SHELF AWARENESS interviews Jeff as a "BOOK BRAHMIN."
2010-01-13 18:32:18

In the January 13, 2010 online issue of the widely respected industry publication, "ShelfAwareness," Jeffrey was interviewed as a "Book Brahmin."  The complete text of the interview is as follows:

Book Brahmin: Jeffrey Siger

Jeffrey Siger was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pa. He practiced law at a Wall Street law firm and, while there, served as special counsel to the citizen's group responsible for reporting on New York City's prison conditions. He left for his own New York City law firm, until he gave it all up to write full time on Mykonos in Greece, his adopted home of 25 years.

His debut novel, A Murder in Mykonos, was the bestselling English-language book in Greece, and the sequel, Assassins of Athens, published by Poisoned Pen Press this month, is already among the top 10 bestsellers in Greece.

[Q] On your nightstand now:

[A] I'm embarrassed. It will ruin my image. I live on a 24/7 Greek party island, which means I should be reading People, Helloor, at most, a steamy bodice-ripper. But I promised to be truthful: Euripides's Alcestis, Medea, The Children of Heraclesand Hippolytus; Aeschylus's The Orestia; Nikos Katzentzakis'sThe Fratricides; and Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. But wait, I have my reasons. I write murder mysteries exploring modern Greek society that touch upon Greece's ancient roots and archetypes. Who better to learn from than playwrights expressing in real time what pleased their contemporary audiences? Now they're helping me welcome Medea, Clytemnestra and Electra to the 21st century in a book I'm about to begin. Katzantzakis, too, is research, for his writings led to his excommunication and so he shows me just how far is too far when involving the church. As for Diaz's gem, finding a Pulitzer Prize winner in English (at least mostly) in my local island bookstore was like finding Playboy in a bottle on a desert island. Which reminds me, there's probably one of those around here, too, somewhere under the nightstand.
 
[Q] Favorite book when you were a child:
 
[A] After describing my nightstand reading, would you believe me if I said the Bible? Me neither. It was Huckleberry Finn. What choice did I have? I grew up in Pittsburgh, where begins the mighty Ohio River.
 
[Q] Your top five authors:
 
[A] That's like being asked for my five favorite island bars. Guaranteed to make enemies of all the others. So, I'll hedge. My favorite authors are basically of the playwright sort. I'm hooked on great dialogue and thin things that fit in back pockets: Cormac McCarthy (just re-read The Sunset Limited), John Steinbeck (only a rare play, but fits the thin requirement), August Wilson (his pacing and people are perfect and, besides, we Pittsburghers must stick together), Samuel Beckett (his photo hangs in the only Irish bar on Mykonos, so how could I face him if I didn't include him) and J.M. Coetzee (his prose reads like plays to me).
 
[Q] Book you've faked reading:
 
[A] I'm still doing it. Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. I must have bought a half dozen copies in my life. First to impress that I was literate, then to impress that I was cool, and once actually to read it. Even had a friend named John Ga(u)lt. My last effort was at an airport bookstore facing a nine-hour plane ride, but when I left the plane, I left the book. I took that as a sign it's not meant to be.
 
[Q] Book you're an evangelist for:
 
[A] In my other life I dealt with people facing deep, personal crises. I was amazed at how so many, from the most literate to the virtually never-touched-a-book sort, found comfort in Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist. Never quite understood why, any more than why aspirin cures a headache, but it does and so I suggest it when the need appears.
 
[Q] Book you've bought for the cover:
 
[A] All I remember about it was wondering how did she ever get her legs in that position. No, it wasn't that kind of a book. Or maybe it was. Don't know, I never read it, just stared at the cover, unopened through puberty. Then one day it disappeared. I think my younger brother took it.
 
[Q] Book that changed your life:
 
[A] The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes. I'd hurt my back and was laid up for two months (I'm all better, thank you) and decided to read Victorian prose that came in relatively manageable chunks. Somehow I'd avoided mysteries until then. As the days of reading wore on into weeks, I found myself thinking like Holmes and solving the mysteries along with him. His introduction to the genre is why I write what I do. Thank you, A.C.D.
 
[Q] Favorite line from a book:
 
[A] I keep forgetting them, but my current favorite is:
 "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry."--Mark Twain in The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson.
 
[Q]Book you most want to read again for the first time:
 
[A] Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West. It's like a much too rich chocolate cake that you can't eat in one sitting. But you be the Judge.