We chat with author James Grady about Shadows on Sidewalks, which is a cinematic and propulsive thriller from the author of Six Days Of The Condor and American Sky.
Hi James! Can you tell a little bit about yourself?
I’m a small town Montana guy who got incredibly lucky before I was 25 and got my work dream come true with SIX DAYS OF THE CONDOR. Now I’m a — gulp! — 77 year old happily married, two adult kids, one grandson, still getting to work my dream guy in a D.C. suburb after also being a muckraker and a filmed screenwriter.
When did you first discover your love of writing?
I was 10 when the dream rose up in me that what I wanted to do was write fictions like I was reading in library books and seeing in the movie theater.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- First book I ever remember reading and absorbing was STUART LITTLE.
- First book that made me want to become an author had to be a mystery novel, probably one of the Hardy Boys series.
- It’s a tie for the book I can’t stop thinking about between THE GRAPE OF WRATH. THE MALTESE FALCON and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.
Your latest novel, Shadows on Sidewalks, is out May 5th ! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
“A noir novel revealing us.”
What can readers expect?
Readers will get triggered into an erotic noir thriller set in a heartland American small town with corruption, racism, choices, sex, heroism, more murders than they’ll anticipate plus love and redemption and a picture of all of us.
Where did the inspiration for Shadows on Sidewalks come from?
I realized too many novels were being set in “big city” America and not dealing with the realities of where we all are now. Bob Dylan’s 2020 quote: “Sex and politics and murder is the way to if you want to get people’s attention” triggered me with a vision of a guy like me coming back to his hometown and wham!
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
The climatic end of the novel in a graveyard modeled on the one where I was a teenage gravedigger really excited and inspired me with a WOW! vision.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
I had to figure out how to report on our unavoidably politicized times without insulting any reader. And I had to do that honestly and with truth.
What’s next for you?
SHADOWS ON SIDEWALKS inspired me to focus on Dylan’s sex/murder/politics again but this time set in “real time” — i.e., April, 2026 — and in a fictional neighborhood like I and many readers live in. And do so with another erotic noir approach combined with historical and existential fiction. The novel is now called THE PROMISED LAND and I’m about 50% done with the first draft.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up?
I’ve got a huge stack of books waiting for me. I just got through David Swinson’s latest, have Ada Limon’s poems coming up, and am waiting for new books by S.A. Cosby, K.T. Nguyen, Jess Walter, S.J. Rozan, Jeff Deaver, Lou Bayard and a dozen more great authors.
