We chat with author John A. McDermott about The Last Spirits of Manhattan, which is a sparkling and witty novel that whisks you to 1956 Manhattan, where famed director Alfred Hitchcock is hosting a star-studded party in an allegedly haunted house…only for the soiree to be interrupted by a ghostly party crasher.
Hi, John! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi! I’m a professor of creative writing in Nacogdoches, Texas, but I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin. I miss winter and my siblings, but I love working with my students. I have a teenage daughter, too, so between them I try to stay current…so I listen to a lot of Taylor Swift.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I grew up in an old house filled with books and I was a passionate reader way before I turned to writing. I devoured mysteries when I was younger, but dove into a lot of classics and contemporary lit in college and still consider myself a fan first. It didn’t occur to me to really write my own stuff until I was in my twenties and then it took a long time to find my voice. I like to tell my students that writing is a marathon, not a sprint.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Richard Scarry’s What Do People Do All Day?
- The one that made you want to become an author: William Goldman’s Boys and Girls Together. (Yes, the same guy who wrote The Princess Bride!). It’s a massive family saga. I haven’t read it in years—I hope it holds up—but found it in a used bookstore when I was about 22 and I read it sort of spur-of-the-moment in one day and night (it’s loooong). That experience made me think I wanted to do that to someone else someday–make them stay up all night to finish a book.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: This changes all the time. Lately it’s Kelly Link’s book of stories, Get in Trouble. I recommend that constantly. What a fun, weird, beautiful collection.
Your debut novel, The Last Spirits of Manhattan, is out October 14th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Haunted, historical, romantic, stylish, tipsy.
What can readers expect?
My elevator pitch was “Mad Men throws a party and the ghosts of Downton Abbey crash it.” Expect: mid-century Manhattan, some celebrities tortured by various choices (both fleeting and significant), and one runaway Wisconsin girl trying to figure out her identity in the midst of the mayhem.
Where did the inspiration for The Last Spirits of Manhattan come from?
My mother told me years ago that back in the fifties, Alfred Hitchcock rented her great aunts’ house on the upper eastside for a haunted party. It took me years to figure out how to make that a story. Her family was very old New York, so I did some research on long-ago relatives and turned them into ghosts.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
My primary ghost is a girl named Snug who died in the influenza of 1919. She’s such a mix of light and dark and was really my way into the story. All of the ghosts (is it a spoiler to say there’s more than one?) have real backstories I researched through old newspaper articles and such. But of course, it is fiction, so I used what I could in service to the story.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
Writing the celebrities was a blast, but more challenging than I expected. We all know a version of Alfred Hitchcock’s voice, so channeling that by watching his old TV series and interviews was fun, but I didn’t want it only to be a parody. Charles Addams, the inventor of The Addams Family, was at the party, too, and researching his life and using bits of it in the novel was a pleasure. Between Hitchcock and Addams, I was steeped in the right mood.
What’s next for you?
I’m in the middle of writing another party book. This one is set at a monstrous affair in July of 1932 on the north shore of Long Island. It’s a different riff on a family story and an ode to F. Scott Fitzgerald…with more ghosts. A thousand people showed up that night (even Fred Astaire and George Gershwin), but I’m focused on the rich host’s daughter who has to sneak into the party against her father’s wishes.
Lastly, what books have you enjoyed reading this year? Are there any you’re looking forward to picking up?
Over the summer, I read Tennesse Hill’s debut novel, Girls with Long Shadows. It’s strange and lyrical, like a Texas take on The Virgin Suicides. I think about that one a lot. Kelsey Cox’s thriller, Party of Liars (hey, another party book!) is really fun, and the next book on my stack is James Wade’s Narrow the Road, a historical novel set in the 1930s. He writes seriously good prose.
