In an interview from Spain, the multi-talented Luke Goebel shared some insights to his newย novel, Kill Dick. Goebel is the co-writer of feature films such as Eileen, starring Anne Hathaway, and Causeway, starring Jennifer Lawrence. In Kill Dick, he combines murder, drug addiction, privilege, and corporate greed with literary style and raw emotion.
Judith Erwin: Can you share with readers where the idea for Kill Dick originated?
Luke Goebel: Kill Dick had really two origins. I was staying in Reese Witherspoon’s gated community and had met this woman who, once upon a time, went to NYU and wanted to be an artist. I was interested in this idea of a child of privilege who wants to be an artist and isn’t quite getting there? When you have so much, abundance and access to the upper echelons of LA, but you just can’t make it? In Los Angeles, unlike other places in the world, the dream is to be creative and creatively relevant. You can have everything in LA, but if you can’t make something out of it in terms of creative work, you don’t get to be in the highest circle. Everybody wants to be famous. To put it simply, for somebody who wants to be an artist, they want to be seen. Then, my brother died of an OxyContin overdoseโmy only brother. And I had to find a way that these two interacted. I wanted to tell about my brother, which actually came after I had already begun writing her [Susie Vogelman] character. Then, I realized if her father is the primary attorney to the family that makes OxyContin, and she’s addicted to the drug, we’ve got a recipe.
JE: How would you describe Kill Dick?
LG: I guess I would call it a thriller that is also a sunshine noir. It’s like a luxurious, sun-dappled, hyper-saturated portrait of Los Angeles in all of its stratified glory and problems that work as a noir. Like USA Today said, it was like a love letter to LA’s darkness and light. I think that’s a nice way to put it. And in a way, a microcosm of the same portrait of the country. I think that it’s a love letter and a Jeremiah to America. It’s a book to look at the darkness of our times and our society and to remember the light of just how beautiful nature can be, how beautiful flowers can be, how beautiful art can be, and how we’re supposed to be seeing human beings. I think we’re supposed to care for each other, especially the most vulnerable, underrepresented, and underprivileged people who are in the most amount of desperation. And so, the book uses the genres of noir and thriller not to celebrate violence, those elements are used as a reminder and an analogy for the fact that so many innocent people were killed in a way that isn’t glamorous.
JE: As a successful producer and screenwriter, do you envision Kill Dick becoming a film?
LG: Yeah. The film, the book, is in development for a limited series. It has writers attached, and I’m excited. I didn’t set out to write a book that would be adaptable, but I did set out to write a book that had elements that would make people want to keep reading and would be able to speak for the people that no one wants to listen to. By means of creating an analogy of a thriller element, these people are being killed mercilessly as a metaphor for the kind of capitalism run riotโthe irresponsibility of a greedy enterprise.
JE: Before author, producer, screenplay writer, was there another career in your life?
LG: I started writing when I was about eleven. I started writing poetry. I was always really fascinated with narrative, I think from listening to musicโsinger-songwriters in the Americana and folk traditions, especially the kind of music that Harry Smith protected with his anthologies that fueled the return to interest in folk with the likes of Bob Dylan and that kind of devout interest in lyricism. After releasing my first novel, which was a prize-winning novel called 14 Stories, None of Them Are Yours, I taught for 10 years until I met my wife who is an author, Ottessa Moshfegh. I taught for maybe the first year or two of our marriage before we started screenwriting together. But I was still working on this novel, Kill Dick.
JE: How does collaboration with someone who you have a personal relationship with work?
LG: I used to be a true idealist in the sense that I thought if we could all work and live together, share space and resources, we could have some kind of idealistic utopian, communal livingโuntil I was married. And then I realized how hard it is to be with one person, let alone get a whole group of people together to work together. You start to understand the dysfunctions of societies when you try to make something with just one person you’re in love with. That said, it’s also extremely exciting and facile when it’s working well. I’m someone who comes up with a lot of ideas very quickly, but I’m not always 100% certain that it’s great. When you’re with somebody else, there’s this instant litmus test, where you can think through it together. When it’s going well, it’s extremely fast. You’ve got two brains when you’re with the person you love. When it’s going well, it can be really, really exciting. When it’s not going, well, it’s a war of egos that brings up everything that has come before it.
JE: Do you have another book planned?
LG: Yeah, I have a book that I’m playing with the idea of writing. I don’t think I want to talk about it just yet, other than it’s like a Highsmithianโsort of a talented Mr. Ripley. It is set in the south of France and about social climbing, and desperation. The only other thing I’d want to say is I was really, happily influenced by some fantastic LA novels like The Day of the Locust, Play It as It Lays, and more recently, The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis. I was really pleased when I stumbled upon the idea of these murders of the underprivileged, unhoused, addicted in these motel rooms in Los Angeles and was shocked when they actually started happening. The other thing I’ll say is I really do love the homeless. I really do love the underprivileged, and I just feel that I want to continue to do my work with the nonprofit but also go out, advocate, and assist people in need. It’s probably the thing I enjoy most in life.
JE: In closing, now that Kill Dick is completed, what is next? Novel? Film?
LG: I’m here in Ibiza to write a script for a remake of The Big Sleep with Ali Abbasi, who directed The Apprentice. He is a very talented Persian filmmaker who lives in Copenhagen. But I’m doing a lot of things right now. Iโm working on about four or five films. I have a production company–Omniscient Productions–like the omniscient point of view. And I just bought half of a publishing company called Tyrant Books.
Judith Erwin is a retired attorney, journalist, and award-winning author of romantic suspense and crime fiction, including the series Shepherd & Associates. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Florida Writers Association, and the FBI Citizens Academy Alumni Association.
