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Three novels into his career, author Wallace Stroby is shaking things up for himself.
The Ocean Grove resident and author of "The Barbed-Wire Kiss'' and "The Heartbreak Lounge'' said he stretched his creative muscles for his latest work, the thriller "Gone 'Til November.''
"I was really out of my comfort zone on this one,'' Stroby said of the book, which was released on Jan. 19 by Minotaur Books. "My first two books were (about) male characters at the Jersey Shore and ... (with) this one half of it, or actually three-quarters of it, was from the point of view of a single mom and then the other half was from the point of view of an aging, black hitman''
With "Gone 'Til November,'' Stroby, a former editor for the Asbury Park Press and the Star-Ledger, introduces his readers to the tough-but-vulnerable protagonist Sara Cross, a deputy sheriff in Florida who is also a single mother working to raise a sick child. Responding late one night to the scene of a roadside shooting, Sara is drawn into a web of secrets and intrigue that involves Billy, her former partner and ex-lover.
"When I originally started writing it I wrote about 50 pages of it with the main character as a man,'' Stroby said. "As I was doing that, it started to seem a little too familiar, it started to seem a little too much like 'The Barbed-Wire Kiss,' my first novel which is about a guy who is an ex-state trooper whose friend gets into some trouble and he tries to bail him out, and it just seemed to mirror that a little too much.
"And then, when I thought just one day, like a bolt out of the blue, I just thought, 'Well, what happens if I make her a woman?' and when I did that all of a sudden it just opened the whole book up.''
After deciding to change the gender of his protagonist, Stroby found the parameters of "Gone 'Til November'' laid out before him.
"When you start (writing), you've got a blank page that sort of can go anywhere, and then once you start zeroing-in on your characters, seeing the world through their eyes, then you realize the story can't go anywhere,'' Stroby explained. "Sara's not going to suddenly pick up and go to Arizona and leave her kid behind to do something, there are certain things that she's always going to do, and so that sort of dictates how she's going to react as you start bouncing the characters off each other.''
One of Stroby's characters Sara bounces off of in the novel is Morgan, an aging hood from the mean streets of Newark who first appeared in "Heart,'' a short story which was published in 2006.
"I wanted (Morgan) to be like a refugee from the '70s, I wanted him to be like a guy who grew up in a tough, urban environment in that whole culture of the '70s,'' Stroby said of the character who casts a Richard Roundtree-like shadow over the novel. "He's out of place and out of time, too, that was the other thing I wanted to get at. What he listens to, he can barely get it on the radio.''
What Morgan and the rest of the novel's characters listen to cuts a strong undercurrent through the book, marking another change in Stroby's style this time out.
"I don't usually put a lot of music in, even though some people do, like (George) Pelecanos is a really good example. But in this book, I think when I originally started conceiving the idea, it was images and it was music, and on one end I had stuff you'd hear in a rural bar and at the other end I had hip-hop,'' Stroby explained. "And the title, and a little bit of the feeling came from that Wyclef Jean song (the 1998 hit 'Gone Till November'), and the more I listened to that the more I thought.
"As I always do, I put a mix-tape together of stuff that I listen to while I'm coming up with the idea, because before I get character, I sort of get tone and mood and then that sort of relates to music. ... So, there was more music involved in the genesis of this book than I think there had been on anything previous.''
According to Stroby, some of the tunes that helped shape "Gone 'Til November'' included Sam Cooke's "Keep Movin' On,'' "Ramblin' Man'' by Hank Williams and soul singer Betty LaVette's powerful cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia.''
For "Gone 'Til November'' readers who are taken with the novel's lead characters, there's good news around the corner: since completing the novel, Stroby has been at work at a story focused on Morgan set in 1978, and he also plans on releasing a re-written version of "Heart'' as an Amazon Kindle exclusive to coincide with the release of "Gone 'Til November.''
Stoby also seems optimistic about the possibility of revisiting the character of Sara Cross in the future. "She'll be back,'' Stroby said. "I have an idea and that's a perfect way to jinx it, by saying that. But I mean, I think so, I think there are still things I have to say about her, there are things that her situation presents which I think would be interesting to get into.''
Wallace Stroby will be appearing for a signing and discussion at 6 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 6 at the Words! bookstore, 612 Cookman Ave., Asbury Park. He will also be appearing for a signing at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 27 at Watchung Booksellers, 54 Fairfield St.,
Montclair. Stroby will also host a "Film Noir Night'' presentation of Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing'' at 4 p.m. on Sunday, March 14 at the ShowRoom, 708 Cookman Ave., Asbury Park.
