Maine Crime Writers

GS: When you first told me what FREIGHT was about, I remember thinking, “Oh man. I’ve never really heard of a story like this before.” I knew that I needed to read it to see how you would pull it off. And I was not disappointed. It’s like SA Cosby’s Blacktop Wasteland meets James Crumley’s road trips only on 95 heading to Canada. Where did this story come from? Did it come in characters or setting or a scene first? 

I’ve spent over a decade in the trucking industry, and I have met many fascinating characters along the way. Truck drivers are great storytellers, most of them love to talk about the places they’ve been and crazy shit they’ve seen, and they are funny and crude and wise and I have much respect for them generally. So for me, the story starts with the characters.

But there are loopholes in the industry, and missing freight is a common subject. Stolen cargo or smuggled drugs hiding in legit freight — most in trucking have a story they’ve witnessed or heard. And at one point I stumbled across a news story about a truck and trailer being taken from a truck stop while the driver was inside having lunch and I thought, that’s it! It was easy to imagine Curtis as the overnight dispatcher (I’ve been in those shoes) who binds all of these other characters together as the heist unfolds.

GS: On the topic of characters, I really like reading characters that feel like real people. I think you do such a good job of this. You tell the story with an ensemble cast of characters, all of whom are at least a little terrible and a little funny and a little sympathetic. I know I said this after I finished the book, but these characters remind me of people I grew up with, that I went to high school with. You develop these characters in such an authentic way. For example, Sarah, who is probably my favorite character. She’s most described by other people. And then we get one scene from her POV and she completely subverts reader expectations. I don’t want to give too much away, but I’d love to know how you managed to nail characterization. Can you share a little about how you did this? Any tricks or practices really help you get to know these characters so well?

I think it’s really interesting to write (and read about) characters when they are going through some shit, and while I’m sure we are all carrying some baggage at any given moment, it makes it more fun to really turn the volume up. Then imagine how they would react in whatever the situation. Ironically, Sarah is probably the only character NOT dealing with some personal trauma during the brief time period of this story. But generally I try to empathize with the characters and get them talking.

GS: I guess this leads me to a question about what influences your writing? Other writers? Music? Films? Experiences you’ve had? Are there certain themes or influences that seem to recur in what you write?

The biggest influences on my writing are other writers: Graham Greene, Faulkner, Hemingway, Stephen King, Raymond Chandler, Dostoevsky, and Cormac McCarthy, and I go back to all them often. Gary Paulson, Beverly Cleary, R.L. Stein, and Farley Mowat were very important to me growing up.

 Otherwise, there are a few movies that come to mind: Pulp Fiction and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. The poker scene in the latter flick is lovely. I watch a ton of stand-up comedy (my favorite form of storytelling) and I read certain philosophers often and I find useful psychological tidbits in the Hidden Brain podcast. We also have two young sons, and I am inspired by their relentlessness and their imaginations daily.

GS: Without giving too much away, you have this ensemble cast of characters, some of whom have set out to steal millions of dollars in Canadian pharmaceuticals. In addition to this outstanding ensemble cast, you do some really interesting things with how you lay out the structure of this book. You drop readers into these tight, snapshot scenes that are pieced together like a puzzle. I’d love to know how you decided to put these scenes together? Did you start with one character and then move to another? Did you write the scenes in chronological order? 

As far as unfolding the story, I try to imagine it as a movie that I would love to see. So that’s probably the reason for the shorter scenes that tend to jump around a bit. There were a few scenes that were added in the latter editing process, but for the most part it was written chronologically.

GS: You already know I love Sarah. You develop her entirely through the eyes of the other characters and when we finally get a scene from her POV, she totally subverts reader expectations. Which of the characters from Freight were you most drawn to? Why?

I think it made the most sense to develop Sarah through the eyes of others because it makes you realize that yes, she’s a badass, but you will probably underestimate her, as most everyone has in her life.

I’m drawn to all of the characters equally — each is a collage of people I’ve met in and out of the trucking industry, some more likable than others. I think most characters are enjoyable to write given the right situation.

GS: There are three other things you do really well. One is a slow burn of suspense and dread. The other is the plot twist. They third is really effectively placed humor. I was expecting theft and murder. I don’t think I’m giving anything away by saying both of these things happen but not at all how I expected. Did you set out to  include these elements or did they just come to the story organically?

I don’t really think much about the pace or plot twist when I’m writing. I just think about unfolding the story in a way that makes the reader want to start the next chapter. As for the humor, people say funny shit. And I think I’m a good listener.

GS: Whenever I talk to other writers, I love asking about their process. What practices do you swear by? What is your writing routine? Do you write short or long? Do you add more or edit out more? 

I write every morning, aiming for at least 500 words, but that goes up when the story is really cranking. I have a note above my desk that says MOVE THE STORY, I think that idea came from King’s On Writing. I usually listen to classical music or Miles Davis while working but when I’m writing an intense or emotional scene I might have a relevant song on repeat the whole time.

I oscillate between writing longhand and typing. I love writing longhand, because it slows you down and allows you to take the story in expected directions. I think longhand also helps writing dialogue, it gets the characters talking to each other more naturally. But the downside is you create more banter that might veer off the tracks, and then you have to cut it back later. But I think it’s worth the time.

GS: Can you tell us a little about what you are working on now? 

Little known fact: Winslow Homer’s mother, Henrietta, was a descendant of Jonathan Buck, the founder of my hometown, Bucksport, which is also home to the story of the foot appearing on Jonathan Buck’s grave every year, because, as the legend goes, he sentenced a young woman to death for witchcraft. Lesser known fiction: In response to that story, Winslow painted a dark depiction of a young girl on a swing in a field with flames under her feet. Afterward, he was ashamed of the painting, and wanted to get rid of it, but his brother secretly gifted the painting to a friend.

A hundred and fifty years later, the priceless painting goes missing from an island residence. A couple is making their escape in the night on a rural road when they hit a young girl. A former small town drug dealer comes upon the scene to find an injured woman in the car ditched by her man, the young girl face down in the ditch, and a cardboard tube containing the Homer painting. They band together and attempt to flee, but the walls are closing in fast as we find out why the young girl was in the road in the first place. Tentatively titled Girl on Fire.

GS: I cannot wait to learn more about this project. Thanks again, Ryan!

Ryan’s launch for HEIST will be at Longfellow Books (One Monument Way, Portland, ME) on Tuesday 8/11 at 6:00 pm. Hope to see you there! (More HERE.)

FREIGHT: As a lone semi-truck makes its snowy way to the US-Canadian border, a series of vivid characters are inexorably drawn into a desperate, comedic, and murderous scheme to steal its precious cargo.

Curtis, a newly hired dispatcher with a newly pregnant wife at home, holds a scrap of paper that identifies a semi-truck trailer that shouldn’t exist.

Billy Trask is a weathered and charismatic sociopath, who thinks nothing of quietly killing whomever may come in his way, and carefully guards the coordinates for a truck loaded with $10 million dollars-worth of Canadian pharmaceuticals.

Jimmy, Theo, and Sarah are the not-so-innocent locals poised to stand in Billy’s way, none more so than Sarah, a local party girl with the heart and will of a colossus, and who will leave her own trail of mayhem and carnage in her 75-mile-per-hour wake.

In the rough-and-tumble tradition of Dennis Lehane, S.A. Cosby, and classic American noir, Freight is a thrill-ride view of the world of labor, life and love–a searing portrait of men at work and also at their worst.