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He's known as the American Nick Hornby, the guy who writes about the complicated stuff that goes on inside the average man's head. It's a comparison Jonathan Tropper has no real complaints about.
"I'm a man writing about families and relationships. How many of us are there?" he points out.
"If you take away the writers of thrillers, sci-fi and literary fiction, who's left? Not many. That's why I get compared to Nick Hornby so much. I don't think I write like him but I'm going to get compared to him because who else is there? There just aren't too many of us prepared to write about men without guns."
It's a good thing Tropper's characters aren't equipped with guns as he specialises in men who are at a tipping point in their lives. In the best-seller How To Talk To A Widower it's Doug Parker, only 29 and falling apart after the sudden death of his wife. And in Everything Changes it's Zachary King, only 32 and falling apart after the death of his best friend.
Intense grief, families that seem completely bonkers and moments of crisis are Tropper's stock in trade. It all sounds a bit grim but in fact it's the opposite. These stories swing from poignant to laugh-out-loud funny then back again. Reading them has been compared to diving head first into a man's brain.
Tropper, however, is not entirely sure how typically male his brain is. "I don't know if this is how men think," he admits. "It's how I think but I may be an anomaly. Although I suppose I do get emails from men who've read my novels and say they think that way."
The books are emotionally autobiographical - in that they're dealing with stuff Tropper has felt - but they're not autobiographical in the true sense of the word. His own life and extended family seem untouched by the calamities that befall his characters. Instead he lives a peaceful existence in Westchester, New York, with his wife and children and spends his days teaching writing classes or working on his next novel in the college library.
"My family, they're so boring," he volunteers. "No divorces, no deaths, no dramas. That can be mind-numbing. I crave drama.
"The only way you can know yourself in the truest sense is through a crisis. "In the day-to-day tedium of your life you behave by certain rules but if you strip away the social encumbrances then the sparks really fly. You stop being concerned with what other people think because there are other, bigger, things to be concerned about and that is somehow liberating."
Perhaps the reason women like these books so much is that the men in them finally reach some level of self-knowledge. Zach, the hero of Everything Changes, is stuck in a hideous corporate job and about to marry the wrong woman when a cancer scare pushes him off the rails. He walks out on his job, loses the plot entirely and is forced to face up to his feelings about all the deep stuff - love, loss and family.
Interestingly the books are more popular in Europe than in his home country where he laments the lack of a New York Times best-seller. That might change though as there are two Tropper movies in production. How To Talk To A Widower has been optioned by Paramount Pictures and there is a screenplay "in development". Meanwhile, actor Tobey Maguire's production company has optioned Everything Changes.
"That's being written and directed by Peter Hedges who wrote the novel What's Eating Gilbert Grape which was one of my favourite books and inspired me to become a writer," says Tropper.
He admits he's struggling a bit with his next novel. "I was really spent after writing Widower, then I went on a book tour of Europe and the US so that killed four to six months. Then I started writing stuff I didn't like."
Part of the problem is that he's hit on a successful formula so he must repeat that without repeating himself. "I wanted to be careful not to go down the same road but in a slightly different form," he agrees. "But you can only be so different. I write the way I write. You just have to write what's true to you."
Like most authors he struggles with self-doubt. "I second guess myself a lot and always think when I finish a book: 'How the hell am I going to write another one'," he admits.
"But in the words of Rocky, 'I can't sing and dance.' It's the only thing I can do."
- Detours, HoS
