Today we’d like to introduce you to Howard Kaplan.
Hi Howard, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
While an undergraduate at Berkeley, I made two trips into the Soviet Union, long before the fall of the Berlin Wall, to meet and help dissidents. I smuggled out a novel on microfilm to London from Moscow successfully. I brought Western novels and Hebrew textbooks, unavailable in the Soviet Union to both the Democratic and underground Hebrew teachers movement in Moscow. On my second trip, while in Kharkov (now known as Kharkiv) in the Ukraine the KGB arrested me. I was interrogated for two days in Kharkov and two in Moscow and then expelled to London. At Moscow Airport one of the KGB interrogators said, “I don’t want to see anything written about this or we can find you anywhere and next time we won’t be so humanistic.” I thought, and I was 21 so far cockier than I am now, I want to write about this, to expose injustice. I did ultimately write a novel about it. I was propelled by this experience to be a thriller writer as I write about moral and immoral causes, injustice and felt I could reach a larger audience by writing suspense novels about it. My new novel, THE SYRIAN SUNSET, is about the Syrian Civil War, the failure of the West to save the Syrian people, and how that inaction against the Russian incursion in Syria emboldened Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I’m what they call in the book business, a mid-list author. It means I’m not a generally known name, but I’m not a first-timer either. My novel, THE DAMASCUS COVER, was filmed 40 years after it’s initial publication in a small indie film with substantial stars: Sir John Hurt in his final picture and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. It had a limited theatrical release and then is now on streaming, free on Tubi. I get interviewed on podcasts and in print but it’s always pushing to get the thrillers noticed as people are not banging down my door to talk to me. It took ten years to finalize the financing for THE DAMASCUS COVER. At times I’m patient, at others frustrated that it’s not easier.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My novels are probably most known for their attention to detail and description of locales. When Dutton bought THE DAMASCUS COVER, I flew to New York and my editor said: I want a rewrite. He handed me a novel HARRY’S GAME by Gerald Seymour about Belfast. He explained that he could smell, and taste Belfast. He said read it and do this for Damascus. It was a life-changing lesson as a writer. I wrote the tourist bureau in Damascus and they mailed me a huge wall map so my characters would know their way around the city. Recently I received a review of THE SYRIAN SUNSET where the reviewer wrote about an early scene where the Syrian Secret Police headquarters are blown up in a fertilizer bomb, an actual historical event, “I could smell the cordite.” I do a lot of research and people to tell me they learn a lot from the thrillers.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
Enjoying what is sufficient. As a writer, as in many fields, you need to make peace with what is enough. People who strive for money often despite what they have amassed, never feel it’s sufficient. It’s the same with many careers. Sure I’d have loved for the film adaptation of my novel to play in every multi-plex rather than in art house theaters. But it was made which is an enormous success so success is appreciating what you have.
Pricing:
- Kindle of The Syrian Sunset $7.99
- Paperback of The Syrian Sunset $12.99
- Paperback of The Damascus Cover $13.99
- Kindle of The Damascus Cover $4.99
Contact Info:
- Website: https://howardkaplanbooks.com
- Instagram: @kaplanhow
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/howard.kaplan.359
