Extraterrestrial Noir by Rich Leder

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Any weird things you do when you’re alone?

Not that I’m aware of. I’ve been a writer all of my adult life. So I imagine I’m weird in ways that people who are not writers are not weird. Then again, I imagine those people are weird in ways I’m not. We’re all weird in the end. Hey, you know what? That’s why every character in my books is at least a little weird. Epiphany anyone?

What is your favorite quote and why?

I don’t have a favorite quote, per se. I’d have to go with everything Vonnegut has written. And everything Robbins has written. And everything Roth has written. And everything Palahniuk has written. And plenty of things Elmore has written. And tons of the things that Stephen and Richard and Carl and Christopher have written … shall I, must I go on?

Who is your favorite author and why?

All those guys I just mentioned. Plus, add John Irving to that list. And Donald Westlake. And John D. MacDonald and more than that too.

What, in your opinion, are the most important elements of good writing?

Tough question. I would say “authenticity” is critical. In the sense that if the writer isn’t all honestly in on his/her characters and action and world, then how in the heck can the reader get engaged. I would say “clarity” is critical. Unless the point of the moment or character or plot or subplot or line of dialogue or whatever is to be opaque, then what in the world can be gained by confusing the reader? And I would say “confidence” is critical. If the writer doesn’t believe in their own sentence structure, their own ability to tell a tale, then that, what should we call it, that weakness will permeate the story. So, yeah, authenticity, clarity, and confidence. I’ll go with those elements for now.

Where did you get the idea for this book?

No idea, truly. Maybe I was looking for a way to satirize the suburbs. Maybe I was looking for an alien I had never seen depicted before. Somehow I landed on a molecule manipulating psychopath antagonist with a thing for film noir and tequila. From there it was a half-step to a 12-year-old, uber-genius protagonist.

A PSYCHO-CRIMINAL EXTRATERRESTRIAL ON A SUBURBAN CUL-DE-SAC

A FAMILY ON THE BRINK OF ALL-ENCOMPASSING INSOLVENCY

A TWELVE-YEAR-OLD UBER-GENIUS DAUGHTER IN THE LINE OF FIRE

CAN SHE SAVE THE FAMILY, NOT TO MENTION THE PLANET?

An extraterrestrial crashes into a suburban cul-de-sac Colonial, absorbs every binary bit of information ever chronicled in all of human history, rearranges its molecules and presents itself as a couple of late and legendary film noir superstars, then immediately displays an appetite for debauchery, depravity, decadence, and destruction, seducing the family into its psychopathic criminal orbit with irresistible Hollywood panache, alluring sexual charisma, and inconceivable intergalactic powers.…all in the name of saving the family from their emotional, marital, and financial ruin.

But uber-genius-daughter Mike Devine figures out fast that the extraterrestrial’s principal plan is to employ its unfathomable interplanetary muscle and implode the planet. Which leaves the fate of her family, not to mention the world, in her twelve-year-old hands.

Read an Excerpt

“Forget the meteor,” Peter said. “Where’s the hole?”

“There it is,” Lazlo said. But he was pointing at the ceiling, at the same size and shaped hole that ran in a line at a forty-five-degree angle through the house. The cul-de-sac husbands all looked up at the hole, through the dining room, the master bedroom, and the attic to the sky. Only Maggie followed the path down to its conclusion.

“What in the world is that?” she said.

And then the room went silent, as if all the air had been sucked out of the house through the succession of small rectangular holes.

Connie and Maggie had decided on white oak floors when they’d finished the basement, and then covered them with colorful Karastan rugs. Lying on a deep-red-and-brown rug, five feet in front of the giant flat-screen television, surrounded by debris from the various ceilings and floors that followed it down as it smashed through the house, was a silver box.

It was, like the holes it created, the size and shape of a Frye cowboy boot box, but smoother along the edges. Perfectly smooth, in fact. It wasn’t particularly polished, more matte finish than shiny, and was completely unmarked. There was simply no evidence whatsoever that it had burned through the atmosphere and smashed through a suburban Colonial at a million miles an hour.

“It’s like somebody bought a pair of boots and left the box on the floor,” Bill said.

“Doesn’t look like it came crashing down,” Peter agreed.

“Looks like it came in for a landing,” Maggie said.

About the Author:

Rich Leder has been a working writer for more than three decades. His credits include eight novels for Laugh Riot Press and 19 produced movies—television films for CBS, Lifetime, and Hallmark and feature films for Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, Tri-Star Pictures, Longridge Productions, and Left Bank Films.

He’s been the lead singer in a Detroit rock band, a restaurateur, a Little League coach, an indie film director, a literacy tutor, a magazine editor, a screenwriting coach, a wedding consultant (it’s true), a PTA board member, a HOA president, a commercial real estate agent, and a visiting artist for the UNCW Film Studies Department, all of which, it turns out, was grist for the mill.

WEBSITE: https://www.richleder.com
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FBLKSK2W
BOOKSHOP.ORG https://bookshop.org/p/books/extraterrestrial-noir-rich-leder/22774708