Author Q&A with Philip Raymond Brown

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1. Tell us about your writing/your published work(s)?

I released my debut novel in August 2020 entitled IT GIVES YOU STRENGTH. It is a mashup of historical fiction and science fiction. I pitch it as “Starman meets Boardwalk Empire.” Set in prohibition-era New York, it allows the fictional characters to interact with actual historical figures, including mobster Jack “Legs” Diamond, heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey, and World War One heroine Edith Cavell. Setting two chapters in the Craig Colony, a little-known institution in which NY state essentially warehoused epilepsy patients. The novel seeks to raise awareness of the forgotten human rights violations that occurred there.

The book follows an alien scientist on a rescue mission to the primitive planet Earth in 1926. The broad strokes are as follows: an alien scientist Tashan Zho reanimates the dying body of bootlegger Ryan Costello. After his death, Costello’s body is immediately resurrected by the alien to be used as a disguise. Unfortunately, the “host body” is so damaged from a decade of alcohol abuse that the alien’s memory and vital files are corrupted. All that remains of Zho’s mission plan is one phrase: “Find the one called Mike Kelly.” Complicating matters, the alien soon discovers that Kelly is, himself, the leader of a criminal gang of World War veterans, who are battling mobster Jack “Legs” Diamond to control the lucrative Canada/New York rum-running market. Upon recognizing Costello’s enhanced abilities and physical strength, Kelly forces the alien into his mob. Since Kelly is Zho’s only chance of discovering and completing his mission, the alien agrees. Costello soon recalls his critical task – to free an alien child from the Craig Colony, which aliens believe to be a prison camp, before his homeworld, Dagan, dispatches its “rescue armada.” A force that is so massive and clumsy, its mere entry into the Earth’s atmosphere would devastate the planet.

2. Where’s your favourite place to write?

By far, my favorite place to write is a secluded area on the second floor of the local public library. I pack up my IPAD, portable keyboard, and water bottle and am not disturbed for several hours.

3. How do you approach starting a new book?

I write historical fiction, so I begin by researching how my fictional story will be set. As I learn about a specific period in history, the account grows from unique events in the research. For example, when outlining IT GIVES YOU STRENGTH, I uncovered an item in a 1926 newspaper about a boxing exhibition that Champ Jack Dempsey performed in Saratoga, NY, on August 15, 1926. My protagonist, fictional bootlegger Major Mike Kelly (ret.), considered himself an accomplished boxer, and I had already established in my mind that Kelly lives about 40 miles from Saratoga, NY. Naturally, if Jack Dempsey were in the area, Kelly would have to fight him. Or so my novel explains. So, I took an actual historical event and inserted my fictional character into that event.

4. Tell me about your main character.

Answer: I have two protagonists.-The alien Tashan Zho spends 90 percent of the book in the reanimated body of bootlegger Ryan Costello and his bootlegging mentor Major Mike Kelly (ret.). The alien’s character is simply a literary device that permits the other characters to describe certain situations’ absurdity. When seen through the fresh lens of an alien, some of our institutions’ silliness is self-evident. For example, the Craig Colony, a “health care” facility in which people with simple seizure disorders were held by the state of New York like prisoners, looks like a high-security prison. Prohibition, a well-intentioned law, designed to keep people from suffering alcohol addiction, created artificial price inflation for alcohol, making bootleggers wealthy.

5. How do you choose your book’s title(s)?

The Guinness brewery used to claim that its ale was “for Strength.” In its history, Guinness even marketed an ale to pregnant women claiming that it had properties that assisted pregnant women. In certain scenes in the book, a Guinness is handed to a character, after saying, “It’s Guinness, it gives you strength. But in the underlying theme of the novel, the title means so much more than that. The various characters draw upon different sources for strength, and each is about as reliable as Guinness is as a source of strength to its customers. A priest, Fr. Thomas O’Brien, draws his strength from religion. Dr. Harrison, of the Craig Colony, draws his strength from the infallibility of the underlying science of the Colony. Legs Diamond, the gangster, draws his strength from the sheer cruelty by which he lives.

6. Do you do research for your books? If so, what kind of research?

I am now researching and outlying the sequel to IT GIVES YOU STRENGTH. Set in 1933, right at the end of Prohibition. So, I am again studying an exciting part of American history.

Where can you fin Philip Raymond Brown?
philipraymondbrown.com

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Author Q&A with Philip Raymond Brown