Photo Credit: Muller
Lee Matthew Goldberg is the author of twelve novels including The Ancestor and The Mentor along with his five-book Desire Card series. He has been published in multiple languages and nominated for the Prix du Polar. After graduating with an MFA from the New School, his writing has also appeared in CrimeReads, Pipeline Artists, LitHub, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Millions, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, LitReactor, Mystery Tribune, The Big Idea, Monkeybicycle, Fiction Writers Review, Cagibi, Necessary Fiction, Hypertext, If My Book, Past Ten, the anthology Dirty Boulevard, (Screen)Play Press, The Montreal Review, The Adirondack Review, The New Plains Review, Maudlin House and others. He is the co-curator of The Guerrilla Lit Reading Series and lives in New York City.
Greatest thing you learned at school.
I took a novel writing class my senior year in high school and when the school year ended my teacher said to continue writing this book over the summer and to send him chapters. I realized he only asked me out of the whole class, and that was when I realized I had it in me to be a writer professionally.
When/how did you realize you had a creative dream or calling to fulfill?
That novel writing class did it, but when I was a kid, a different teacher allowed me to write a fictional story every day in my journal instead of having the assignment be like a diary. By the end of the year, I had over 100 pages and was addicted to telling stories.
Beyond your own work (of course), what is your all-time favorite book and why? And what is your favorite book outside of your genre?
Probably Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. When I first read it, all my writing became super gothic and tried to mimic its brilliance. I like the strange and unusual and that book oozes strange and unusual.
What advice would you give to someone who wanted to have a life in writing?
Get ready to deal with so much rejection. It will hurt you. It will make you want to give up. But it will also make you better. You have to be a hustler and believe in yourself, even when it seems like no one else does.
Can you tell us when you started THE GREAT GIMMELMANS, how that came about?
Originally, I wanted to write about a family in the 1930s that robs banks after losing all their money in the Depression. But then Covid happened, and I just didn’t want to write a depressing book, so I moved the era to the 1980s and it just opened up the story and became that much more fun. It became my escape in 2020 from the real world.
What were your feelings when your first novel was accepted/when you first saw the cover of the finished product?
I love the cover! I was shown three covers, but I knew immediately that this cover would be the one. My publisher listened to notes I had before and created what’s probably one of my favorite covers of all my books.
Your Journey to Publication
It’s been a long journey. While I’ve always wanted to be a writer, my first book came out in 2015. I’d had some short stories published and went to the New School for my MFA. I had an agent but we weren’t able to sell my first novel about a guy who can eat the hottest Chile peppers in existence because it was too “out there.” I pulled out another novel I had written because my agent liked the pitch and we tried with that, only to be rejected by dozens of editors. Finally, we tried this small crime publisher New Pulp Press (the book Slow Down has been reissued since), and the editor there liked it for every reason that bigger editors passed. A month after it came out, I got a deal for my second book The Mentor with St. Martin’s Press. Twelve books later I still haven’t sold the child pepper eating book, but maybe now is the time?
I took a novel writing class my senior year in high school and when the school year ended my teacher said to continue writing this book over the summer and to send him chapters. I realized he only asked me out of the whole class, and that was when I realized I had it in me to be a writer professionally.
When/how did you realize you had a creative dream or calling to fulfill?
That novel writing class did it, but when I was a kid, a different teacher allowed me to write a fictional story every day in my journal instead of having the assignment be like a diary. By the end of the year, I had over 100 pages and was addicted to telling stories.
Beyond your own work (of course), what is your all-time favorite book and why? And what is your favorite book outside of your genre?
Probably Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. When I first read it, all my writing became super gothic and tried to mimic its brilliance. I like the strange and unusual and that book oozes strange and unusual.
What advice would you give to someone who wanted to have a life in writing?
Get ready to deal with so much rejection. It will hurt you. It will make you want to give up. But it will also make you better. You have to be a hustler and believe in yourself, even when it seems like no one else does.
Can you tell us when you started THE GREAT GIMMELMANS, how that came about?
Originally, I wanted to write about a family in the 1930s that robs banks after losing all their money in the Depression. But then Covid happened, and I just didn’t want to write a depressing book, so I moved the era to the 1980s and it just opened up the story and became that much more fun. It became my escape in 2020 from the real world.
What were your feelings when your first novel was accepted/when you first saw the cover of the finished product?
I love the cover! I was shown three covers, but I knew immediately that this cover would be the one. My publisher listened to notes I had before and created what’s probably one of my favorite covers of all my books.
Your Journey to Publication
It’s been a long journey. While I’ve always wanted to be a writer, my first book came out in 2015. I’d had some short stories published and went to the New School for my MFA. I had an agent but we weren’t able to sell my first novel about a guy who can eat the hottest Chile peppers in existence because it was too “out there.” I pulled out another novel I had written because my agent liked the pitch and we tried with that, only to be rejected by dozens of editors. Finally, we tried this small crime publisher New Pulp Press (the book Slow Down has been reissued since), and the editor there liked it for every reason that bigger editors passed. A month after it came out, I got a deal for my second book The Mentor with St. Martin’s Press. Twelve books later I still haven’t sold the child pepper eating book, but maybe now is the time?
What is the first job you have had?
Camp Counselor.
What is the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning?
Breakfast
What is your most memorable travel experience?
A trip to the Amazon where I lived with shaman on a tour for two weeks.
What do you usually think about right before falling asleep?
If I’m working on a book, it’s usually that.
What was your favorite subject when you were in school?
Writing, English.
What is one unique thing are you afraid of?
Sting-Rays. Hate ‘em.
What is the weirdest thing you have seen in someone else’s home?
I saw someone’s hair catch on fire once, that was pretty weird.
When the Gimmelmans lose all their money in the 1987 Stock Market Crash, Barry Gimmelman takes his family in their vacation RV for a wild ride through America that leads to them becoming the most notorious bank robbers of the era.
Middle child Aaron watches as his family goes from a mild-mannered reform Jewish clan to having over a million dollars of stolen money stuffed in their RV’s cabinets while being pursued by the FBI and loan sharks. But it wasn’t always like that. His father Barry made a killing as a stockbroker, his mother Judith loved her collection of expensive hats, his older sister Steph was obsessed with pop stars, and little sister Jenny loved her stuffed possum, Seymour.
At first, the family steals from convenience and liquor stores, but when they hit a bank, they realize the talent they possess. The money starts rolling in and brings the family closer together where back at home no one had any time for bonding due to their busy schedules. But Barry’s desire for more, more, more will take its toll on the Gimmelmans, and Aaron is forced into an impossible choice: turn against his father, or let his family fall apart.
You can purchase The Great Gimmelmans at the following Retailers:
And now, The Giveaways.
Thank you LEE MATTHEW GOLDBERG for making this giveaway possible.
1 Winner will receive a Copy of The Great Gimmelmans by Lee Matthew Goldberg.
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