Q&A WITH MAR PRESTON

Dec 9, 2011 by Peggy Clifford

Last week, the Dispatch ran the last installment of NO DICE, a Santa Monica murder mystery, by Mar Preston. It was a first for us, serializing a novel. We thought it fitting to conclude with an interview with the author.

You obviously know Santa Monica well. When did you live here?

I lived here from 1984-2004. I still keep up with Santa Monica friends, newspapers, the big issues and local gossip, and visit frequently. I can’t stay away.

What drew you here?

I was lured to Santa Monica by a friend who was outraged by City Council’s considering a ban on multiple families sharing one of the large mansions north of Montana, seeing them as communes. We were both working on a UCLA research project studying alternative families at the time, and saw house-sharing as a sensible economic and child-rearing idea. She led me to a rent control apartment and got me involved in SMRR politics.

What kept you here?

New ideas percolate in coastal cities and I was excited to be part of it all. Jim Conn’s Church in Ocean Park, and later the Unitarian Universalist Church with Judith Meyer was a hotbed of discussion and activism. They welcomed me–the devout atheist.

Were you involved in City politics and causes?

SMRR politics and later Santa Monicans for Responsible Tourism (SMART) were umbrellas for the big ideas that engaged the city. Very loosely you might say the leadership and volunteers tried to prevent Santa Monica becoming Las Vegas by the Sea, so that renters of all income brackets could enjoy a quality of life here, sharing what rich homeowners could afford to buy.

What were the specific issues that engaged you?

The push for a living wage by SMART. Engaging with hotel workers was the first time I saw real poverty and exploitation close up. I saw women at union meetings cry–and they were working full-time at a job that just didn’t pay enough to put food on the table for their kids .

Did you win any battles?

The hotels fought back and drowned our living wage campaign with an avalanche of money and deceptive mailers. We passed a living wage for city workers, nonetheless, and the union continues to win victories against the hotels elsewhere in the city. Social change is glacial, and especially discouraging in hard times like now. Unions, for all their faults, are still the best way for low-wage workers to better their pay and working conditions.

Why did you leave?

My husband grew so ill that we had my nephew move in to help me care for him and we simply needed more room. I felt so fortunate to live at the corner of Seventh and San Vicente, an urban paradise, for so many years. I cried when we left.

Where did you go?

We moved to Culver City, but Culver City doesn’t have the same fire as Santa Monica. It was just a place to live, and as it turned out, briefly. My husband died four days after we moved to a small village in the Kern County Mountains. I just didn’t have the psychological wherewithal to pack up and move back to Santa Monica at that point, as I wanted to. Instead I made a life here. The mountains and the pine forest with its four seasons offer a different beauty. Of course, I couldn’t keep my nose out of local politics, and for the first time had a chance to get involved with environmental issues, as well as co-founding a local SPCA. The Kern County Board of Supervisors are our governing body, and the Old Boys of Bakersfield are well known for mismanagement and corruption.

How does it compare with Santa Monica — as a place to live?

Here it’s quiet and you have to make your own entertainment. My neighbors and friends are more important and we meet often for potlucks and movies, or long conversations at the dump and the post office.

Does it engage you more or less than Santa Monica did?

Everywhere there are issues, be it labor, development, and the environment that need watch-dogging. You have to keep your eye on the people who are representing–or not representing–you.

Is it as political as Santa Monica — more or less liberal?

Hard right Republicans are the majority here. I know many decent Republicans who just think differently than I do, a lot different. We get along, all of us working to better the place where we live.

Do you miss Santa Monica? What in particular do you miss — if anything, aside from friends?

I miss the crackle on the streets, the neon, good restaurants, the paper delivered to my door, garbage pick up, strange-looking people, flowers, hearing a foreign language spoken, the beach, Palisades Park, and the Pier. Everything closes down here at 8:00 p.m. Sigh.

Have you always been a writer?

No, it took courage to start to write and more courage to show anybody. Then yet more courage to call myself a writer. Writing seriously filled the awful ache after my husband died and those huge, empty hours.

What did you do before you began writing?

I worked as a researcher for many years in the field of aging and the family at both UCLA and USC.

What drew you to mysteries?

I love the dark side, murder and mayhem, perhaps because I live both sides of the human psyche, experience violence, good and evil, and issues of right and wrong, from a safe distance.

Why did you choose Santa Monica as your turf?

You write what you know and Santa Monica is fascinating.

Why did you choose a cop as your leading character?

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with cops as a child of the Sixties. Over the years my antagonism has softened to allow a respect and admiration for the good ones. I know there are cops on the streets and in administration who should be chained up in the back of the station. Lots of hard-boiled and noir novelists have written good books about them. Dave Mason, my SMPD detective, is someone I’d like and a cop who seems realistic to me, with all his faults.

Do you consult with SMDP officials when researching your books?

The Citizen’s Academy, a 13-week SMPD program, allowed my first glimpse behind the curtain We learned about the realities of police work, why they do what they do, why they think the way they do, and the world they live in. I’ve been helped by SMPD Community Relations, working detectives, and the executive leadership. And I appreciate their candor.

Are they helpful, and or enthusiastic about your books?

They’re very helpful. I have no idea what they think. I’ve passed out books to everybody, but not one single person has commented.

Is Mason based on an actual cop, or bits and pieces of cops you know, or purely your creation?

He’s all of those. I’ve talked to dozens of law enforcement detectives. It seems to me they all start out with a desire to make things a little bit better and a sincere desire to help. Police work can be brutalizing and some deal with the streets better than others.

NO DICE is your first mystery. Did you enjoy writing it?

I loved researching and writing it. The anti-casino campaign featured in No Dice is a loosely-disguised living wage campaign. Don’t think a casino couldn’t build on Ocean Avenue.

Presumably, Mason stars in your next two books. Have your feelings about him changed as you write more and more?

Mason lives inside my head, and of course, he’s me to some extent. I read a lot of gritty law enforcement sites and feel his reactions and hear the things he says. I am not schizophrenic.

He is obviously interested in Ginger McNair? Does she appear in your second book?

In No Dice, Ginger McNair, the community organizer running the anti-casino campaign, attracts Mason and repels him at the same time. What’s he doing with a liberal activist who gets herself arrested? Only in the movies does anybody get through the experience Ginger endures in No Dice without Post-Traumatic-Stress Syndrome after-effects, and this plays large in her relationship with Mason. Yes, I continue writing about Ginger and how hard right and left chafe each other and make it work.

Raymond Chandler wrote an extraordinary series of mystery novels. They are also some of the best novels about LA that’ve ever been written. He also wrote some memorable screenplays. At his best, he has no equals in the mystery field, and few on the literary front. Do you aspire to writing stellar literature ultimately, or are you content to write memorable mysteries?

I can hardly write about Raymond Chandler and Mar Preston in the same sentence. I write to entertain myself and other mystery lovers. I wrote four unpublished literary novels to teach myself how to write and no one wanted them. Mysteries aren’t any easier, but I love the puzzle of plotting and the infinite reach of human behavior. Books are a great way of sneaking in your own way of seeing the world where your characters say and think the unsayable and unthinkable things we’ve all got in our heads.

Chandler royally detested Santa Monica/Bay City, particularly its crooked side, its bad cops, with whom his private eye, Marlow, often tangled, its graft. You seem to like Santa Monica, and your hero is a cop. Different time? Different attitude?

Mason is a flawed hero, nonetheless. Graft and corruption are not as unchecked in the SMPD as in Chandler’s time. Too much oversight exists nowadays. However, some City Council members at present are far too loose in their relationship with Big Money and its glitter for my taste.

Do you read mystery novels yourself? For pleasure? Or work?

Mysteries have always been my favorites. Now I realize there are many literary novels that just happen to feature a murder as well. I’m off this week for a three-day workshop on Homicide Investigation–for pleasure and work.

Do you find the “new” book world — e-books, self-publishing, etc. — daunting or promising?

I’ve made every mistake possible in publishing No Dice, and have learned what to avoid the second and third time around. Anyone sitting on a manuscript should realize that it is not without cost to publish — and then publicize — your work. Returns are still very modest even when your book is popular.

What’s your next book? When will it be available? And in what form?

Rip-Off now has a cover and is ready to go in paperback and on all the e-readers. One of my biggest mistakes was releasing No Dice before it was sent to reviewers and libraries. That process can take up to six months. In the meantime I’m setting up readings and other publicity opportunities. I want to share my work and welcome opportunities to talk about it.

Indie, or self-publishing, has empowered writers and given them access to readers without the blessing of a New York agent and publisher. I hope my small success tells others publishing and earning a seat at the table is possible. I’m 67 and became computer literate the hard way. Santa Monicans can, too. They have the wonderful Santa Monica Public Library to help them.

I want to thank The Santa Monica Dispatch for serializing No Dice over many months. It’s given me an opportunity to give readers my take on Santa Monica and its politics for which I’m grateful.