Michael McAuliffe
Author Interview - Michael McAuliffe
Author I draw inspiration from:
For the reading experience––Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy’s stories are intense and moving. His writing is unadorned and forceful. His style is different than other writers I admire (for example, Gabriel García Márquez), but McCarthy pulls me in close (despite not always wanting to know what happens next) by his distinctive manner of storytelling. I read All the Pretty Horses and became a committed adherent of the harsh, violent fantastic stories McCarthy creates. His later novel The Road resonates with many (including me) in the story’s depiction of the boundless devotion of a father to his son.
Author Interview - Michael McAuliffe
For imitation––Scott Turow. I aspired in my debut novel to tell a dramatic story using the law as one of the major characters––or at least having the law as the permanent fixture of the story. As a budding author of legal fiction, I consume Turow’s books with care and attention. As former federal prosecutors, we both learned about the law and the criminal justice system by drinking from a common well. I enjoy his authentic stories and his way of sharing them.
Author Interview - Michael McAuliffe
Favorite place to read a book: Lounging on the couch at our home in Chilmark, MA.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with: Tom Sawyer (because he’d get us out, and we’d have a great time figuring out how even though he’d have me do the work). Sawyer is young, but world-wise in ways I’m not (or wasn’t in my early teens). Sawyer is the archetype friend one wants in order to get into, and then out of, trouble. Maybe he was the one who caused the elevator to get stuck in the first place!
Author Interview - Michael McAuliffe
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author: As a child listening to my mom read us bedtime story books.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook: Paperback (but one with offset printing and a thick cover).
The last book I read: Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide by Tony Horwitz. Spying on the South is a wonderful blending of an honestly rendered tale of introspection and self-discovery with a healthy measure of history added. An unbeatable combination for me. His unexpected death last year was a terrible loss. His real and lasting legacy––beyond his family––will be his enviable body of work as a non-fiction writer of sincerity and soul.
Author Interview - Michael McAuliffe
Pen & paper or computer: MacBook Air
Book character I think I’d be best friends with: Scout Finch (as a grown-up).
Author Interview - Michael McAuliffe
If I wasn’t an author, I’d be a: Climbing guide.
Place I’d most like to travel: Antarctica (because I haven’t been).
My signature drink: Manhattan or latte (depending on the time of day).
Favorite artist:
Visual––Georgia O’Keeffe (for now). Her body of work is bold, different and often sensual. I admire the way she lived her life with fierce independence.
Musical––Avett Brothers (for now). I simply enjoy listening to their songs as emotional impressions in the sand. They may not be permanent, but they are memorable.
Number one on my bucket list: See our children more.
Anything else you'd like to add: Thanks for reading to the end.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Michael McAuliffe is the author of No Truth Left to Tell and has been a practicing lawyer for thirty years. He was a federal prosecutor serving both as a supervisory assistant US attorney in the Southern District of Florida and a trial attorney in the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC. Michael and his wife Robin Rosenberg, a US district judge, have three children and live in Florida and Massachusetts. For more information, please visit https://notruthlefttotell.com/
Author Interview - Michael McAuliffe
