Q & A with Summer Festival Speaker Neal Griffin and San Diego Writers Festival
SDWF: Tell us about your upcoming book, The Burden of Truth
NG: The Burden of Truth tells the story of a young man named Omar Ortega, a fictional character, but during my twenty-seven years as a cop, I met dozens of men just like him.
Omar represents people who travel what I call the hazardous middle lane of barrio street justice. A virtual no-man’s-land between two opposing forces. Off in one side-lane are the cops, whose only real connections to the community are a badge and paycheck. In the opposite lane are the street gangsters. These are men prone to violence, who extort, harass, and rob local businesses. Who intimidate and threaten innocent families and aggressively recruit new members, all in the furtherance of their clique. It’s no exaggeration to say these two sides are at war and stuck right in the middle are countless men like Omar.
When the cops see Omar, they see a gangster. So that’s how he gets treated. When the gangsters see Omar, they see someone who should jump in, put in the work, and pay the tax. Too often, as in Omar’s case, they threaten those dearest to him, creating a literal life or death dilemma of go along to get along. This is Omar’s reality, every day and it is played out in The Burden of Truth as a true to life fiction story set in the town of Vista, California, a community patrolled by the San Diego Sheriff’s Department.
As the story begins, Omar has spent the last several years dancing on the fringes of gang life without ever crossing over and, just as importantly, without ever ending up in the back of a police car. Now, Omar is ready to graduate high school, top of his class. Unbeknownst to the local gang set, Omar has been saving money he has earned working as a day labor. His plan after graduation is to move his family out of the barrio. Omar has enlisted in the Army and will use his monthly pay to support his mother, sister and brother. But just days before his planned departure, there comes a late night knock at the door and everything changes. By the next morning, Omar is arrested and labeled a cop killer.
With Omar in jail, his family is left to fend for themselves. The law and order advocates and local community activist battle it out in the media, and Omar’s guilt or innocence doesn’t even seem to matter.
Publishers Weekly called the story “incredibly sad, but realistic” and, in a starred review, Booklist pegs it as “one of the finest reading experiences of the year.”
Omar’s story is one that has haunted and inspired me for years and I’m anxious to share it with the world.
SDWF: Does your background as the son of a Quaker Philosophy Professor impact your work?
NG: My dad passed away a few years before any of my novels were published, but I think it’s accurate to say his influence is on every page I’ve ever written.
I’ve often said that when you’re a kid growing up in a small town in Wisconsin and your father is an Ivy League Quaker philosopher who studies ancient religions, that puts you in a very small cohort group. Asking my dad any question, no matter how straight forward or how commonplace the subject matter, was to invite a long and belabored response designed to leave the impression that no assumption should ever go unchallenged. My dad never tried to tell any of his children what to think, but he always made sure to leave us with something to think about.
Great storytelling goes beyond entertainment. The task of any storyteller, of any writer, is to challenge the reader’s most basic assumptions. To make them second-guess their bedrock convictions. So looking back now? I don’t think I could have asked for a better writer’s bootcamp than the passenger seat of my dad’s car as he opined on such topics as the dubious assumption of wealth as a virtue and poverty as a vice and how all of that was related to my request for a ten cent raise in my allowance, just before he dropped me off at baseball practice. I mean, isn’t that what all dads do?
SDWF: What’s the last great book you read?
NG: The last great book I read was the book I just finished this week. I was fortunate to be gifted an advanced copy of the soon to be released book by James Carlos Blake, The Bones of Wolfe. For any lover of hard hitting crime novels told thru an irreverent but true perspective of the history of the American southwest, you must read Blake’s series on The House of Wolfe. Think Winslow, Lehane and McCarthy all stewed together over a wild-high heat and you’ll have an idea of what your in for. The Bones of Wolfe is violent, gripping and vividly wrought. It is not for the faint of heart. I thoroughly enjoyed it. JCB is an American treasure.
SDWF: What writing resources in San Diego have been most helpful to you?
NG: Well, certainly the San Diego Writers Festival is off to an admirable and indominable start. I enjoyed the energetic spirit of last year’s inaugural event. I’m sorry we can’t all gather in person this year, but it’s very cool that the SDWF has found a way to press on. I know this conference is going to grow as one of the great local resources for writers and readers alike.
The first time I stepped out in public and had the audacity to call myself a writer, was when I attended the San Diego State Writer’s Conference. It was an incredible weekend of collaboration with writers, editors, and agents that put me on a path that eventually led to publishing my first novel. I was sorry to learn that he SDSU Writer’s Conference will no longer be an annual event. It was a terrific resource and very well attended. I hope for an eventual rebirth.
I’ve also attended the La Jolla’s Writer’s Conference which is held every November. The conference is smaller than most, but to me, that is its greatest strength. The environment is one of real intimacy between emerging writers and bestselling authors. It was at the LJWC that I had the opportunity to meet with Tess Gerritsen who read my pages and offered me a piece of advice that had a very positive impact on my writing career. That exchange led to Tess writing a blurb for my novel, By His Own Hand. That sort of one on one contact and relationship building is rare everywhere accept at the LJWC.
San Diego Writer’s, Ink is a local non-profit and any San Diegan who wants to grow as a writer simply must become a member and take advantage of this one of kind resource. For most of the time I was writing The Burden of Truth, I was participating in Tammy Greenwood’s Read and Critique group sponsored by SD Writers, Ink. The weekly feedback was honest, fair and focusing. I’m indebted to every member of that group and their fingerprints are all over the story.
SDWF: Where can we find your blog/website or any other online links? (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)
NG: My contribution to the world of social media is rudimentary at best. Candidly, in the past three years or so (hint, hint) I’ve begun to question the value of any social media platform as it relates to creating discourse, dialogue, or debate. But I haven’t given up, so it’s easy enough to find me on Facebook or Twitter, but that is where I draw the line. By the way, what the heck is tick tock?
What I most enjoy is an engaging website where I control the content. My site is www.nealgriffin.com where I maintain a writer’s blog called On Writing (this interview will be listed there) along with book excerpts, upcoming events and personal information. Although I don’t send out newsletters I answer every email I receive from readers. I can be reached at neal@nealgriffin.com
SDWF: Thank you, Neal!
