Author Interview with Ernest Lancaster
Let's get to know Debut Author Ernest Lancaster!
Tell us what your books are about.
I write crime fiction. Some of my stories pigeonhole as mysteries and some as suspense novels. But they all revolve around the passion, fears, hopes and deeds of cops for better or for worse. A passage from the third book of the Memphis M.O. Series, PUPPET MASTER, sums it up well. A television reporter asks the protagonist if he knows anything interesting about an upcoming recruit class:
Although Munro had never met any of them, he knew plenty about a disparate group of men and women, ranging from youngsters aspiring to protect the public and triumph as heroes, to middle-agers desperate to stake down a meaningful claim in life, to a sinister few aiming to milk positions of authority for all the ill-gotten profits they were worth. And the unimaginable costs in family and soul each one of them would pay for the privilege. But face to face with the news-industrial complex’s mouthpiece, he just shut up.
How important is research to you when writing a book?
Research is everything. I spent over three decades riding in police cars researching my books. In 1973, Memphis State University School of Law accepted me for entrance. It seemed I had been in school all of my life, and I joined the Memphis Police Department instead. I hit the streets as an idealistic and naïve rookie and left them with a graduate degree in misery, want, violence, mayhem, hatred, poverty and neglect. Yet in every community hope, charity, benevolence and faith thrive alongside the nefarious.
Have you ever incorporated something that happened to you in real life into your novels?
All the time. However, I never just report facts; I write fiction. Ernest Hemingway said in order to be good writer, an author must be a good liar. I mine my imagination to mold tales of how I would like for things to have turned out.
What will a reader gain by reading your books?
At the end of the day, a novel must entertain its audience. My readers can vicariously take an authentic walk in the boots of cops in all its warts, glory and absurdities.
What inspires you to write?
There is an old saying that writers don’t write because they want to, they write because they have to. A psychologist noted that riding in police cars in Memphis is akin to working in a war zone. In 1993, HBO came to Memphis and produced a documentary on the stress cops endure. Our department had the highest rate of suicide per capita in the nation. Several of my pals killed themselves, including my partner whom I named my son after. I also saw too many of my fellow cops gunned down in the line of duty, and others who drank themselves to death. I left a lot of myself on the streets of Memphis. Writing helps me take some of it back.
How much of yourself do you put into your books?
All of me. Although, no one character in my stories represents any individual. I take traits from one person and mix and match quirks and foibles from someone else and try to come up with interesting characters. I commit each to his own ambitions, compelling motivation to achieve those dreams and believable reasons they must fight to obtain their goals.
Did you ever think you would be unable to finish your first novel?
It took me ten years to finish my first novel, and I hope eventually it will see the light of day. But I never doubted I would finish it. Nor did I ever imagine the drudgery required to write a novel.
People believe that being a published author is glamorous, is that true?
No. Writing is hard work. Actors and rock stars are glamorous in their costumes and makeup under bright lights and red carpets. I don’t don ascot and beret to write in a café; I write alone in my basement, wearing wrinkled jammies and gulping black coffee.
Who is the most supportive of your writing in your family?
My wife is my anchor and my strength. She never wavered as I whiled away twenty years with butt in chair and fingers on keyboard, hammering out stories to a tiny audience with little reward.
Writers are often believed to have a Muse, your thoughts on that?
Every writer has his own style. Mine is to write every day to create my own luck. If a Muse drops by occasionally and throws me a bone, I’ll take it.
Any advice you would like to give to aspiring writers?
Write every day, read every day and never give up. It takes special courage to spill your soul onto the page for the world to scoff, criticize or lap up. Few things are as gratifying as writing the words, THE END, on a novel or even a short story.
The Jinx
by Ernest Lancaster
Series: Memphis M.O.
Suspense
July 24, 2018
Disaster strikes and innocents die as police sniper Rick Munro is plagued by a first-call jinx. As his career takes off, he must overcome his rookie mistakes, and keep his team members safe.
When Munro returns to TACT as a newly promoted lieutenant, the jinx torments him still. He must contend with team members’ rival agendas around every turn. Munro finds himself in a battle he can’t escape as corruption and death unfold around him.
Who can he trust? Will Munro break the streak or will it destroy everything he believes in?
About the Author:
Ernest Lancaster retired from the Memphis Police Department as a captain after serving as a cop for thirty-three years.
In the early seventies Lancaster spent two years walking a night beat in downtown Memphis, when The Peabody and Beale Street lay boarded up and crumbling and the center city became a dystopian ghost town after dark. He patrolled in ward cars, trooped for three days through a sea of pilgrims to Elvis’s funeral, edited the Memphis Police Association’s newspaper and acted as the association’s vice-president. For twenty-six years he held positions on the TACT Squad.
Lancaster now resides with his wife and Yorkie in the Smoky Mountains, where they love to hike and camp.
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