Hello, and welcome to The Bookmark.

I'm Christine Brown, your host.

Today my guest is Paul McGrath, author of "Left Is Right", a novel.

This is your second novel?

Yes.

Your second appearance on the book, Mark.

And, well, glad to be back.

So I'm very glad to have you here to continue this story of these interesting characters in this interesting world.

I do want to ask you, though, before we jump in, for people who may have read the book a while ago or watched the episode a while ago, can you, kind of set the scene, catch us up with what the first book was about?

Okay, well, it's, obviously the title left has a bit of a double meaning, but the essentially you have a space alien covert operative by the name of Anton Seven, and his home planet is called Zyl at dawn, and he is a, dispatched to Earth to provide surveillance on some of the things that humankind is up to, you know, especially with space and technology and what have you.

And in this first tour, he's assigned to the northeast, but now he's been sent to Mississippi and he's supposed to be coming.

Well, he was in Mississippi.

He was supposed to be coming back.

And his comrades leave early.

So he is left behind.

And as I say, there's a layer to the meeting because I use my characters, get a little preachy on certain topics.

And so there is some left as far as, progressive issues or stands on issues that are, present in, all of the books, actually, so this is the second book where, where do we pick up?

Right where we left off.

Right.

Pretty much pretty much the, Yeah.

Anton has got himself in trouble.

And, he and his, companion Ellie are, they are on the run from basically two different, Well, law enforcement agencies from two planets, the feds here in, America, the.

And the FBI specifically.

And, he is his superiors on Zala Donner.

Not too happy with him right now because of what he has done that may expose their operations.

So they have, dispatched someone to bring him home.

So through much of the book, he is, still hiding from these forces when he, Well, the specter, one of the key characters in the first book is Ezra Gator Hopkins, the human who is befriended by Anton and by Ella.

And the specter of Ezra sort of hangs over this book as well as the others, because I just love that character.

And let's just say that, is, Ellie and Anton go on a mission that is fueled by the specter of Ezra.

Sure, sure.

Did you find it difficult to jump back into this world when you started writing the second book?

Or was it just, hopping in?

Well, you know, I sort of fell in love with the characters, and it's like, what can I do to keep them going?

And it's like, okay, now I do, you know, different antagonist.

So about the same time, I borrow a lot of things from current events from Newt, I'm a newspaper guy.

So I take stuff from newspapers.

And about the time I was starting on this book, you had a lot of, headlines, quite a few headlines around the Epstein case and also January 6th, and there were a couple of, well known right wing militia groups who were involved in that particular, day and incident.

And so next thing I know, I've got right wing militias, I've got human trafficking.

And if that's not dark enough, I threw in a Texas motorcycle gang.

So this is what Anton and Lee are up against, in the second book.

So, yes, I sort of jumped, right?

Yeah, sure.

Just, this sounds like it's a combination of.

You couldn't let that because this wasn't originally supposed to be a series.

It was just going to be a singular story.

Right?

Right.

It was going to be one book.

And then it's like, okay, I just kept going and it became three.

Now I've finished number four and I'm working on number five.

So it's just, you know, the characters just, you know, I keep finding things that were worth writing about.

Sure thing.

The sad thing, Christine, is that when you're including satire in a science fiction setting, so many things are going on right now that are better than the satire, funnier than the satire I can come up with.

So I'm having to compete with that.

Well, I imagine since these are inspired by or pulled from true, current events, you know, the kind of central theme is what would a would an alien race think of our social issues?

What would they think of how we handle this or do that?

There's probably an endless amount of things that that you could explore, right.

That would seem crazy to a different race of, of beings.

And it's funny, Frazer, because Ellie kind of has.

There it is.

They're going on a road trip on this mission.

Ellie kind of has that.

This is about, you know, why are they doing this?

How like, how could this be?

Let's.

This would never happen on our planet that we've we've evolved so much farther than that by now.

And, so, yeah, they, Oh, you know, they're very careful where they they're right.

They know that there's risks involved.

And if they are, by doing whatever they do, they're looked in their head out of the foxhole and that's, you know, puts themselves in danger.

But because of their sense of, empathy towards humans, because they're both in this book, both teachers now and they have students that they are very compassionate toward.

And, as I said, this specter of Ezra still hanging around.

So this war, you know, this, you know, what would Ezra do in this situation?

And, it's very much and in these books, the characters in the left series want to do what's right.

They know what they have a feeling of.

What's, of what's right.

And that's what they want to accomplish.

There's a there's a several references in this book to kind of the classic comic book heroes.

I think Batman gets the mention, Superman gets a mention.

Oh yeah.

And they but they have that in common with those characters.

They want to they believe in justice.

They believe in what they you know, what they think is right as the title would imply.

And, and giving that to the, to the people that they're around and, and that they see on their news that's, you know, that's one of the things I try to do is I borrow from pop culture quite a bit.

In fact, in this book, well, Roy McDonald, which was the pseudonym that, Anton use has now become Michael Gort, which is a homage to The Day the Earth Stood Still.

The actor who in the original, the actor was Michael Rennie.

There's the Michael Gort was the robot, and that's the Gort part of his name.

So he's Michael Gort now, going forward, I have other characters who, borrow names from different things.

I'm an unashamed Billy.

Well, I may be a little ashamed.

Billy, a cowboy Dallas Cowboys fan, right now.

And a couple of my characters in book three.

Their names are coined from Dallas Cowboys quarterbacks, which, if you're some folks will recognize.

So I try to, you know, do use those kind of references and, the Fortress of Solitude reference so that you, that you mention.

So, yeah, just to give it a little touch points, little touchstones for the readers to connect with.

You shouldn't have told me that I'm a Texans fan.

That's okay, that's okay.

I root for the Texans, too.

I just, let's talk about Anton.

You mentioned he has a new name, a new identity.

I imagine I may.

Well, I know because I read the book, but I it's probably difficult because he first of all, he has a whole separate identity before he even comes to Earth.

Right.

And then he has several years kind of I think he describes it as like, kind of comfortable.

That identity is like it was comfortable.

Yeah.

But now he has to.

It's like putting on a new pair of shoes.

They're real stiff and he's not quite used to it yet.

Yes.

He and he's still getting used to, dealing with the third graders and all.

And, well, anything things that an elementary school teacher, well, even trained elementary school teachers have a hard time, much less somebody who is, you know, not from here, but, he gets involved in a few little, you know, crazy little incidents.

There's a pretty interesting, barroom scene and, another character that I introduce to try since the the themes of the book are kind of on the darker side, I said, well, how what can I do to counter counter that?

I gotta provide a counterweight.

So I tried to inject some humor with a character named Chadwick Cartwright is sort of a a pudgy, bowtie wearing individual who is, looking for romance and generally all the wrong places.

And, he, share some of his stories that are in a barroom setting one night.

And, just as an aside, his stories are taken from real life stories my coworkers gave me in my newspaper career.

So there's some truth in all of them, including the the incident involving the elephant trainer, which.

And you have to read the book to read.

I don't know what to say about that.

Goodness, I didn't know what to say for the first time.

This book also has a lot of unsavory characters.

You could kind of a well filled out villain pool.

Oh, how did you just.

I mean, you mentioned kind of the newspaper, but then how do you flesh out all these all these villains?

Well, you know, it's it was interesting because you I was reading about some of the characters who were involved.

Well, what I mean, we good grief, you read about Jeffrey Epstein is the man.

You know, it's hard to top that one as far as dark, but some of the other characters who were involved in the militia groups and I started doing the research and I was just astounded, I didn't for instance, I didn't know that there were militia groups were involved in a string.

This is pre mural building, pre Oklahoma City.

There was a militia.

Groups are involved in a string of bank robberies in the Midwest, and they wore presidential masks.

This became the inspiration for the movie Point Break that, Patrick Swayze, he was in.

So yeah, that was a you know, this is where the journalist side of me came in when I'm really researching some of this and the attempt to kidnap the Michigan governor or assassinate or whatever it was.

And then on the, human trafficking side, I was very surprised to learn being from Houston, Texas, that Houston is the human trafficking capital of the world, or at least it was considered at one time.

And it it wasn't.

And actually, the Houston Police Department had a summit, held a summit with representatives from the adult entertainment industry in Houston so they could come up with ground rules on how the girls would operate.

And it's like, what?

You know, this is this was all kind of, and a big surprise to me.

So I'm stealing from this from real life.

I was able to create some of these characters and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho that truly was it was a, it's been a it was a hotbed of, of militia activity at one time.

And so what the heck, I'll use it.

What I found interesting is you kind of have this multiple like gangs of villains, and they all have a little bit of a different flavor there.

This one is a little more maybe polished looking.

This one's a little rough.

This one's a motorcycle.

That must have been kind of I guess fun as a writer to kind of like, you know, make little factions within your within.

Absolutely.

And then, you know, okay, you know, I can how can I mix Texas into this?

So I've had the motorcycle gang hanging out and in the, in the Galveston area, you know, eating shrimp and drinking beer.

And, there is a reference to a, well, if you watch the Magnolia Channel, there's a certain group that does, you know, redesign in, in Galveston area.

So one of their projects gets a mention in the book, but, yeah, some of the, I just sort of found some distasteful characters and I'll just enhance it doesn't really make them evil so that people will be glad to whatever whatever their fate is, they'll be glad it happened.

There's also you know, there's kind of a lot of different plotlines that we're jumping to in this book.

We have our heroes, we have our villains, we have some of our victims.

How do you as a writer like do you like draw charts or how do you keep the cause?

All converges, you know, at some point in the story, oh my gosh, I had to I actually had to create going back to like elementary school and creating outline.

I would sort of outline the chapters and then I would go over here, I would have the names of the characters because I will, I will confess, I will get the Donia names messed up.

And I've had to do some search and replace to, to fix names, but yeah, I do.

I couldn't just, you know, ideas would pop into my head and I would try to incorporate or I would write them down, but I actually had to create outlines and keep sort of a character flowchart who does what, you know, I might like.

That's probably helpful.

If you're thinking about writing a book, get a whiteboard or something and put it up there, draw it out, because that probably is very helpful.

Yeah.

Visually, when you've got so much stuff going on, oh, I'm here and I'm, I'm, you know, I'm always one of those people who loves puns.

And when I'm thinking of a good line, well, you know, I'll write it down.

Okay.

Where can I work it in, you know, so I've got my little sheet of good lines here and slap it in where it works.

Yes, I did want to mention the humor.

If people remember the first book, the humor is just as equally, if not more on display in the second book.

Let it let a quippy little lines that are characters have.

Well, my wife says I'm a professional smart.

And I say that I don't know if I could, but, yeah, I, you know, it was a, and a lot of things that I couldn't say in my journalism career that I can say now, or I can get Anthony really to say it, so.

And there's many, many it as you'll see going forward, there's many things that Anton will say that Lee just wants to smack him over.

So you get to look forward to that as well.

We also get to, in this book, see a little more of the Zylofon culture and their kind of their backstory, their history, their current procedures.

How do you how do you build out that world?

You just think I would like it.

I would like the world to be this way.

That's how their culture is.

Or kind of just, antithesis of our culture.

I sort of, Well, I wanted to give a little more history.

Well, in the first book, I didn't even describe what the Zala Downs look like.

No, I never really do.

I want the reader to be able to decide what they look like.

Let the let it be in the reader's mind's eye.

What they just want these folks to look like.

But I sort of give it a little more of the history and how things came to be.

And, going forward, there's going to be a little bit more of that.

It's just to, also to give some contrast to how Zala Dawn evolves as to what's going on on Earth, you know?

So just to give an idea, you know it.

It's not a perfect world.

The earth in book three, there's going to be smugglers.

So, I mean, there's sort of little dark sides to the island on as well.

But, I just wanted to give a little bit of backstory into the show, you know, put in a different path of, of evolution for a certain culture.

I also think if you maybe are just kind of curious about sci fi, you're not super into sci fi.

These books are a great way to dip your toe in the genre, because the first one, there's a little bit.

The second one, I feel like there's a little more, and maybe you're going to keep building and and it'll get a little more.

Yeah.

And it's going to get really interesting.

Book five if, if we, if we stay around and you.

I'll be here.

You come back.

Okay.

I did want to also touch on the human trafficking piece.

You talked about how that's a big part of the book because it's associations with, you know, unfortunately, Houston, I feel like that's where I could see your journalism background come in, because even though this is a novel, when there's true to life, things like that, you do such a great job of giving us true facts and figures and, you know, kind of giving us, as the reader, the kind of backstory we might need to know about the topic to, to understand the gravity of it.

Well, that's one thing I you know, it's one of the things I've been a journalist for 56 years, so, I guess it was just something I had to do.

And in the first book, I gave a lot of statistics regarding guns and gun offenses and what have you.

And this is the same way I did a little I did a deep dive.

I did my research.

And to not try to overwhelm the reader, but just give enough information to the so the reader said, gee, this is this is a problem.

This is this is something Anton ought to do something about.

And or or why into him.

I feel that he's compelled to, to, go on this mission.

So, yeah, I mix in my journalistic instincts with, and that's the beauty of it.

I can mix in my journalistic instincts and then say something about it from a fiction writers point of view.

Kind of the best of both worlds.

Exactly.

We're allowed to say some of those things.

You said you weren't allowed to say some of those things.

Some things that I wasn't able to say as a journalist.

Now I can say, or let somebody else saying, there's a lot more travel in this book, too, because our characters are kind of going across the country.

Just wait till book three.

How do you pick your locations?

It just places you like or places you've been or places you want to go.

I've never been to Coeur d'Alene, but I have been to Albuquerque and I have been to Santa Fe, and, I've been to San Antonio in this book.

They actually do go to a Bucky's.

By the way.

Which I assume you've been to.

Yes, I've been to 1 or 2.

Bucky's in my day.

But some generally the places that I have been, I have some familiarity.

If it's a place I haven't been to, then I. That's where I do the research and, and go to different maps or different histories and, and what have you.

So but yeah, you know, is it's fun, it's sort of picking on a place that you actually have been to, like I, you know, I remember that corner.

Sure.

And, and take these characters and kind of pop them in to see what they would think or what they would do or where they would eat.

I think that's kind of fun.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I, you know, in this case, I even have, there's a Taylor Swift actually plays a part in this book, just a little bit of it.

I'm not going to tell you what you have to read it.

Find out.

I did you brought up Ezra, but I did want to mention that, it makes sense that he looms large because he was so important to these characters.

Yes.

And, you, if they were real people, they wouldn't just stop talking about him.

You know, after the events of book one, it would it would stay with them because he's so important to both of them.

Yeah.

I absolutely.

And before it, before they, they leave on their mission, they go to the cemetery and visit his grave.

And it's like they have a coaching session, I guess, or just, just, you know, to recapture his spirit and, he he's like, as I said, his the specter of Ezra sort of fuels this mission.

And there's another.

Well, I'm a little surprised that, I don't want to give away.

And, but, yeah, he and Ezra going to be around going forward.

I got some more little surprises with Ezra.

That's good, that's good.

The cover of this book.

I do like the covers of your books, because the first one, I didn't quite get it until I got to that part of the book.

And the same thing with the second one.

I was like, I don't get why is there a moose on this cover?

And then when you get to that part of the book, you get it.

So I hope the rest of them have a similar kind of, it all becomes clear once you once you hit that point in the, in the story.

Yeah.

It, I think, the cover is done for book three, and it's going to have what you say.

It goes underwater.

So there's the I think the cover is very well, the my former, former Chronicle, colleague Ken Ellis has done those three covers.

He's going to have quite a challenge for book four because it's, involves Alabama, Alabama.

It's its own challenge in many ways.

But this is.

Yeah.

Well, now this one is just barely out.

I mean, this is brand hot off the press.

Brand new it.

Yeah, I don't actually I don't think it actually drops drops till April 6th which maybe this will air by then.

I don't know the dates, but it's going to be.

It's brand new by the time you see this.

It's a brand new book.

So I can't really ask you how this one's doing, but the first one's been out for a while.

Have you been able to.

How have you been able to meet people who've read it or go to author events?

Or.

That must be a lot of fun.

It.

Well, I was very surprised too.

Or pleasantly surprised when I left.

Won the pen Craft Award, and it's like I did not set when I went on this journey with these characters.

I didn't, you know, I didn't even know the word contest.

And then fortunately, my good, the good folks at Stoney Creek said, hey, you need to enter here and go here and here.

So I did, and I was very fortunate.

I won, the Sci Writing Award from Pen Craft.

And, my wife and I get to go to Vegas here at the end of April.

And in connection with that, Stoney Creek has been just great to me as far as, you know, promoting the books and getting them out.

And, and helping me stay on, on the right path with it.

I think I have to mention, because it's just a stone's throw from where we are, you go you came to Aggie Con to talk about it.

Yes, I did, and that was actually thanks to one of your, your coworkers here who mentioned it.

And yes, I did come to Aggie Con, and that was, that was a who.

That was a lot of fun.

Do you know what to expect?

And, I met a lot of people, sold a few books, and at least, at least introduced some folks to, to the series.

So, you know, all you can do is throw it out there and hope people will like it.

Exactly, exactly.

Well, unfortunately, we're running short on time.

So.

And our final, say, two minutes.

What would you hope people take away from from this book?

Well, there's a the both of the main characters have this strong sense of conscious conscience and also a equally strong sense of empathy towards humankind.

And in fact, I don't want to get preachy about it, but you can look at and you can.

I think most people would observe and say, gosh, these folks actually care more about humankind than many humans do.

And, it's also been a vehicle to to shine a light on some different problems or different issues that are still roiling in our society.

And, hey, if aliens can, come up with a way to address them, maybe we can too.

Well, I really appreciate you coming back.

Thanks for having me about this.

We'll, we'll have to make a plan for the third one.

Well, I hope so.

Absolutely.

Thank you again for coming.

It's my pleasure.

And enjoy it.

That book again is Left is Right by Paul McGrath.

That's all the time we have for today.

Thank you so much for joining us.

I'll see you again soon.