BookLife Talks with Roland Jefferson
A sponsored Q&A with the author of 'Alice in Dreamland'

The BookLife Review called Alice in Dreamland an “unlikely conspiracy… presented with convincing detail” and “a timely frisson.” We spoke to Jefferson about his writing career, the genesis of Alice in Dreamland, and what to expect next from him.

What is the story behind this book?

Alice in Dreamland started with the publication of my first book, The School on 103rd Street, 40-plus years ago. I was in the military during the Vietnam era and everything was politicized. That was what informed my idea for that first writing effort. I had no training or courses in writing, but I forged ahead anyway. As it turned out, the political theme of the book struck a chord with the public. It went from hardcover to paperback to foreign translations to being taught in Black literature courses, which it is to this day. Fast-forward 40 years, and I started getting suggestions to write a sequel. I finally found a hook that worked when Donald Trump became president; I created a fictional story line about a president who wants to be president for life but loses. I picked up on the lingering bitterness and seething residual anger among Trump supporters after the January 6 insurrection and came up with a plot for the next insurrection with a unique twist.

Alice in Dreamland is your seventh book. Has your Has your writing process changed since your debut?

Oh, absolutely. Remember, I had no formal training in writing. When you compare that first novel with Alice in Dreamland, it looks archaic and crudely written. I knew nothing about paragraph indentations, the use of quotations, commas, periods, backstory, or character development. I was never a big reader during my high school and college years. I was reading Hemingway because I had to but not really paying attention to the style or the way the stories were constructed. But when I realized I wanted to write, I began rereading those books. I read Hemingway now for the brilliance of his style, his long expository sentences, his story line structure. Once I gravitated toward the crime genre, these books and their talented authors became where I really learned the craft of how to write character and dialogue. They became the source of my style and the way I write today.

Why or how do you think this book is particularly relevant now?

Alice in Dreamland is particularly relevant in this very day. Take, for example, the January 6 insurrection. The feelings of bitterness and hostility in the wake of that failure linger within a large segment of the American voting public, and much of the rhetoric infuses an ongoing racial animus that has surfaced through various media platforms. Alice in Dreamland is like a blueprint of what could actually happen in today’s political climate. I present the story from the point of view of a protagonist who harbors racial bias and what might happen if he acts on that bias.

Who is your ideal reader and why?

No doubt the ideal reader would be someone who likes conspiracy-themed novels with a political slant. I think this novel would appeal more to female readers than to male readers. There is a great deal of emotionality in all the characters, even the unlikable characters.

Are you working on a new book?

Yes. A sequel to White Coat Fever titled Runt that takes the characters to Vietnam and the years after the war’s end. Also, a story about a female detective chasing a serial killer with multiple personalities, but that book has no title as yet.