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ShareSometimes, when readers meet Stuart Woods, they make the mistake of addressing him as Stone.
As in Stone Barrington, a New York City cop-turned-lawyer who solves crimes while living large.
Woods, author of 26 consecutive New York Times bestsellers, has written 18 glib crime novels featuring Stone. The latest, “Lucid Intervals” (Putnam, $25.95), hits bookstore shelves this week.
Some of his readers, it seems, want to believe that Woods’ fantasy world of fine dining, fabulous women and lowlife criminals is at least a little bit autobiographical.
“I try to disabuse them of that notion,” he says. “I tell them that Stone is younger, slimmer and much luckier than I am.”
Woods, who does profess to be a “born-again bachelor,” says it’s fun to live vicariously through his most popular character. But the reality is that Stone Barrington sets the bar awfully high for any mere mortal bachelor to match. “One that I can’t clear,” Woods says.
We talked with the author earlier this month.
Q. Is it true that, 18 books ago, Stone Barrington wasn’t meant to become a series character? That his introduction in 1991’s “New York Dead” was supposed to be a stand-alone book?
A. Actually, none of my series characters have started out to be series. The first Stone Barrington book was, I believe, my eighth novel. And I wrote five or six more before I came back with the second Barrington book. But I like writing about him. And my readers like him. He’s my readers’ favorite character.
Q. One thing you do have in common with Stone is you’re an avid flier. You fly your own plane to all the stops on your book tour: Atlanta on a Tuesday; Dallas on a Wednesday; Scottsdale, Ariz., on a Thursday. Do you do the book tour merely so you can have an excuse to fly?
A. No, but I wouldn’t do these book tours if I had to take a commercial airline. I just can’t handle the airport experience. I much prefer to fly myself, landing in an airport like Love in Dallas, where a car pulls up to the airplane, takes my luggage and delivers me to a hotel. That’s my idea of the way to travel, not standing in security lines, crowded in by thousands of people.
Q. You were in your early 40s when your first novel, “Chiefs,” was published. Since then, as if making up for lost time, you’ve published 40 more books in 28 years. Now you’re cranking out three titles a year. Why do you work this hard?
A. It’s simple, really. I learned a long time ago that, unless you give a publisher a manuscript, he won’t give you any money. I’m not rich. I still have to work for a living.
Q. When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?
A. When I was 16, I read a piece in the Atlanta newspaper. I lived in Manchester, Ga. It was a fashion piece. The woman was writing about men’s clothing. And it was a funny piece. And I wrote her a letter saying that I thought women’s clothing was a lot funnier. She wrote me back and said, ‘I don’t know who you are, but you should be a writer.’ Since that was secretly what I wanted to do anyway, that was an enormous amount of encouragement. She was the first person who ever encouraged me to think of myself as a writer, the first person who made me think that I could actually do it.
Q. So why did it take you so long to get around to finishing that first novel?
A. I was suffering from the same thing other first-time novelists suffer from: fear that the book is not going to be as good as you’ve been telling your friends it’s going to be. If you don’t finish it, they’re never going to find you out. That’s why first novels take so long. The self-expectations are too big.
