Playing for the Devil's Fire

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Playing for the Devil’s Fire
by Phillippe Diederich (Author)

Booktalk: Thirteen-year-old Boli and his friends are deep in the middle of a game of marbles. An older boy named Mosca has won the prized Devil’s Fire marble. His pals are jealous and want to win it away from him. This is Izayoc, the place of tears, a small pueblo in a tiny valley west of Mexico City where nothing much happens. It’s a typical hot Sunday morning except that on the way to church someone discovers the severed head of Enrique Quintanilla propped on the ledge of one of the cement planters in the plaza and everything changes. Not apocalyptic changes, like phalanxes of men riding on horses with stingers for tails, but subtle ones: poor neighbors turning up with brand-new SUVs, pimpled teens with fancy girls hanging off them. Boli’s parents leave for Toluca and don’t arrive at their destination. No one will talk about it. A washed out masked wrestler turns up one day, a man only interested in finding his next meal. Boli hopes to inspire the luchador to set out with him to find his parents.

Interview with Author Phillippe Diederich

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Phillippe Diederich (c) Kevin Moloney

Q. When did you start writing?
A. My first attempt at writing was in the tenth grade when I tried to write a short story about a magic saxophone. I didn’t write again until my early 20s. But the truth is that I didn’t know what I was doing. I read a lot, especially the classics, and tried to write short stories. It wasn’t until I was in my mid 30s that I finally started to understand structure and how to build a story. When I was in my mid 40s I chose to go back to school and get a degree in creative writing.

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Q. Describe your writing process.
A. I write from the hip. By this I mean I write without really knowing where I’m going. At least not 100 percent. I don’t map out or outline a novel. I begin with a line, a voice or a character, or with a general idea of what I think the book might become. Usually the first 30 pages are not so difficult because of this, but then it gets very difficult and tedious until my characters take over (usually happens around page140) but this depends on the book. I try and write as fast as I can to lay out my story. I don’t revise until I’m done with the first draft. And then I revise and revise and revise. Playing for the Devil’s Fire was written on a typewriter. It allowed me to just go forward without going back to correct things. It also allowed me to focus on the story and not worry about page count. I used to write whenever I had even a small pocket of time: early in the morning and late at night, between classes, at airport waiting areas, etc. Now I am a little more methodical. I write early in the morning and sometimes late at night. When I’m revising I can become more obsessive and it becomes difficult to get away from the computer.

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Q. What inspired you to write this book?
A. Playing for the Devil’s Fire was inspired by a number of things. For the last few years I had been writing a number of short stories that dealt with Mexico and Mexicans in the U.S. (I grew up in Mexico and love that country as if I’d been born there). A few of these short stories had to do with young men coming of age, of the ‘machista’ attitude that exists (machista is kind of like a chauvinist or arrogant and entitled men). This had me thinking a lot about vulnerable characters in their early to mid teens. So Boli, the main character in Playing for the Devil’s Fire was already pretty much drawn in my head by the time I started writing the novel. Also, around that same time, I was writing about the Mexican drug cartels for a now defunct news website. My son was also in the fourth grade at the time and I found it difficult to find books of interest to him. Most everything that was fiction was either fantasy or romance or geared toward female readers. I wanted to write a story he could dig into. Finally, I also wanted to write a book that addressed the problems many Mexican’s are suffering because of the drug wars and the impunity of government or ‘connected’ officials. It breaks my heart to read the news of deaths and disappearances, especially in in rural areas in Southern Mexico where I’ve traveled extensively. I wanted to write a book from the point of view of the victims, and that did not glamorize or play up the Narcos and the drug war. Too often violence is glamorized and we often have the ‘heroes’ in our stories resorting to violence or taking some kind of action to solve the conflict of the story. I wanted to write a book that showed the helplessness of the victims. I wanted to write the truth.

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