THE BLACK STILETTO - EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH RAYMOND BENSON

THE BLACK STILETTO- EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH RAYMOND BENSON

Interview conducted by: Brad Hansen

Raymond Benson has been an award-winning and best-selling author, composer, computer game designer, stage director, film historian, and film genres instructor for over thirty years. He is also the fourth official author of the James Bond 007 novels. With this in mind, I interviewed him about his brand new book, “The Black Stiletto,” from a Bond fan’s perspective. The thriller is out now.

There seem to be a lot of superheroes in the public consciousness these days. What makes The Black Stiletto unique?

Frankly, I don’t think of The Black Stiletto as a superhero story. It’s a story about a woman ahead of her time, fiercely independent in a world where women weren’t allowed to be so. She’s a feminist before that term was in our vernacular. And while it’s about a woman who

puts on a costume and mask and fights crime—she has no superpowers, really. More importantly, it’s also a story about a woman with Alzheimer’s and her son… and (a hint of things to come) a story about a father and daughter. My literary manager and I had a tough time describing what the book (and series) is, but Library Journal hit the nail on the head—they called it a “mashup of the work of Gloria Steinem, Ian Fleming, and Mario Puzo, all under the editorship of Stan Lee.” I was quite pleased with that description!

The book is written in the first-person perspective from three distinctive characters (the Black Stiletto, her son, and the villain). What were the challenges in writing in this format?

The hardest thing was coming up with three distinct voices. The toughest was Judy (the Stiletto), because I wanted to accurately write the way a 21-year-old woman in 1958 would write in a personal diary. When I finished the manuscript, I gave it to several female friends, including published authors, to read. A well-known author of romantic suspense said I nailed it, that had she not known I’d written it, she would have thought a woman had done so. The son’s voice is me, I suppose. The character isn’t me, but I wrote him in my voice. The villain is an aging mafia hitman, so I channeled all the great mafia movies—your Godfathers, your GoodFellas, your Sopranos… Every book in the series will be structured this way. There will always be the Stiletto and the son, but the third voice will be different in each successive book.

One of my favorite parts of the book is the detailed fight sequences. How did you research the fighting techniques displayed in the books?

I pulled out all my references from when I did Bond! Seriously, I mostly studied boxing techniques because that was the area I didn’t know a lot about. When she gets to the Japanese martial arts, I’ve written about that stuff before; I just had to refresh my memory. I also consult a good friend who knows it. Writers always keep a stable of experts on call to help out with the things we don’t know.

Were there any lessons or strategies that you used while writing the Bond books that you put to use here?

When I wrote Bond (gosh, that was over fifteen years ago when I started) I was required to write an outline of the story first. That trained me very well, so I’ve always done it. Some writers like to outline, others don’t. I like it. It’s tantamount to writing a treatment of the novel first. That way you can look at the story with a bird’s-eye view and figure out what works and what doesn’t. It’s easier to throw out or re-write a paragraph or two of an outline than it is to wreck two full chapters of prose! I’m very proud of my Bond novels, but they were very early in my novel-writing career. I believe I’ve improved immensely as an author since then. The Black Stiletto is my 26th published book. I’ll probably never write another Bond novel, but I’m pretty sure that if I did, my older ones would pale in comparison.

Are there any Bond references that are snuck into the book for 007 fans to watch out for?

Are there? I don’t think so. Most of the book takes place in 1958, and Bond wasn’t in the public consciousness yet in America, where the novel takes place. There are Communist spies and such in it. Perhaps that 1950s/1960s milieu will remind readers of Bond, I don’t know. Actually the time period is pretty hot right now, with such TV shows as “Mad Men,” and now “The Playboy Club” and “Pan Am.”

I hear a sequel is already in the works. What are your plans for the book series? Anything you can tell us about where the story will go?

The second book is called The Black Stiletto: Black & White, and it’s scheduled to be published May 2012. I’m already working on book three. Each book is one year of the Stiletto’s career, so the second book is 1959, book three is 1960, and so on. I plan for the series to be five books total. In book four, she moves to Los Angeles. I know how the series ends, but I’m not telling!

You’ve done some aggressive promotion for the book. Tell us about it.

Well, there was the promotional video I produced in Hollywood. I don’t like to call it a “book trailer,” because so many book trailers out there are cheap and rather lame. Besides the video, I have a dedicated website (www.theblackstiletto.net) designed for the book that will serve as the official site for the series. Hopefully it will expand as the series goes on. I’ve written a teaser short story that readers can download from the website for free in any e-book format or as a PDF. Finally, a friend of mine, Will Arrington, wrote and recorded a very cool, bluesy “Black Stiletto Song” which can be heard on the website. An instrumental version is on another page of the site. We’re giving away a free limited edition CD single of the tunes at my book signing appearances while they last. I’ve put far more effort into promoting The Black Stiletto than any other book I’ve written. I do hope the folks will check it out!