In this week’s Corks & Conversation II with T. Jefferson Parker, we talk with one of our favorite authors who joined us from his home in Southern California. Have a listen …
Award winning author, T. Jefferson Parker returns to our podcast this season to introduce our listeners to his new (and 27th) book, A Thousand Steps. This part thriller, part coming of age novel takes place in the psychedelic time of 1968 in Laguna Beach, California. He drew from his memories to write this beguiling story, as he explains …
“For a 14 year old that world was just astonishing. Here’s this gorgeous beautiful city and these rugged gorgeous beaches, trees everywhere. And in ‘68, the town was just crammed with hippies with their wild clothes and hair everywhere. And the cops were mad at them. And there’s drug deals going down everywhere you look. The whole city smells like marijuana smoke and eucalyptus combined. And I was 14 and I didn’t understand hardly any of it. But I ‘got it’ and I saw it and I recorded it in my little 14 year old brain.”
We sipped a glass of Coppola Diamond Collection Zinfandel while we talked about all the things we loved about this book. We join many readers and writers who are fans of T. Jefferson Parker’s writing. The great Lee Child, heaped his praise and added that A Thousand Steps “might be Parker’s crowning achievement.” Find out for yourself, you can order your copy of the book here: indie bookshop.org or Amazon.
This book came to Jeff during the first lockdown when he wanted to escape to 1968. He took a detour from his Roland Ford series, as he describes here …
“That book, A Thousand Steps, just literally ordered me to write it and said you’re not writing Roland Ford, you’re writing me. And I took that seriously, or the creative guy inside me took that seriously. When something demands that much attention so strong, and you feel these memories and these sensations kind of swelling up inside you, you listen to that: that’s where good writing comes from.”
He knows of what he speaks. His break out best selling debut, Laguna Heat, was a labor of love, the product of five full drafts over five years! And he continues to produce excellent writing, twenty-seven novels later. His take on writing says it all …
“Writing is like golf in the sense that you never get the whole thing all the way down but you want to feel like you’re doing better.”
Once again, T. Jefferson Parker shared laughs and inspiration with us!
Some highlights from the episode
4:02 The wine T. Jefferson Parker chose was inspired by his favorite movie
6:00 The cover is bitchen!
7:25 Inspired by 1968
8:08 The author as a 14 year old boy in Laguna Beach
13:17 Why we root for Matt Anthony
16:40 The Poet Laureate of crime fiction
18:24 Inspired by Catch 22
26:00 Where good writing comes from
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