Hello everyone. I'm Diane Grissel, also known as
Silver Disbedience. To those of you who've been
following my blog for the past eight or nine years, this is the
Silver Disbedience Perception Dynamics podcast, and I'm really
excited. We're in iconic Manhattan Center
and I have got a really fascinating guest today.
His name is Lou Romano. He's a businessman, He's a proud
Bronx native, and he's an author of quite a few books, a few of
which have also taken off in a big way and put his name as an
author on the map. And we're going to find out how
that all evolved. Thank you.
Thank you, I'd love to. I'm so happy to see you here.
It's a pleasure I. Don't get into the city much
anymore, but for you, I'd come. Well, I'm glad I'm honored.
So Luke, the Bronx native, let's let's talk about the Bronx from
a few years back because I have a feeling it's somehow
interplayed into your book writing career at some point.
And your perception is correct. OK, so the Bronx in the 50s, I
was born in 1950. Can I say that I'm an old guy
now and. It was a good song by the
police. Yeah, right.
I was 1950 and the the Bronx was completely different than it is
today. I mean, it was lovely.
I mean it was boulevards and he had a dress up to go to the to
to the doctor and to the church and everything was dressed up.
Time the Grand Concourse show the doctor, we have to go see
Doctor Curtain and we had to dress up.
It was a whole beautiful place, but there were all characters
everywhere. So I grew up in an Italian
neighborhood, Arthur Ave. that area, and that was a strict, I
mean, a minority couldn't walk down Arthur Ave.
They would chase them away, walk around the neighborhood.
It was terrible, terrible. But that's what how they did it
back then. So I, I saw all the characters
and all the mob guys at around my great uncle's restaurant,
which was a pretty good restaurant, pretty good pizza
place. And I just watched them and I
just studied them and I was like so enthralled by the way they
carried on a lot different than you see on The Sopranos and a
lot quieter, but the real deal bad guys.
And that influenced me. Also, I was influenced by Raj
Serling who wrote the. The Twilight.
Zone. Twilight Zone.
And I love. That my God.
I mean he. Is yes and and very influenced
by him wanting to know how he got those great stories in his
head and how he put it on paper and they put it on film.
It's still intriguing to me. I still to this day, yeah, at
any given point have, and everyone in the world who knows
me laughs. There's no chance I'm ever
walking around without 5 to 10 pairs of reading glasses.
Me too. After the episode with Burgess
Marinette where he's the last man on earth after a nuclear
attack. And he, there's a reader and he
goes in the library. Yeah, yeah.
I mean please. And people are like, why do you
have so many glasses? I'm like, did you ever see that
Twilight episode? I'd buy them 5 for $15 on
Amazon. They're everywhere, every
pocket. It's terrible.
But so I was influenced by that and Bud Schulberg, Yeah, who
wrote on the Waterfront. I was always intrigued with how
did they do this and some of the authors and, and, and some great
poets and so forth. So I was in the oil business.
I'm skipping out of the Bronx. The Bronx was kind of tough in
those days. And it got worse.
And it was a lot of prejudice, prejudice against Italians,
believe it or not, and not in my neighborhood, but in the
schools. But I survived all that.
And I think I came out of it pretty good.
And I think so, yeah. Yeah.
At some point you got into the oil business.
Well, yes, I worked. I worked for Hess Oil, a big
company. I was a sales manager here in
New York. Really.
Yeah. I was the Prince of the city
back then. I had a great, great time.
I had restaurants and everybody knew me and I spent their money.
And then I went to a company called Castle Oil.
I was senior vice president of sales and marketing there, 14
years, a good tenure. And then I got into my own
little thing and I decided I'm going to write now.
I need to write. And I was out in Long Island and
Montauk, actually I'm a Gansett place called the Fish Farm.
Beautiful. And I saw this fish farm thing
going on and in my mind, and that's when I knew what Rod
Sterling did in my mind. It had a movie and it had a
book. So I wrote this book about this
fictitious drug dealer, Lucio Gonzalez from Colombia, from
Barangay Jar, and I did all the research on Badankija and all
these other things. And so we had a great time doing
that book. It stunk, but people liked it.
People liked it. And they said, you know, do
another one, do another one, do another one.
And then I wrote a book about the Albanian mafia and the
Italian Mafia from Arthur Ave. Oh yeah.
Fictitious names, though I used my mother's maiden name rather
than Gambino or anything like that.
I still want to walk around. And it just took off from there.
And then, you know, I, I, I just kept writing and I, I'm on a
hiatus now, Diane, and I'm really at the, AT shopping at
the bit to get back to it. Why are you on a hiatus?
Is that self-imposed or was it a creative?
Self-imposed. I don't believe in, I don't
believe in creative gaps. OK, if you're.
Creative. You're creative.
OK. If you have a writers gap,
you're not a writer. You know, I, I that's just my
opinion. I so agree with you.
Do you? Yes.
And you know why I agree? Because writing to me is a
discipline. Yeah.
You either choose to be disciplined and sit down and put
some words on a paper. And maybe they're not your best
words, but you can address that another day, right?
You know? But it's a discipline to keep
doing. Well, my discipline is 1500
words a day, minimum, no matter what, seven days a week, no
vacation because 15. 105 pages. My that's my my chapter length
is 5 to 7 pages. 8 pages. I want people to feel like they
got something out of it and I have bigger print because I
can't see so I. I like those.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a lot of chapters, but
they're small. I I just like that way of
writing, you know? And so I decided to put it down.
I I wrote this book about this criminal.
I like to write fiction because that's where my mind gets going.
That's where it flows. And and the The funny thing I
tell people all the time, the characters actually write the
dialogue. You know, I hear fiction
writers. Say you've heard that from
others. And I've written a lot of non
fiction books and when I hear somebody say the characters
write themselves, I mean, I've met all kinds of characters, but
I could not, I don't it's, it's a different way of thinking to
build out character in your. Head it is they're in the moment
and you know the character and the character just has their own
language, their own way of talking, they're nuances.
They're dying guy like this. How you doing?
It just flows out of of me into the characters.
Writing non fiction to me is like a book report and I have
three of them out there and I don't like them, but one of
them, it's called. I have to look at it to remember
it. Yeah.
The the born in the Life. Sorry about Gene Borrello.
It is the worst garbage I've written.
No, it's a book report on this. What is a book report?
This guy's life, he's a criminal and he is a bad kid.
And I mean, he's a, he's a great.
Kind of like a biography. It's a biography.
OK, so it's a biography to me. It's a book report.
I could go into Wikipedia, give them their 20 bucks a year, and
I'm happy. So.
So Gene Borrello is the character and he's a bad kid.
He loves me. I love him.
He's my best seller right now and the worst book I've written.
People like Trey Prime, people like the bad guy.
What this guy gets, the amount of girls that he gets calling
him is ridiculous. He's in.
They just love bad boys. That is a really interesting.
Yeah. Thing to think about, because I
really wonder about that. We're seeing that in the news
right now. I like to keep these episodes
Evergreen, but we've just seen a horrific crime.
Yes. And you know that he has this
fan club. I'm like, are you kidding me?
The guy, the guy's a murderer. I don't care what his theme was.
I've. Seen it on my life.
Do you remember that preppy murderer?
Yes. Oh yeah.
Well, Jennifer Levin, yes. Well, I remember that vividly.
I was in shock. I.
Was in the oil business and we had a lawsuit against the oil
company that I worked for, I think it was Hess.
And, and in the next courtroom, there was the the.
Yeah. Robert.
Chambers, Robert Chambers, right, the preppy murder.
And he's talk about a tall, handsome, good looking, educated
guy. So I'm there and I'm in a suit
and tie and I'm standing in the back listening to the horrific
things that he did to that girl. And there's a bevy of young
women, attractive young women in the pews or seats, whatever you
call them and see the pews. That's my Catholic background.
And, and I said to the bailiff, I said, what's all these hot
girls? He goes, they're here for him.
So I've seen this since I'm a young man.
I was in my 40s, I guess, when that happened.
And now this guy Borrello in the book, I, it's almost an
embarrassment that I wrote it and my name is on it, but the
money's coming in on it. I can't tell you it's it's a
best seller right now. It's very interesting since
writing and developing characters, there's a
psychological component to it. What's your assessment on that?
We'll call it your non professional.
We're not giving medical advice here, but what's your assessment
on what's going on with those? I think girls are told to be
good girls all the time. Is that what you're talking
about? They're told to be I'm.
Just trying to understand. I don't know what I'm talking
about because I don't understand.
That I don't either. I don't understand why you would
want. To here I was, a nice little
Catholic school guy. I couldn't get a date to save my
life back then but. But if you killed.
Somebody. If I killed somebody, I was OK.
But yeah, I think it's this whole thing about being a bad
girl by being with a bad guy. I don't know what it is.
It's a dynamic that I can't explain, but I've seen it my
whole life. And I mean, the guys who were
the bad guys in the neighborhood, and I grew up in a
bad neighborhood. They were the guys with all the
hot girls, you know, Why is it's a psychological thing.
I should. Maybe I'll write a book about
it. Now I'm curious.
They say often a first book, Yeah, is somewhat
autobiographical, but it's disguised in nature, so it's a
Romana Clay or something like that.
What do you think about that with any of the books you've
read? It was that's absolutely true.
The character's name is Gino Rano and he's sort of a bon
vivant and he's with a girl he shouldn't be with.
And they got in trouble and he's part of the mob.
He's he's affiliated with the mob.
He's not part of the mob. He's around the mob.
See, there's a round and there's with and there's affiliated.
And anyway, so even to this day I have affiliations where if I
got into any kind of trouble, I could make a phone call.
One of my books says the first line in the book says not every
Sicilian is in the mafia, but we all have a phone number and.
It's nice to have phone numbers. And I'm still, I'm still around
that I have some friends who are still around that life and God
bless them. That's not, that's not my life.
I avoided it because my mother, God bless her soul, she used to
stay stay away from those Guinea bastards on Arthur Ave.
Oh, she did. The only way I heard the only
word I heard the. Only time you heard her curse.
No, she was a trooper. Stay away from the Guinea
bastards. And I heard the same thing, that
I was a Guinea bastard in school.
So I sort of thought my name was Guinea Bastard till I was like
14. So she kept me really.
She kept me away from the mob. She with that constant
reaffirmation of not being involved with bad people, and
she was good at that. My father didn't care because he
was around it his whole life. And it was like, yeah, yeah,
talk to Tommy, you know, this kind of thing.
But it was fun growing up in those days.
It really was because there was a lot of characters A.
Lot of characters. Do you build on those characters
in your books? Oh yeah.
Anonymously name changes to protect the innocent and the
guilty. To protect the innocent and the
guilty. Yeah.
Yeah, That's funny. I keep it sort of like if you
really know the mob in New York, you could figure out who's who.
Do you have when when you go about writing a book?
Yeah. Do you know the beginning and
the end? No.
How does that unfold for? You, I I know the beginning in
the middle, the end unfolds and it could go 3 or 4 different
ways, but it's never. I don't want to give my secrets
away, but sometimes it's a surprise, like intercession,
which is. Talk about that book.
Yeah, it's, I love that. I've got a copy of it here.
That's my book. That's that's my.
I just ordered it you. Ordered it, thank you.
You. Were the ones.
No, I think you had way more than one.
This book's selling nicely. It's got a lot of reviews and I
will be a future review. Thank you.
And Tuesday I have a meeting with my partner in LA.
This is going to be a feature movie, really.
We have some money and and we have things going on.
So I'm very excited about that. I never thought that would
happen. It doesn't surprise me because
before I bought this book, I saw a bunch of different books for
you on Amazon. I, you know, read the the blurb.
Then I read a few reviews and I thought, well, this looks like
it could be a movie. So it doesn't surprise me that
how did that all. You're so great.
I want to hear about the book and I want to hear about how it
evolved into a movie without giving away any secrets.
I'm not going to give away the secrets, but I'm going to tell
you things that I don't really often speak about, OK?
Because you're so great and so charming.
I was born and raised Catholic, but I never had the Catholic
spirit. I, I rejected Catholicism when I
was 8 years old. I thought it was a bunch of
bullshit. Excuse me, but it's not
bullshit. It's, it's really a good faith,
but just not for me. I'll never talk badly about
dogma or religion or the Pope dying.
I'll say, I'll say one or two Pope jokes, but they're not bad
because I really have a reverence for the Catholic
Church. Born and graced.
Unfortunately for me, someone very close to me, one of my
sons, was molested by a Catholic priest.
Not a fun topic, not something I'd like to talk about.
And he became a very troubled person.
What I wanted to do. Did you ever If you have kids
and somebody hurts your child or God forbid.
I can't imagine because my first reaction.
I want to kill them. Exactly.
And you really. And I don't know if I would.
I've nodded. I've never been in that
position. I pray I will never be in that
position. Feel that and so here I am this
little tough guy from the Bronx knowing a lot of mob guys,
whether it was Sicilian vengeance in me, I it's DNA and
I wanted to kill that man. He didn't molest him to the
point that it was it was really terrible.
It was, it wasn't really he, he, he made these two kids get naked
and he would look at them and that's molestation.
When you're 7 years old, there was no penetration or anything
like that, which is bad. But this is bad enough because
when you're that age, you don't know.
You don't know. What your sexuality is and and
he's been troubled ever since. So wanting to kill the guy,
planning on killing him, figuring out, OK, there's no
camera here. I got this and then a couple of
my friends who I alluded to before I got wind of it and I
had a a lunch with one of them and he said to me, and his name
was Louis. He said, Louis, how, how far do
you want me to take this? At that moment I knew I could
end that man's life not by my own hand, but make it easier by
somebody else's. And then I said, you know,
that's not the right thing to do.
We took it to court. We lost it brought up my insane
rage is again, but I said to myself I.
Can't imagine. This is not the way to do this
because if you kill a person, it it's a vexation for your soul,
but also you could get caught in reality.
And I can't see myself going to a federal estate prison, state
prison when I have a family to consider and grandchildren out
here. So I decided to let it go.
I just write this book, this. So this book, it's a catharsis.
It's me wanting to kill that man.
And I'll tell you something, he's still alive.
He's in retirement and I still want to see him dead.
But I'm not going to do that, nor will my friend Louis do that
because I said no, this is not the way I want to have my soul
and my life by murdering him. And I stopped that.
That spirit, that feeling of of wanting to hurt someone.
I mean, I got into fights in the Bronx.
Not many. I'm not a fighter.
I'm more of a talker. And but to kill somebody, at
that point, I was at that crossroad.
I could say, yeah, Louis, please, I'll give you this
information. And they would have killed him
because it's an infomnia, right? I didn't.
I'm glad I didn't. I hope he dies and I hope he
dies a painful death. But that's just that Sicilian
DNA thing in me. I don't even know if it's
Sicilian. I think it's.
Yeah, you could be Irish. I mean, yeah, I mean that's.
Just AI think that's a natural, especially apparent response,
right? Right.
And I, I wasn't for him going to school.
So it created some friction between my wife going to
Catholic school. My wife and I, we had some
friction over that because, you know, I told you so.
But we're over that now. But intercession has been the
beggar, the best seller for me. We think it's going to be a
movie. I've had four starts before.
I'm excited about that. And I can't say it's my favorite
book because you don't want to say you have a favorite child,
but it's up there. It's up.
But I put the passion of my hatred for this guy into the
book so. I bet that I'm really looking
forward to reading it because that based on your reviews, it's
come across on the pages. And it's thank you and looks.
Like you nailed it. It's a surprise ending, too, so
it's a good thing. Yeah.
And it introduces Victoria
Gonella, who is the the policeman.
And he has. He's now in seven of the books.
Oh, really? The Vicanello series and he's
with the lovely Raquel Ruiz, a Puerto Rican girl from the from
not on Hito and from the Bronx. And she there again, not on
Hito, Puerto Rico. How would I know when Not on
Hito Puerto Rico is from the people I grew up with in the
Bronx, who's from this town is from that town Ponce San Juan
Anito. And I used that and I actually
go to these places to see the research and feel it or, or I
cheat and I go on Google Maps. I had to kill somebody and had
to. I had to kill somebody in
intercession. In one of.
My books let's. Clarify that we.
Killed someone, We killed someone in Dublin.
I'm not going to say who, but it wasn't a priest because I don't
want people to think I'm anti Catholic, anti priest.
We clarified. That OK, so he has to go kill
somebody and I'm not going to Dublin anytime soon.
You know, I've been there once, but I forgot it.
So I went on Google Maps. I knew where the place was, that
I wanted him to be murdered. What?
Her to be murdered. And I just went on Google Maps
and it I could describe every brick, every house.
And I it was just a visual thing people were saying to me.
You were in Dublin? Oh, I was on Google Maps.
That's a little, little secret. Mostly I go to the places.
Really. Yeah.
No writing. Writing is different than
editing. Yeah.
How? How do you balance out those
two? Do you work with an editor?
Do you write, write, write and then go back and look?
You're amazing You you hit on my softest.
Pain, point and pain. Point it's been my biggest
problem is editing and I just can't find the the good edit.
I just found one now she's in Holland.
Her name is Dutchie because her name is unpronounceable in
English and I so. You're calling her Dutchie?
She told me to call her Dutchie because I can't, I can't.
So so we got along great. We talk once or twice a week on
on Zoom and she does a lot of my work and she's terrific.
She's the best I've had so far. But I've had some clinkers.
Really. It's hard.
And then I'm embarrassed with all the errors in the books.
Well, it's not even just the embarrassment.
You can have someone else edit your book and one they're not in
your head, they don't know exactly what you were trying to
say They and it's got to be. I mean, I know that writing
nonfiction, I say to someone, no, you didn't understand the
what I was trying to express about this particular factual
issue. That's got to be stay factual.
But in your case, you're inventing a person in your head.
You have that whole character built out.
So if someone starts to change anything about that personality,
that could probably get pretty personal.
Quickly, I could tell you a story about editing.
So I had 12 people read this book before it came to press.
And one of the guys is a construction guy here.
He's a demolition guy. His name is Frank Callie, Not
the mob Frank Callie, but my friend Frank Callie.
Smart guy, but I didn't know how smart he was.
So I'm in Florida playing golf. This is at the press.
We're going to start to print Intercession, and he calls me
and he said, I'm on the golf course.
And he says, Louis, I got to tell you something.
You're supposed to have 12 murders in the book, right?
Yeah. There's 12 sharpened crucifixes
that he kills. He says, you only got 11, and
he's from the Bronx like I am. So you only got 11 comes out as
one word. You only got 11.
I said, come on, Frankie, stop breaking my chops.
You know he goes, no, Louis, you missed, number missed #9 I said,
what? He goes, I swear to God, his
eight, his seven, his 911, you missed #9 Now I cannot hit the
ball in the air. I, I'm dribbling the ball and
I'm like, I got to go. So I get in the cart and I go
back to the condo I was staying in and sure enough, it's not
there. And here's a guy, he's a
construction guy, you know, he's owns the company and all these
editors and all these people I'm paying and all these
proofreaders and these pre readers, 11 or 12 of them.
Nobody picked up that it was only there's a murder missing in
the book. Can you hear any embarrassment?
So I, I quick what I, I went out on the live, got 4 cigars.
It's a true story and Frankie's going to love that I'm telling
it. And I put 4 cigars out and I
don't drink alcohol when I'm writing.
I don't drink alcohol much at all.
And a bottle of Pellegrino and I just did the whole chapter.
I was like, I was like exhausted from the experience because of
the embarrassment. And I'm still very embarrassed
by errors. But their errors are in they
happen. Well, you know, I always say to
people when they're going to write a book, I say, listen,
there's writing and there's editing, Get the story out, you
know, be disciplined, get the story out and then go back and
edit. But you can't write and edit at
the same time or you can't get off Page 1.
No, I don't. Because you can re.
You can rephrase something a zillion ways.
Absolutely. And you could put AI into it and
they could do it for you. That's not creative.
That's not real. I, I, I wouldn't do that.
But no, it's editing is is the bane of my existence.
I mean, it takes so long. So it'll take me if I do 1500
words a day without stopping, it'll take me about 50 to 55
days to do a manuscript on a 350 page book.
And that's comfortable for me. It takes twice that long to edit
it. Yeah, it does.
Yeah. So.
Yeah. Because sometimes it's, well,
this is a great paragraph, but it really could have gone in
Chapter 7. That drives me crazy.
Yeah, but it's right. A good editor picks that stuff
out. And Dutch, she's pretty good,
but she just got me into Spanish books.
So I one of my books is in Spanish, The Butcher of Punta
Cana. I can't pronounce it in Spanish.
Congressione de Punta Cana, whatever.
And it's in Spanish now, when she's putting books out in
German and in Dutch for the German and Dutch market.
And I have one book in Albanian, Bessa, which is a the mob, the
Mafia book in the Bronx. But Bessa had one sale in
Albanian in four years. What does that tell you?
The Albanian people who are wonderful, they're my they're my
family. And and this they just don't
read or they just don't know about it.
One sale. Yeah.
Well, you know, such a big thing about books is marketing them.
You can actually write a great book, but it you know, it, it's
a lot to get people reading it and finding it.
So you'd really, really need to do a lot of word of mouth and
talking to people. You don't have to answer this
question, but did you read 50 Shades of Grey?
I did not. OK, it is the worst piece of
garbage that ever been. Other than my book about Jean
Barela, it was pretty poorly written.
I tried to read it because it was all the rage.
My daughter-in-law tried to read it.
She couldn't get through it. It's not well written, but the
woman who did it started out as just to make a salacious book
for her friends in a coffee klutch.
She wasn't a writer so she sold 330,000 books on Amazon just
because of word of mouth. Well I think it was Charles
Scribner came in and said we want the book.
They gave her a big number or something like $5,000,000 or $4
million for the book. Sold 77 million books at the
last time I looked about 3 or 4 years ago and did 2 movies.
It's unbelievable. Word of mouth, that's what
started it. You know, I paid money for
Facebook ads and what it's just, it's hard to get it out there.
Well, you know, it's interesting with that in that she I, I never
read that book. I certainly know the title of it
and. Remember when the movies?
Came out and I never saw the movies either.
But one day I was talking with my daughter and, you know, was
really trying to get her to read because I love books.
I've loved books my whole life. I grew up in a house.
There was no television, you know, and, and then when they
did get a television, it was this black and white television.
I don't even know where it came from.
And you could only watch it Walt Disney on Saturday nights or
Sunday nights, whichever night it was on.
That was it. And then I could hear my
grandmother listen to Lawrence Welk.
So now I'm really dating myself. Oh, yeah, I am.
Can I hear her, Laura? I can still sing the ending song
to Lawrence Welk. She wouldn't last.
It so loud, like we can't watch TV, but we have to listen to
Lawrence Welk. But the So what was trying to
encourage my daughter to read And one day she says, mom, I'm
reading this, I'm reading this book by Colleen Hoover.
You know, she's she's sold like 1,000,000 bucks.
I'm like honey, and I don't think so.
And like, I never heard of this name.
She goes, Oh no, she has. Well, she it's like self
published her first book and now she's got all these different
books out and now they're making, you know, they just made
the movie. It ends with us or starts with
us. I'm not sure what it was, the
one that's all in the rage because there was some problems
on set with the movie, but I'm like, Oh my gosh, I never heard
of this author and it just took off.
It was one of those things that a bunch of girls like the
character and it was in that 20 something age group.
So it's almost like you just have to find your niche.
It's it's a lot of luck too, a lot of the Lord looking down on
you. Like Mario Puzo was a failed
writer and then he wrote the script.
I mean, he wrote the book Godfather and I remember reading
the book and reading it twice and I don't haven't read a book
twice in my life. And then he just took off.
But he was he was a failed writer takes one chance, one
thing to happen for you. But I'm not looking to make a
living at writing. Never, never set out to do that.
It's a it's a good passion project.
It's a passion project, yeah. Do you find it stress relieving
or stress inducing? We're both.
You know, when I'm not writing, I'm kind of sullen.
When I'm writing, I'm just leave me alone.
I mean, just, I'll be out to dinner with people and then I'll
be just in the chapter and it's not an act.
It's really, I'm thinking about Victoria Cannella and is it
going to be a passion scene? Is there going to be a fight
scene? And I'm like, I'm no fun.
So I guess I'm no fun, you know? I I actually actually, you
understand that totally when I even though I don't write
fiction, which I so admire and love to read.
It's how I relax is I'll, you know, reading reading a fiction
book, but with non fiction. When I committed to writing the
blog, I write every day and I started, I think I'm on my 8th
or 9th year, I'm not sure. And I'll be walking around and
whether I could be in the shower, I could be on the
street, I could be on the corner waiting to cross the street and
someone will say something and all of a sudden I'm like, Oh my
God, there's a blog in that. I start writing it in my head
and then I'm tripping on the street and giving myself
concussions because I'm pulling out my voice memos to talk and
like talk into it to make sure I don't miss that moment or I'm
slipping because I'm rushing. You know, it's like it's
dangerous being a writer. It's a high risk occupation.
Of a danger. I don't realize. 50 Shades of
daytime of 50 grand Shades of Grey rather.
I was writing a Vic Cannella, one of the Vic Cannella books,
and Vic Cannella and his partner, they finally get into a
sexual relationship and I describe one of the sex acts in
detail. So my wife is in bed reading it
and she said excuse me. I could see it like it was
yesterday. Where did you get this?
And moron, because I have to be glib, said, Well, not here.
That was a good night for you. Oh no, we're in separate rooms
now. She, she threw the book at me,
missed. And the book laid in the corner
of my my bedroom for like a month before I picked it up and
put it back on the shelf. She never read it because I was
insulting her, but I was being glib.
I mean, I was just trying to be fun.
But you know. I'm like Larry David.
Sometimes I. But you know, it's so funny
because it's it's funny when you talk about sex in books, right?
Because I mean, clearly they're the I.
I'm recently somebody, my sister was telling me that she loves
Sandra Brown books. Oh yeah, I know she is.
Yeah, and, you know, I had never read a Sandra Brown book.
And I'm like, OK, now I know a lot more about my sister, like.
Steamy. They're steamy.
Books. They're steamy.
But it's like this tension that built, yeah, there's all this
history, or there's this or that, and then there's this
tension. And then you find yourself
waiting for the tension. To break right and.
Then it's so funny because it's like the the creativity of
getting that out on paper, you know, or inventing these scenes.
I just, I have utmost respect for people who do that.
It's it's, it's, I think it's a gift.
I don't think I'm a gifted artist.
I think what what you do is a gift.
I think what artists who paint and draw, that's a gift.
Musicians is a gift. I'm from a family of musicians
and I well. I think writing is a gift.
Storytelling. Yeah, people tell me that I
don't want to be so self aggrandizing, but go ahead,
yeah. Go ahead.
You can do that here, because storytelling is a gift.
Some people can tell a good story.
I mean, you know as well as I do there are tons of crappy books
out there, right? You know, Oh my God, and there's
300,000 new books a month published in the United States
over 3,000,000 a year. So how are they going to find my
little book? And you have to tell yourself
that when when your book's moving and you're getting those
book sales, you say, listen, I started at book #3 million.
Exactly. The day this book went to print,
it was #3. Million not #1.
You know, so I mean you get a book into the top 100,000,
you're in a mega achievement. This got to #1 a few of my books
got to number one for a while. Phenomenal.
It's phenomenal, but. I know we might not retire from
it, but you never know when that can happen because sometimes,
like a lot of people hate the book, they hate her.
I love Atlas Shrunk and I happen.
Yes. And I extra love the book when
we were talking about the large print, right?
It came out in a large print edition and.
You're too young to think that way.
No, no, no. I appreciate it because I wear
those glasses all the time. No, but that book was like this
thing and the writing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I had I wear 1 1/2 glasses. I had to go buy a three to be.
Able to read that? Yes.
And so now it's in the large
print edition Right now I feel like it's my bicep workout when
I read I'm lying down at night, I hold the book up here.
I'm like, oh, I'm building my my delts.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
But that's one of the books I've read so many times because to me
it's timeless and it fits a lot with what's going on in the
world now. Whether you know, no matter what
anybody thinks, it's just got aspects in it that you can.
You know when you get taxed for having an idea, you know, it's
an interesting concept. You know, if you think about the
whole taxation system, whole other topic, but you never to
me, you never know when a book is going to.
And so many people want to write, so many people want to
write their book, the book of their life, the book of their
mother's life. And so one lady I know, a
Russian woman, very lovely woman, she came to me and said I
want to write my book. I said, well, explain to me
what's your book? What's your book?
Well, I came from a broken marriage with a 2 month old
baby. We didn't speak English.
I came to New York and we had to learn English and I had to get a
job and I cleaned toilets and then I worked for a bank and
then I became a bank this and I vice president of the bank and
he went to college and all this beautiful stuff.
And I said, OK, where's the book?
Well, look what I did. I said, did you sleep with
Vladimir Putin? She was indignant.
She said no, I said you should have because that's the book.
That's the book, That's the book.
You did everything that every immigrant came in, my great
grandmother and grandfather, and on both sides, they had the same
thing. They had to work.
Everybody came here. Well, not everybody.
So yeah, even the pilgrims came, even though Wasps had to do it.
You know, it's so interesting you say that because obviously I
get since I started this podcast about almost two years ago, I
get, I always look for pitches and I carefully read every
single pitch. And that's a whole other story
because I get a lot of terrible pitches that never they just
will tell me about someone and never say why I should interview
them. And so they're looking for me to
do that work, which is like, I'm just not going to start to do
that work if we can't even come up with an angle.
But so many of them will say, yeah, but they're an author.
And it's exactly that. It's that's like people have
said, oh, Diane, you should write a bio.
I'm like, the only one who might read it is maybe.
Well, my mother maybe would have, but I think it would have
put her to sleep, too. I know.
I it just everybody tells me you.
Need that? You need that adventure.
You need something that's over the top that makes you say this
is this is how that person got there.
Like I love Keith Richards book my life.
I thought it was great because it had just so many good
stories, you know? Flow.
It was a nice flow. Yeah, yeah.
You know, from trying to like get not arrested in the South in
the right. You know, 60s, all those things.
You know, so those are stories. But yeah, a book has to have
something. That's why I think writers are
artists. It's an it's an art.
Form and I read a lot I read a lot of fiction books and then I
when I want to relax, I read nonfiction.
I I love the Devil in the White City.
What is his name? That author he's great.
I don't know. It's historic fiction.
It's about the 1888 World's Fair and the first serial killer that
was. Is that the Cabell books?
Or no, no, his name. Oh my gosh.
Oh, he's one of my favorite authors.
I've read five of his books. So do you like historical kind?
Of I like historical fiction or historical biographies about,
they're usually crime. Yeah.
Well, Lusitania was a crime. Yes, I guess that's crime.
I guess my mind goes to crime because all the wise guys I saw
when I was growing up. You know, it's, it's such a
popular genre. Yeah.
I mean, I mean crime, sex, put them in a book.
You're probably gonna have a good story.
If you can tell the story, you're.
Gonna have something? Something.
Yeah, yeah. What do you think that crime
draw is just like right now? I mean, crime on television.
The true crime series are killing it, you know, No pun
intended. Killing it?
Exactly. I think that people just want to
be good, but they want to know about the bad.
That's just my take on I mean, I've always been enthralled with
the criminals and crime, and maybe it might deepen my
recesses of my mind and my family were criminals.
I don't know. One thing I wonder about do you
want someone to like the criminal in your book, The
murderer? Yes.
Tell me about. That that's amazing that you
asked that question. Well, that's what happens in
intercession. You start to fall in love with
the killer. And that's such an interesting
psychological phenomenon when that happens.
I weave the the story that way. I weaved it that way, but not
with, not with the other one, with the drug, with what's his
name, with the Ben and Keija, the guy from Ben and Keija.
Lucio Gonzalez. No, I didn't like him, so I
didn't want my readers to like him.
But I like the killer and intercession and he everybody
tells me what I don't want to say anymore.
But they were very happy about what happened to him.
John Deegan. Do you think it was because it
was perceived as a justifiable revenge?
Absolutely. That's like, there's too much of
it away, but you're But you're absolutely right.
To me, it was a justifiable revenge for the same reason I
didn't go and kill that priest. I still wanted to.
You know, you mentioned The Sopranos earlier and you know
when I would watch that series, which me and everyone else
watched. You like Tony Soprano?
You do and you don't. Want to like him?
You're like, this guy's a killer.
Even when he choked the guy. Treats his wife horribly, you
know You like him for some reason, you know.
He's a teddy bear. He's a likable teddy bear.
He cheats on his wife. He kills people with his bare
hands. He has people shot and killed.
He steals and robs and sells. Does everything wrong.
But you like him. But you don't like his son.
Yeah. True.
I mean, the kid was a great actor.
He did a great job. But you don't like him?
Yeah, He's a whiny little kid. He did a great Italian kid.
I didn't like him as a as a as a person, I like him.
You know, it was funny too recently.
I I was very frustrated with the ending watching Tulsa King.
I I I love Sylvester Stallone ever since the first rocky I'm
in like it just was so good, you know, and there there's a guy
who wrote a script, you know, said I'm going to be in this
movie and I'm going to build it out.
But it was funny with like Tulsa King again, you just you like
you like the. That's the same thing with Bronx
Tale. I know commentary Jazz did me a
big favor with I'd like to consider him a friend.
I don't see him, but we we had some business together and I
said to him at lunch one day, I said, you know, and I excuse my
language, I said, because he's a Bronx boy too.
I said you had balls bigger than cantaloupes.
I said you write that I, I, you had nothing and they offered you
$1,000,000 and you said no, I said, you know what, $1,000,000.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
De Niro offered him $1,000,000 first less.
And then they came into $1,000,000, offered him that
much money. And he said only if I'm in the
movie. Only if.
I'm so he did the same. Kind of thing as, as as Sly,
yeah, same thing. And look, it's been his whole.
It's been a big portion of his career.
It was a phenomenal movie. And his one act great script
terrific. This absolutely.
The script is great and sort of reminds me of when I grew up on
the brink. I got to rewatch that movie.
I haven't seen that. In a long time, yeah.
It's a good movie. And a lot of those things really
happen. Like that scene with the because
I grew up in the same neighborhood as Chaz and.
And the scene with the motorcycle guys now you just
can't leave. That really did happen.
So in the neighborhood that we were in, it was pretty tough.
And Chaz was just, he did a great job for himself and he had
the courage of his conviction. I'm going to be in this movie or
you're not going to do it. That takes a lot of hutzpah.
Oh yeah. Yeah, and he's a great writer.
He's a great screenwriter, and he's a screen doctor as well.
He told me that he'd make somebody doing that.
Now, I'm so glad you just segued into that because you're
thinking about taking intercession, making it into a
movie, Yes. How does that script writing
work? Do you get involved?
With that, I I read it. I read it to me.
I can't tell you if the script is good or not.
I really can't. I, I just don't have the head
for that. I, I have to see the whole
story. I have to, I can't say Diana's a
beautiful girl. That's not enough for me.
I have to describe you. Your beautiful eyes, your
cheekbones, your jaw, blood. I could have described you and
your figure. I have to describe you to the
reader, right? You don't do that in a script,
right? You know, And that's not.
Familiar. Very different kind of writing.
Yeah, So my partner, AJ Enrique, he's he's in California.
He's got a script. Some people say it's not a good
script. I can't tell you.
I think it's OK. I think it's good.
He loves it. Other people have loved it.
And he's got some money now behind the the the the movie.
So he's in charge. Now I'm curious what have think
of a book you've read that became a movie and who do you
think did that book justice in the movie?
And what's a book that you read where you said, oh, the movie
was just brutal, like they did not do justice.
Which would you well? The number one movie I would say
was The Godfather was a great book.
And I think in in that case the movie was actually better.
Yeah, I mean, it was. That's a movie I I love when
they put the two together I could watch the third one forget
about but the 1st 2:00 I could watch them over and over and I
always see something I never noticed.
You know, the third one wasn't such a terrible movie.
It wasn't an epic like the first two.
Maybe that's. It you had some miscasting in
there, you had a. Little bit of what it was.
It's the casting. Yeah, that was a mistake.
The right. Nails it.
The writing was good. It was the casting.
But Chino was great in it, I thought.
Andy. Andy.
Andy was good. I didn't think Carey Mulligan
should be in there. No, no.
Just couldn't see it. No.
And of course, when, when. What's her?
Name and she's delightful, but not in it was the wrong.
Oh yeah. Wrong actress.
I don't know who I would have put in, but I wouldn't.
Have cast her and Coppola's daughter.
Oh yeah, was Sophie. Yeah, so lovely girl, but
totally miscast. Yeah, and even the guy with the
tan, what's his name? He played.
He played the the lawyer. Because they can't.
Remember. Yeah, I don't remember that.
Because they would. They would.
They wouldn't pay. They wouldn't pay the the actor
who played Sam. I'm losing my mind now.
The actor who played Tom Hagan. Hagan, they wouldn't pay him the
money for Godfather Three. Would have been, but he didn't.
Yeah, that's paramount. Robert Duvall, You know, I'm so
funny. I was just out in Deer Valley at
a friend's house, and we're sitting in the hot tub and we're
saying, wait a second, who was the attorney?
Not one of us could think of who played the attorney.
And I'm like everyone's saying, but I know it.
I know exactly who he is. We could all picture his face.
I had to get out. I'm like, OK, I'm getting out of
the hot tub. I'm.
Going to because I. Was going to wreck the rest of
this hot tub. I won't answer your second
question. About I want to hear the what's
the worst where you loved the book and you said how could they
destroyed this in this movie? I don't want to answer that
question because I don't want to destroy anybody's.
It's an. Opinion.
We're having an opinion. I'm trying to think I mean.
We'll put a disclaimer, OK? This is Lou Romano's opinion
because we've got about 5 minutes left so we just want to
hear it. I can't think of one off hand.
I mean, I'm sure there are many that the the the movie just
stunk. That's just when I I read the
other day that I saw the other day.
That was done by Sly Stallone, written and produced by him.
It was the movie was terrible, but I didn't read the book.
There wasn't a book attached to it.
I'm trying to think. See, I could say I love The
Fountainhead by I hated the movie my.
Terrible. Are you kidding me?
Who wrote the script? I mean the book is so good and
the movie was terrible. It was terrible.
I mean, that would make someone not want to read a really great
book. How about Napoleon?
It was a terrible movie. Oh, I never saw that one.
Well, there's been so many books written about the Napoleon, but
yeah, it was just bad. Just a bad movie, right?
Not fun. I can't think of offhand of of
any any situation where I the movie was that bad.
Well, then we'll end on a good note, yes, because we're all
going to look forward to your movie on intercession and I
highly recommend everyone's orders it in the meantime.
Oh. Thanks so much.
Thank you. So Lou Romano, I hate that we
are at the end of this. Oh, we are.
Time goes so. Fast when you are going to start
with you. I know, yeah, I love these
podcasts because I get to. So do I.
When When do you get to talk to someone for an an hour with no
interruptions? So thank you.
Thank. You so much for joining me.
I'm Diane Grissel. This has been the Silver
Disobedience Perception Dynamics podcast, and my guest has been
prolific writer Lou Romano. He's got a lot of books that I
highly recommend you check out. There'll be links to meant his
author page below this podcast descriptor, and I highly
recommend you check them out. Thank you very much, Lou.
Thank you, Diane. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Please hit subscribe and share
this with your book loving friends.
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