It doesn’t get much better than the origin story for the fictional August Riordan.
And when it comes to memorable characters with a wry and engaging worldview, it doesn’t get much better than August Riordan, now the lead character in eight novels by Mark Coggins.
Today (March 4, 2024) marks the publication date for Geisha Confidential, a story that takes our semi-tough, semi-cynical protagonist to Tokyo. My full review for The New York Journal Reviews is posted here.
In the meantime, Mark kindly answered some questions about his main character and the latest entry via email. I highly recommend visiting Mark’s website to learn even more and to see his knockout photography as well.
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Question: Okay, I was going to ask about the origins of your protagonist August Riordan but then a quick check of your Wikipedia page told me it all started with a short story for a writing class you took with Ron Hansen at Stanford. What was that story about and how did you get that first story published? Did you know you had a character you’d be living with for a long time?
Mark Coggins: The story was titled, “There’s No Such Thing as Private Eyes,” and after I completed it in (gulp) 1978, it sat in a drawer for many years. It is rather long, and although Hansen had encouraged me to try to find a publisher, I wasn’t quite sure how to go about placing a story of that length in a magazine. I tried to submit it over the transom to publications like Esquire and Playboy and of course got nowhere with that.
Then one day I was in a bookstore and ran across a trade paperback quarterly with the title New Black Mask. This turned out to be a revival of the famous Black Mask magazine where Hammett and Chandler got their starts. Further cementing the hardboiled heritage of the publication, the editors were Matthew J. Bruccoli, who was famous for (among many other things) developing a comprehensive bibliography of Chandler’s works, and Richard Layman, biographer of Hammett.
I submitted the story to them, and it ended up being published in Volume 4 of the quarterly. A piece by Loren D. Estleman was featured on the cover and other authors in the volume included George Higgins and Jim Thompson. I was thrilled to have my photo included on the back cover, until a friend told me I looked like “a scared rabbit.”
In “Eyes,” August has a different last name (Hammond) and lives in another city (Phoenix, Arizona). But he still drives the same 1968 Galaxie 500, and he is still the same “smart-ass with a foolish heart,” as described in the jacket text for my novel, Runoff. The premise of the story is that a private eye like Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe could no longer exist in the late 20th century, and I illustrate that point by having August investigate a jewelry theft as an old-school gumshoe would. Although August ultimately triumphs, there’s a lot of broken glass, and by the end of the story, he decides to quit.
As that decision underlines, I didn’t think I had created a character that I would be writing about 45 years later! I did, however, resurrect him almost immediately in a follow-on story titled, “The Immortal Game.” This was accepted for publication by New Black Mask, but unfortunately the quarterly ceased publication before it could appear in print. After another long delay, I went back to it, and the story became the basis of my debut novel of the same name.
Question: And what was the genesis for August’s essential nature? And why do you think August has held up as a character for so many novels?
Mark Coggins: As suggested above, August was originally inspired by Spade and Marlowe. The differences undoubtedly come from my personality and background. He is more fickle than either, less hardboiled compared to Spade and less romantic compared to Marlowe. Jazz and jazz bass are what chess was to Marlowe and he is far less successful with the ladies, certainly than Spade and probably than Marlowe. Although he remains a technophobe at heart, he is thrust into cases that involve present day technology and cultural phenomena—such as cryptocurrency—and must sort them out. He is also more tolerant of diversity than Spade or Marlowe ever were.
His sense of humor is closer to Marlowe’s, but he’s got a goofier bent to his, and he dresses worse than either. He might be able to out-drink the other two men, but I wouldn’t give good odds on him in a fist fight.
I think Megan Abbott got to what makes him appealing or enduring as a character in this sentence from a blurb she very generously gave me for The Big Wake-Up, “Most of all, Coggins gives a detective at the center who doesn’t know all the answers but whose self-effacing wit and hard-struck honesty draw us in from the very start and never let go.”
Question: What was Ron Hansen like as a teacher? And isn’t The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford one of the best novels ever? Hansen never got the attention he deserved—do you agree?
Mark Coggins: I came to take classes with both Hansen and Wolff because each had been awarded a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford, and one of the requirements of the fellowship was teaching undergraduate creative writing classes. Thus, both were very early in their careers at the time. Neither had published a novel or book-length nonfiction, and in fact, Wolff’s first short story “Smokers” was published in the Atlantic when I was in his class.
I’m not sure that either had taught before, certainly not at the college level. In any case, Hansen was very kind and encouraging. He was also very approachable and down to earth. I remember seeing him hanging out with a friend in one of the undergrad dorms, which was probably the first and only time I saw one of my teachers in a dorm.
As you probably know, a lot of his writing has Catholic themes, and although I didn’t know his religious background at the time, you got the sense that he had strong feelings about the purpose of fiction. I remember he criticized one story of mine as being well-written (enough), but ultimately lacking heft because it only sought to entertain, not to convey a lesson or message. Basically, he said, “What’s the point of this?”
He was also up-front with us about the difficulties we might have trying to sell our work. He told us about being a finalist in a short story contest run by a well-known magazine (perhaps Playboy) where Kurt Vonnegut was selecting the top prize winner. Vonnegut picked another story, Hansen assumed at least partially because his story had a science fiction theme like much of Vonnegut’s work.
On his writing, I completely agree that Hansen doesn’t get the attention he deserves. He was working on his debut novel Desperados when I took his class so that book always has a special significance for me. I also really admire Atticus, especially the way he told the same story from two points of view. It was the inspiration for me to break with my usual approach of single, first-person narration with my novel No Hard Feelings.
Question: And you took classes with Tobias Wolff as well? Wow. Mark me down as officially jealous. What did you learn from Wolff—and Hansen? What has stuck with you over the years?
Mark Coggins: Well, believe it or not, the first creative writing class I ever took was taught by Wolff. It was in my sophomore year, and I was looking for some easy credits. I didn’t have any aspirations to be a fiction writer at the time.
In spite of that, there is a direct through line from Wolff’s class to my August Riordan books because of one thing he did in the class. He was making the point that certain writers have a very distinctive voice or style and he read several passages to illustrate that point. One of the selections was the first chapter of The Big Sleep. (He also read a parody of Chandler by Woody Allen to show how a style that distinctive could be imitated.)
I had never heard of Chandler, and I absolutely loved what I heard. I went to the school bookstore and got all of his books. Then I read there was this guy named Hammett who was Chandler’s predecessor, so I got all of his, too. By the time I took Hansen’s class, I was chomping at the bit to write a hardboiled PI story of my own.
Wolff was interested in grounding his teaching on books that you liked. I remember I told him Dune was one of my favorite books. He said that all the action in Dune happened off camera and was talked about by the characters after the fact, suggesting that it wasn’t the best model (i.e, show don’t tell). I realized he was absolutely right, and I read a review of the recent Dune movies that makes that very point: to keep the films interesting, particularly the second one, the director has to show scenes (and create dialog, etc.) that are merely referenced in the book. Wolff, by the way, said that Ursula Le Guin was a better science fiction model.
Wolff also had us read a selection from our favorite book in class. I chose a bit out of The Two Towers from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Wolff had never read the books but had clearly heard of them (he was educated at Oxford) and I remember his first reaction was, “Sounds biblical.” Which is also true, at least for the passage I had selected. (“At last Aragorn stood above the great gates, heedless of the darts of the enemy. As he looked forth, he saw the eastern sky grow pale.”)
Question: Okay, let’s get to Geisha Confidential. Why did you decide to set this one in Japan?
Mark Coggins: I’ve traveled to Japan a number of times—from the boom years in the 1980s, through the “lost decade” until now—and I’ve always been fascinated by the people and the culture. That was one motivation. Another was the idea of dropping Riordan into a place where he would be a complete fish out of water, and a fish that tended to play by different rules than those of the inhabitants. The book is a little bit like Ridley Scott’s movie Black Rain in that regard, although Riordan is not a corrupt cop like Rain’s fish out of water, the Michael Douglas character.
Question: And, well, how did you go about all the research in Tokyo—the food, the language, the sexual subcultures?
Mark Coggins: The food, at least, I learned through personal experience. None of what Riordan is exposed to in that regard is really that unusual, except, perhaps, to him. On language, I have studied a bit of Japanese, but my (retained) knowledge only extends to a few key phrases and some rules of grammar. The equivalent of “¿Dónde está la biblioteca?” I had a lot of help from native Japanese and people who lived in Tokyo in getting language and cultural details correct, although I’m sure there are still mistakes (all of which are mine) in spite of that.
The research on love hotels, soaplands (i.e., brothels) and the Japanese Adult Video (JAV) industry was all done through the internet, with the single exception of visits I took to the outside of a love hotel and a soapland to take a picture of the buildings for a chapter illustrations. The soapland visit in particular was a bit nerve-racking because I was constantly being propositioned by barkers from establishments that do allow foreigners and worried about being chastised by employees of establishments that don’t.
Question: Did anyone in particular inspire Coco? And a related question—one recurring theme of the August Riordan novels is that readers know they are likely to encounter the full spectrum of humanity with many colorful and sometimes outlandish characters and that August will accept them all unless, of course, they are evil. Why was an important to you to give August this worldview?
Mark Coggins: I did some research on trans women in Japan, and I found a sort of exemplar that I modeled Coco on. The woman I chose was active on social media and I mainly relied on the pictures she posted to inspire my physical description of Coco and the clothes that she prefers to wear. However, I have no reason to think that that woman works in a hostess club.
Separately, I found some interviews with a top earner at a hostess club and learned a lot about what the job is like for them, including earning potential and customer expectations. There was also a well-publicized case about a hostess club hostess from England who went missing in Tokyo described in the book People Who Eat Darkness — The Fate of Lucie Blackman, and later, a Netflix documentary.
Part of why I like Chandler’s books is that he also introduces you to a full spectrum of Southern California humanity from that time, including Hollywood types, millionaires and charlatans. I was thinking of Marlowe’s interview with the fake psychic in Farewell, My Lovely when I wrote Riordan’s interview with Dr. Fukushima.
August’s openness to people with different backgrounds develops early when he meets his future sidekick, Chris Duckworth, in The Immortal Game. Duckworth is a gay man who cross-dresses, and initially Riordan doesn’t know what to make of him. The case forces them to work together and Riordan comes to appreciate and understand Chris in a way he wouldn’t have if they hadn’t partnered to solve the crime. I think that exposure to people of different backgrounds, like travel, broadens the mind. And in Riordan’s job, he gets the opportunity to do a lot of broadening.
Question: What is the state of the Private Eye novel today? Who are you reading and what writers do you admire who are being overlooked today?
Mark Coggins: Well, I suppose people have been announcing the death of the Private Eye novel for years, including me when I wrote that first short story. There’s even a quote from Chandler in an interview with Ian Fleming on the BBC where he says, “A private eye is a catalyst, a man who resolves the situation. He doesn’t exist in real life.”
I think the PI novel is still kicking, but in the vastness of the crime fiction panoply, it occupies a much smaller space than the glory days of the Black Mask. It’s a little bit like the cowboy and the western. They aren’t what they used to be, but they keep coming back, sometimes to great acclaim (as with Hansen’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford).
On who I’m reading, I quite liked your (non-mystery) Fireballer, but it definitely doesn’t fit in the overlooked category! You received quite a lot of well-deserved recognition for it.
If I were to mention just one other writer, it would be Adrian McKinty. After struggling to survive on the income from the first six novels in his Sean Duffy series, McKinty fell back to working as a bartender and an Uber driver. Then Don Winslow helped him out with an introduction to a new agent and he produced the 2019 thriller The Chain, which was a smash hit.
I still love the McKinty stories, though, and I was pleased this year when he published another, Detective Up Late. It’s a quasi-PI novel with a first person narrative from a Belfast detective who operates with, ahem, a bit of independence.
Question: Photography and writing fiction—does one artform help the other? Is there any overlap?
Definitely. Many of my books have scene-setting photographs at the front of each chapter. Often these document a locale that I selected while sitting at my desk writing the story. However, there are times when I photograph a place or scene without reference to the plot in one of my books, and then go back to write plot around it.
That is exactly what happened with the photo used on the cover of Geisha Confidential. I took that several years ago in Japan and only later did it motivate a plot twist in the book involving geisha.
Question: And, what’s next?
Mark Coggins: I’m working on an August Riordan short story inspired by a real-life murder in San Franciso. It’s actually the first Riordan short story since “There’s No Such Thing as Private Eyes.” I’m weaving in bit of AI to be especially relevant to current times.
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Previously reviewed:
Don't Need A Diagram 