Interview with Crime Writer Bob Hartley — S. 5, Ep. 22

Debbi Mack interviews crime writer Bob Hartley on the Crime Cafe podcast. For your podcasting needs, I use and recommend Blubrry Podcasting. I also recommend Stitcher Premium, if you’re a fan of podcasts. If you like true crime or crime fiction, there are loads of podcasts out there for you. And with Stitcher Premium you can listen to the exclusive archives from Criminology or bonus episodes from True Crime Garage. You can also listen ad-free to episodes of your favorite podcasts. I’ve subscribed, and for only $4.99 a month, it’s nice to have ad-free entertainment. Just go to www.stitcher.com/premium and use the promo code, CRIMECAFE, to try it out absolutely free for a month. Unfortunately, I can no longer provide transcription show notes, but will resume doing so when finances allow. I have tried to note at what time various discussion topics come up in include a few teaser quotes from the interview. "I grew up on the far West Side of Chicago, and that was the world that I grew up within. ... During that time, there was a lot of economic turmoil going on in the Seventies, and I witnessed it. A lot of racial turmoil, as well, and I witnessed all of that, and that has put a mark on me. I have difficulty writing about anything else." "Although I'm certainly glad that [North and Central is] looked upon as a noir novel---it captures that time and so forth---I think of it as a metaphor for the system itself. A lot of what we're experiencing right now. A lot of low-paying jobs, a lot of people without any real ... well, without a lot of hope." "Human beings like to think they're in control, but in reality, as we found out recently, you're not in control. And so we scramble to find some kind of control when we really don't have it. ... So, we're constantly trying to do that, but in reality, sometimes the situation ... you have no control." About the influence of Chicago writer, Nelson Algren: "When I read his books, I saw somebody who was looking at a neighborhood and actually writin