An Interview by Amazon.com with Robert Rosenberg
Amazon.com:
How did you begin writing? Did you intend to become an author, or do you have a specific reason or reasons for writing each book?
R.R.: The truth is I began as a journalist, because as a kid growing up in the
suburbs of Boston, I found books more interesting than TV, and came across an article
by Ernest Hemingway in which he described his life as a foreign correspondent.
It sounded like a great life: breakfast at a favorite cafe, interviewing
a general or going to a battle zone, coming back to write the story,
dropping it off at the post office for telexing back to the newspaper,
and then on to a nice dinner or party with a beautiful woman. What more
could I ask for? Now, of course, I'd ask for a best seller...
Amazon.com:
What authors do you like to read? What book or books have had a strong influence on you or your writing?
R.R.: John Le Carre is the most influential of all contemporary writers, as far
as I'm concerned. I think that in years to come, his writing -- about the
Cold War -- and now, the post Cold War, will be considered critical to understanding
what happened in the second half of the 20th century.
I am also a great fan of Hammet and Chandler.
What all three of these writers have in common is the ability to use a genre --
mystery, thriller, whatever you want to call it -- to evoke not only the
suspense we all want from our entertainment but also to ask and answer questions
about the human condition.
Amazon.com:
Could you describe the mundane details of writing: How many hours a day do you devote to writing? Do you write a draft on paper or at a keyboard (typewriter or computer)? Do you have a favorite location or time of day (or night) for writing? What do you do to avoid--or seek!--distractions?
R.R.: I use a keyboard to write, and spend about six to eight hours a day,
though not necessarily consecutively, in front of the machine, in a small
study in our apartment about a block from the beach in Tel Aviv. Usually,
the radio or music is playing in the background. I usually don't answer the
phone while working, and am known to forget meals when the writing
is going strong.
Amazon.com:
Do you meet your readers at book signings, conventions, or similar events? Do you interact with your readers electronically through e-mail or other online forums?
R.R.: I write in English but live in a country where although almost everyone speaks English, they
don't use it as their language for reading pleasure. An author's tour is
far too expensive for me to pay for, and I don't (yet) sell enough books
for my publishers to invite me at their expense to what is, after all, a
market on the other side of the globe. But I do often get email from
readers and am happy to answer their questions.
One way I do contribute to marketing my books is by maintaining the Ariga
web site at http://www.ariga.com -- but as I scrolled down now, I see I've
gotten ahead of the interviewer. On to the next question.
Amazon.com:
When and how did you get started on the Net? Do you read any newsgroups such as rec.arts.books and rec.arts.sf.written, mailing lists, or other on-line forums? Do you use the Net for research--or is it just another time sink? Are you able to communicate with other writers or people you work with over the Net?
R.R.: I've been using email since 1983, and since 1995 have owned and operated Ariga,
a web site that is devoted to Business, Pleasure and Peace in the Middle East.
I sue the web to research, and to play, and I use email to correspond with
fans, other writers and my editors. One of the great moments happened
last year for me when I was able to send a new manuscript from my desk in
Tel Aviv to my editor's desk in New York in fifteen minutes, rather than using
a courier service.
I'm not much of a participant at news groups and lists. I lurk on the dorothy-l list,
mostly reading about books that haven't reached Tel Aviv yet, and sometimes
try to send a message of peace and goodwill to Jews and Arabs flaming each
other on the Middle East usenet groups like soc.culture israel and soc.culture.palestine.
The Internet is changing the world. It's one of the reasons the Berlin Wall
fell, and the Israelis and Palestinians finally began talking. This medium
is changing how commerce is done, how friends are made, how people plan their
lives. It isn't yet universal, but fifty or sixty years from now, it will
be ubiquitous.
Among internetters in my milieu, we ask, "what will come first, peace,
the messiah, or full bandwidth?" Personally, I think full bandwidth will help
promote peace, which by itself is as good a way as any to help bring the messiah.
All the Avram Cohen Mysteries at Amazon
Get one or all of the books in the
Avram Cohen Mystery Quartet
"Having created a highly intelligent detective to handle the brainwork in this series, Mr. Rosenberg does not waste that shrewd and subtle mind." -- --New York Times Book Review
Crimes of the City The first book in the Avram Cohen Quartet, in which the veteran Jerusalem detective investigates the murder of two Rusian nuns and uncovers the Jerusalem Syndrome, a mysterious psychosis affecting the susceptible in that holy city.
The New York Times Notable thriller of 1991 Originally published by Simon&Schuster, and Penguin paperback, and translated into German, Dutch, Romanian, and Japanese,
Shown is the Poisoned Pen Press 2nd edition cover More about Crimes of the City, including the first chapter.
The Cutting Room Out of print in both hardcover and paperback (But possibly available in a used edition from
Amazon
the second book in the quartet finds Cohen unhappily retired, on his way to Hollywood to visit his boyhood friend, like Cohen, a Dachau survivor. But when he arrives, he discovers a suicide that is really a murder, and to find the killer, he must delve into his darkest memories of the concentration camp -- and understand the significance of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Download it as an e-book for
free in html
here.
After unzipping it to its own directory, start with the index.htm file. More about The Cutting Room, including the first chaper.
House of Guilt Between the Hebron Massacre and Rabin's assassination, Avram Cohen is emotionally extorted into a hunt for the missing heir to a fortune. Now a wealthy man from an unexpected inheritance, Cohen follows the case from the anarchy of Tel Aviv's night life to the zealotry of the settlements, and on the way is forced to look at his own failures -- and Israel's -- in a new light.
More about House of Guilt, including the first chapter.
An Accidental Murder What appears to be an accident in the desert turns out to be the murder of Cohen's surrogate son, and by ignoring police pressure to stay away from the case, Cohen's investigation leads him to the Russian Mafia's innermost circles in Israel, and to a suprising conclusion about his own place in Israel, and the world. So far, the last of the Cohen books, An Accidental Murder is a profile of a man -- and a country -- trying to be normal in abnormal circumstances.
More about An Accidental Murder, including the first chapter.
PLUS
Secret Soldier: The True Life Story of Israel's Greatest Commando is the autobiography of IDF Col. (ret) Muki Betser, the hero of the Entebbe rescue raid, a pioneering veteran of Israel's air marshall defense forces, the Sayeret Matkal officer thrice assigned the job of getting Yasser Arafat -- yet a proponent of the peace process with the Palestinians -- and a warrior who went into battle knowing how to control his fear. His story is an epic, behind the senes account of Israel's war against terrorism, a dramatic story about life at the tip of the IDF's spear.
More about Secret Soldier, including excerpts, and the author's introduction.
