Robert Steven Goldstein

Robert Steven Goldstein retired from his job as a healthcare information executive at age fifty-six and has been writing novels ever since. His first novel, The Swami Deheftner, about the problems that ensue when ancient magic and mysticism manifest in the twenty-first century, has developed a small cult following in India. Cat’s Whisker, his second novel, will be published soon; an excerpt from it, entitled “An Old Dog,” was featured in the fall 2018 edition of Leaping Clear, a literary journal. Enemy Queen is his third novel. Robert lives in San Francisco with his wife of thirty years and two rambunctious dogs. 

Are there particular films that have influenced your writing?

Perhaps it’s a bit embarrassing to admit, but old horror films from the 1930’s and 1940’s are an addiction of mine. If there happens to be one on television with Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, or Lon Chaney Jr.—I’m there.

When I was a boy, a local station in New York City played old horror movies, hosted by a bizarre fellow named Zacherley. He wore makeup that sculpted his features into a gaunt metallic scowl, and he dressed in old aristocratic garb. He spoke in a mellifluous baritone, and billed himself as “The Cool Ghoul.”

My parents and my younger siblings would all be asleep by eleven, when the movies were broadcast on Friday nights. Zacherley’s mad utterances were rife with sarcasm and innuendo—they fused magically with the late hour, and with the films’ mutants and misfits. All of that was intensified by my sense of isolation—a kid in a dark apartment where everyone else was asleep. The gestalt was the very real impression that I was engaging in a deeply subversive act. It was that sensibility that made the ritual unrelentingly seductive.

And that subversive sensibility is somewhere in every novel I’ve written. I hope that it is experienced by my readers similarly to how I experienced it as a boy.

What’s the oddest thing a reader has ever asked you?

I consider my latest novel, Enemy Queen, to be a sensual comedy of manners, and it does have a few rather hot sex scenes in it. A reader asked which of those scenes were culled from my personal experience, and which I had made up.

Even more outrageous—he had prepared a list of his guesses! As I perused his list, he asked me if he got it right. I said no, but I wouldn’t go further.

Actually, I was very flattered that he couldn’t tell which were which.

A creative writing professor, whose class I took way back when I was a junior in college, offered this advice, which I’ve never forgotten: if you are writing about something that really happened, write it as if you’re making it up—but if you’re using your imagination to make something up, write it as if it really happened.

Is your go to comfort food sweet or savory? Is it something you make yourself? Does food inspire your writing?

I’m much more into savory than sweet.

My wife and I both enjoy cooking. Our menus at home are always surprisingly interesting—I’ve been a strict vegetarian for over fifty years—my wife is severely gluten-intolerant. Amazingly, the great bulk of the dishes we come up with are ones we can enjoy together.

Every novel I’ve written has been replete with scenes of eating and drinking. Cuisine is so integral to our culture, our society, and our lives—it seems to me that our stories ought to reflect that.

What period of history do you wish you knew more about?

I would like to know more about the species of early humans known as Neanderthals.

In books and films, Neanderthals were, for years, portrayed as savage brutes, with sloping foreheads, huge brow ridges, and small brains. But, in fact, the facial differences between our species and theirs were far subtler, and Neanderthal brains were as large or larger than ours.

Evidence shows incontrovertibly that Neanderthals manufactured and utilized an array of surprisingly sophisticated tools, employed fire for cooking, lived in shelters, played music, and made the clothing they wore. They skillfully used weapons to hunt large animals, and also gathered plant foods to supplement their diets.

But most startling was the compassion Neanderthals displayed toward members of their tribe. A number of Neanderthal skeletons have been unearthed revealing individuals who were lame, deformed, blind, paralyzed, or missing limbs. It is clear that these afflicted humans could not possibly have survived on their own, yet their bones clearly establish that they endured for years with these disabilities. The only explanation is that Neanderthals cared for their sick and incapacitated tribe members, where necessary carrying them about, or chewing food for them.

Is it fair that they went extinct, ultimately unable to compete with a more cunning, violent, and cognitively gifted human tribe—our own?

It is not. But it is also not what happened. Their story had a far more ambiguous conclusion. During their thirty thousand years of coexistence with our tribe, prior to their demise, there were occasional primitive souls who were drawn more to love than to conquest. These remarkable individuals interbred across the two competing species. They produced children who continued to breed and contribute to the gene pool. So, in the end, the Neanderthals did not perish. They yielded, and became a small part of us.

Scientists now postulate that most modern humans of European or Asian descent possess genomes that are between one and four percent Neanderthal in origin. Their traits are in us. We are the better for it.

What do you worry about?

The only things I tend to worry about are connected to the publishing side of writing. Writing itself is a joy—I fall into a creative trance—and I’m oblivious to the time that flies by while I’m immersed in my work. But the publishing side—trying to get my book out there, hoping it finds readers—that’s nerve-wracking. I work with a wonderful publicist, get great support from my publisher, and try to do what I can in person and on social media. But at some point, a book has to either make it on its own or not. It’s kind of like having a kid who’s graduated from school and is out in the world—you want to help, you try to do what you can, but ultimately your kid is going to make his or her own way, and their success, like it or not, will be based to some extent on the vagaries of day-to-day happenstance and luck.

My worries morph constantly—my list will undoubtedly change tomorrow—but right now I’m worried about two things.

Worry number one: There’s a book with a title very similar to my latest novel that shows up on searches and such. I’m sure the author of that book is a very nice person—she writes books totally different from mine and I wish her well—I just don’t want readers to buy her book if they’re looking for Enemy Queen by Robert Steven Goldstein.

Worry number two: The answers I’m providing for this interview—are they interesting, or are they just a bunch of senseless prattle?

Thank God for my publicist. She’ll let me know.