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So Honestly Dishonest
Conversations with Eric is a crime comedy filled with tension and absurd humor. Simon blunders into a world of stolen cars, robbery, car chases, narrow getaways, murder, and corruption. What was your inspiration for the crime spree that Simon goes through?
I love ‘Road’ movies. They physically describe the journey the protagonist makes emotionally. There is a great example of this in Bob Gale’s (Back to the Future et al.) Interstate 60. I saw this film some time ago and wanted to write something using that structure. I love the episodic build-up that imperceptibly takes us on the arch of the characters in small, pithy chunks.
Simon’s dog, Eric, is the only one that he can talk to. Even though Eric doesn’t have great conversational skills I felt that their relationship and conversations were still strong. Do you have your own dog?
Eric is real. He died a few months ago having been by my side for nearly fifteen years. Everyone that knew him agreed that he was not a dog; he was a very wise, funny and extraordinarily perceptive human inhabiting a Labrador’s body. My partner often commented that I never spoke to him as though he was a dog. I talked to him as if he were simply another person living in the house. What was so hard to understand? He was!
The supporting characters in this novel, I felt, were intriguing and well developed. Who was your favorite character to write for?
I think that has to be Archie. He was such an easy man to write. He is so honestly dishonest. He calls a spade a spade. Every day I was writing the book, I looked forward to sitting down at my desk with Archie. He wrote himself. I never quite knew what he was going to do or say until he did it, right on the blank page, in front of me.
I felt that you did a brilliant job with Simon’s character, playing his anxieties perfectly. He lost his job, wife and house, and seems to be barely keeping things together. What was your inspiration for Simon’s character?
Some authors refuse to admit that they are writing about themselves; some do nothing else. Simon was me in so many ways. I hope that I am less inept than him, but I am as lost and certainly as confused. The main difference between us is that Simon didn’t realize how much he was under-achieving in his life; I think I do. I have been searching all my life for a satisfying purpose. Maybe I have finally found it in writing? As I say in the dedication of my new thriller As Mad as Hell, ‘To my mother, who gave me my very first birthday present. I have been trying to find a use for it, my entire life’.
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‘What would you do if overnight you were projected into a crime novel? What would you do if at every turn you were confronted with gun-toting psychopaths, your life was threatened on an hourly basis and you suspected the police were as corrupt as the criminals? What would you do if you felt your head was about to explode, and the only sane soul you had to talk to was your labrador? What would you do?…’
It Bloody Fascinates Me!
If The Bed Falls In is a psychological thriller about a man that suffers from hallucinations and dissociative identity disorder. What research did you do on psychological disorders to get the intricacies of the condition correct?
Years ago one would have to spend days in research at libraries and relevant institutions to get the information needed. Today we have the magic of the internet. I personally use a writing program, Scrivener, that allows me to attach all my research and web pages right into my project. I am also fortunate that one of my friend’s fathers, here in Spain, is a senior neurosurgeon.
The two personalities in the story are competing; one a photographer and the other a secret agent. Why did you choose these two lifestyles to tell this story?
Tom is a depressed photographer, unhappy and stuck in a life he neither enjoys nor values. He longs for something else. And then Joseph turns up; a top MI6 assassin ready to challenge authority and change the world. Be careful what you wish for, Tom!
In this book I felt that there was a lot of exploration on the realms of hallucinations and the idea of a person beginning to lose sight of reality. What interests you in the subject?
I have suffered, all my life, with an often debilitating depressive disorder. This together with my love of Quantum Physics and the nature of reality, has lead me to write many stories about the nature of reality from a physical and philosophical perspective. It bloody fascinates me! The novel I have been working on for years, is a deep, dramatic investigation into the nature of reality. It started as an interesting short story, but is now a major novel called, Being. There is only one reason it is not available right now, I only have around twenty thousand words on paper. It is a huge undertaking, and I chip away at it from time to time. If I manage to complete it, I think it will stand as my most accomplished work whatever I have done before or will do after it.
While writing the two characters, Tom and Joseph, who were you rooting for? Was there a character you were hoping would prevail or come out as the ‘real’ person?
I can’t answer this question without spoiling the story. Tom is wonderfully complex and Joseph such a flawed hero. I love them both.
What is the next book you are working on and when can you fans expect that book to come out?
If The Bed Falls In is the first in the Bedfellow thriller series. Book two is called, As Mad as Hell, and continues to uncover the power-crazed, greedy manipulations being enacted on all of us by the banking/world government cartel. I am currently at thirty thousand words (just over a third of the book) and hope to complete it by the Spring/Summer this year (2016). As with If The Bed Falls In and my debut novel, Conversations with Eric (a comic thriller for people who take their humor seriously!), As Mad as Hell will be available in both Kindle and paperback from Amazon.
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Middle-aged photographer Tom Friday’s cocaine addled brain is playing tricks on him. After a series of increasingly horrifying hallucinations, his life starts to flip between normality and a frightening alter-ego; a renegade British secret agent working against a corrupt MI6. As his psychological torment intensifies, he is plunged into a world of conspiracy, espionage and murder. He is alone and can trust nothing he sees. However, as hard as he tries he cannot remember what his plan was or how he was going to carry it out, but more to the point, is he really an MI6 agent or simply Tom? He is a man in two minds; are either of them his?
If The Bed Falls In: A Man in Two Minds; Are Either of Them His
Tom Friday is a middle-aged photographer, and an ex-cocaine addict whose mind is playing tricks on him; he has begun to experience terrifying hallucinations. He tries to cope with these delusions while also trying to make sense of them, but Tom’s cocaine-hangover plummets him into a world riddled with murder, conspiracy, and espionage. However, his alter-ego, that he becomes in his hallucinations, believes he has come up with a solution to the dire problems of the world, and unlike Tom, is willing to take the risks necessary to put things right, but his mind is as addled as Tom’s, and his plan is always a little out of focus. Slowly, Tom, the photographer, begins to believe that his alter-ego (Joseph Miller, an MI6 agent) is reality, and that Tom is the hallucination, but how can he be sure what is real. He races against time to discover who he truly is, and what he must do to succeed and come out alive.
If The Bed Falls In by Paul Casselle is the first book in his Bedfellows thriller series. If The Bed Falls In is a chilling psychological thriller that attaches itself into your subconscious and refuses to leave. Paul Casselle is a story-teller who deftly weaves his tale into a thrill ride of a page turner. He creates multilevel characters that remain with the reader long after the book has been closed. His characters leap off the page and scream to be heard.
Casselle explores the realms of hallucinations and the idea of a person beginning to lose sight of reality, as well as the world of dirty government manipulation. The novel contains graphic scenes and strong language, but those elements add a realistic depth to the story. The atmosphere of the story would honestly be altered if those elements were withheld; the story would lose its intensity. Casselle perfected a realistic world that is unparalleled in other novels. The book starts out slow, but then as it progresses through background story it begins to pick up the pace. Casselle spends a good amount of time setting up the tone and atmosphere of the story through descriptions and dialogue. The descriptions are so vivid and detailed that the reader feels as if they are amidst the turmoil watching Tom struggle to find the fine line between reality and fantasy.
I would highly recommend this book, but keep in mind there are scenes with adult content some readers may find offensive. Anyone who enjoys a good psychological thriller would enjoy this book as well as anyone who likes a governmental conspiracy type of book; the magic is in the blending of the two genres. If The Bed Falls In: A Man in Two Minds; Are Either of Them His is a book that is difficult to put down.
Pages: 317 | ASIN: B019MONHMM
LITERARY TITAN 