Will Maguire interviews Phyllis Gobbell

AUTHORS INTERVIEWING AUTHORS Will Maguire interviews Phyllis Gobbell

Phyllis Gobbell’s new novel, Notorious in Nashville, has just arrived in bookstores.

Phyllis, a long-time Nashvillian, takes her readers on an insider’s tour of Music City. I interviewed her in her living room, high on a hill in the woods. The room was filled with books, family photographs, and a baby grand piano.

WLM: I know that baby grand isn’t just for looks. You’re musical, and it’s obvious that you love music. Can you explain how music plays an important part of Notorious in Nashville?

PG: I have always felt that music was a language I somehow understood, even as a little girl. I started playing the piano when I was five. In another life, I might have become a professional musician. But things took a different turn for me.

I’m not part of the music scene here, but no book about Music City can be written without acknowledging its singers and songwriters, the music industry, and places like The Bluebird where so many stars have been discovered.

Notorious begins at The Bluebird when an old washed-out songwriter accuses a young up-and-coming singer of stealing his songs. From that point on, music threads through the whole book.

WLM: What is it like living in a place that’s so musical?

PG: Music is everywhere in Nashville, from the honky-tonks on Lower Broad to the Nashville Symphony at the Schermerhorn. The waiter in the restaurant where you’re having dinner may be an aspiring songwriter. A choir member in your church may have a record deal. I had a creative writing student who was a session player. All around my neighborhood are neighbors in the music business. Some are even legendary. If you go out to hear live music in Nashville, even if it’s an out-of-the-way venue, you will probably be amazed at the caliber of the music. Actually, we have come to expect it. That’s what it’s like in Nashville.

WLM: Among the indelible characters you draw is the old down-and-out old songwriter, Notorious, who was “almost somebody,” before whiskey and country radio made him obsolete. In the book, in fits and starts, he sometimes transforms from a broken down drunk to an astonishing artist. Do you think people can house both extremes?

PG: I do. Creative people are sometimes swept up by terrible circumstances. Some never become who they should be. Someone with enormous talent can get lost. Become rusty. But I will add this: Sometimes rusty strings make the most beautiful music.

The story is told in Jordan Mayfair’s point of view, and in the beginning, she’s like a lot of us. All she can see is a drunk who had a great talent, but lost his way. That can happen. But as she gets to know him, she comes to realize that he is both ruined and a great soul. Jordan believes in the possibility of redemption. So do I.

WLM: Phyllis, all of your previous mysteries are set in exotic foreign locales. Why choose Nashville this time out?

PG: I’m sure readers may wonder why I didn’t go to another location like Provence or Ireland or Tuscany, to follow the pattern of my other three novels. I wanted to, thought I would, but then COVID reared its ugly head. Some writers use the internet and find everything they need in the way of research, but that doesn’t work for me. I have to immerse myself in a place to get the feel of it, to get it in my blood.

My friends kept telling me to write about Nashville, where I’ve lived since I was in my twenties. “Nashville’s hot!” they said, and it is. And finally I decided that yes, there were things I wanted to say about what’s happening here, so I settled on Nashville for the fourth mystery in this series.

WLM: One of the recurring themes in Notorious is the clash between old and new. Nashville is the latest battleground between history and progress. What exactly were you aiming to uncover with this theme?

PG: Much of what I presented, fictionally, is really happening in Nashville. The old is being replaced with what is new and glitzy, and residents are divided in what they want Nashville to be. On one side are those who long for the small sophisticated Southern city we used to know, and on the other side are promoters of the progress that so often seems set on dismantling it.

In Notorious, Alex, Jordan's uncle, is in Nashville to publicize his new book. His point of view on progress pretty much mirrors my own. I miss, for example, the small town feel. I miss the slower pace and despise the overcrowding that has replaced it. Tourists seem to love Nashville, and we depend on tourist dollars, but we’ve just elected a new mayor who campaigned on the promise to make residents a priority. I hope he does.

WLM: In Notorious there is a murder and the city at least in part seems like it is being slowly murdered by speculators. Does justice prevail in your world?

PG: I’d like to think that readers will finish the book thinking that justice exists, that it can prevail. But just like life, it requires both work and faith.

You mentioned the idea of death, and I’m glad you caught that symbolism. There’s a scene where Jordan, searching for her lost daughter in a storm, watches a tower topple. The ruins disappear in a cloud of dust, then the dust is overwhelmed by the light.

What I was hoping to get across is that doing away with history and tradition is a kind of death, a kind of murder. Cities can be murdered too, you know.

WLM: You use a Macguffin, a symbolic device that appears again and again through the story. It’s the brick. What do you mean by the brick?

PG: Because Jordan Mayfair is an architect, she uses her architectural knowledge and skills in all the mysteries that she solves. This time, yes, a brick keeps coming up in the story, and it works on several levels. The brick is integral to the scene where Jordan and her daughter are in serious danger. And it is a clue that will ultimately help her and her preservationist friends save a building on the verge of being demolished.

WLM: You’re a mother. Jordan Mayfair, your protagonist, is a mother, as well. What about motherhood do you share with Jordan?

PG: Yes, I’m a mother, and a grandmother, and for the first time in this mystery series, Jordan’s relationship with her daughter is a big part of the story. Jordan's daughter Holly plays a part in uncovering a crooked developer’s fraud, but ends up missing. Jordan’s fear for Holly comes through as she searches for her in a storm. I could feel that fear as the words came from me, to my screen. I've felt it. That nameless sharp worry. Every mother has. I wanted to capture both the helplessness and urgency that comes with the great blessings of having kids.

WLM: Let's talk about the nuts and bolts of writing. Can you describe your process?

PG: Before I begin writing a draft, I spend a lot of time with ideas swirling in my mind that will ultimately become a book. It's not unlike mixing concrete and pouring a foundation. The mix has to be right for it to harden into something you can use to build. I write pages and pages in a composition book, character sketches, because I think that a story rises, ultimately, from the characters, and make notes about plots and particular scenes. All of it is very chaotic, without any thought of organization.

I’m trying to hear the voice of the story.

Jordan Mayfair is always the narrator of these mysteries, but in each one, I have to find her voice again. And at some point, I start thinking about a first line, which is so important. And then a first paragraph, a first scene, and so on. And I just keep going.

The muddy middle is always the hard part. I hit wall after wall, but somehow I find my way through. Somewhere along the way, I develop a clear vision of what I want the story to become.

WLM: Finally, your book touches on faith. I won’t give this part away, but a symbol of lost faith recovered in a storm is essential in saving Jordan's daughter. Are you a person of faith?

PG: Yes, I am. I think faith can easily be lost but just as easily be found. I don’t mean to say it’s easy. It takes work, just like justice.

I believe that people can lose faith for all sorts of reasons, but that faith is often recovered in a storm. That happens, both literally and figuratively, in Notorious.

It can happen in cities too. Like Nashville.

WLM: Thank you, Phyllis Gobbell. Notorious in Nashville can be found in local bookstores and online.