of her husband and children who, in turn, adored her. I pitched it in a room of four men. You know what they said? “Oh, man, I would love to meet a woman like that. I would kill to find someone like that.” Then I wrote the script. Know what they said then? “That’s not a real woman. Women aren’t like that in the 21st century.” Empire of lies, dude. Because I know plenty of women like that. You gotta get out of LA more, you gotta get out of the echo chamber, defy the critics, defy the award-givers, turn to the people, the real people, and tell them the stories of their lives. That’s why we’re here.
 
You’re a well-respected, best selling novelist, liked by the critics who had a lucrative cocktail party career ahead of him for the asking. Empire of Lies is an affront to what many people in the critical and publishing industry believe in. Maybe you’re too humble to say it, but I think it’s brave thing saying what you know will ruffle the feathers of those who can help your career. Why even take the risk when it’s so easy to stay loved?

Well, that’s kind of you to say, and like I said, there are a lot of guys and girls taking bigger risks than me – a lot bigger. But – I’m not sure how to put this exactly… Here’s the thing: I really believe this stuff I’m talking about. You know? I’m not just saying it. When I talk about seeking the truth at all costs, when I talk about America as the embodiment of an idea worth dying to defend, when I talk about walking into the heart of inner darkness to find forgiveness and spiritual light, it’s not because I think it sounds good or because I’m running for election or anything. I mean it with my whole heart, with every scrap of me. That stuff sets me on fire inside. And to betray it, to turn my back on those ideas, for a literary prize or a good review or a cocktail party invitation… dude, that wouldn’t even be life to me, it wouldn’t be recognizable as life. I have a lot of blessings, man, a lot of blessings. I have a wife of uncommon goodness who has loved me unconditionally for thirty years and looks at me like I’m some kind of hero. I got two kids – if I’d picked them out at the kid store, I couldn’t have done any better – and they look to me with the expectation that I’ll do my best to do right in the world and act with integrity. You got an award worth giving that up for? You got a review worth that? And also I’ve got this gift, this ability to tell stories. And what’s the point of that, if it’s not about getting it right, getting it the way the muse gave it to you, telling the tale that’s in your heart without fear? I probably sound corny now or maybe just crazy, but I really believe this stuff. And I love the book I wrote, I’m proud of it. That’s my take home pay. I got nothing to complain about.
 
Have you been surprised by any of the reaction to the book, good or bad? How did reality meet your expectations?

Well, it’s early days so I’m not sure yet. It seems to be doing really well right now, so that’s exciting. My expectation was that the mainstream media would ignore it – that’s their usual routine – and I wasn’t sure whether the right would embrace it or not because of the tough themes and the language. But the right’s been great, they’ve shown up, they’ve interviewed me, they’ve given me some press, which I sorely need, because there’s not much of an ad budget. So so far, I’m delighted.
 
Just the other day, you mentioned that you had been baptized. What led you to that? I only ask because it seemed to coincide with the release of the book which means the writing was just one part of a personal journey.

No, I was baptized about three years ago. A very tough decision because I was born a Jew, and I loved that and love it still and was afraid people would think that I was turning my back on it or trying to get in with the in crowd or trying to disguise my background or something. But the pressure of my belief was too great for me to deny it. Baptism became an act of integrity, if you see what I mean, an open declaration of what I felt strongly inside. And let me say this too – I don’t believe that life is some kind of game show, you know, where you guess the proper name of God and Pat Sajak opens the door and lets you into heaven. I mean, I’m sure Pat Sajak is involved in some capacity, but I don’t think you’re going to hell if you disagree with me or anything like that. It’s just that Christ is the face of God to me and I couldn’t keep going without declaring that with my body and my life. And it’s funny, the ceremony of baptism was almost exactly the same as the ceremony of marriage for me. Both times I tried to convince myself it was just a little thing, just a ceremony, just a ritual, nothing to bother about. And both times, the minute the ritual was over, I thought, “Klavan, my boy, you just did something massively important and got it exactly right!”
 
Thank you, my friend.

 Again, my thanks to you and all the folks at Dirty Harry’s Place.

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