Jonathan Woods
Jonathan Woods is an award-winning author of absurdist pulp noir. He holds degrees from McGill University, New England School of Law and New York University School of Law and worked for many years for a multinational high-tech company. He studied writing at Bread Loaf, Sewanee, Zoetrope: All-Story and Sirenland writers conferences and at Southern Methodist University.
He is the author of two previous novels, A Death in Mexico and Kiss the Devil Good Night and two collections of stories, Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem (featured at the Texas Book Festival and awarded a 2011 Spinetingler Award for Best Crime Short Story Collection) and Phone Call from Hell and Other Tales of the Damned. His stories have appeared in 3:AM Magazine, Plots with Guns, ThugLit, Yellow Mama, Horror Sleaze Trash and other online lit-zines and in the anthologies Dallas Noir (Akashic Books) and Murder in Key West I & II. He lives and writes in an 1896 house in Dallas, with his artist spouse Dahlia Woods and their dogs Miss Pinky, Little Ruffy and Mickey Spillane.
Facebook: @southernnoir
Are there particular films that have influenced your writing?
My favorite film of all time is Frederico Fellini’s Satyricon, released in 1969. The film is based on an ancient Roman work of fiction (the world’s second novel) written by Gaius Petronius. The book has survived the ages only in part. It tells the surreal, bizarre, sometimes erotic and always satiric adventures of a Roman citizen and his boyfriend in the decadent time of Nero. Fellini’s imagery and the picaresque and gonzo nature of the story have always held me spellbound and haunted my writing.
Of course it goes without saying that many film noir classic films as well as neo-noir films viewed over the years have impacted my writing. To name a few: The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep and Double Indemnity—for their amazing dialogue—Kiss Me Deadly and Sunset Boulevard—for their surreal weirdness.
Finally, Mexico (with its dark past of human sacrifice and vast treasures of shimmering gold and its present darkness of cartel violence and drugs) has always been a centerpiece of my stories. That violence and darkness floods the screen in Sam Peckinpah’s Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, John Huston’s adaptations of Malcolm Lowry’s stunning novel Under the Volcano and B. Traven’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Brilliant cinema. Brilliant influences.
Vacation druthers… City or rural destination? Why?
During the pandemic vacations anywhere have pretty much been off limits for me. But pre-pandemic my two favorite vacation destinations were the Mayan Riviera in the Yucatan and anywhere in Italy.
Mexico has always fascinated me with its history of Aztec, Mayan and conquistador mayhem. And, of course, modern Mexico with its cartels and corrupt cops and politicians is the ultimate noir experience. At the same time I’ve always found the people of Mexico to be warm and hospitable. Likewise when traveling in Italy there is always the background pulse of the Cosa Nostra and the bleating sirens of the Carabinieri.
When in Mexico there is no greater pleasure than sitting beneath a seaside palapa, sipping a Margarita and reading a detective novel by Paco Ignacio Taibo II or one of Don Winslow’s cartel epics. Shift to a small hill town in Italy, an open bottle of vino rosso on a café table in the shade, a half-full wineglass and one of the legal thrillers by the anti-Mafia judge Gianrico Carofiglio or one of the police procedurals by Michael Dibdin featuring Inspector Aurelio Zen. This is bliss.
What do you worry about?
I worry about absolutely nothing. Having made it to the age of 74, after 25 years as a deal attorney for a multinational high-tech company during which I got to travel the world and now happily established in my second career as a writer of satiric crime fiction and awaiting the publication (on August 26, 2022) of my fifth book Hog Wild, what is there to worry about? Awaiting my demise sometime in the next 26 years, at the moment I’m in the middle of writing my next book (a book of short stories), sipping an ice-cold Red Stripe lager on a hot Dallas Sunday afternoon and looking forward to watching at the end of day the next Detective Inspector Rebus adventure starring the gnarly Kenneth Stott. I live for the moment. Every day is a pleasure. For tomorrow we may all be blown up. As Alfred E. Neuman of Mad Magazine fame quipped: “What? Me worry?”
Not all books are for all readers… when you start a book and just don’t like it, how long do you read until you bail?
There are so many wonderful books to read and life is short, so there’s zero time to be wasted with a bad one. I’ll give a bad book about 30 pages (or less) and then with the greatest pleasure I’ll heave it against the wall on the opposite side of the room. The most recent bad book I had the misfortune of reading went on for 564 pages, 534 of which I didn’t read. At least the book made a nice loud THUD! when it hit the far wall.
What brings you great joy?
Here’s my list (at the moment):
i. Writing a new crime story.
ii. Getting a great book review.
iii. Going out to dinner with my talented artist spouse.
iv. Reading a terrific book. Most recently: A Feast of Snakes by Harry Crews, Snow by John Banville, Her Last Call to Louis MacNeice by Ken Bruen (second time), Cotton Comes to Harlem by Chester Himes (second time), In the Cut by Susanna Moore, In a Summer Season by Elizabeth Taylor, The Glass Kingdom by Lawrence Osborne and Wild at Heart by Barry Gifford (fourth time).
v. Sipping Old Grand-Dad bourbon in a dark, quiet bar.
vi. Tasting the first cup of coffee in the morning.
vii. Hanging out with my grandchildren.
viii. Eating half a bag of sour cream and onion flavored potato chips with my glass of bourbon.
ix. Taking a whiz after drinking too many Red Stripes.
x. Lolling on the beach at the Villa Rolandi resort on the Mexican island of Isla Mujeres.
