The primary attraction to any Andrew Klavan novel is a well-constructed, breathlessly paced story that grabs hold within a paragraph and never lets you go. In this respect, Klavan’s a narcotics dealer, a deliverer of addictive, satisfying escapism created to transport you from reality — which in a way makes his latest thriller, “The Last Thing I Remember” a gateway drug for young adults.

Opening sentence: “Suddenly I woke up strapped to a chair.”

Strapped to that chair is Charlie West, a typically bright and motivated high school student who has no idea how he got there. The last thing he remembers is a good though unexceptional school day but nothing that connects to the where, how or why of his present and immediate circumstance. Not only has he been tortured, but voices in the hall have just decided to kill him … slowly.

From here Charlie will have to escape, out run and out-wit his deadly, resourceful captors and unravel what happened in-between scoring a first date with his dream girl and waking up in, well,  an Andrew Klavan page turner. The plot never stops moving or thickening and as the pieces come together, Charlie finds himself the only hope between … and that’s all you’re getting from me. (more…)

Note: This is the second part of a two-part interview. Part one can be found here.

Big Hollywood:  Where did the idea for “The Last Thing I Remember” come from? I know there’s an evolution to a good story, well told. How did this evolve from that first spark to final draft?

Andrew Klavan: Some of it in this case was a matter of putting my money where my mouth is.  For years, I’ve been complaining that there are no books with real boys in them, that when we want to write about manhood or patriotism or battling evil, we suddenly have to write about fantasy lands and dragons or Gotham City or whatever.  There’s real evil in the world, real people who do real evil, and they need to be fought and there’s no appeasing them.  So I started from that point of view.  Let me just speak plainly about what we’re fighting for, what kind of people do the fighting and what they believe that empowers them and why.  And I guess it started from that.

BH:  I know the secret to your success is having your wife read everything first. Are you like me? Do you get angry at her criticism, especially when she’s right?

AK: LOL.  I know your wife, you have the sweetest wife on earth and shame on you for getting mad at that good, good woman when she’s only trying to help.  But yeah, I do exactly the same thing.  You know how it is.  We pour our hearts and souls into these things and at the point when we show them to our wives, we’re still raw with it, the wound is still bleeding.  And she says, “This is the greatest novel I’ve ever read but on page 116, you misspelled whirligig,” and you’re, like, “How dare you, you harridan!  Don’t you realize I’m an ARTIST???  I meant to spell it that way!!!”  Luckily, my wife knows I worship the ground she walks on.  (more…)

Big Hollywood:  First off, thank you for doing this. When the opportunity to write “The Last Thing I Remember“ (available April 28th) came along, you told me about the motivation behind what the publisher and you wanted to do with what you’re calling “The Homelanders Series.” It’s a fascinating idea and about time.

Andrew Klavan: Well, to begin with, you know how much I love video games…  I wanted to write a story such that, if a kid had my book in one hand and a video game in the other, he’d choose the book-it’d be that exciting.  And Thomas Nelson publishers and I are offering a guarantee that if you start this story and aren’t completely swept away, John Nolte will personally come to your house and sing the entire screenplay of Hondo to the tune of “Fella with an Umbrella.”  So you can’t lose.  But of course, if you want to tell a story that cool, you can’t preach and you can’t hammer people with your point of view, so I decided, okay, I just want to change the rules of the game, that’s all.  Instead of the usual alienated teen, or the wimpy guy who finds a magical sword, I’m gonna make my hero the kind of hero I like to read about:  a manly guy who loves America, believes in God and is ready to fight for liberty if he has to.  I thought, in the current climate, that alone would be revolutionary. (more…)