Interview with E.A. Aymar: An Easy Choice for Fans of Hard-Boiled Thrillers 

E.A. Aymar has been described as “one of the most promising and talented hard-boiled crime writers of his generation.”

I’d like to add “hardest-working” to that description. In addition to recently launching his latest critically acclaimed crime thriller, The Unrepentant (Down & Out Books, March 2019), Aymar’s writes the monthly column “Decisions and Revisions” for the Washington Independent Review of Books, and serves as the Managing Editor of The Thrill Begins—the International Thriller Writers' online resource for aspiring and debut thriller authors.

Add to all that the fact that Aymar also runs the Noir at the Bar series in the Washington, D.C. area and is often invited to speak at a variety of crime fiction/writing events nationwide, and you begin to wonder how in the hell he had any time to speak to me for the following interview:

Welcome, E.A.—great to virtually speak to you!

Thank you for interviewing me, Greg! A few people have recommended I read your work, and I’ve since started (more on that later), and I’m really pleased we’ve had the chance to meet.

Cool, and ditto! Now let’s jump right in:

Many would consider humor and sex trafficking to be oxymoronic (trust me, I know), and yet your new novel, The Unrepentant, has garnered much critical acclaim in spite of—or perhaps due to—it’s bold blending of humor with unspeakable crimes. What compelled you to write this book in such a way?

I think it needed the humor, you know? It was such a dark topic and, in the early drafts, a dark book. One of the early readers was the writer Alan Orloff, and his first note back to me was, “Well, that’s depressing.” Which is a very Alan Orloff thing to say.

But he was right, and that was helpful. Because I’d forgotten an important element of writing—the reader. I wanted to create a no-holds-barred story, and I included moments of graphic violence, but those instincts originally overwhelmed me. We don’t read fiction for an exhaustive portrayal of unforgivable actions—and, even if I’m wrong about that, it’s not what I want to write. You need to include hope.

I keep thinking of this book as a dark canvas, but one cut with moments of light. Humor offers light.

When someone in an elevator hears you have a new book out and asks you what The Unrepentant is about, what’s your quick pitch to get them hooked and to keep them from calling security?  

“A young woman escapes a group of criminals and realizes, to fully free herself, she needs to kill them all. If you liked Kill Bill but didn’t think it went far enough, you’d like this book! …Wait, why are you getting out of the elevator here? This isn’t even your floor.”

Spending months researching and writing about dangerous topics can be emotionally and psychologically taxing. Do you, like me, self-medicate and watch rom-coms to cope with it all, or have you found healthier outlets (meditation? yoga? a sensory deprivation chamber?) to help you endure the darkness you put on pages?

What I wrote was nothing compared to what I read, or the experiences that were relayed to me. And that helped a great deal. My job was much easier than the men and women who work with victims of trauma, and I never forgot that.

But there are always the scarring images or stories, or the things you hear and realize you won’t forget. And that can be very tough to deal with. I can usually distance myself emotionally from that, but I know a lot of writers who can’t. Particularly if they’ve experienced a similar trauma in their lives.

But it does help to realize that the horrors you’re writing about are never as bad as the horrors people experienced. And it becomes a duty to relay them, as best as you can. I’ve said before that I think writers have a duty not to look away, but that depends on what you write about, of course. I managed to gaze at this issue steadily…even though there were times when my gaze broke.

I saw that one of the stops on your current book tour was your old high school. That’s pretty cool. But what kind of principal brings an author of a  book like yours in to speak to an auditorium filled with raging hormones and not-yet fully-developed frontal lobes? More importantly, did the cool kids from the school invite you to sit at their cafeteria table afterward?

It was a lot of fun! And I invited myself—a teacher at the school is a friend, and I reached out to her about the idea. Joe Clifford had recommended it, and I took his advice…and it was bad advice. Why did I ever listen to Joe Clifford?

Actually, it wasn’t a bad experience at all, but it was an exhausting one. I talked to groups of about 60-80 kids for the entire day, and I was WORN when it was over. The thing that surprised me was that the kids actually asked questions afterward. I thought they’d sit there, kind of sullen and bored, but they were really engaged. And their questions were sharp! Do I worry about a likable protagonist? What were the steps I took to having a published book? How do you know when to curtail violence?

The principal actually did a show up for one of the talks, and she walked out. And I didn’t swear or anything! But that’s okay. It seems like a very “writer” thing for a figure of authority to disapprove of you, right?

And, no, the cool kids barely acknowledged me. Which, to be fair, is also a very writer thing.

When not busy writing and traveling around corrupting young minds, you serve on the board of the International Thriller Writers (ITW), are the managing editor of The Thrill Begins (ITW’s awesome online resource), and run the Noir at the Bar series for the D.C. area. So my question is, do you rely on caffeine, amphetamines and/or some other performance-enhancing substance to get everything done?

You know, I do drink too much caffeine. I’m really trying to get better about that.

Right now it’s all fine. Everything I do is something I enjoy doing, and that helps a lot. If I didn’t like it, it’d truly be a burden. But I love writing columns for the Independent and working with ITW and running the N@Bs for D.C.

It took me a long time to get published. I started writing seriously in 1997, finished my first book in 2003, and my first book was published in 2013. And The Unrepentant is the first book I’ve written to be widely reviewed and read. So this is all wonderful for me. I’m forever grateful, and excited to call writers I long admired peers and friends. It’s never tiring.

What authors have been your biggest influences as a writer? In what ways, if any, has your Panamanian heritage informed your writing?

The two biggest influences are probably Anne Tyler and John Updike. They’re not the most likely candidates for crime fiction, but I loved their use of prose and domestic drama.

And then, for crime fiction, I love Lawrence Block and Megan Abbott. I can’t think of two other authors I have such urgency to read, or who continually put out wonderful work.

I was born in Panama, and half my family lives there. I went there a lot growing up, and it’s important for me that my son has those same experiences. But Panama as a country doesn’t factor into my writing; rather, the experience of being mixed, or a minority, does.

Because of my mixed race, I’ve always been cast just outside or barely inside social or racial circles, and that relationship has given me a good perspective on people…and I think good training as a writer. I’ve never really belonged somewhere, and that used to be an isolating feeling. That’s changed. I go to malls nowadays, and I see interracial couples everywhere. It’s lovely, and gives me hope that my son (himself Asian and Latin) will never feel that type of isolation.

But for me, that “outsider” status has never left, and it continually informs my characters. Often in ways I’m not conscious of, which I think is helpful.

Who are you currently reading? Are there any up-and-coming authors of crime/noir/thrillers you are especially excited about and see a big future for? What do you mean I’m not one of them?!

Right now I’m reading Jeffery Deaver because I’m moderating a panel he’s going to be on, and I need to get my shit together.

But there are a lot of writers nowadays that mean a lot to me. Gabino Iglesias, Nik Korpon, Sujata Massey, Eryk Pruitt, Jen Conley, Sarah M. Chen, Jennifer Hillier, Shannon Kirk, Tom Sweterlitsch, J.J. Hensley (really anyone who contributes to The Thrill Begins as one of our regular bloggers is a writer I hold in high regard, which is why I chose them)…I could easily go on.

And, honestly, as I mentioned earlier, I’m reading your novel In Wolves’ Clothing and digging it! I had to stop to read Deaver for this panel at the Washington Writers Conference, but I’m excited to come back to your work. The only reason I haven’t finished it is Deaver. Blame him.

Care to tell us a little about what you’re working on next?

I got a new thriller in the works, but my next thing will be a sequel (of sorts) to The Night of the Flood. Sarah M. Chen and I are working on the edits right now and it’s exhausting and, even worse, she doesn’t seem willing to do most of the work this time. But that will hopefully be out in 2020. It all depends on how much I can convince Sarah to do everything and give me all the credit. Fingers crossed!

Well, Sarah and I are virtual friends (and she was part of a feature on this blog a couple of years ago), so I’ll see if I can help convince her to carry all the weight again. But don’t get your hopes up—I’m not very convincing, plus Sarah’s too wise to ever listen to me.

Okay, time to wrap this up. Thank you very much, E.A., for taking time out of your insane schedule to chat. (It’s rare, and possibly even illegal, for two men who’ve written novels about sex trafficking to converse.) Here’s to the continued success of The Unrepentant, and to you claiming a seat at the cool kids table sometime soon!  

To learn more about E.A. Aymar and his work, visit his website, or check him out on Amazon or Twitter.