Writing on deadline

Cancer diagnosis leads to writing group, 3 novels for Cedar Rapids men

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MARCH 28, 2014 | 3:32 PM

It’s hard to find an upside to terminal cancer.

But Lennox Randon used that diagnosis to spur the writing of a slam-bang, take-no-prisoners, life-embracing crime novel. He also pulled together two other guys in a writers’ group, and they, too, have finished books.

It’s not a stretch to call that making the best of a bad situation by this 53-year-old Cedar Rapids man, who also has worked as a police officer, a technical writer and a stay-at-home dad.

Randon’s partners in crime-writing are Rob Cline, 42, the marketing director for Hancher Auditorium at the University of Iowa and The Gazette’s longtime book reviewer, and Dennis Green, 52, general manager of KCCK-FM, the jazz station at Kirkwood Community College.

Randon just published “Friends Dogs Bullets Lovers,” about a Dubuque cop who catches two hit men burying a body in an Iowa state park and has to be relocated (along with his best friend) to Austin, Texas. Cline just published “Murder by the Slice,” a zany tour de force featuring a mild-mannered (and unknowingly brave) pizza delivery driver. And Green’s “Traveler,” a science-fiction thriller about a cop who thinks his partner has died, will be published soon.

The three have been meeting once a week, off and on, for more than two years. They read and critique each other’s new pages, help each other with plot points and make sure Cline doesn’t use too many big words.

“Rob will never let me forget the time I told him that if I don’t know what a word means, it doesn’t belong in his book,” Green says with a laugh.

Randon met Cline while coaching Cline’s son in Lego League and suggested they get together to coach each other’s writing.

At first, Cline said no.

“Then Randon played the trump card,” Cline says. “He said cancer. I said yes.”

Green joined them three months later.

Cline had written five chapters in a novel 16 years ago but put it aside when his oldest child was born.

“I didn’t know what happened next,” he says. “I didn’t know the book was going to be about corporate espionage until they told me. I didn’t know who the bad guy was.”

The group helped Randon move from a chronological telling of his story to “going back and forth in time, to tease out the reveals a little differently,” Green says.

And they helped Green flesh out the story he’d mapped out. They’re still talking to him about one of his novel’s characters and her “interludes.”

“Everyone hates them,” Green harrumphs.

The small size of the group has made it work, along with all three writing in the same crime fiction genre. Plus the mutual trust and respect.

“We’re all kind of on the same level, so that’s helped,” Randon says. “We ask questions of each other and then go back and figure things out. … We plant seeds.”

“We like each other, we like spending time together, but these meetings are about the work,” Green adds. “We get down to business.”

A ‘welcome distraction’

Randon’s health, though, is never far from anyone’s mind.

Randon’s gastrointestinal cancer, diagnosed in September 2008, has metastasized. He’s been through surgeries and chemo. In December 2010, when new tumors were discovered, he and his wife, Dr. Lileah Harris, said their goodbyes. They tried last-ditch, targeted chemo that stopped the tumors from growing, but they also know the treatment typically stops working after two years.

“I’m neither an optimist nor a pessimist, but a realist. I hope for a longer life but don’t expect it,” Randon writes in his blog, lennoxrandon.com. (The blog contains a charming bio written by his daughter, Lark, when she was 11.)

Writing and experiencing reactions to his first novel, Randon says, are a “welcome distraction.” He’s still able to play tennis, scuba dive and snow ski. He’s working on his second book, “Memoirs of a Dead White Chick,” a historical fiction effort that his now-teenage daughter thinks is even better than his first book.

“I cannot tell you how in awe I am of the grace and calm that Randon brings to his condition,” Green says. “This is a guy who totally lives in the moment and takes every moment in life for what it is. If I were in his condition, I’d be a basket case every day.”

“It only hits me bad at night,” Randon says. “Also, I’ve thought about death for so long -—so many times I came close as a cop. I never expected to live past 30. I’m feeling pretty good. … So these are just bonus years for me.”

Green nods.

“Rob and I,” he says, “are learning things way beyond writing books.”

Interrogation: Rob Cline and Lennox Randon

Posted by John on April 21st, 2013 

Let’s say a friend of yours asks you to read his novel. Let’s say this friend has no track record as a novelist. Let’s say this friend dares to tread into waters you yourself are trying, with limited success, to navigate. Let’s say this friend then asks you to read another novel by someone you don’t know. Let’s say this other guy is fighting a terminal illness. Let’s say you don’t feel as if you can say “no.”

Let’s say you’re glad you didn’t. (We’ll also agree to quit saying “let’s say,” OK?)

The friend in question is Rob Cline. By day the director of marketing and communications for Hancher Auditorium at the University of Iowa; by night (or rather, in the morning  before work), an aspiring mystery writer. The friend of your friend is Lennox Randon, a former police officer and technical writer who seems to have “publishing a novel” on his bucket list… a list that is top of mind thanks to the metastatic GIST cancer with which he lives.

Cline’s book, Murder by the Slice, is likely the only mystery who’s main character is a pizza delivery guy. It’s also the funniest such book, a compliment that should carry considerably more weight than it does (see the part about this being the only one). That delivery guy, Paul Chambers, stumbles into the aftermath of a murder, and spends the rest of the book trying to figure out what happened while working to avoid becoming the next victim. It’s an amusing book that will put readers in the mind of Lawrence Block, Lisa Lutz and Brad Parks.

Randon’s book Friends Dogs Bullets Lovers, has its funny moments, but it is a more serious, slightly grittier tale. Friends Noah and Lee are out walking their dogs one night when they see some mob guys dumping a body. Soon, these two are hustled away to Austin, Texas, in the Witness Protection Program. The problem? Noah is a cop and Lee is an EMT, and neither can practice their profession in their new lives…. which doesn’t stop them from starting their own private investigation firm on the side. The banter between these two will keep you invested in this story, reminding me of dynamic duos like Joe E. Lansdale’s Hap and Leonard or the pair in Todd Robinson’s recent The Hard Bounce.

These two books were largely crafted while Cline and Randon were part of a writer’s group. As such, I thought it might be illuminating to allow them to interview one another.

Lennox Randon: There’s not much that is traditional about my book, but at least my protagonist is an ex-cop and his sidekick is an emergency medical tech. How the frak did you decide that a pizza delivery guy with a philosophy degree could be a marketable hero and a septuagenarian could be a believable sidekick?

Rob Cline: Well, Paul Chambers, my pizza delivery guy, grew out of my own experiences as a pizza delivery driver back in the day. While I never found a dead guy, I had plenty of odd things happen out there on my rounds (including some of the things that happen to Paul in Murder by the Slice), so I had a good collection of memories and stories to flesh out Paul’s “career.” As for Mrs. Lopshire…You know, she just appeared on the page when I was writing the scene about Paul going to church. No premeditation or consideration at all. Next thing I knew, she was integral to the story, and she seems to be a lot of folks’ favorite character. (And she’s an octogenarian!)

Did you have any characters pop up like that, or was your cast preset from the beginning?

LR: Several minor characters, such as the security guard, the taco stand woman, and Rachel’s mother, just developed as I was keyboarding and were pleasant, albeit brief, surprises. In the chapter, Geriatric Hump Night, though, I got a full mini-case for the budding detective to resolve based on a brain flash that a somewhat older woman might want to find out if her previously enthusiastically devoted husband was stepping out on her.

By the way, I haven’t had a knife fight since the ’80s, so I want to thank you publicly for trying to stab me with your mighty pen. Have you ever fought a baseball backstop netting in real life like one of your characters, delivered to a naked person, or experienced anything in real life like the things which Paul experienced?

RC: That baseball scene – which unfolds like a farce with all kinds of wacky mayhem – is wholly made up, though Paul and I do share a desire to sit in the stands that are protected by a net, and for much the same biographical reason. As for some of Paul’s other exploits, I did, in fact, deliver to a hotel room occupied by a man and two naked women, and I did have a regular customer whose religious beliefs mandated that we take extra special care with his pizza. There are several things like that in the book. And there are a few delivery stories from my past that didn’t make it into this story. That’s what sequels are for.

As for that knife fight, I was happy to help you work that out by acting it out. I was less happy to lose every time.

As you incorporated your own experience as a police officer into your book, how hard was it to balance realism with the needs of your plot? Did you find yourself fudging any details? (Somehow, my experience as a pizza courier seems so much less heroic than your experience as a cop. Don’t know why that would be.)

LR: I made a conscious decision early on to be as authentic as possible with regards to both the action and the detecting capabilities of the protagonists. If the plot tried to take me to an unrealistic place, I tweaked the plot. Although TV can generally be relied on to present a realistic portrayal of real-life (he said, tongue firmly in cheek), I made certain to avoid some of TV’s more egregious mistakes with regards to cop behavior. I made sure that everything the hero did, I had either done or was capable of doing in my prime.

To change the topic a bit, would I have been able to convince you to join me in a writing group if I’d only courted you at the Hawkeye football game, or was my stupid cancer the pivotal piece of persuasion? Should cancer shoulder some of the credit/blame for our two books, as well as the forthcoming novel, Traveler, by our third group member Dennis Green?

RC: Ah, cancer. A powerful motivator. So, here’s the thing: I was certainly flattered that you thought I could both get my book done and help you get your book done, but mine had been dormant for so long (15 years-ish!) that I really thought it was something I’d never finish. The cancer card is a trump card though. I mean, I could hardly say no to a guy with a goal and a… um… deadline. All banter aside, this is probably a good spot to share a bit about the “stupid cancer” and why writing a book was an important goal while you’re facing that challenge.

LR: Cancer is a sneaky SOB. I thought I’d kicked its butt after 13 months of daily chemo, but it returned in December 2010 with vengeance on its mind. My GIST cancer had metastasized into “innumerable” tumors according to the radiologist. Surgery was recommended, but I was told I would die either during or shortly after the surgery.

Fortunately, the oncologist arrived and recommended mega chemo instead of surgery. Thus far, the chemo is suppressing but not killing the tumors. It will fail, but I’ve enjoyed two bonus years in which I’ve completed a novel and helped others too. My hope is that after I’m gone, my wife, daughter, and friends read it when they think of me and remember what a goofball I was.

So, why do you think the group method worked so well for us, although I realize there might be the odd reader who takes issue with my use of the word ‘well’?

RC: It’s all about the accountability. When I got stuck back in the day, it was all too easy to shelve the project. But I was (am) accountable to you guys. I have to show up with pages. Even with bad pages. And the reward for doing that is that you two can help make my pages better and can help me get through those moments when I have no idea what’s going to happen next in the book. Sometimes you can help by giving me some ideas. Sometimes you can help just by encouraging me not to give up. And I think we each bring some unique skills to the table. You’re really good at action scenes, and you were able to help me make my action scenes better. Dennis has a great ear for the way dialogue (and narration) should sound. And I… well, I must bring something to the table.

But you’d been working independently until the flood of 2008 rolled through our town and stole your preferred writing spot (along with many, many other things). What made you think that switching to a group setting would work for you?

LR: I knew it couldn’t hurt to have someone to be accountable to. Without you and Dennis, it was far too easy to quit when I couldn’t focus or suffered writer’s block. Moreover, since this was my first book, I needed the reassurance you guys provided that my writing and ideas weren’t too far out of the mainstream and didn’t totally draw air in a specified direction by creating a vacuum (I was gonna say ‘suck,’ but I know Mr. Kenyon runs a genteel publication). I figured, who better to get criticism from than a guy who reads constantly and writes book reviews (that’s Rob, for those readers unfamiliar with his work for the local newspaper, The Gazette)?

Do you have any favorite authors, and do you see your style as being similar to any other authors?

RC: I think Murder by the Slice is similar in tone to Lawrence Block’s “Burglar” books and has some things in common with Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novels. The esteemed Mr. Kenyon suggested to me that they might appeal to readers of Lisa Lutz’ or Brad Parks’ novels, and who am I to argue? And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. That’s really the book that first made me realize that a novel could be laugh-out-loud funny. The late Mr. Adams was much funnier than I, but that book is a touchstone for sure.

What about your influences and favorites?

LR: Originally, I was shooting for the action and humor of Robert Crais’ early Elvis Cole books, but with the introspection of John Irving and the pop culture references of Nick Hornby. I briefly considered adding hunky vampires and Chupacabras to make the romance more angst-filled, but soon realized I lacked the requisite skill to integrate that into my plot.

After the cancer metastasized, I decided to make it more personal and worry less about staying within a genre.

I’m also fan of Michael Connelly, Lawrence Block, Jim Butcher, Octavia Butler, Walter Mosley and Charlaine Harris among others. And, like the protagonist of Friends Dogs Bullets Lovers, my favorite book is Watership Down by Richard Adams.