Introducing Donald Levin

motownmysteries
Mar 18
9 min read

Many years ago (okay, more than five but less than twenty) in the early stages as a vendor, I started connecting with other authors. That’s where I met Donald Levin. We both wrote mysteries that were set in the metropolitan Detroit area. Since that time, we’ve become good friends, sharing the occasional meal and connecting at events.

Don is an extraordinary author. A gifted storyteller, he’s an expert at weaving intricate stories filled with unique characters and plenty of conflict. And he does all this with style.

Everyone takes a different path to becoming a published author. What was your journey like?

My journey has been a series of zigzags, dead ends, and end runs. I always wanted to be a fiction writer, ever since I was a little boy. As I grew older, I paid my dues in the usual ways. . . I worked regular jobs during the day (or at night; for a time, I managed movie theatres) and when I wasn't working I wrote as much as possible--short fiction, novels, journals, anything that I thought would help me learn to write. I collected rejections by the score, along with just enough acceptances to keep me plugging along. People I met along the way promised to help me find an agent (they didn't), to publish me in their literary journals (they didn't), and to represent me (one agent who said she wanted to represent me died before anything could happen) --but still I kept at it.

And then, in the early 80s, a hotshot New York agent agreed to represent a novel I’d written. He was the real deal, and I thought it was just a matter of time until I broke through.

Except in the end it wasn’t.

After three years of trying to place it, the agent regretfully sent the manuscript back, saying he couldn’t do anything more with it. Nobody wanted it. He didn’t want it anymore. And he turned down the novel I’d written in the meantime.

I was crushed. That final rejection was it for me. I’m not meant for this, I thought. I failed.

I left imaginative writing behind. I became a writer, yes, but not of fiction. I earned my living by my pen (or word processor, as the case may be) as a professional who wrote speeches, grants, newsletters, annual reports, video scripts, and everything else you can think of for hospitals, government, and businesses as big as IBM and GM and as small as one-man computer start-ups.

But the urge to write fiction never went away.

Whenever I felt that urge, though, the memory of having failed stopped me. Nobody wants what you have to say, my inner demon insisted; just stop already. Why put yourself through this aggravation again?

Eventually the relentless urge to write fiction became too insistent to ignore, and in the early 1990s I wrote another novel. By that time self-publishing was starting to be a thing, so I put it out myself with my rudimentary computer skills. It went nowhere . . . but at least I finished it and it was out in the world.

Eventually, I became a college professor, and I started writing short fiction again. I published a few but, still smarting from failing as a novelist, I began writing poetry, which I hadn’t failed at yet.

And then to my surprise, people began to publish my poems. One poem won a prize. Then I wrote and published some more short stories and one of them won a prize.

Finally, my confidence restored and bolstered by disciplined work habits honed as a writing professional, I tried my hand at another novel, this time a mystery. I signed a contract with a small publisher who never brought it out. I decided to bring it out myself. Then I published six more. Then I published three historical novels set in Detroit, and I'm about to work on the fourth.

I guess if there's a lesson here, it's this: never quit. What important is the writing, not the publishing or the reception.

Let’s get wild. Your latest book has been selected by a streaming service to be made into a movie (or series). The producers have asked for your thoughts on casting the top three characters. Who would you choose?

I'll preface this by saying I have no interest in getting movies or series made of my books. My father was in the film business and I saw up close what a horrible, back-stabbing business it is.

But of course it's fun to think about what your characters look like, and what actors might embody them. So for my latest book, The Ghosts of Detroit, here's what I'm thinking:

A central character in all three books in the series is Clarence Brown, one of the first African American detectives on the Detroit Police Force. Clarence could be played by Ernie Hudson.

Another main character in the last book is Clarence's adopted son, Malone Coleman, who wants to be an artist. I see Malone played by John Boyega.

Another main character is Jewish WWII veteran Jake Lieberman, who struggles with the horrors he saw in the extermination camps of Europe. I can see Jake Gyllenhaal in this role.

Anna Miller is another main character, a young woman striving to overcome her history of sexual abuse. I'm looking at you, Elle Fanning.

Finally, war widow Sgt. Bridget McManus of the Detroit Police Department's Women's Division rounds out the cast. I wouldn't turn down Rosario Dawson for this role.

Do you prepare an outline before you start writing a story?

No. I tried once and strayed from the outline almost immediately. I generally start out with a general sense of the characters and the vaguest idea of a possible narrative arc (or crime, in the case of the mysteries), and let characters and events bounce off each other and develop the story as I write. I usually don't start out knowing where I'm going with a book. When the first draft is finished, then I'll outline it so when I start the rewrites I can see how the story develops, what needs more, what needs less, where weak spots are, and so on.

Tell us about your latest book.

The Ghosts of Detroit brings together four shattered souls in Detroit in 1955, a troubled time of factory closings, the Red Scare, and racial hatred. Jewish WWII vet Jake Lieberman struggles to live with the horrors he saw in the extermination camps of Europe. Gifted artist Malone Coleman negotiates a world of relentless racism to find the informer who betrayed him and cost him his job. Photographer Anna Miller strives to overcome her heart-rending history of sexual abuse. And war widow Sgt. Bridget McManus of the Detroit Police Department's Women's Division desperately searches for a serial child-killer. This third volume in my Detroit series takes this quartet of seekers on a journey through the forces that shaped mid-century America.

Here's the prologue, set on February 26, 1952.

“State your name for the record.”

“Jacob Lieberman.”

“Where were you born?”

“I would first like to make a statement.”

John Stephens Wood breaks in. “You may file your statement,” he says. The chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee hearing, Wood has a lazy drawl that shows his origins in northern Georgia.

“I would like to read it,” Jake says.

“That will not be permitted.” Wood regards Jake with a dismissive sneer. “You may file it with the Committee.”

Fahl it wit’ the Committeh.

At which point no one will ever see it, Jake knows. And Wood knows it, too. The statement will end up buried in the voluminous proceedings of this committee’s poisonous activities. If it isn’t “misplaced” first.

Counsel for the HUAC hearing Frank Tavenner moves things along. “Where were you born?” he asks Jake again.

“Detroit, Michigan.”

“Who do you work for?”

Tavenner asks his questions in a calm, methodical voice, without looking up. From Virginia, he also has a marked southern drawl, but without Wood’s deep-south twang.

“I’ve worked for the Detroit News for eight years.”

“What is the nature of your work?”

“I’m a newspaper artist. I retouch photographs, create advertising layouts, and so on.”

“Have you drawn cartoons?”

“Yes.”

“For other papers besides the News?”

“Yes.”

“What papers?”

Jake leans toward his attorney seated next to him at the witness table in room 740 of the Federal Building in Detroit. This is the third day of the HUAC Communist-hunting hearings being held in the city, Jake’s first as a witness.

Heads together, they confer briefly. His attorney, Charles C. Cornish, whispers something and Jake straightens up and says, “I invoke my privilege under the Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer.”

Now Tavenner looks up at Jake. “You are taking the position that to divulge the name of the papers would incriminate you?”

“Correct.”

Tavenner signals his displeasure by holding Jake’s eye for a second too long before returning to his notes. “Have you always used your own name in signing your cartoons?”