The Daly Express
Author Terrence McCauley on Writing, History, Conspiracies, and More
(upbeat music) - Hi everyone, this is John Daly. I'm here with another episode of The Daily Express. Today I have with me a best-selling award-winning novelist. He's from The Bronx and he writes thrillers, crime fiction and Westerns. I believe he has close to 30 books now under his belt. His latest book is Chicago 63. It's a historical fiction novella. I'm talking about Terrence McCauley. How's it going today, Terrence? - Hey, pal, how are you? Thanks for having me on the show. - Oh, absolutely. Well, thanks for joining me. It's great to have you on. The two of us met online not that long ago and you were gracious enough to have me on your podcast called Spies, Lies, and Private Eyes. I recommend everyone check it out. I had a great time. We had a fun discussion talking about fiction writing, old TV detective shows, other things. And I wanted to have you on my podcast so we could talk about your books. So look at-- - Okay, thank you. - Absolutely, absolutely. So let's get right to your newest one, Chicago 63. What is it about and what inspired you to write it? - Sure, I have always been interested, and I would say fringe theories, if you will, not necessarily the theories themselves, but the interest in ancient aliens and UFOs and Bigfoot. And of course, that's the old island. And of course, that also means the JFK assassination eventually. So as I looked into all of those other things, like ancient aliens or like Bigfoot, I was always able to find something else that was more of a real world explanation, boring explanation, if you will. That UFOs, for example, most of them were probably military technology. And maybe Bigfoot was a different animal that was probably found in the woods, but hasn't been seen doing that. Ancient aliens, I think it was just people that along the worlds in wooden ships better than we thought they did. But with the JFK stuff, there was always something there because whenever one takes a little bit into that idea and that event, there's always something else that they uncover that just doesn't feel right, you know? And it's always, you can argue all day long about what happened in Deli Plaza at the heart of the murder. But when you start looking at the secondary characters, that's where the information gets really interesting. Because there are an awful lot of coincidences that come together or people who shouldn't have known each other and do and are in a really small city, like Dallas, it's the odds that they just happen to be there all at the same time and we're independent of each other. It didn't really work for me. So as a writer, I started looking at that, not getting lost necessarily in the weeds of what happened in Deli Plaza, but the tertiary characters that were involved. And that's where I started doing research and came upon a little known fact about the first assassination attempt plotted against Kennedy in 1963, but it was on November 2nd in Chicago, Illinois. And that's where the title of the book comes from. I looked at the historical record and extrapolated and brought a couple of different investigations under one discussion. Because if I was going to write a book about two separate things, it would be complicated. I didn't want to write a nonfiction book. So I lumped everything together in what I would say is a logical extrapolation, if you will. Interesting, interesting. So as a fiction writer myself, and it's, I'm sort of, maybe I'm strange in this respect, but I personally don't like feel confident enough to write a story that takes place in an era that I didn't experience firsthand, you know, or at least old enough to experience, I did write one chapter in my book restitution that took place in Mexico in the early '70s, but it was a very constrained scene. But you, you know, I was looking at your body work, including what you just talked about. You've written historical fiction, you've written several Westerns. I think a writer who tackles those genres has to have a real interest in and a passion for history. And I get the impression from what you just said that you absolutely do. Is that right? Is that right, Terrence? - It is, yes. I mean, I love history because it tells us an awful lot about ourselves. You look back and you're through time whether you do what I've done, which is right about 1880s, America, or 1920s, New York City, or 1963, or even of today, people don't change. Their basic struggles are still the same. They wanna be fed, they wanna have comfort, they wanna have health, and they wanna have security. And that's what it transcends time, whether you're talking about people living in caves or castles, or in Chicago in 1963. So the motivations of people are always there. And while the styles change, the tech changes, society changes, that core principle is constant throughout. And I like to be able to tell stories that relate that. And then there's also the human element in history too. When we were kids in school, I know with me, it always felt like those events were remote. That stuff that happened back then doesn't matter now. They didn't have telephones, they didn't have computers. What could they possibly have to teach us today? But there's quite a bit there. With Chicago '63, you've got the old ideas of revenge and people's different forms of ideas of justice. And so I took that and took the people who were trying to assassinate the president and set it and tried to show their point of view of what they were looking to do. So they're not just a characteristic black hat. They are the bad guys, but if you just paint them as flat, evil people, you're not really going to understand what they're doing. And then the story becomes kind of predictable and bland. So I don't justify what they do, but I definitely show their reasons as warped as their logic was. And then I was able to, through my research, uncover the real hero named Abraham Bolden. In the book, I call him Abraham Golden. But he was a hero for a lot of reasons. And one of the reasons is because he was the first African-American Secret Service agent ever assigned to protection detail. And he protected Kennedy at Kennedy's request months before all of this happened in Chicago '63. And he was the person who, in real life, tried to bring news of this plot to the Warren Commission. And unfortunately, he suffered great personal and career loss because of it. So I chose to make him the hero in my book because I think he really was a hero several times over in real life. And that's a kind of thing that an appreciation for history can make a writer do when they're doing research, or they get interested in the project. Oh, yeah, it sounds like a very fascinating premise. I think it sounds really interesting. I'm curious. And I've talked to so far in my relatively young fiction career, I've only written thriller novels. You've written thrillers, crime fiction, Westerns, historical fiction. What do you think, or do you have a favorite genre? And if so, which one is it? I like doing the general historic pieces because I love digging in and uncovering things I didn't realize were important. Like, for example, when I was writing the Westerns, I figured, OK, well, it's just like Elmore Leonard said, it's still a standard story. It's just set in a specific place and time. And every story really is like that. But I did not realize the complexity of Westerns until I started writing one. And I'm talking about parts of the saddle, parts of a horse, parts of a rain, wagon parts, station, stagecoach parts, gun, and God knows guns. I mean, if you have the wrong gun in your Western or you miss, if you call the part of a wagon the wrong thing, you're going to hear about it, and rightfully so. But it's that attention to detail that I find is really interesting for me when I'm doing my research. So I do love writing the historical stuff because I could take modern sensibility and translate it to something that happened in the past and not be wrong. When I find that common thread that stretches from 1880 all the way up to 2024, that's like discovering a vein of gold for me. And that's what makes it really fun. Now, you are, as I mentioned at the top, you are a New Yorker. I think lifelong, is that correct? I am a lifelong New Yorker. I did grow up in the Bronx and I was there still, you know, for most of my life. And then after COVID happened, we moved up to my weekend house in Duchess County, which is like two hours north of Manhattan. And so I guess I'm curious then, what got you interested in the old West, you know, you've written these Westerns. I grew up in Colorado. My dad was a very big Louis Lamar reader. He was, you know, very much into the Western culture. So I sort of grew up with that. What drew you to writing in that genre? - Well, I always loved them because when I was growing up in the Bronx, they didn't have cable in my part of the Bronx back then. So we were tied to channels two, four, seven, nine, 11, and 13. That was pretty much it. And 13 was the PBS station for New York, WNET. And they're used to air every Saturday night, old movies. And a lot of Westerns at certain parts of the year, they would go through things like they would do classic horror in October, then thrillers and mysteries, and then Westerns. And my dad always was a fan of Westerns. And so when they were on, we would watch the channel nine during Saturday afternoons, is when they used to air a lot of them. So it was really interesting to be able to grow up with somebody who loved old movies that much and be exposed to classic film. I didn't realize it was art back then. It was just something to watch. But all of that seeped in. And I did enjoy the Westerns because growing up in an urban environment, it was completely foreign to me. So I loved a lot of the Westerns. Not necessarily the big John Wayne Westerns. I'm talking about the Anthony Mann, Jimmy Stewart Westerns, which were a little bit more complicated and darker than some of the John Ford stuff. So that stuck with me. And then when I became a writer and I had my thrillers published, funny thing is, my agent asked me, well, what other stuff are you working on? And I said, well, I wrote a Western because I love the genre and wanted to see if I could do it. But I don't think anybody's going to want it because no one's publishing Westerns anymore. And my agent said, well, one of my best friends is the editor over at Kensington. And he's dying for Westerns because no one's writing them anymore. And so I had that manuscript on my hard drive, sent it to my agent. And then now more than eight books later, I've been at the good portion of writing Westerns. And it's been fantastic. But I also, earlier you asked me my favorite era, I would say probably 1930s New York. That was my favorite era to write about. Because again, the history between that era and today is just amazing, the similarity center there. Yeah, yeah. So speaking of New York, too, now your fiction writing isn't your only profession. You also work in public affairs, government relations, crisis communications. How important of a role has your real world communication skills played in your ability to tell effective stories through your novels and your short stories and your other fiction work? Sure. I mean, it's really important to see the narrative in anything that is happening to us. And that helps us make sense of what's going on. So I've been blessed to be able to work in a lot of dynamic environments in economic development and transportation and in community development. So the one thing that always gets lost, whether it's a crisis or it's a service interruption, is that there's a reason why this happened. And telling people what that reason is and making sure they understand it, not just saying it at them, but communicating it in a constant way that they get it, that makes all the difference in the world. And it's the same thing in public affairs, government relations, as it is in writing a novel, in fiction writing, because you have to make sure you convey a consistent message to your audience, whether that's a stakeholder, a constituent, or a reader, and make sure it makes sense. And there's also a difference between oversharing and not sharing enough. You don't want the people to get the sausage making, because people get turned off by that. You know, if you give them too much granular information, it just seems like you're throwing numbers at them or you're throwing facts at them to get away from the bad news. But same thing with writing. If you start showing the underpinnings of the story that you're doing, act one, act two, the structure, and whatnot, people tend to back away from that. But if you're able to tell something compelling and consistently, that works. So that's the lesson I learned from my real job, bringing it to my novel writing, is that make sure the story's compelling, make sure it's consistent, and it serves a purpose. - Yeah, I find that what I'm talking to authors, and I feel that sort of applies to me as well, but people who have been involved in professions that really would seem really to have nothing to do with the fiction writing actually have quite a bit to do with it. They just, you know, experience. So much of writing I think is about experiences and holding on to things and conveying that, even if it's in a completely different method, conveying that to readers. - Absolutely, yeah, and I've seen that as well. There's a bunch of, you know, and I don't think there's any profession out there that precludes someone naturally from being a writer. You know, if you're more of an analytical person, there's something in writing for you in terms of being able to do good research and understand what you're supposed to do in conveying a story. If you're somebody, let's say who's a mechanic or works with their hands, well, then you will understand the parts of things and you can approach writing from a more technical aspect. And there are aspects to every story that are usually hidden under the cladding of storytelling. But if the story doesn't have that solid structure, it falls apart. And if you're a naturally artistic and creative person, well, then you can, you know, you could be drawn to the written word through wanting to express your view of the world. So I can't think of a single expression profession or proclivity that precludes someone from writing. There's something there for everyone if they want to do it, but wanting to do it is the key. You have to want to put the work in. - That's right. And it's, for some people, it starts out, you know, starts out as a hobby and becomes something else. But yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's what's nice about it. If you, if someone does start it as a hobby, just deploys with it. It's, it's totally free. It's one of those. (laughing) - It's funny. - It's bad money on you know, so it works that well. - Is that like golf or bowling or something like that? - That's right, that's right. Yeah, it's, it's some of the stuff, you know, I live in Colorado, everybody assumes up there skiing on the slopes. Everyone, you know what? No man, that's expensive. (laughing) But you can't hold this boy, you know, it's, but yeah, no, it's, it's a writing is something that you pick up and do at a moment's notice. So, yeah, it's, it's a good, it's a good interest, I think. But, I think so. - I think so too. - Parents are some of your, I was gonna say, so who are some of your favorite writers? - Well, I didn't grow up with my nose in a book, like a lot of people who do this did. I used to find reading boring. I was more of a visual person who wanted television and movies, like comic books, it was a big comic book guy. I, for a long time, I wanted to be a comic book illustrator, but my talent kind of peaked, you know, way before my love of that art died. And I still respected, but it's just, I wasn't getting any better at it. I peaked at like 15 and I just said, you know what, I'm not getting any better. And I'm not interested in getting better and putting in the work to do that. So, I'm gonna probably tell stories in another way, maybe in a more direct way. So, that's when I started in late high school, early college, I started reading for fun. And I read James Clovell's "Titan." That was a really big book that landed on me huge for the fact that he could tell a compelling story that is like that thick. And, you know, it was one of those late 80s, you know, 1970s, 80s, romps, where it's a big thick book. And people were reading those back then, like "Lonesome Dove," another one. But with Clovell, he told a very detailed story in a very complex, and a complex foreign world. But he did it so well. I said, "Wow, this is something I really wanna try." Another one is Stephen Hunter. A lot of people talk about his swagger novels. The one, and I had the good fortune to be able to tell them this on my podcast. The book that really knocked me on my backside was "The Day Before Midnight," which I told him 30 years on after reading it. I still have a book hangover from the twist at the end of that. For me, it's the best thing he ever did, and he's done a lot of excellent books. But it's that kind of, it's authors who were able to do that to tell a dynamic story, but in a compelling way that it felt like a movie, that's what made me wanna look at this as something I wanted to do. Nelson Demille is another one. The first book of his I ever read was Cathedral. And it was about a group of IRA terrorists in the 1980s who take over St. Patrick's Cathedral on St. Patrick's Day. And, I mean, wow, it was like die hard in the church. It was awesome. It was, I still recommend it to people. It's a little dated now, but it does talk about a certain time in New York in the '80s and how that could have happened. And it was really, that was, those were the three that really impacted me. And then since then, it's been appreciating Stephen King's approach to the craft. I have read a lot of Raymond Chandler and Dashal Hammett, of course, and Ross McDonald. But I have to credit those first three with getting me on this path of writing and influencing me to wanna give it a shot. - You'd mention that the one that really stuck with you, the ending, I was thinking that with a book that I remember getting really, and I still think about it quite a bit, the road by Cormac McCarthy, the post- - Oh, yeah. - The story. I had a, my son was pretty young at that time. So I was very, the story is about this father and his son, this father's sick. He's trying to get his son somewhere where he can survive 'cause he's not really quite old enough to do that yet to be protected. And man, that really just, that was a good wrenching breed for me. And it always stuck with me. And I always sort of hope that's that I can, at least approach that level with my writing where people will take away that sort of feeling. And it's, it's, it was very oppressive. - Yeah, I feel, yeah, I know. I'm the same way the other book slash movie that did that to me was "The Natural." If you read Bernard Malmud's book, it's a different type of story than the one you see in "The Natural" and the ending is different. And that's haunting in its own way. But then when you see the movie, it's haunting for in its own right. And it's like, yeah, they're all based on the same story, but they stick with you for different reasons. And I think that's the wonderful thing about art. If you change one aspect of something and it has a completely different effect. - No, I absolutely agree with that. So I'm always sort of interested in how other writers work as in their preferred writing environment. For me, I don't know if I'm the norm or not, but I kind of need silence. I can't be listening to music. When I'm writing fiction, I even draw the shades in my office here to keep distraction-free from the outside world. Someone goes jogging by and it catches my eye. But I think it helps creatively for me to do that. Conversely, I've talked to other authors who are totally at ease writing in a crowded coffee shop with their laptop, people all over the place. Maybe they draw inspiration from different people, characters, and that blows my mind 'cause I just, I can't relate to that. Now, Terrence, you've written many more books than I have. So I'm curious what your preferred writing environment is. - Yeah, for me, it has to be a stable environment and that's why we're doing this interview here out on my porch, as you can see, there's slats behind a window and that's because this is just a screened-in porch. It's not even weatherized. And I got my good fellas painting behind me. And for me, it has to be a stable environment. It's outdoors and it's not sealed, like I said. So I do get sounds from the outside world, people mowing lawns, cars, birds, my mother-in-law feeds ravens and crows, so it's always noisy around here. But I like that, that kind of noise I can do. My wife works with the radio on all the time and she's just inside, but thank God, the door and the walls are thick, so I'm not, I don't have to hear that. She can't work in silence. I have to work in relative silence. And you're right, for me, if I was in a coffee shop trying to write, I couldn't do it. It doesn't work for me. There's too much going on. I have to focus on the page when I'm doing something and the story that I'm trying to craft. Upstairs I have, for example, a podcasting setup where I have a boom mic and I have lighting and everything else in this little alcove upstairs, but I know I'm going to be doing writing today. And for me, the act of moving just from one floor up down here and resetting everything up, it'll get me out of that groove of writing. So every day, I have to come in, sit down at the desk, everything has to be a certain way, and then I'm able to flow into it. And once I start, I don't stop. I know there are people who stop, they go get snacks, they pontificate, they procrastinate. I don't do that. I just put my head down and I plow through the work. And that's my secret to having published as many books as I have. It's not because I've got better ideas or even more ideas. It's that I take a very workman-like approach to it where we could talk about it all day, but I still got a book due on January 15th, and I'm only 1,000 words in, so I better keep pushing this. And also, these things help too. Since I'm out on the porch and it's outside, I smoke cigars, so this keeps my button in the chair and my fingers on the keys. And it helps me say, you know what? It's 3.30, I'm kind of tired. Maybe there's a Yankee game on, I'm going to go inside. No, it keeps my button in the chair, keeps me working. And that's how plowing through this stuff is how it gets done. And you know that too, because you right now, but you also write these pieces that have to be done pretty quickly, you know, you have to have silence in order to be able to craft and meet your deadline. - Oh yeah, absolutely. And I thought, you know, you have cigars, I have diet, Dr. Pepper, it's my, I should wait too much of it. But it's, I think the extra caffeine kind of helps a little bit, you know, I'm sure it'll, it's hurting me in the long run. - Yeah, yeah, I hear you. - So I'm assuming Terrence that you are working, you said you were working, well, you just, you said actually that you're working on your next book as we speak, possibly multiple books. Like I said, you put out a lot of reading for people. Can you talk about your current project, or are you allowed to, or is it something you can share? - Sure, yeah. One is a ghost writing project. I can't talk about that. And I know what, a lot of times people will look on my website and I'll say, well, there's not 30 books there. There's only 20 books or 19 books. And I said, yeah, I count the ghost writing stuff that I do, but I can't talk about that. My name isn't on the cover, but they still count. There's still my stories. And I'm fortunate enough and blessed to be part of it. The book I just finished writing, and I'm going to be writing the second one in early January is Dallas 63. And if that sounds familiar, that's because it is the larger story that Chicago 63 was taken from. I wanted to write about the Kennedy assassination from a different way. And I decided to tell it from a cop's perspective, which you don't often say. I know one of the books that was really influential to me, you talk about "Flewichl writers," James Elroy. I mean, his stuff, if I read that while I'm writing, it'll creep into my work. His patterns, his rhythm. And I don't want that. I admire it, it's just I want my own spin on it. But he wrote the cold 6,000 American tabloid and bloods a rover about the assassination trilogies. I didn't want to, his books were a little bit more expansive where they went to Cuba. They went all over the world. I wanted to write about the lead up to the assassination from a Dallas cops perspective. I wanted it to because ultimately this is a crime. And you know, you take a strip away Camelot, you strip away all of the presidential banners from what happened, and some guy got shot in a car in the street in Dallas. And that's what I wanted to focus on. So I created a bunch of compelling characters that in the story starts in February of 1963, and it goes all the way up until the morning of the afternoon of the assassination. So that's called Twilight Town. And that's the one I just finished. It's got the pre-person narrative. It goes back and forth between three different people. Two were fiction. One is an actual person. I did it that way because I like to blend real world characters into fiction characters. Because I think if you stick too close to the historical script, it can get a little muddy because that's what life is. Life is muddy, it doesn't go according to a regular script. And I fictionalized some stuff. But in that book, it was fascinating to dig into those tertiary characters I mentioned earlier and find out what happened and discovered things that we didn't know five years ago. We didn't about the assassination or six years ago. And now we do because of new material coming out. There's still no smoking gun, but there's an awful lot of smoke. Let's put it that way. So when I was writing that book, I had this awesome character named Abraham Golden in it. And I said, I want to be able to say more about this character. But there's nothing really that happens with him between November 2nd, 1963 and the Warren Commission in '64, which was beyond the scope of my book. So what am I going to do with this guy? Then I talked to a friend of mine, James Aptus, who said, you know what, let's put it in a novella form, take that person out, and then give him his own story. And that's what we did. So that's how Chicago '63 came along. And so I wrote that book. That book is called Twilight Town. And then I have two other books in the trilogy that I plan on doing. And for level best books, and they'll be coming out 2025, 2026, and 2027. So that's what I'm working on now, besides my ghost writing project. Wow, keeping very busy. Lots of things out there for readers to look forward to. You mentioned-- and I think I know the answer to this. But some people listening to this may not. What is a novella? We hear a lot of people hear it. I don't know if a lot of people know what it is. Yeah, it's like a stripped down book. I mean, what this is is-- and I'll show you-- your normal book's going to be about 300 pages. This one is Chicago '63. You can see how thin it is. Now, it's because this is about 96 pages. So the problem is that when you're publishing something like this, it costs publishing houses the same amount of money to push this out as it does a regular paperback. So that's why you don't see a lot of novellas out there from the big houses like Random House or Harper Collins or somebody like that. And the other thing-- so if you can't charge that much less for 100-page book, you're certainly not going to sell it. When someone can spend 10 bucks and get a 300-page book, they're not going to spend 10 bucks for 100-page book. So it's a bit of a problem there. But we never-- we published The Threwing Room Spark. We wanted it to be an experience for people that they could be part of a story writing from idea concept to publication. And it was an interesting experiment. So as long as one goes into creating a novel with the idea that you are not going to make money off it, it is not going to be your gateway to anything. But it will be a way of getting your story out there and starting to build an audience. But it's-- so people have seen them as perhaps a backdoor to publishing. No, I would say stick with a short story, whatever those short story markets are asking for. Stick to the link. Tell a story that way. And believe it or not, writing short stories is a great way to train your mind for the bigger marathon of writing a novel. Absolutely, absolutely. That's great advice. Well, this has been great, Terence. Once again, I always enjoy talking to you. When I do, I pick up on other things that we have in common. Maybe that's why we get on so well. [LAUGHTER] Everything. We go with the father and us both be couch potatoes growing up. So yeah, I want to wish you a continued look on your writing. Can you tell people how to find out more about you and your books? Sure, they can find me on my website, terencemccolley.com, T-E-R-R-E-N-C-E-M-C-C-A-U-L-E-Y.com. All my books, thank God, are on Amazon, and available in print and in e-book format. And all of my social media accounts are on my website. But I'm on Facebook. I'm on Twitter. That's how you and I connect it. I dattle on Instagram, though, I'm not that great at-- I'm not that interesting for that demographic. I am not on TikTok because I am 50 years old and I have no business photographing myself and posting videos that we're sleeping in front of the television. [INTERPOSING VOICES] He's in dance video. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, and no one wants to see me dance. And my dad sleeps all the time, so I get to post videos of her. So that's why I'm not on TikTok. That's right. Well, people are people that go to Terrence's website, too. Very cool. He has his own offer, Logo, which I have not looked into. I need to do that. I think it looks very cool. But yeah, I definitely have to do that for myself. Yeah, can, but God bless can, but they have stuff for everything. Oh, yeah, I'm using can for all the time. For the website, this is going out on for all those picture header images most of the time. He's in can, but it's a great little tool. I will throw out, place it as well for anybody who's interested. That's another great website. OK, I've got to look at that. Now I hope you put this through a filter that's going to remove my Bronx accent and make me sound like Charles dance from Game of Thrones, because that would be-- I'm going to make you look great. [LAUGHTER] But seriously, though, thank you very much. It's always a pleasure talking to you. And I hope you have a great day. You too, my friend. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] (upbeat rock music)