1906 - a novel of the San Francisco earthquake and fire

Commies and heretics,
Do not miss this interview with a Renaissance man by the name James Dalessandro. An acclaimed author of historical and crime fiction, a filmmaker and lover of opera, he joins us today to discuss his literary and cinematic projects. He is best known for his novel 1906 depicting the San Francisco earthquake and fire. Dalessandro has held a few jobs that many people in the world of literature and performing jobs would consider dream jobs. However, even someone as accomplished and well connected as him runs into challenges. Your humble host Connecticut Commie thanks our guest for his time and candor.

MJN: Your novel 1906 describes the great San Francisco earthquake and fire. Disaster films having become quite popular in the past few decades, especially with the advancements in special effects. If your novel was to be turned into a movie, which director would you pick? As a screenwriter, I am sure you have thought of that.

JD: Barry Levinson was the first signed director, then Brad Bird at Pixar was on the project for 6 or 7 years - it was supposed to be the first live action for him and Pixar.   But everybody kept changing the script and the story.   I would have to say Peter Jackson would be my first choice:  he knows how to blend real story telling and visual effects.   The problem with "disaster" films - I really loathe that name - is that they've become all disaster and no story.   After 1906 was dumped by Pixar and Brad Bird, Warner Brothers put "San Andreas" into production.  The hokiest, most preposterous pile of garbage, but everyone kept saying "but the visual effects were so good."  Is that we've become:  we give up history, story, human drama for things that a 14 year old can do on his laptop?    The Rock rides to their rescue of his daughter in a rubber boat, and forget that a million people just drowned?    Peter Jackson would be good.  Right now the film is in limbo... the money they spent in going away from my story is appalling.  The dumped the characters, the truth about what happened - the lies, the cover up, the tragedy and heroism.  It might never get made.  Sadly. 

MJN: 1906 is narrated by a young female reporter Annalisa Passarelli. I am sure that in the early 20th century there were not many female journalists, and their activity was usually restricted to writing articles on the topics of fashion, housekeeping, and if lucky, art and entertainment. What were some of the educational institutions in the early 1900s that produced female journalists? Berkeley comes to mind.  

JD: The most influential journalist of all time was Nellie Bly from the New York World.   Staring in the 1880's, she went undercover to expose the horrors of mental hospitals, baby peddling rings, wholesale political corruption.   She went around the world in less than 80 days, alone, to show it could be done after the publication of Jules Verne's novel - the first person to solo circumnavigate the globe.   The most famous journalist in America at the time.  The women's rights movement was in serious swing, and women were rebelling and fighting for rights and equality.   Nellie was the inspiration for my fictional Annalisa Passarelli and lots of other young female writers and journalists.   What was Emma Goldman's statement - well-behaved women never changed anything.  I need a strong woman amidst all that testosterone.   I'm married to one of those women.

MJN: I noticed that several of your novels are set in San Francisco and involve the opera house as a setting. Do you find that the glamor of high art makes the grisly component of murder and mayhem in your novels more jarring?

JD: It kind of turned out that way.  I'm a big opera lover:  I'm writing the libretto for an opera right now, based on one of my film scripts, called THE ITALIAN GIRL.   I like to say that I have a lot of low friends in high places.. .and vice versa.  Smart people with class tending bar and building houses.   I try to see the big picture in films and books - the little guy and gal set against a big back drop.  The Tenderloin to Pacific Heights.   Opera is the most amazing music, and I'm a fan of it all.  I wrote the House of Blues Radio Hour for Dan Ackroyd and created "Rock On" with Ray Manzarek of the doors.   I used to ace the Downbeat Magzine blindfold test to identify artists in new jazz releases.  But opera is heaven to me, particularly the Italians - Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verde and Puccini.  I have a dog named Giacomo Poochini.   Americans don't like it because they don't understand the words.   I'm an Italian citizen, I speak the language fairly well.  I have dual citizenship.   Life is too short not to love opera.

MJN: One of the critics compared you work to that of Dashiell Hammett. It is always scary to read what the critics have to say about your work. Some of the comparisons are surprising. Have you ever been surprised by a comparison made by a critic? Do you feel flattered when your work gets compared to that of other iconic authors? I imagine, some writers having mixed feelings. On one hand, it's flattering, but on another hand, you probably wonder, "Why must I be compared to XYZ? Doesn't my work stand on its own two feet?"

JD: Some people take umbrage, I find it tremendously gratifying to be compared to Dashiell Hammett, who created the modern Noir detective thriller.  A brilliant writer.  That was "Bohemian Heart" you're referring too.  Another one compared me to Raymond Chandler - given the snappy one liners and metaphors from my P.I. Frankie Fagen. It's certainly more like Chandler's work.   Both were great writers.    None of that bothers me at all, I find it encouraging.   What bothers me are comments that question our integrity or scholarship - no writer earns universal praise.   I just read a review from a reader, online, who said she had to wade through a dumb, phony plot about political corruption before she got to the earthquake in 1906.   That dumb, phony plot is exactly what happened.  The day before the 1906 earthquake, prosecutors handed down indictments for the Mayor, all 18 members of the Board of Supervisors, the Police Chief and half the judges in town.  It was a plot hatched in the Oval Office of Theodore Roosevelt to to go war on urban corruption.  And those under indictment used the fire and chaos to fight back at their enemies, burning their houses, and hailed themselves as the great saviors of San Francisco.  It was bullshit.   The Army got drunk, shot hundreds of innocent people as suspected looters, then they all lied about the death count.   They used dynamite to stop the fires and all that did was spread it.   If that's a dumb, phony plot then the moon is blue cheese.  But you learn to slough it off.  It doesn't mean anything, other than some people are too lazy to look up a few facts before they slam someone.  Me:  I look before I shoot.   That stuff annoys me, but it doesn't bother me.   Dashiell Hammett - he's the Buddha. 

MJN: You have a history of working with large publishing houses. You also mentioned that you had a hard time selling your novels set in San Francisco to a New York publisher, because the setting was not "local", and the publisher feared that New Yorkers would feel "alienated". I imagine this is not the most ridiculous excuse you ever heard. Did you ever circle back with that editor after your novel was released via a Californian publisher?

JD: I've had my books published by Putnam Penguin (Citizen Jane) and St. Martin's Press (BohemianHeart).  And yes, it was the dumbest excuse I've ever heard.   Several publishers called 1906 - which was the greatest disaster in American history and the victim of a century long web of lies and coverups - a "regional story."  So was Hurricane Katrina, by that criteria.  That would make the Civil War a border conflict?   A lot of the New York publishing establishment - not all, but a lot - dismiss San Francisco as a pretend urban city that doesn't measure up.   Wallace Stegner is one of the great writers of the American West (Angle of Repose), won the Pulitzer Prize and was never reviewed in the NY Times.   That's an insult.   The NY Times once dismissed Jack London's "Call of the Wild" as just another dog book.   I love the NY Times, can't live without reading the Sunday Times, including Arts & Leisures from cover to cover.   But we're provincial and marginal, and that's unnecessary.   We gave the world Mark Twain, Jack London, Dashiell Hammet, Gertrude Stein, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, John Steinbeck, Wallace Stegner.   Amy Tan.  Even Allen Gingsberg broke through here.  Find me a city that can match that list.   They'll do a book set in Appalachia or the rural South, but San Francisco - not so much.    So I wanted a San Francisco publisher all along, and that's what I got - Chronicle Books.    And they're now all out in Digital/Kindle, which has given all of us a new life - our books are never out of print.  That's a gift from the tech world, and for that we are all grateful.