Ep. 375 The Gospel of the Dispossessed with S. A. Cosby

Written By Wy'Kia Frelot

This week on the Stacks, we are joined by New York Times bestselling crime fiction author, S.A. Cosby, to talk about his brand new book, King of Ashes. Cosby gives us insights into being a self-proclaimed lazy writer, and his approach to violence on the page. We also talk about why he considers reading an integral part of his writing process, and what the genre of “Southern noir” means to him. 

The Stacks Book Club pick for June is The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel. We will discuss on Wednesday, June 25th with Ceara O’Sullivan returning as our guest.

 
 

Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

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TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

S.A. Cosby 0:00

I used to not read when I was trying to write because I didn't want anything from the books I was reading to leech into my own work. But once I felt like I firmly established my own style. Now I read for pleasure when I'm writing, and sometimes I read to inspire myself. I think if you want to be a writer, you have to read. You have to read voraciously, and not just so you can copy other writers. I think you have to learn what works for you and what doesn't you know. You can enjoy a book as a writer and realize, well, I don't do that. I don't think I could do that. That's not my wheelhouse. I think everybody has things they do really well and things that they struggle with. And I think the secret to being a good writer is accentuating things you do well, and minimizing the things you don't. And reading teaches you that.

Traci Thomas 0:49

Welcome to the Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I'm your host, Traci Thomas, and today I am joined by New York Times best selling author S.A. Cosby. He has become a singular voice in the crime mystery and thriller genre, with his unique take on Southern noir, his newest book, King of Ashes is a godfather inspired crime epic where we follow the Carruthers family, particularly the eldest son, Roman who will do anything to keep his siblings safe and well cared for, even offering up his services to a group of pretty bad dudes. Today, I talk with S.A. Cosby about how he approaches audience violence and about his love of Shakespeare. A quick reminder everything we talk about on each episode of the stacks can be found in the link in the show notes. Take a look at your podcast app. Are you subscribed to the Stacks? Go ahead and click that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you're already subscribed, will you double check and make sure you've left us a rating and a review over on Apple podcasts or Spotify, or wherever you're listening. And if you love this podcast, if you want inside access to it, head over to patreon.com/thestacks and join the Stacks Pack and check out my newsletter at tracithomas.substack.com, this is a great way to support the work of the show and make sure that these podcast episodes are free to all All right. Now it is time for my conversation with S.A. Cosby.

All right, everybody. I'm really excited today I am joined by the thriller, mystery, crime writer of the moment, Mr. Sa Cosby, whose brand new book, king of ashes, is a wild ride, and you go by Sean. So I'm gonna call him Shawn, but he's S.A. Cosby, so I gotta, you know, do the whole thing, but Shawn, welcome to the Stacks.

S.A. Cosby 2:41

Well, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Traci Thomas 2:43

I'm really excited to talk to you, so I'll just be real transparent. I don't read a ton of thriller I read maybe a few a year. I did read razor blade tears of yours a few years ago, when it came out, I was very excited to check out this book. You're you're quite good at what you do, and I want to talk about how you do it. But before we get to any of that, I want to start with, just for people listening, can you give us like the 32nd elevator pitch? What is King of Ashes about?

S.A. Cosby 3:10

Yeah, so King of Ashes tells the story of the Carruthers family. Oldest brother, Roman, middle sister, Nevaeh, baby brother Dante, as the book opens. Roman is living in Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia. He returns home to Jefferson, run Virginia, his hometown where his family runs a crematory. Um, Roman had gotten away from the family business and become a financial advisor, living among the high and mighty elites of Atlanta. He comes home because his father's been in a car accident. He's in a coma. Once he gets home, he finds out that the accident maybe wasn't an accident, because his baby brother Dante is in debt to some very dangerous local criminals, and so Roman sets about trying to extricate his family from this terrible predicament, while also the siblings deal with a trauma that's been hanging over their heads since they were teenagers. When they were young children, their mother disappeared, vanished, never seen again for almost 20 years now, and everybody in this small town thinks their father killed her because she was having an affair, and everybody seemed to know about it. And so these twin stories converge in King of Ashes as we try to figure out how the Carruthers siblings are going to survive this situation they find themselves in.

Traci Thomas 4:13

Oh my gosh, you're so good at that. I'm so bad at doing that. It was take, it was gonna take me, like, seven days to try to explain that whole thing, and just so people know, we're keeping this spoiler free. Everything basically that you just heard happens in the first about 20 pages of the book. So we're keeping it clean. I don't wanna spoil any twists and turns. If we do, we will edit it out. You will not hear it. Okay? I promise I take spoilers very seriously, because I am the kind of reader that likes to figure things out. I don't like knowing that ending. I want to start with this, with the crematorium that is sort of the central location of the book. It's this family business. It is very important to the family. There's obviously, you know, it's sort of a juicy place to set a book about murder. And mystery. What's your relationship to a crematorium? Do you have one in your family? Like it felt, like it feels like a place that every thriller should have, but like, I don't think people do. So I'm curious how you came to this.

S.A. Cosby 5:14

I've had a lot of jobs, besides being besides being a writer over the years, one of the jobs I had was I worked at a funeral home. I was a, I guess he would call me a removal specialist. I went and picked up. I'm pretty big dude, so I was like, I wouldn't pick up bodies and stuff. So the funeral home I worked for did not have a crematorium. They would contract out to basically a private crematory. A lot of funeral homes do that, especially in the South, in small towns, anyway, but the crematorium itself always seemed like a place where I thought it would be interesting to sort of base a crime story, because, you know, it's a crematorium. And so, you know, you if you had criminals who needed to get rid of bodies, I thought there's a there's not many better ways to get rid of bodies than burning them. And so, you know, nobody, nobody really knows how much the average human remains, or remains weigh. So I always figured you could probably burn two or three people up at a time and nobody would notice it. Although doing research for this book, I found out that the average human remains weighs between three to seven pounds.

Traci Thomas 6:14

So wow, did you do a lot of cremains research, like, how much and I guess, in general, how much research do you do? Are you a deep research get distracted kind of person, or are you a quick what's the answer? Let me keep writing.

S.A. Cosby 6:28

Yes, I'm a board. Just let me know enough that I sound like I know what I'm talking about. And so I've got a real deep diver. I mean, I'm a natural, curious person, but when it comes to writing and research, I do want to get the details right, but I also don't want to overload the narrative with the minutia of whatever thing I'm researching, whether it's law enforcement, whether it's, you know, fixing cars, whether it's crematory. So I did enough research to make my characters conversant in the world that they are living in, and I made it, I hope I made it sound like they grew up in that environment.

Traci Thomas 7:00

You did. Because I thought maybe you did. I was like, oh, maybe this is, like, part of his life, because it feels like he knows a lot of details about this thing.

S.A. Cosby 7:07

There's just a lot of writing that's just me realistic. Yeah, I'm not a huge research guy. I'm actually pretty lazy when it comes to that. I actually just want to, like, like, with my first book, Blackout wasteland, there's a car chase scene in there, the scene where a car doesn't jump in Overpass, it drives off of Overpass, and he's driving, and I have a friend who's a physicist, and I asked him, I was like, you know, is that, did I do that? And he I never get he said, Well, it's possible. It's not probable. I said, it's good enough. That's all I need. But, yeah, so that's very, basically my view on research I do enough so I can get going with the story.

Traci Thomas 7:47

Do you ever have readers like push back? I mean, I know in some some reading spaces, like romance, readers are very like, in touch with the author. They're DMing, they're reaching out. There's a lot of communication, a lot of feedback happening. Is that something that even happens in sort of the thriller crime, mystery space?

S.A. Cosby 8:08

Yeah, definitely, especially with firearms. People who read mystery books are big in the firearms and they are very big in the specificity of firearms. I learned from my very first book with an independent publisher, I basically made the decision I'm not going to write about specific firearms anymore. I'm not going to use brand name or or calibers. I'm just going to say they had a shotgun, they had a pistol, they had a gun. Because when you get into breaking it down like that, there's always the biggest, the two biggest, I guess, fans that you hear from in the mystery space. Our firearm experts are firearm enthusiasts and historians, you know. And so you write something set in a period piece. I had a friend who wrote a book set in the 50s, after the World War Two, after the Japanese internment. Was about Japanese Americans who who got out of the camps and moved away from California to Chicago, and it's a great murder mystery book, but she had a scene in there where a character popped the top on a beer can, and she said that she got like 30 letters from people who are in the history like pop tops didn't come about until 1961 and so she does so much research, and just that one thing, people gravitate toward it. So I learned a long time ago, don't talk about Smith and Wesson or heckling Koch, just say they had a gun. They had a revolver, they had a pistol, and let's keep it moving.

Traci Thomas 9:28

So do you do you even know anything about guns? Yeah, I know quite you just don't know a ton. You're just not like an enthusiast.

S.A. Cosby 9:36

Quite a bit about I grew up in the South. I grew up hunting and fishing. I'm familiar with firearms, but I don't, you know, I'm not into it in the way that some people are, who maybe, you know, competitively they shoot or obsessively can collect them, you know, I know enough. I like to say I have a, you know, I have a country boys understanding of firearms, the two biggest rules I was always taught. You know? Always assume every gun is loaded. Don't point in anything you don't intend to shoot.

Traci Thomas 10:03

So, right, right. Okay, well, since we're sort of on this topic of violence, this is really what I want to talk to you about, because you write some graphic, violent stuff like and I this is coming from me. I love nonfiction. I'm a real nonfiction girly. The darker, the better. I want to read about the worst of humanity. So I am into the graphic violence in your books, like I was like sitting on the edge of my seat. There's an early scene where the Carruthers brothers sort of first encounter the people to whom Dante the younger brother, owes money, and that scene, I had to close the book afterwards and be like, Whoa, and I started just writing down notes and things I wanted to ask you about which so part my first question is, how what is your relationship like to writing violence? Do you enjoy writing these scenes. Are they fun? For you? Is there some sort of, like pleasure in writing some of the brutal stuff?

S.A. Cosby 11:06

I don't think it's a pleasure. I think for me, it is a necessary component. I don't write violence. I hope people don't take it that I write violence gratuitously. You know? I don't write, yeah, I don't write violence for violence sake. For me, in most of my books, and most of the books that I like, the books that I really enjoy in the crime genre, because I read everything, I don't just read crime, but books that I really enjoy, violence is expository. And what I mean is violence moves the story. Violence tests the metal of the characters. Violence is the language with which some people speak. And so for me, like I said, it's never gratuitous. I'm never like, you know, rubbing my hands together saying, Oh, I can't wait to knock somebody's teeth out unless they're a bad guy, bad guys. I like doing that too, but, um, but for the most part, the violence is there to set the parameters of the world that we're in, right? So if you read a book where, you know, like I said, somebody gets their teeth knocked down the first eight chapters, then you understand pretty quickly, this is the world that we're in. But also, violence can reveal character, just like dialog does, you know. So you have a character who revels in violence that likes it, you know, then you realize, okay, that person's a sadist. That person has maybe, issues that they need to maybe take, take account of. On the other hand, when you see a character who meets our violence in a very utilitarian, grim way, you understand that this person is somebody who feels violence is a tool they have to use in their daily in their job or their experience. And so, you know, violence is American as apple pie. You know, our country is showing, you know, on blood and fire. You know, it's based on the enslavement of one people in the genocide of another. And so, you know, violence drive the American ethos. You know, Manifest Destiny was a political and sociological expression of violence. And so for me, violence is a part of human experience. But I never want to write it. I never want people to come away from it thinking is just there for kicks. It's not, no, don't get me wrong. I do like creating scenes that are memorable, that are gnarly, but I don't, I don't enjoy it in so much of the way that I like like it or feel like it's something that is makes me happy. It's a necessary component. I will say this, though I do like writing bad ass lines, like bad ass threat. I do enjoy that a good threat is a art. There's an art to writing a good threat, you know. And so like in reasonably tears, my favorite threat is Ike after he confronted by the bikers at his Ike is one of the characters raised but tears he he's a landscaper, a guard. He runs a gardening service, and he gets confronted at his at his shop, and he tells a guy, I ever see you around here again, there won't be enough left to you to put in a Ziploc bag. I love that. That's such a good threat, because you realize, you realize by that point, Ike means it, and he can back it up. And so I like writing a good threat or a good put down, but the violence is just a necessary component so that we establish the rules of the world that we're in.

Traci Thomas 14:16

And are you when you're writing those scenes, the violent scenes, and you're thinking about like, what one person does to another. How deep are you thinking about, like, what body part or what, what in which way they do this? Because if you're using it as, like a way to show who a character is, or to, you know, kind of set the scene or let us know information about the world, how detailed are you thinking about the violence? Or you just, like, he kicks them in the nuts and like, that's what people do, yeah?

S.A. Cosby 14:43

No, when I write violent scenes, I'm very detour oriented. I want to use, like, your five senses to put you there so you smell, you know, the blood the cop race in of blood. You You can taste it in the air. You hear the crunch of bone. You. See, you know, the skin flayed or bruise or batter, you know, everything is a part of that. I want you to feel immersed in it. I want you to feel the pain that the individual is feeling. But I also want the reader to sort of understand the position or the mentality of the person meeting out the violence. I'm a former high school theater kids. So I think about the blocking in the scene that I'm writing, you know, what's the position of the bodies or the people, the individuals involved in the fight or the beat down? Because sometimes I write things that are not fights, they're just people getting beat, and who can see it, you know, and who can feel it, and what is the villain or the person handing out the beating? What are they thinking? How do they feel like there's a scene, and you mentioned that we're going to tread lightly. There's a scene early on, the king of ashes, those gangsters feel very disrespected in that scene. Yeah, yeah. They feel very, very disrespected. And so their anger, if they've not justified it come for them. It feels justified. And so again, I want you to understand that or the other side. You know, when I'm writing a scene like in raised bloody where one again, raised blade is about two fathers, one black, one white, both ex cons, who are getting revenge for their murder, gay sons. You know those, when those characters are meeting on violence. I want you to understand that that violence for them is, is a confession of their grief. You know, right? Their sons are dead, and so everybody's gonna feel their pain, and so like going back to King of ashes, though, again, I when I write violence, I want it to be as detail oriented as possible. I want it to be a sensory overload, you know. I want you to feel the sweat, the spit, the crunch of bone, the slap of the fist, the way lips flatten against your fist when you punch someone. You know, I want you to feel all that. And so I definitely want to go as deep as I can, and have to immerse you in that moment.

Traci Thomas 16:52

I mean, I think you do it. I do. I think you're really pulling it off. Whatever you're doing. It is working. There are quite a few memorable violent scenes in this one. You mentioned being a former high school theater kid. I myself am also a theater kid. I was a college theater major and everything, and I did notice a Shakespeare reference in this book. I am a big time Shakespeare fan, so I love to see it. But what's your relationship to shakes.

S.A. Cosby 17:20

Oh, I'm a huge Shakespeare fan. I love Shakespeare.

Traci Thomas 17:23

Oh my gosh. What's your fave?

S.A. Cosby 17:25

My two favorites are, oh gosh, I'll give you my top three. Okay, go ahead, Macbeth, King Lear and Titus Veronica.

Traci Thomas 17:32

Okay, you and I are aligned on Macbeth and Titus. I personally do not care for King Lear. King Lear is not my favorite. You have a Macbeth reference in in King of ashes, which I love, love, love, love. I think Titus is one of the underrated greats. I think, I think it doesn't get done a lot because it's really hard to do the violence in that on the stage like you're asking for a lot from your local community theater. But the writing in that one is just stupendous.

S.A. Cosby 18:05

Oh, yeah, it's the, it's the, you know, Titus and Veronica is, is the, is the undistilled, you know, rage of the wrong, you know, yeah, and it's the, it's the wages of sin. Is this cost, it's the cost of violence manifested. You know, I love that play. But you know, Macbeth is I like Lear, just because I like the conceit of Lear, of the family dynamic of it, of the drama of how we want to put these titles on people. You know, you're the one that loves me the most. You're the one that's most dedicated. You're this, you're that. And that's, you know, the the sort of toxicity and dysfunctional family that exists in it. But, of course, I think if you had to ask me, like, if I had to say a favorite, I think it's Macbeth, just, just because Macbeth, it is, it is Globe Theater incarnation. You know, Shakespeare was writing for the masses, but he proved that you can write for the masses and also write high art. And I don't think there's, you know, Macbeth is not to get into discussion about Macbeth, but in the play, Macbeth is a badass. Macbeth is the best soldier. He's the best swordsman. He's a warrior, but he's also incredibly insecure. He's also incredibly fragile mentally. You know, I think that there's an undercurrent of sexual obsession between him and Lady Macbeth that isn't as employed in some of the performances, as maybe it was in the earlier ones. And so for me, that play is all about man's hubris. And I think king of ashes, for me, is about hubris. It's about, yeah, you know the idea of, you know, this idea that I know what's best, that my actions always are justified by the results that I'm trying to attain. And so I think Roman is, I wouldn't say I'm not trying to compare my writing to Shakespeare, but I think Roman is in that long line of not heroes, but protagonists that you know reach too far sometimes.

Traci Thomas 19:55

Yeah, it's so funny hearing you say those three. Because I think if I had to pick three, she. Base pair books to say, to compare to King of ashes, those are probably the three I would pick like it. You're definitely working in all three of those frameworks, like the, obviously, the three, the three children, the returning child, the father, who's like, off in a place that is not accessible to the children, you know, and I think also genres, that's all. I love it, yeah, do you? Do you think of Shakespeare like? Is that something that informs your work? Are you thinking about of his works as your writing? Are you like the epicness kind of of your stories? I think, yeah, the two that I've read that like you are. You're not writing small stories, you're writing very big stories about, you know, unknown people. But that also feels extremely Shakespearean to me. Yeah.

S.A. Cosby 20:53

I mean, Shakespeare is a huge influence on me, but, I mean, also I'm a big film fan, so cinema is a huge influence on me. You know, I've mentioned in passing interviews, the godfather is some influence on this. But also, you know, other movies about family dynamics. I mean, you know, there's, you know, there's the Magnificent Ambersons by Orson Welles. There's a, you know, citizen, Kane. There's, I love Orson Welles, by the way, Shakespeare is big influence other novelists that I read, Dennis Lehane, who's a crime novelist, Jane smiley, I know it doesn't seem like it, but 1000 acres was a big influence on his book. That's her Lear book, yeah, because I love 1000 acres, and I still never read it. And I love this year. I love what she did with it, the sort of the way she took the Lear story and turned it on his head. So there are other I like the idea of stories feeling mythic. Of stories feeling like, you know, it's I like the idea of somebody, it's like, I want my books to feel like somebody grabbed you by the hand and say, Hey, come sit down beside me, next to me, in front of this fire. Let me tell you. Let me tell you this crazy stuff that happened, you know, and I wanted to feel like this, it's both personal, but also legendary, you know, in a way. So I definitely am trying to and the books that I like, the books that I love, do that, you know, both crime fiction and literary fiction, books that I like, you know, and you know also, but in that epicness, I also like, sort of the small moments. I'm a huge fan of Raymond Carver, the short story writer, and okay, you know, like this story, the famous story of, what do we talk about? We talk about love. It's two couples basically pre gaming before they go out for the night. So they're drinking scotch, and they're sitting around a table in a small suburban town, and they start talking about love. They start having a sort of philosophical conversation. And you realize fairly early on, one of these couples still love each other and the other and the couple that doesn't love each other do not realize they don't love each other. It's the other couple observing their conversation, realizing it, and it's so uncomfortable and so brutal, in a way, and so that's a part of my influence as well, the emotional violence that exists between people.

Traci Thomas 23:02

Yeah, that sounds as you're describing it. I've never read it. It sounds a little bit like, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

S.A. Cosby 23:08

A little bit, but it's not as histronic as that. You know, got it.

Traci Thomas 23:11

But that's that same kind of thing of like, this couple, these two couples together, and like, one couple realizes something's going on, and the other couple is doing is like in their whole other world, and it is emotional violence, certainly between George and Martha.

S.A. Cosby 23:25

Oh, yeah. But also another book that really influences me, or has influenced me that I read a lot. I've read it over and over again, the seeker history by Donald tart. And that book gives you that sort of mythic, epic, sort of old 19th century novel feel, you know, it has that sort of Willa Cather. It sort of has that sort of Thomas Theodore Dreiser, you know, sort of early American feel. But of course, distilled through, you know, the 80s at Bennington College, where she went. So again, all the books I read influence the work that I'm trying to do.

Traci Thomas 24:02

And do you read? How much of your life is reading, how much of your practice as a writer is reading? And when do you read in relationship to when you write? Will you read as you write? Will you stop reading when you're writing like what does that look like for you?

S.A. Cosby 24:17

I used to do that. I used to not read when I was trying to write because I didn't want anything from the books I was reading to lead you to my own work. I wanted to, sort of, I didn't have a style, so I didn't want, you know if you read my very, very first novel, crime novel, called my daughter's prayer. It's very apparent. And I'm sort of, you know, it's sort of Walter Mosley light, so I'm trying. But once I felt like I firmly established my own style. Now I read for pleasure when I'm writing, and sometimes I read to inspire myself, like I got stuck when I was writing all this in his bleed. And so I took a break, and I read like some really good novels that were in that same sort of feel and same sort of genre, and it helped unloosen or unlock, I guess, sort of the block. I had. So I do read for pleasure. Now, when I'm not writing, when I'm in between books, I try to read as much as I can. I have, like, I'm embarrassed to say I have, like, two Kindles, because I invariably lose them around the house. So if I find one, I just pick up in that one what I was reading in the other one. But I love being able to read for pleasure. I just finished like a couple books a few weeks ago, and so reading is very important to me, I think. And I don't know if I'm I don't think I'm alone in this. I think if you want to be a writer, you have to read. You have to read voraciously, and not just so you can copy other writers. I think you have to learn what works for you and what doesn't you know. You can enjoy a book as a writer and realize what I don't do that. I don't think I could do that. That's not my wheelhouse. You know, that's important. I think it's important to know, you know, what your limitations are. Lot of people say, well, there's no limitations of art. I think everybody has things they do really well and things that they struggle with. And I think the secret to being a good writer is accentuating things you do well and minimizing the things you don't, and reading teaches you that.

Traci Thomas 26:06

Yeah, I'm so it's so interesting to hear you say this, because I've been doing the show for a while now. It's over seven years, and I've talked to a lot of amazing and not so amazing writers, but one of the through lines that I have noticed is that the people who write, not even the best, who are the most clear as writers, who have the most specific voice, who who are doing a thing that feels unique to them. All of those people are extremely voracious readers. I'm thinking of you like I think your books feel extremely sa Cosby, TM, Jesmyn, Ward, Kisa layman, like all of you, are voracious readers who read broadly and read widely and read consistently. And so it's interesting to hear you say that, because there are many writers I know, who I've talked to, who are like I read, but this like compulsion to read, to devour the work in which the medium in which you work, is something that I think the most talented and most again specific writers are doing. Yeah.

S.A. Cosby 27:14

I definitely agree with that. I think the writers that I enjoy the most, that I respect the most, that I'm most in awe of when you get a chance. And I've been very lucky to get a chance to talk to them. They are voracious, obsessive readers, you know, like I got the opportunity to meet Jess Ward a few years ago, and to me judgment Ward after the passing of cormette McCarthy is the finest living American writer, and talking to her at the National Book Awards. It was so funny, because I was in the green room there. I don't take myself very seriously, so sometimes when I get excited and stuff, I don't realize how big a deal some stuff is. Yeah, I got the National Book. I was like, Oh, they wanted to interview me. And I was like, Oh, I guess don't have me in a room with like 20 people. I'll talk. No, it was an auditorium. It was a bunch of people. I was interviewed by a former US Attorney. I'm like, Oh, my God. What's happening? Oh, my God. So afterwards, I was in the green room, like, eating my turkey sandwich and one of the people volunteering, hey, you need anything? I said, No, I'm good. And then just, just ask, like, Hey, would you are there any writers here you like to meet? So I want to bother anybody, and I'm just gonna eat my turkey sandwich and drink my soda and head back to my hotel. And then I said, Well, I heard Jasmine Ward was here, but don't bother her. I don't want to bother and then, like, five minutes later, she came over. We were both wearing Chuck Taylor's, and she came over, and I saw this person wearing Chuck Taylor's. He said, hey, they said you wanted to talk to me. And I was so just taken aback, and a gas. And I usually don't have a trouble I usually don't have trouble talking, but I couldn't hardly speak because I just, I'm in awe of her town. I think she's probably deleted more good sentence than I'll ever write, but she was so nice and so giving. And we had talked we talked about reading, and we talked about Zora Neale Hurston, but we also talked about, you know, reading, you know, other types of books and other type of fiction. I took from her that she's a voracious reader, like I said, I think she's just the very best we have to offer in American letters right now.

Traci Thomas 29:00

You're not going to get a complaint from me. I feel the same way. I also got to meet her, and it was a dream, and she did this podcast, and she talked about her love of romance and just how much she likes to read. And I was like, of course, this makes so much sense. Of course, she would be a student of the thing that you are becoming a master of. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. All right, we are back, and I want to talk to you about so like I said, I'm not like a mystery, crime person. I read my first Walter Mosley book last month for our book club. We did devil in a blue dress. I learned a lot about sort of a lot of things, but I have some questions about genre and how you think about it, and how you sort of define yourself, if you do so. My first question is, what kind of writer do you say you are? I said crime, thriller, mystery, but I don't know if that's right.

S.A. Cosby 29:59

Yeah. No, I think that's right. I think, you know, I guess if you had to really nail down, I would say I'm a southern noir crime fiction author, because the South is very important to my work. Being a Southerner is important to my sort of milieu, if you want to call it that. But I do. I hold up the banner of noir fiction, of crime fiction, I feel like, in a very broad sense, all fiction can be classified as crime fiction, you know, if you read dorsive, you know, and crime and punishment, you know, like I said, I mentioned Theodore Dreiser, early an American tragedy. You know, Franz Kafka, the penal colony. If you read Pushkin, if you read Shakespeare, you know there's Murder, Mayhem, violence, jealousy, anger, avarice, Creed in all fiction. So I think crime fiction encompasses a lot of different sub genres. I like to call crime fiction the gospel of the dispossessed. So yeah, I hold up the blood stained banner of the noir crime fiction writer.

Traci Thomas 31:02

And what makes something Noir?

S.A. Cosby 31:05

That's a great question, because there's a difference between that crime fiction, obviously, like literary fiction, has different sub genres. You know, there's the murder, what I like to call the bloodless murder mystery, which you're you're talking about, like drawing cozy mysteries, or Sherlock Holmes or you know, or Q per row, or Ellery Queen, or anything like that. Barbara McNeely, Blanche, white series, pretty bloodless murders that are much more about the intricacy of fault solving the mystery. Dennis Lehane, who I'm a huge fan of, said, and I'm paraphrasing, because I know I'm not gonna get the quote right. He said, a lot of literary fiction is like Icarus, people flying to great heights and having a great fall, you know, he said Noir is people on the street falling in the gutter, you know. And it's sort of this is people who are at the very end of their rope, people at their most desperate, you know, doing really bad things for what they think are good reasons. I think that's a pretty succinct description of Noir. I mean, you can get into the more esoteric part of it that noir fiction is sort of the post war existential malaise that infected America, that has traveled and traverse social, social and economic changes as we come into, you know, the new millennium. But I think, you know, that's a little fufu from our taste. I think, yeah, I think it's just, you know, bad people, good people, doing bad things, what they think of good reasons?

Traci Thomas 32:24

Okay, that's fair. Then, let me ask you this now, so how much are you operating within the constraints of genre versus thinking about sort of subverting it or pressing it forward? Is that something you think of, or do you like the constraints?

S.A. Cosby 32:42

I don't think there are any constraints of genre. I think, Okay, once you write, say, for instance, I'm writing crime novel, right? And but I think within that crime work frame framework, you can have a family drama. You can have, you know, sort of a character study. You can have, you know, the classic man versus man, versus man versus environment, man versus himself. You can have all that within a story about, you know, gangsters trying to rob a bank. And so I don't believe in the constraints of genre. For me, a lot of genre is just where bookstores want to put books. You know, I have a really good friend who's also an amazing novelist named Jordan Harper, and he lives in LA he's from the Ozarks. We've been friends for about seven or eight years now. He's just an incredible writer, and he said to me one day, he said, I feel like what you and I are doing is that we're not so much pushing the envelope as we're cutting it into script. We're cutting it and allowing certain things to come in and certain things to move out. And I think that's sort of an apt description of what he does, specifically what maybe what I'm trying to do when I talk about writing, you know, like, for instance, I grew up, there was a series of novels when I was when I was a kid. I read them when I was a kid, the Parker novels by Donald Westlake, he was writing under a pseudonym. And these are very, sort of very violent, very late 1960s early 70s crime novels. And they're fun. They're fun novels about this dude named Parker, who's a vicious criminal who's also a master heist planner and stuff like that, and they're very machismo driven, and so on and so on and so forth. But they're also beautifully written as well. The prose is very striking. These books, however, you know, Parker is just that. He's just a heist guy. He's just a tough guy, you know? And I, when I wrote my first book, Blackout wasteland, I had the idea of, like, I'd like to do a Parker novel, but where we see Parker go home, where we see his fan, we see his friends. And so when it came to writing, say, for instance, raise my tears. You know, we all know the revenge novel, raise my tears was I'm telling on myself. There originally Tears was largely, largely inspired by an old 1970s Grindhouse B movie. Called rolling, sorry, William Devane, and it's Tommy Lee Jones' first starring role. And it's about a dude who's a Vietnam vet who gets his he gets brutal. It's not funny, showing no laugh. He gets brutalized, and his family gets murdered. He gets he gets his hand cut off, and he seeks revenge against the people that did it, and his single minded purposeness To get this revenge, even though he at one point he realizes, you know, it's not gonna bring my family back, but it's all I have. And so Rick Tears was inspired by that, but I also, again, wanted to expand that to have a conversation about homophobia and masculinity and grief. And so again, I'm giving you a long, random answer. I'm sorry. I don't believe in the constraints of genre. I believe genre is is a comfortable sort of tag or hierarchy that we put on ourselves. But I believe the only constraints of genre is your imagination.

Traci Thomas 35:48

That's fair. I want to come back to Razorblade Tears and the homophobia and that in a moment, but I want to stick with this line of questioning because, you know, I'm a lawyer. I want to ask you about audience. So obviously, I am a, you know, sort of online book person. I function in the world a lot of like Bookstagram and book influencing, which is an extremely female, sort of dominated space. There are, of course, men and people, non binary people, and people who are in the space who are not women. But there's a lot of women, and your books are extremely popular in in this online book space. And I'm wondering how you think about audience. Are you thinking about women as a large part of your audience? Are we a large part of your audience, or is that just the bubble that I'm in? Like, what do you know about your audience and how much does that play into your writing.

S.A. Cosby 36:41

Yeah. So that's interesting that you say that, because ever since I started, you know, I've had a really strong support among female writer readers and writers, and some of my favorite writers are female writers. Obviously, I've spoken in previous interviews by my admiration for Jennifer Hillier and Kelly Garrett. I've spoken to you about files and acres by James smiley, which I think is just one of the great American novels of Donna chart so on and so forth. When I was writing, I don't think I had a specific audience in mind when I started. I just wanted to tell interesting stories about the place I'm from. You know, when I first started writing, it's funny side note, I didn't know if I could write mysteries, because where I come from? I'm from a very small town. Most murders are not a mystery, like we all know who done it is just Can somebody so but anyway, back to your question. I'm sorry, and so I didn't really have a specific audience in mind. I wasn't writing for anybody other than myself, really. You know, I wanted to write a book that I would enjoy reading, but I had a very wonderful, sort of happy, I don't say coincidence, but I just have, I've always had this really strong support among female writers, I mean, readers and writers and I take that seriously. I try to write. I don't think, if I'm being perfectly honest, I don't think my female characters in my first couple books were really well written. I tried to be honest. I didn't want them to be, you know, arm candy for the for the protagonist, like with black top wasteland. The main character's name is Beauregard, but everybody calls him bug, that's his nickname. He's a very dangerous man, very intimidating man. The only person in that book that's not afraid of him is his wife, right? And she's the one that speaks truth to power to him about things.

Traci Thomas 38:19

Um, very Shakespearean.

S.A. Cosby 38:21

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Very late at Macbeth. And what is what raised by tears the two main characters, one is single, one is married. The married character, again, his wife is the strongest person in that book who doesn't coddle him. You know, she's she's very honest with him about his relationship with their son. And so I've always tried to get better at writing female characters, just because I believe that's what a good writer should do. You know, all your characters should have agency. In my book, all the centers bleed. The lead character is a black man named Titus Shakespeare who has a girlfriend named Darlene. And early on that book, you realize that their relationship isn't that strong. He doesn't care about her as much as she cares about him. And there's a scene later on that book, I'm not getting a spoiler. Wait, which she speaks to that. Again, I wanted to get better at writing female character, so when I got to writing king of ashes, I really, worked really hard to make Nevaeh a co lead in this book, that she's equal to her brothers. And I also wanted to have a discussion about, I don't want to call it the plight, but just the situation that in the African American community I've observed my own life, how black women often have to be the backbone of the family, of the society, of the culture, and how they get little to no. Thanks for that, and I wanted to represent that with Nevaeh. And I'll tell you, it's funny. You talk about online sphere. The last two books of mine, I've just had such an explosion of female fans, of female readers, and I couldn't be happier. You know, I'm very honored by that. I did an event in Atlanta a couple months ago. So. I had the Fulton County Library on a Sunday afternoon, and it was like 150 people down. About 130 were women, you know, and I take that very seriously. I have a great deal of respect, and I also have a great deal of admiration and gratitude. And I'm gonna tell you something else funny about online stuff. We were talking man, I'm gonna tell you what. So a couple days ago, somebody, some online person, tried to make a joke out of my writing name essay. They were trying to make a joke. They were trying to tie me to Bill Cosby. They were trying to make a joke around that. And let me tell you, black women came and they read that dude for filth. Oh, my God, nobody had my back the way black women have, so I'm definitely honored by that, but, but in all honesty, I don't write for any specific audience. I think if you do that, you're limiting yourself. You know, I write to tell a good story, and I write to tell a story that will entertain me. I am just very honored and pleased that women, female writers, readers, have really embraced my work, and it is I am truly, truly grateful for that.

Traci Thomas 41:04

Yeah, how do you deal with online spaces, with criticism? I mean, that's sort of, that was sort of my question around homophobia, because I did see online there were people who felt uncomfortable with some of the representations and razor blade tiers and and I'm sure you see that stuff. If I'm seeing it, I have to imagine that you're seeing it on social media. So how do you respond? How does that impact you? Maybe not like in your writing, but just as a creative person, you know, I'm a human being.

S.A. Cosby 41:34

You know, obviously, you know, nobody ever likes to see their one star reviews. Nobody ever likes to hear somebody say, you suck, or, or, but also for me, I don't want anybody to be I don't want to I don't want to write anything that hurts somebody, you know, I'm saying that feels like I disrespected them. And I'm writing about a character outside my own personal Providence, you know. So for instance, we'll talk about this for race. Later I, you know, I sent it out to a lot of authenticity readers as every readers, what you might want to call it. I have LGBTQ friends that I had read it, and once I got their notes, and the notes went off into this readers, and I took the notes that worked, the book that I presented, the book that got published, is a book that comes from a place of respect and love, but everybody doesn't have to like it. And I saw some comments from people in LGBT community who really loved the book, and I saw comments from people who really didn't care for it. Everybody's entitled to your opinion. I don't, I don't have any animosity toward that. You know, as an African American man, I have grown up most of my life reading books that didn't have black people in it or had really, really ham fisted sort of representation of African American folks. So I understand seeing your culture, maybe taking it me taking in a way that you didn't feel was respectful. And I've also seen writers do really good jobs with it, you know. And so I don't take the criticism personally. I think everybody has a right to their opinions, you know, but also now to that point, I'll just mention this. I have a really good friend who's an LGBTQ writer, and I let him read an early advanced copy of all the sinners believe. Now I'm sorry, of raised by tears, and there's a scene in raised religion. Since you read it, you'll know what I'm talking about. There's a scene at a gay bar in a in razor blade tears, right? And the original scene the way I wrote it. My friend the writer, PJ Vernon, he read a copy of the early draft. He calls me and says, Sean, that scene in the bar, I get what you're trying to do, he said, but you're making them caricatures, and that characters. And so what happens in the original scene? It pretty much plays out the way it does. In the final copy, Ike gets into a confrontation with a gay man who's hitting on him. But in the original scene, the bouncer or the bartender comes from around the bar. He separates Ike and the other man, and then all the other patrons in the bar are sort of off to one side, you know, sort of, and I'm exaggerating, sort of, with their arms crossed and just shaking their heads reproachfully. And PJ said, Look, man, I'm fighting a gay bar is a fight like any other bar. There's people getting in it. There's people getting out the way. There's people taking pictures world star, all of that you know, you know, in your effort to be respectful, you you lost to humanity. And I thought that was really, that was really revelatory for me as a writer and as a person. And so for me, I don't take online criticism, I don't dismiss it, but also don't take it as seriously. I know what I'm trying to do. I know when I write a book, I'm writing it to the best of my ability. I you know, I come a very blue collar background, and so when I write I'm giving you everything I got. You know, I'm literally like Hemingway said, I'm opening the vein and bleeding on the page. You don't have to like it. You don't even have to respect it. But I know that it came from a really good place, so I don't, I don't engage, first of all, as a writer, I don't think it serves any purpose to engage with criticism, you know, who have a right to their own opinions, um, you know, but at the same time, there's sometimes I read an opinion where it's like, you.

Traci Thomas 45:00

You know, like, yes, of course I have.

S.A. Cosby 45:03

I had a guy criticize me. He had read Blacktop Wasteland, which in many ways, is a very masculine sort of machismo book. Many ways not, but anyway, he read razor blade tears, and this is what he said, I'll never get it. He gave it a one star reviews. I didn't read this. I didn't want to read about all this gay sex in this book. This really took me out of it. There is no gay sex, and raised by tears, right? Oh, at all. And so it's like, you know, Hey, man, I don't know what book you read, but, you know, right eyes, but you know, I think if you're making homophobes angry, you're doing you're doing God's work.

Traci Thomas 45:38

I think that's right. I want to ask you a little bit about your writing process. How do you like to write? How many hours a day, how often music or no in the home, out of the home, snacks and beverages rituals? Tell me about it.

S.A. Cosby 45:51

Okay, so I started writing when I still had a day job. So I used to write on my lunch break. I used to go to a coffee shop and write. So I What was the day job? I was a retail manager for a hardware store for a national chain, and it rhymes with goes and slows, but anyway, and so I used to go to a coffee shop up the street from the store. And so I like noise, I like music. I like I can write in any environment. I literally finished a book on a plane last year. So I don't mind writing in different environments. My preferred environment now is at home in my recliner. I have a little lap desk that I write on. I don't have a big like Gothic desk. I listen to music. I love different music. Sometimes I listen to music that I hope invokes the energy I'm trying to put in the scene. So if I'm writing a fight scene, I'll listen to heavy metal, hard rock or heavy, you know, hardcore hip hop. But if I'm writing a more sensitive scene, I'll listen to romance songs, R B songs. Sometimes, if I'm just writing a scene where somebody's maybe having a moment of meditation or contemplation, I'll listen to instrumental music. I'll listen to classical I listen to everything. I'm a very genreless person when it comes to things. Sounds like, and so love this, yeah, so I'll listen like, if I'm writing a fight scene, I'll listen to the Allman Brothers whipping post, or I'll listen to MLP Annie up. But also, if I'm writing a romantic scene, you know, I'll listen to Jeff Buckley. I'll listen to Smokey Robinson. I'll listen to, you know, I'm a kid in the 90s, so I listen to black street, you know, or if I'm writing a scene where it's just a character really going through a thought process, I love Mozart, I love Chopin. I love, you know, box. I also love jazz. I love Miles Davis. So music is a big part of my writing life. I am so sad that when you know, I want to sometimes put music in my books, but, you know, they gotta pay those copyrights, so it's like difficult. But, um, my other thing is I have two superstitions about writing. I have a hat that I wore when I wrote black top wasteland, before I had an agent, before I had a contract, so I feel like that's my lucky hat. So I wear it when I write. And this, oh, that poor hat is so damaged I had to restate with a bill on recently. So with industrial staples, I had that hat. And every time I finish a book, I take a shot of a very expensive whiskey that was gifted to me by a writer that I don't want to name. There was a very famous writer who took an interest in my work early on, and he gave me a really expensive bottle of whiskey. So whenever I finish a book, now give myself a shot at that.

Traci Thomas 48:24

I guess it like happy.

S.A. Cosby 48:28

It is, uh, it is, it is a bottle of happy. It's a very expensive bottle. Yeah, I only drink out of it when I finish a book. I guess the other little superstition I had years ago, I read an interview with a writer named Evan Hunter. Evan hunter who wrote under the name Ed McBay. He wrote a long series of mystery novels called the 87 precinct novels, and he used to say he couldn't write a book until he came up with a really interesting title. And so I sort of took that I write, I come up with an idea, and then I come up with what I hope is a really good title, I can't write the book until I get that title set weird.

Traci Thomas 49:07

I know I love that. Okay, I have another question then about sort of the there's all these twists and turns, right? So how much do you know? How much of that do you have to know as you sit down to write like, Okay, this is something that's going to happen. Because Don't you have to write towards those things? Or are you one of those kind of writers who just sort of comes up with characters and lets them do things on the page?

S.A. Cosby 49:32

Nah, I can't do that. I'm too OCD for that. But I don't write like a complicated outline. I write what I like to call a pretty annotated synopsis, you know, okay, a lot of times it's two or three pages and it's just me telling myself the story, right? So, for instance, for King of ashes, I knew that I wanted to write about a family, about a son coming home, you know, the old. Adage that Thomas Wolf, you can't go home again. I wanted to talk about that. I knew today. I wanted to set it in a crematory. I also knew that I wanted to set it in a town or a city that was suffering the results of of urban flight and densification too. So I knew that, I knew the names going to be important, because the names in the book mean a lot. We can get into that in a second, and so that is usually, like I said, a two, maybe three page synopsis. Once I had that down, I start writing, and I refer to the synopsis sort of a guy. You know, there's another thing I do that's really weird.

Traci Thomas 50:34

I love these weird things.

S.A. Cosby 50:36

I write pretty extensive biographies for the characters, 90% of that doesn't make it in the book. But it informs the characters actions, right, right? So, for instance, with King of ashes, for Roman, I know when he lost his virginity, I know that he is that he's not afraid of violence, even though people think he's soft. I know that he got in a fight when he was a kid that inspired him to not be afraid of violence. I know that he likes superheroes and comic books. All those things are things that aren't really in the book, but they help me sort of inform their the characters, discussions and and the way they see things, the way same thing with Dante Nevaeh, and I know those things about them, and so I have this sort of intimacy with them that exists between me and them, and I know how it informs their decision making and also the way they view things. In my last book, all students believe, like an example of that, there's a scene that all students believe, where the sheriff finds a body. This isn't a spoiler, but it's kind of gross. And there's a there's a dead snake in the body's mouth, right? Yeah. Well, what people know, what nobody knows, but I know because I wrote his biography. Titus is definitely afraid of snakes, but he can't show it because his deputies are there. And so I know that, and so it informs the way he reacts when he sees this. You know? It's the reason he always wear aviator sunglasses, because he didn't want anybody see him being afraid. So all that you know those things, those biographies, are on a separate doc. Again, 90% of that doesn't make it in the book, but it allows me to sort of create these characters in a way that I feel like they're friends. I know them, you know, and I know what they're thinking, and I know how they're going to think, and I know how they're going to react. So that's another weird little writing thing that I do.

Traci Thomas 52:20

I love it. That's very theater kid of you, yeah? Yeah. It's very like, oh, I have to know every my character. Would never say that. It's very that energy, like, I have to know everything about my character.

S.A. Cosby 52:30

You wear Jordan. It's like, what are you talking.

Traci Thomas 52:33

Yeah, yeah, totally. Oh my gosh. What about okay, you tease this. How do you name your characters? Obviously, there's a Traci in the book. So clearly, you're inspired by some of the greatest names in the history of naming, like mine, Traci. But how do you name your characters?

S.A. Cosby 52:49

The names always mean something, right? Okay, so Roman is named Roman, but also I wanted his characters sort of be emblematic of that, the idea that the Roman Empire had of themselves, as, you know, the city on seven hills, but they're also brutal, and they were vicious and they, you know, in many ways, they spread civilization, but in many ways they destroyed civilizations. In so much as Roman sees himself as righteous and intelligent, and we're not right, intelligent and righteous and heroic. But also he's more ruthless than even he understands he's more vicious than people around him anticipate. Nevaeh is heaven backwards, and he is not in hell. But she's not in heaven. She's sorting that limbo, right? She's not been able to be her own self, to be the version of herself. She's not been able to ascend to that heavenly plane, right, right? Of course, Dante, you know, Dante's Inferno, Dante cologry, who wrote, you know, the cantos, he takes us to hell. He's the reason all this happens. But same time, he's not the devil. He's the person that sent us on his journey. So the name always means the same thing with Titus and all this in his bleed, with Beauregard, a bug. Beauregard in all this, in my first novel, blacktop wasteland, was me intentionally taking what many people consider a stereotypical southern Confederate name and giving it to an African American man to sort of juxtapose that to say we are here in the south, and the South belongs to us just as much as it belongs to anybody else.

Traci Thomas 54:20

Right, right. And that book came out around, what year was that? 2020 2020, 20. I was gonna say, I feel like, I feel like I knew about Jeff Sessions middle name being Beau guard at that time, yeah, yeah. That was like. I was like, oh, okay, so I just have, like, two more questions for you. One is that, for people who love king of ashes, what are some other books that you would say are sort of in conversation with this book that you would recommend to them?

S.A. Cosby 54:51

Um, there's a book called, uh, dead, though I may well be by Adrian McKinney. It's about the Irish mob. Um. Home in Boston. I think that's a very sort of contemporary or a book that you say was a colleague of King of ashes. I also would say, I think the Godfather Mario Puzo. I think just because I took a lot of inspiration from that and the family dynamics in that are, wow. So I also think maybe city of fire or down Winslow, which is another organized crime book, but on the family dynamic, and this is going to be way out of left field, okay, I think cross crossroads, by Jonathan Franzen, oh, yeah, yeah, because that very heavy interconnectivity of the family, but also how nobody in that family talks to each other, and so they have all these secrets that they're holding back from each other. So I think those would be books that would, I think would be in the same same church, but different pew than King.

Traci Thomas 56:00

Okay, yeah, I love that. Okay, last one for you. If you could have one person dead or alive read this book, who would you want it to be? A mom. Amazing, amazing. Sean. Thank you so much for being here. This was really a delight. And I just I, any fellow Shakespeare fan is a friend of mine, folks, you can get king of ashes out now wherever you get your books. Who narrates the audio book for this one?

S.A. Cosby 56:28

Adam Lazar White, he's done all my books, and he's done all of them, an amazing narrator. He is just his understanding and interpretation of my work is just, it's so gratifying. He's incredible.

Traci Thomas 56:39

I have to tell you the Stacks Pack community, which is like my Patreon community, they talk about your audio books all the time. They talk about how good they are. I really struggle to do fiction on audio, so I have to sit down and read with my eyes, because I sometimes the audio can wash over me, but I got to go back and listen to some of your books on audio, just because I want to hear this performance, because I am told it is like outstanding through the roof, amazing.

S.A. Cosby 57:06

He's incredible. I he I just heard, I just listened to the audio before. So the first line of King of ashes is he dreams of his mother the way he delivers that line. It makes it feel epic. It makes it feel like we're beginning a myth. You know, that's more than I can do. He does that, so it's incredible.

Traci Thomas 57:25

Yeah, yeah, I love it. All right. Well, thank you so much for being here. Everybody. Go get your copy of the book and we will see you in the stacks.

Thank you all so much for listening, and thank you again to S.A. Cosby for joining the show. I'd also like to say a huge thank you to Claire McLaughlin and Danielle Thomas for making this episode possible. Remember, our book club pick this month is the Art Thief by Michael Finkel, which we will be discussing on Wednesday, June 25 with Ceara O'Sullivan. If you love the show and you want inside access to it, head to patreon.com/thestacks and join the stacks. Pack and check out my newsletter at tracithomas.substack.com please make sure you're subscribed to the Stacks, wherever you listen to your podcasts, and if you're listening through Apple podcasts or Spotify, will you leave us a rating and a review for more from the Stacks. Follow us on social media @thestackspod on Instagram, Threads and Tiktok and check out our website at the stackspodcast.com Today's episode of the stacks was edited by Christian Duenas with production assistance from Wy'Kia Frelot. Our graphic designer isRobin McCreight, and our theme music is from Tagirijus The Stacks is created and produced by me, Traci Thomas.

Wy'Kia Frelot
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Ep. 374 Petty Good or Petty Bad with Ceara O’Sullivan