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| Stephen Jared, Actor and Author NEED MORE ROAD |
Stephen
Jared’s newest novel, NEED MORE ROAD, offers what Jared describes as his own
“temperament” on a “classic subject”—a bank heist turned into romance. He uses
the setting of the 1950s in Barstow, Calif. to support his plot and develop his
characters. Reviewers applaud his “insight
into human nature” and add that his books are “dramatic, adventuresome, and
infused with real emotion.”
In
addition to writing novels that include adventure stories set in the 1930s and
1940s, Jared is also an actor and has appeared in movies such as He's Just Not That Into You, and on television series such as iCarly and
Criminal Minds. He is currently Associate
Producer of a documentary on the illustrator Richard Amsel. And he is busy
writing his next adventure story and plans to release it the end of the year.
Q: Would you
characterize your newest book, NEED MORE ROAD, as a romance or suspense novel? What drew you to write this story?
Stephen Jared: A million bank
heist stories have been told. So, once I had the idea, I began thinking of it
like how a painter might approach a still life or landscape. There’s only one
reason to paint such a thing, and that’s to express one’s own temperament
through a classic subject. As such, it evolved into an eccentric romance. It
starts with suspense surrounding a crime but, for me, it’s more interesting to
see where the characters go from there. Without a doubt, there’s some
genre-bending going on. I saw that as a good thing but some readers have been
thrown by it.
Q: I know
you’ve written many novels set in the first half of the 20th
century. What draws you to this time period? Would NEED MORE ROAD have been a different story if set in present-day
rather than in the 1950s?
Stephen Jared: Some writers
capture their own era so beautifully. Fitzgerald and Hemingway leap to mind.
I’m not that smart. I’m confused by our modern world. I can’t get enough of a
handle on it to write about it. When I look back to an earlier era, however,
objectivity and generalizations become easier. As example, NEED MORE ROAD is set in the 1950s, and I gave a lot of thought to
why the 1950s was a car culture. Obviously, people had more money after the
war, but that doesn’t answer why people would drive to a restaurant and have
dinner brought to them in their cars. People were cruising and drag racing.
Teenagers were getting cars and parking while on dates. People were going to
Drive-Ins and watching films in their cars. I wondered if there was a lot of anxiety
and restless energy after the war, and maybe cars helped alleviate some of
that. You could put things behind you faster behind the wheel of a car. Some of
these ideas found their way into NEED MORE ROAD. The distance from iconic elements of an era maybe gives my mind
some room to think.
Q: A reviewer
says of your protagonist, Eddie, that you’ve created “a
poignant character study of a lonely man living in quiet desperation.” Is NEED MORE ROAD more
about your characters, particularly Eddie, than about the plot?
Stephen Jared: I think the
book’s success or failure pivots on the degree to which readers find Eddie
engaging. What appealed to me was this guy who has always lived vicariously
through fictional characters, now he’s almost fifty, meets someone, and feels
he’s plunged into a different world, and it’s a world he wants to stay in. In
order to continue, he takes a massive risk. Reality proves hard, fraught with
dangers. Reality lands every punch and it’s brutal. But only in reality can
Eddie lose the loneliness that’s plagued him his whole life. The plot ended up
driven very much by what I wanted to express through the character.
Q: Do you
consider Eddie a hero? Why or why not?
Stephen Jared: He’s
dysfunctional. He’s cowardly. He’s an unhappy guy. Constantly questioning
everything. When he pulls his head out of the cinema long enough to see himself
as he really is he goes so far as to involve himself in a crime with hopes of
becoming someone new. Of course, people can’t change overnight, but in going
down a different road he finds strength he didn’t have before. He gains some
satisfaction. He actually begins living a life not so different from the
fictional characters he used to envy on the silver screen. It’s hard to change
your life, to leave everything you know behind. Eddie does a heroic thing. But,
no, he’s not a hero at all.
Q: Why did you
set NEED MORE ROAD in Barstow,
Calif.? Does this location support your plot or help develop characters?
Stephen Jared: 1950s Barstow
was small. It was a place people passed through without paying much attention
to it. It lacked glamor. It lacked significance, and it was surrounded by
nothing but desert. I felt it offered a reflection of Eddie Howard, the main
character.
Q: Reviewers
hint that NEED MORE ROAD is different
from your other books, which are more hard-boiled pulp fiction. Do you agree? (Please do not divulge the end of your story to respond to
this question.)
Stephen Jared: I see it as an
extension of what I was doing with the last one, THE BRUTAL ILLUSION, which was something more introspective.
I love hard-hitting noirs and adventures, but if you remain really true to the
form the stories risk becoming nothing more than homage. I think you have to
offer something different. I think uniqueness is found in self-expression; you
just have to be careful about becoming overly self-indulgent.
Q: How helpful
is humor at developing your characters or plot?
Stephen Jared: Humor is a
plus. I think especially so if you’re working with a melancholic character like
Eddie. You have to lighten things up here and there.
Q: As an actor,
can you apply aspects of script-writing to writing a novel, e.g., scene
development, dialogue-based, showing rather than telling?
Stephen Jared: Both require
some similar skills. I don’t think one is easier than the other but the
function of each demands a very different discipline. A script is more like an
architect’s blueprint for a house. The readers of a script are fellow
craftsmen. A novel isn’t assigned dozens of interpretive artists to jump on
board and move it through a long process before it hits the marketplace. It
begins and ends with the written word.
Q: What’s next?
Stephen Jared: I’m currently
at work on another Jack Hunter adventure. I hope to get it out in the Fall.
Q: What have
you been doing recently in addition to writing?
Stephen Jared: I’m Associate Producer of a documentary
on the illustrator Richard Amsel. It’s a film by Adam McDaniel, and there’s
probably no one better suited to be making a film about Amsel. It’s been great
to be supporting him however I can. I’m also still acting. I recently did an
episode of The Young and The Restless,
which aired a couple of weeks ago.
About Stephen Jared
Stephen Jared grew up in a small Ohio
town in the late 1970s/early 1980s. He was at the cinema every weekend. When
considering what he might do as an adult he only had one idea: he wanted to
work in movies. In the summer of 1989 he moved to Los Angeles. He was
twenty-one years old. Since then, he’s appeared as an actor in movies such as He's
Just Not That Into You, and on television series such as iCarly and
Criminal Minds.
In 2010, he wrote JACK AND THE JUNGLE LION, a novel inspired by 1930s Hollywood. Having received much critical
praise, Solstice Publishing began releasing his work, starting with TEN-A-WEEK STEALE, hailed as a “fantastic work in the tradition of the old
pulp/noir masters.” THE ELEPHANTS OF SHANGHAI continued on from where JACK AND THE JUNGLE LION left
off, and went on to take Second Place at the 2013 Hollywood Book Festival. 2014
saw the release of THE BRUTAL ILLUSION, considered by many to be his best
work.
While remaining busy as both author and
actor, Stephen is also Associate Producer of an upcoming documentary about
movie poster legend Richard Amsel who created classic illustrations for Flash
Gordon and Raiders of the Lost Ark, among others, in the late
1970s/early 1980s.
About
NEED MORE ROAD
Eddie lives a life of uncommon routine. At nearly
fifty-years-old, he’s only ever lived in one house. Bored with his bank job, he
spends evenings at the movies where he lives vicariously through Rock Hudson
and Robert Mitchum. With one screen in town he often sees the same picture
repeatedly. He finds Hollywood fantasies infinitely more enticing than reality.
Late one Friday, a woman walks into the bank. Her name is Mary Rose, and she
looks like Marilyn Monroe. Her father came into money and the two are looking
to settle in a small town. Infatuated, Eddie breaks from routines and spends
time with her. While she couldn't be sweeter, her father is different. He has a
roughness about him, an edge. This becomes especially clear when he requests
Eddie's help with a bank heist. Mary Rose’s interest in Eddie was only to lure
him into helping her father. Eddie understands this now. Walking away is the
obvious move. He knows it’s the right thing to do. Yet her attention and
affection and beauty have made him feel alive for the first time. All he has to
do is unlock a door.
Links
Twitter...@stephen_jared
