James Stejskal spent 35 years as a “Green Beret” and CIA case officer living and conducting operations around the world during the Cold War and after 9/11. He has written five military history books, along with numerous articles, and received accolades for his book Masters of Mayhem: Lawrence of Arabia and the British Military Mission to the Hejaz. His fiction centers on intelligence and special operations and Dead Hand is the fourth book in his The Snake Eater Chronicles. He lives in northern Virginia with his wife, Wanda.
We’ve interviewed him ahead of the launch of the fourth book in The Snake Eater Chronicles.
Phil: James, I have a lot of things that I’m dying to ask you, but to start off, let’s dive deep into your past. What first motivated you to join the military?
James: My father was my Number 1 mentor. He joined the army in 1941 and fought in WW2. Early on he encouraged me to do anything I wanted to be, so I followed his example and volunteered. I was going to use the army as a stepping stone to other adventures but then it became my adventure and I stayed.
I can relate to that, though in my case it was my grandfather. He was born in inner-city London, but the war took him to North Africa, Iraq, India, Nepal and Burma. It opened his mind up to the wider world, and it inspired me to both join the military and to travel widely.
When did you start thinking about writing?
As a youngster, every time I read a book, I wanted to live the story. Then as I lived my own story I wanted to share it… but it took me a long while before I felt I could put something on paper that people would enjoy reading. I started writing journals when I was about 20 years old and have just continued. I started my first book when I was 30 and it only took 30 more years to finish it.
I think there is something to the idea of coming to writing later in life. I studied literature and enjoyed writing when I was younger, but I didn’t know what to write about. Now I have the opposite problem – I don’t have time to write all of the stories that I want to write. And this isn’t just because I am writing about my own experiences, it’s that I have so many more things I want to say, and I have a wealth of experiences to draw upon to help me say them.
That’s my problem. Unlike many writers who can crank out 2 or 3 novels a year, I am lucky to get 100 words on a page per day either because I am a sloth or I find something else that distracts me. Oh, look! A squirrel!
How do you draw on your experiences in your writing?
Very carefully. I like to draw my characters from people I have worked with, others are created from known personalities (usually the antagonists, but not always). That said, I try not to make anyone really angry with me, so they are really well camouflaged.
I do much the same, and I haven’t been caught yet. But what I am pulling from people I know are things they may not recognize about themselves – an attitude, a mannerism or a manner of speaking, or something that adds depth without copying them wholesale. This goes back to the idea of drawing on my experiences rather than just relating them.
The scenarios (plots) come from reality, things I’ve seen and experienced or tales I’ve been told by friends. I’m not much for sci-fi or alternate realities, I prefer historical fiction based in fact.
There is a lot of room for creativity in between the known facts of different events. I’m a fan of American crime fiction writer James Ellroy, and I love his approach to historical events. His works don’t focus on the big names associated with them, but instead on the cronies, lackies and bagmen who do the dirty work behind the scenes.
In that vein, I would throw out Laurent Binet’s “HHhH” — a nonfiction novel about the assassination of German SS General Reinhard Heydrich by Czech Special Operations Executive agents during WW2 — as a great journalistic interpretation, both exciting and fun, of history.
You write both fiction and non-fiction, which is fairly unusual. Why those two forms?
For stories that could not be otherwise told, I tell them as fiction. As Albert Camus put it: “Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”
I find myself coming back to this quote all the time!
Because I am required to submit my work to the government’s pre-publication aka “pre-pub” review process—a lifetime obligation for us security clearance holders—writing it as fiction makes the whole thing easier. It’s a fig leaf for the powers that be. It’s also fun because I can tinker with the facts.
I enjoy this aspect of writing historical fiction as well. Especially where there isn’t an agreed upon set of facts about how something unfolded, and I can provide a logical explanation that highlights some aspect of the period or situation, ideally in a surprising way. This gets back to that quote by Camus, where fiction is the means to tell a truth.
But I enjoy writing non-fiction about special ops and guerrilla warfare, everything from my “Lawrence of Arabia and the British Military Mission to the Hejaz – The Seeds of British Special Operations” to “No Moon as Witness: Missions of the SOE and OSS in World War Il.”
Which I imagine just provides more fodder for your fiction!
It does. I have one book in the back of my mind that involves a German airship supporting guerrilla warfare operations in East Africa during World War I. Both aspects I mention took place… but I plan on taking them further. Think of the movie Africa Queen but with a Zeppelin and the underdogs are 300 German soldiers fighting against British Empire troops numbering in the several thousands.
Like most writers, I know that you’re an avid reader. Who do you typically read?
Typically? No one single author… maybe Charles McCarry, V. S. Naipaul, Tolkien, Jaroslav Hašek, Fleming, Hemingway, Graham Greene, Forsyth, David Cornwell, Michael Beckner, James McBride.…. why select only one?
I wasn’t expecting just one author, but that’s a pretty eclectic mix! I love that you mention Czech-author Jaroslav Hašek, best known for his anti-war novel The Good Soldier Švejk. I’m a sucker for absurdist war literature, though I also love the subtler anti-war literature of the same period by Erich Maria Remarque. Everyone knows All Quiet on the Western Front, but it’s not the best of his novels at all.
Remarque is another good choice. The ones I named are just some of my favorite fiction novelists. There are many more and then come the non-fiction historians!
What advice would you give people considering pursuing a career in writing?
The only advice I know: Just start writing your own story. There is no other way and it’s not easy.
I think that the idea of “writing what you know,” akin to writing your own life story, trips up a lot of new writers. But it’s not so much about writing your own story verbatim, but pulling from your experiences to create something new.
Yes, indeed. I really mean you must write your own style of story the best way you can in your own personal voice and never trying to imitate another writer. Then just begin however you can and stay at it.
Nearly two decades of the Global War on Terror has created a huge number of veterans in the United States, and also a growing number of veteran authors. What do you think the impact of this will be on 21st century American literature?
There were more veterans after Vietnam and WWII.
Very true.
In my opinion, what has really changed the literature world is the proliferation of self-publishing. For better or worse, that means many more authors came make their voices heard. Add in social media you have a completely different world of storytelling that reaches many more readers and listeners. Sometimes there is a lot of noise and then sometimes a new and wonderful story emerges that we might have missed.
That’s an interesting thought, that it’s harder to pick out the signal from the noise. And this doesn’t just relate to veterans writing, but to everything. It’s both easier to get your message out and harder for it to be heard. It creates a bit of a conundrum, and I’m not sure there’s really a solution to this problem.
And then you add in the use of AI in writing and movie making and it starts to get even more complicated.
The past two years have been hard for a lot of people. Has the pandemic changed your view on the role of the artists/writers within society?
Not really. It has made everyday business more difficult and exacerbated tensions between two core groups of people in our country, but artists/writers keep on doing what they do — seeing the world as they do and interpreting it in their own fashion or creating something entirely new for everyone to enjoy.
The pandemic is fading into the background of memory at this point, but in the depths of it, I know that people turned to books, films and television for escape, and to fill the hours spent in isolation. I think that people might have suddenly had a greater appreciation for the value of these forms of art, though it looks like whatever that appreciation was has faded now.
I really hope that is true. It seems like people are open to explore more and different styles of art, which is never bad. Some will thrive, some (the bad) will disappear with time as they tend to do.
And like you, I just kept on writing through the pandemic as usual. It was actually a very productive time for me personally, though I recognize that my experience was not necessarily the norm.
I no longer know what the norm is. When I was “employed,” I followed a schedule because I had to. Now, I can do whatever I like. I set my schedule pretty much by myself (wife, doctor, and occasional other intrusions notwithstanding) and just go with it.
What are you writing now that “Dead Hand” is done?
I am currently writing two books. One is the prologue to the Snake Eater Chronicles which begins in 1956 – a secret Special Forces unit is set up in Berlin and is immediately embroiled in the great power rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union at the street level. All kinds of interesting folks from both sides of the Berlin Wall will make their debut in this story.
I’m already intrigued by this!
The second is a bit farcical… A renowned chef in the employ of a foreign Ambassador in Washington D.C. defects rather than return to his home country. Now he must protect his family from a ruthless security service, as well as the security service of a jealous competitor country, both of whom want his ancient recipes. Constantly on the move, he must hide and survives only by secretly cooking pop-up meals for people who have sworn to protect him and his craft.
Okay, this ties back to Švejk!
Well, I am part Czech, so I identify with him and beer!
By the way, my latest military history “Mission Iran: Special Forces Berlin & Operation Eagle Claw JTF 1-79” (non-fiction) is in the final stages of production. It’s expected out in mid-2024 (once the pre-pub review is done!!).
I wasn’t aware that there was a Berlin connection to Eagle Claw, so I’m especially intrigued to read this one. Is that connection generally well known already, or is it something that you’re breaking ground on revealing?
The participation of SF Berlin in Eagle Claw was one of the few successes of the operation. That and much other unknown ground is being revealed in this book.
In 2016, my history of “Special Forces Berlin” broke the story which had been classified since its inception in 1956 and throughout the Cold War. It only took the Defense Department 16 months to clear my manuscript (with few redactions, luckily).
What are you currently reading or have you just read that you would recommend?
I’m working on Michael Beckner’s “Berlin Mesa” which is a rollicking WW2 thriller and story of escaped Nazi prisoners of war versus Cowboys in New Mexico. Completely unique with love, redemption, violence, and spies.
This is a new one for me, but it sounds great. In fact, it sounds like it should be a film.
I would also recommend a Pulitzer Prize winner, “G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century” by Beverly Gage. A long but an extremely well-written history of the life and times of Hoover and his FBI.
I looked at this one, but the length was a bit off-putting. It’s hard to cover this topic without being expansive, but somehow I wish that she had condensed here thinking into something more easily digestible. Understanding the impact of Hoover is a pretty key thing, in my mind, to understanding how American politics and the connection to the national security services.
Most biographies are bricks, but Gage does a good job with Hoover. She highlights an amazing amount information about our 20th century history which was affected by his touch. That said, it took me a while to read.
Double Dagger Books 