PopSyndicate.com

The author of Death Will Get You Sober chats it up with Pop Syndicate interviewer Angela Wilson.

Who is Elizabeth Zelvin?
There is no short answer to that question. I’m a lifelong writer, a nice Jewish girl from Queens, a shrink, a poet, a grandmother, a singer/songwriter, and that’s just the top of the list. I have a T-shirt that says “Outrageous Older Woman,” and I try both to live up to that and to keep growing toward the Wisewoman persona that also goes with age and experience.
Where did you get the idea for Death Will Get You Sober?
I started with the title, which came to me during my 20 years working as a social worker, therapist, and administrator in the alcoholism field. I wanted to write about the amazing honesty and courage of people who recover, especially through the 12-step programs.
Tell us about your main character, Bruce Kohler. Is he based on anyone you’ve met over the years?
Bruce is purely my own invention and also every alcoholic I’ve ever met personally and professionally. He’s smart, funny, and sexy, and he’s been throwing it all away thanks to booze. He’s a terminal loner with a lot of bravado. Underneath the bravado are shame and despair, and underneath that, he’s got a heart. He jokes about becoming an amateur sleuth to keep from dying of boredom staying sober, but the truth is he cares about the detox buddy who dies. He’s also desperate for a second chance with the two friends he lost through drinking. Those are his sidekicks: his best friend Jimmy, the computer wiz and history buff who loves AA, and Jimmy’s girlfriend Barbara, the world’s most codependent addictions counselor, always ready to help and mind everybody’s business.

Was it difficult to write about addiction – something you deal with every day?
Not difficult at all. Death Will Get You Sober starts with Bruce waking up in detox on the Bowery on Christmas Day and realizing he’s got to change his life. I directed an alcohol treatment program on the Bowery for six years. At the interview, my future boss asked if I could write a book about alcoholism. When I said, “Yes, absolutely—at least one,” I didn’t realize the book would be a mystery. What did surprise and delight me was Bruce’s voice. There’s a lot of wit and humor in recovery, but I didn’t know I would be able to bring it out. And I can’t fake or force it. Some days, when the writing is going well, it feels as if I’m simply channeling Bruce.
You did a lot of writing and editing before you went back to school for a degree in social work. That led you to your work in alcohol treatment. Why did you take this path?
I always wanted to be a writer. I thought mistakenly that a job in publishing would get me there. I started as a secretary—girls had to at that time—and worked my way up to editing accounting textbooks and other dreary material. While my son was little, I did freelance editing and tried to write, but I was so desperate for a way out that I even sold life insurance for a while. What a nightmare! Becoming a social worker—the most practical route to becoming a therapist—was my path to doing something meaningful other than writing. I didn’t know that I’d do a lot of professional writing eventually, including a book on gender and addictions and a lot of articles and chapters on codependency and dysfunctional families, which are important themes in Death Will Get You Sober, along with alcoholism.

Of all the situations you’ve dealt with when it comes to addiction, what is the one that never leaves you?
There are so many stories, both triumphs and tragedies, that I can’t possibly pick one. Besides, you never know which one I’ll want to write about. A minor character in Death Will Get You Sober has a purely coincidental resemblance to a counselor I knew who spent a quarter century living in a doorway on the Bowery before he got sober more or less by accident, got his counseling credential, and spent another quarter century working on the Bowery helping homeless chronic alcoholics. Not every alcoholic or addict recovers, but every one who does is a walking miracle. Never think you can predict who’s a hopeless case and who can turn his or her life around.

You have led an interesting and varied life. How do your past experiences play a role in your life today?
I believe that everything we are and do builds on the foundation of past experience. I wouldn’t be a therapist if I didn’t believe people were capable of change, sometimes spectacular change as happens with people in recovery. But we don’t have to make the same mistakes. We also really do get a little wiser as we age. I wanted to be a published novelist at 24, and it didn’t happen. But no way could I have written Death Will Get You Sober, a book I’m very proud of, when I was younger. I feel empowered by the richness of my life experience. I love being someone who’s flown a plane and been to Timbuctoo. I keep up with friends all over the world: I’ve been sending out an annual holiday letter for forty years, and nowadays I’m in frequent contact with those who email. And now all those friends are excited about my book and want to read it and tell others about it.

Who is your greatest champion?
I’m not sure if by “champion” you mean my hero or my greatest supporter. The hero was always my mother. She came to the US from Hungary at the age of four, went to law school in 1921, when women weren’t doing that, and got a doctorate and started to teach Constitutional law at the age of 69, before lifelong learning became fashionable. She lived to 96—and I have an aunt who’s that age now who still plays tennis and goes out dancing with her boyfriend. My greatest champion in the “wind beneath my wings” sense is my husband. He’s been there for me though the whole roller coaster ride of writing and getting published and all the ups and downs before that as I’ve reinvented myself every few years. He understands all about the writer’s angst and how computer modeling can kill even an established author’s career. His support has been unfailing.

What are you reading?
I just finished my friend Rosemary Harris’s debut mystery, Pushing Up Daisies, and Ken Bruen’s Edgar-nominated Priest.  I’m also rereading Thrones and Dominations, Dorothy L. Sayers’s posthumous Lord Peter Wimsey mystery that was completed by Jill Paton Walsh. So far, I can’t remember whodunit—in fact, I’m not quite sure who’s going to get murdered—and what a treat that is.
Where can we find you on the Web?
My author website is at http://www.elizabethzelvin.com. I welcome visitors and invite you to join my mailing list so I can let you know if I’m touring in your area. I blog every Thursday on Poe’s Deadly Daughters. That’s at http://www.poesdeadlydaughters.blogspot.com, and my blog sisters are five wonderful mystery writers. I also have an online therapy site, http://www.LZcybershrink.com. I’ve been working with clients by chat and email since 2000. I also have pages on my poetry and music tucked away on the therapy site.

What is the greatest life lesson you’ve learned?
Hmm, that letting go works better than holding on. Acceptance works better than grim determination. One day at a time works better than looking down the tunnel and freaking out over the apparent absence of light. And that winning the lottery wouldn’t make an iota of difference either way to the things I cherish most: my marriage, my granddaughters, and the fact that my mystery is getting published.
What’s next for Elizabeth Zelvin?
What I hope will be the best night of my life: April 15, my birthday and the launch party for Death Will Get You Sober at the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan. If you’re in the New York area, you’re invited! After that, the virtual tour continues through the end of April, and then comes the physical book tour. I’ll be in Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and points north in May, the Midwest and then the West Coast, Seattle and then both northern and southern California, in June. After that, I hope, a contract for the sequel to Death Will Get You Sober. If the book does well, I have more of the series all lined up and raring to go.