But writing Bombers Moon has been a delight - and part
of it is because that while I’ve been progressing through
30 books I’ve introduced an ever-growing number of
characters, among whom are the children now of some
of these characters. So I wrote a book called Tag Man and
the daughter of the tag man now plays a prominent role
in Bomber’s Moon, as does the daughter of Joe
Gunther’s significant other, the medical examiner. So
these two young women who are in their 20s are part
of this investigation that I detail in Bomber’s Moon.
Sherman: And which came first? The title or the book?
Mayor: In this case, the title. Now I won’t deny that there
are cases where I frankly just come up with a bloody title
‘cause I just can’t think of one, so I plug one in and it seems
to do the trick and whatever. But Bombers Moon I just
loved that knockin around in my head. It was a perfectly
execrable 1942 movie, by the way. If you ever want
to waste a few hours, watch Bomber’s Moon. You’ll
probably give it up about 45 minutes into it, but the
reference to the movie is made in the book because the
young miscreant bad guy frames a poster of that movie
and puts it on his wall.
Sherman: Can you share the meaning of the title?
The train is Amtrak’s leaving Brattleboro station, heading north, and the scene of a
death in one of my books (Occam’s Razor.)
Mayor: The title comes from this wonderful paradox
which dates back to World War II, which was a favorite
area of investigation by me as a reader of history books.
You don’t have instrumentation in those days and fancy
radars and lighters and all the rest of this stuff that
airplanes carry, and with which they crash with
crazy abandon, sadly. But you have moonlight, so you
go out on a bombing run in the middle of the night,
and if you’re lucky you have a bomber’s moon, which
is a very large bright moon with which you can see the
target. But beware what you wish for, because the tar-
get can see you. No better confabulation was there for
my kind of book than that. And indeed I detail a young
miscreant who goes forward through the pages of the
book and ends up poorly and while he’s heading in that
direction, he pays too scant attention to the paradox of
the bomber’s moon.
To listen to the extended audio
interview with
Archer Mayor
go to VTVOICES at
OldMillRoadRecording.com
To purchase
Bomber’s Moon,
visit:
us.macmillan.com
57 VTMAG.com
VTMAG.com
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