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WORK TITLE: The Mentor
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.leematthewgoldberg.com/bio/
CITY: New York
STATE: NY
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://us.macmillan.com/author/leematthewgoldberg
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in New York, NY.
EDUCATION:New School, M.F.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Previously, worked as an educator.
WRITINGS
Contributor of stories to publications, including the Adirondack Review, New Plains Review, Verdad, and Montreal Review. Co-curator of the “Guerrilla Lit Fiction” series.
Film rights for The Mentor were purchased by Macmillan Entertainment.
SIDELIGHTS
Lee Matthew Goldberg is a writer and former educator, who is a native of New York City. He holds a master’s degree from the New School.
Slow Down
In 2015, Goldberg released his first novel, Slow Down. Its protagonist is an aspiring filmmaker and writer named Noah Spaeth. Noah becomes acquainted with a successful director named Dominick Bambach, who quickly takes Noah under his wing. Noah plans to use Dominick’s connections to launch his own career in film, while Dominick plans to use the younger man’s fresh ideas. Meanwhile, Noah sparks a romance with an actress named Nevie Wyeth, and a drug called fast has begun killing off people in the city. Also, Noah begins noticing people with yellow circles tattooed on their bodies, possibly the sign of a conspiracy.
In an interview with Vincent Zandri, contributor to the Fiction Writers Review website, Goldberg stated: “I wrote a first draft of Slow Down when I was twenty-three and then picked it up years later and decided it was worth rewriting. The structure was really there. But then it got rejected by all the big houses. Editors were into it, but found the protagonist too unlikable.” Goldberg continued: “It wasn’t until the writer Jon Bassoff, who ran New Pulp Press at the time, published it because he loved my fucked-up protagonist Noah Spaeth. I’ve always been into the noir genre with authors like James M. Cain and Jim Thompson. The films Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity, and The Killers are classics. I like characters that get in a jam and have to weasel their way out, usually with disastrous results.” Goldberg told Paul D. Brazill, an interview with a self-titled website: “Slow Down takes place in Manhattan. This is my hometown so a lot of the research came from remembering what it’s like to be young and in my twenties here.”
A Publishers Weekly critic called the book “a tale full of unedifying characters scrambling for the elusive, perhaps imaginary, brass ring.” However, Wes Lukowsky, reviewer on the Booklist website, described Slow Down as “a first novel and eventually a pretty good one.” Lukowsky concluded: “There’s no one to like here, but there’s no denying it’s fun to watch rich snots destroy themselves.”
The Mentor
In The Mentor: A Thriller, Goldberg tells the story of Kyle Broder, an editor at a major publishing house, and his mentor and former professor, William Lansing. Kyle invited William over for dinner to celebrate a big success in Kyle’s career. His girlfriend, Jamie, cooks for them, and the red wine flows. William asks Kyle to pass his masterpiece on to someone at Kyle’s publishing house, and Kyle agrees. Kyle finds the work to be poor and in poor taste, putting him in a difficult position with the increasingly volatile William. In the same interview with Zandri, the contributor to the Fiction Writers Review website, Goldberg stated: “Since the antagonist in The Mentor is a professor, I definitely drew from experience, except he’s pretty psychotic while I like to think of myself as a nice guy. The book came about in a very cool way. My editor Brendan Deneen at Macmillan had pitched my agent the idea of Cape Fear set in the publishing world.” Goldberg continued: “He was looking for a writer and Slow Down had just come out so it was really lucky timing. I’m a big fan of blending genres and while Cape Fear is a great thriller, I wanted The Mentor to be literary as well since it’s set in the publishing world—for it to read like a Hitchcock tale, but also be a sharp and bitter satire of the publishing industry and the sensationalism and barbarity that consumers crave.”
“A lack of suspense helps sink this middling thriller from Goldberg,” asserted a Publishers Weekly writer. The same writer noted that the book featured “unlikable characters.” Other assessments of The Mentor were more favorable. Chris Beakey, contributor to the New York Journal of Books website, commented: “Fans of stalker stories will find plenty to love in Lansing’s demented efforts to wreck Kyle’s relationship with Jamie and his career. Readers who relish thrillers with brisk pacing and compelling characters will rank this as one of their all-time favorite books. And people in the book business will appreciate the story-within-the story and Lansing’s outlandish plan for literary fame, which could never happen in real life—unless, just maybe, it actually does.” “The Mentor by Lee Matthew Goldberg is a twisty, nail-biting thriller that explores how the love of words can lead to a deadly obsession with the fate of all those connected hanging in the balance,” asserted David Cranmer on the Criminal Element website. A Kirkus Reviews critic remarked: “As often happens in satire, the characters quickly become caricatures, but the deeper implications about our society’s obsession with violence are resonant and disturbing.” Michele Weber, reviewer in Booklist, suggested: “The compelling plot is likely to carry readers with a high enough tolerance for gore.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, May 1, 2017, Michele Leber, review of The Mentor: A Thriller, p. 24.
Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2017, review of The Mentor.
Publishers Weekly, November 24, 2014, review of Slow Down, p. 55; May 1, 2017, review of The Mentor, p. 40.
ONLINE
Booklist Online, https://www.booklistonline.com/ (January 12, 2015), Wes Lukowsky, review of Slow Down.
Criminal Element, https://www.criminalelement.com/ (June 14, 2017), David Cranmer, review of The Mentor.
Fiction Writers Review, http://fictionwritersreview.com/ (July 7, 2017), Vincent Zandri, author interview.
Lee Matthew Goldberg Website, http://www.leematthewgoldberg.com (February 6, 2018).
Macmillan Website, https://us.macmillan.com/ (February 6, 2018), author profile.
New York Journal of Books, https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/ (January 28, 2018), Chris Beakey, review of The Mentor.
Paul D. Brazill Website, https://pauldbrazill.com/ (January 23, 2015), Paul D. Brazill author interview.
LEE MATTHEW GOLDBERG
Lee Matthew Goldberg
© David Muller@Seventy8
LEE MATTHEW GOLDBERG’s debut novel Slow Down is a neo-noir thriller. His TV pilot Join Us was a finalist in Script Pipeline’s 2015 TV Writing Competition. After graduating with an MFA from the New School, his fiction has also appeared in The Montreal Review, The Adirondack Review, Essays & Fictions, The New Plains Review, Orion headless, Verdad Magazine, BlazeVOX, and others. He is the co-curator of The Guerrilla Lit Fiction Series. He lives in New York City.
Lee Matthew Goldberg is a writer, born in NYC.
THE MENTOR, Goldberg’s novel released by Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Press, has been acquired by Macmillan Entertainment. The French translation is out from Editions Hugo and will be published in Slovak by Albatros Media.
His debut novel SLOW DOWN (New Pulp Press) is a neo-noir thriller out now.
His pilots and screenplays have been finalists in Script Pipeline’s TV Writing Competition, the New York Screenplay Contest, and the Hollywood Screenplay Contest. After graduating with an MFA from the New School, his writing has also appeared in The Millions, The Montreal Review, The Adirondack Review, Essays & Fictions, The New Plains Review, Verdad Magazine, BlazeVOX, and others.
Lee is the co-curator of The Guerrilla Lit Reading Series.
QUOTED: "Slow Down takes place in Manhattan. This is my hometown so a lot of the research came from remembering what it’s like to be young and in my twenties here."
Short, Sharp Interview: Lee Matthew Goldberg
23 JAN 2015 / PAULDBRAZILL
Slow Down cover-2PDB: What’s going on now?
My debut novel Slow Down was just published by New Pulp Press. I’m enjoying the response I’m getting and trying to spread the word.
PDB: How did you research this book?
Slow Down takes place in Manhattan. This is my hometown so a lot of the research came from remembering what it’s like to be young and in my 20s here.
PDB: Which of your publications are you most proud of?
Definitely most proud of Slow Down, but I’ve also written a lot of short stories that were published in The Montreal Review, The Adirondack Review, and Essays & Fictions.
PDB: What’s your favourite film/ book/ song/ television programme?
Film: Wall Street, Book: The Great Gatsby or any F. Scott Fitzgerald, Song: Thunder Road by Bruce Springsteen, TV: Twin Peaks
PDB: Is location important to your writing?
Very important. When the weather is nice I write in Central Park. I have a particular tree that I like to write under, since it gives me the perfect amount of shade.
PDB: How often do you check your Amazon rankings?
My book just went live so I’ve been checking it a lot, but I imagine I’ll get better at limiting myself to once a day.
PDB: What’s next?
I’m finishing a trilogy about an evil corporation called The Desire Card, which promises: “Any wish fulfilled…for the right price.” I’m also working on a TV pilot that’s a dark drama and a Sci-Fi script with a writing partner. I like to keep busy.
LMG Portrait Urban Doorway B&W copyBio: Lee Matthew Goldberg graduated with an MFA from the New School. He is a regular contributor to The Montreal Review and The Adirondack Review. His fiction has also appeared in Essays & Fictions, The New Plains Review, Orion headless, Verdad Magazine, BlazeVOX, and on Amazon. He has is the co-curator of The Guerrilla Lit Fiction Series (guerrillalit.wordpress.com). His debut novel SLOW DOWN is a neo-noir thriller published by New Pulp Press. Follow him at leematthewgoldberg.com and @LeeMatthewG
QUOTED: "I wrote a first draft of Slow Down when I was twenty-three and then picked it up years later and decided it was worth rewriting. The structure was really there. But then it got rejected by all the big houses. Editors were into it, but found the protagonist too unlikable."
"It wasn’t until the writer Jon Bassoff, who ran New Pulp Press at the time, published it because he loved my fucked-up protagonist Noah Spaeth. I’ve always been into the noir genre with authors like James M. Cain and Jim Thompson. The films Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity, and The Killers are classics. I like characters that get in a jam and have to weasel their way out, usually with disastrous results."
"Since the antagonist in The Mentor is a professor, I definitely drew from experience, except he’s pretty psychotic while I like to think of myself as a nice guy. The book came about in a very cool way. My editor Brendan Deneen at Macmillan had pitched my agent the idea of Cape Fear set in the publishing world."
"He was looking for a writer and Slow Down had just come out so it was really lucky timing. I’m a big fan of blending genres and while Cape Fear is a great thriller, I wanted The Mentor to be literary as well since it’s set in the publishing world—for it to read like a Hitchcock tale, but also be a sharp and bitter satire of the publishing industry and the sensationalism and barbarity that consumers crave.
JULY 07, 2017
Disastrous Results: An Interview with Lee Matthew Goldberg
"I like characters that get in a jam and have to weasel their way out, usually with disastrous results": Lee Matthew Goldberg talks with Vincent Zandri about his new novel, The Mentor, out now from Thomas Dunne Books.
by VINCENT ZANDRI
I’ve seen the future, and it’s paved with pages of gold. Goldberg, that is. Lee Matthew Goldberg. Of course, I jest at the expense of my friend and author whose new novel, The Mentor, which Kirkus Reviews compares to the work of Bret Easton Ellis, is about to be published in June by Thomas Dunne Books. But all joking aside, this is Goldberg’s breakout year to be sure. If you don’t believe me, just Google The Mentor and check out what all the critics are saying on behalf of this new literary thriller about a book editor and a writing professor who might actually be confessing to a murder in the pages of his new manuscript. Sound chilling? Ironically, it’s the brainchild of one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet.
Born and raised in New York City’s Gramercy Park, arguably one of the most beautiful districts in Manhattan, Lee Matthew Goldberg just might be the quintessential New York writer. A product of the ground zero of literary success, or doom for that matter, Lee might have come into this world 39 years ago to Sue and Stan Goldberg, kicking and screaming, but there was never any question about the path his life was going to take. It was always a given that he would choose the writing life over any other occupation. Because, after all, he was born in the belly of the literary beast, the offspring of a rich history that includes every major publishing house in the world and every major writer who has come and gone over the course of a century, from Fitzgerald to Mailer to Franzen. At least, that’s the way I’d script it.
He’s a gifted talent, this Lee Matthew Goldberg (not to be confused with the other writer named Lee Goldberg who hails from that other heartbreaking writer’s collective, Hollywood). In a very short time Goldberg has published a bunch of short stories and two full-length novels. Sure he hails from media capital of the world, but he’s old school. Meaning, he worked his way up the ladder the traditional way. A refreshing story amidst today’s instant gratification, self-publishing crazed generation. He’s no stranger to MFA School, countless workshops, academic papers, readings, and collecting rejection after rejection from the little magazines and journals. Perhaps he wallpapered his apartment with the rejections just like I used to do.
But inevitably his talent and drive would show through and he would begin publishing in prestigious magazines like The Montreal Review, The Adirondack Review, The New Plains Review, Verdad Magazine, and BlazeVOX. Or so his Amazon Central bio attests. But there’s not a dog in the bunch here. Take it from me, a publishing whore who would happily publish in Fred’s Weekly Stapled Together Fanzine along-side The Maryland Review or University of Idaho’s Fugue. My particular MO on the way up was more of a shotgun-quantity-approach, whereas Lee’s is most definitely that of a calculated sniper. He saves the golden bullets for the publishers he spots in his crosshairs. It’s no wonder that when it came time to publish his novels, he would nail a very good small press (New Pulp Press) and quickly climb the ladder to midtown Manhattan’s Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press. And doesn’t he nail a big French translation deal and has the film version in development at the same time? Damn, is there anything stopping Mr. Goldberg from world domination?
Lee Matthew Goldberg
But you’d never know how successful he is by just talking to him. He’s humble as all hell and that’s what burns me up. Whenever I nail something big and important, I take out a billboard advertisement. “Look at me!” I scream. “Do you have any idea who I am, people!?”
I first met Lee Matthew at a Noir at the Bar reading taking place at a small juke joint in the East Village of Manhattan. At first I took him for a student. He looks that young under all that dark hair. But after we started chatting it up, I quickly realized I was sharing the bill with him. We talked about New York, apartment prices, the importance of a writer living in the city (or not), and pretty soon I was smitten with his charm and intellect. Oh, and after I read his first novel, Slow Down, I realized he was one hell of a talent.
But he’s soft spoken. He’s not a big dude, or imposing in any way. He dresses casually, always in loose jeans, nondescript footwear, maybe an old button-down shirt under a tattered blazer. Sort of old professor meets hipster. If I were to ask him his secret, he might smile, run his finger over his scruffy beard and answer with something like, “Oh, I don’t know. I just write what I want to write because I enjoy it.” Then he might ask me if I want to join him for tacos and Mexican beer. How can a guy say no to that?
I guess in some ways, Lee Matthew Goldberg is everything I want to be when I grow up. But then, I’m at least ten years older than him. Maybe more. It’s a question of maturity, I guess. Or perhaps my learning curve is that much longer. If only I’d been born in the belly of the literary beast. If only I’d been seeded with the dust of Manhattan’s illustrious literary history. For now, I’ll be content to be his friend.
But then, we’re not just friends. We’ve also become writing partners, having recently collaborated on a script about Norman Mailer. It’s a fictional script in which Norman fights his own literary demons by solving a murder that occurs in New York City. The script reads like a Who’s Who of the 1950s New York literary scene with cameos from the likes of George Plimpton, Truman Capote, and James Jones. Hell, even Papa Hemingway is in there. Think The Knick meets True Detective. Now hear this! Calling Hollywood! Any takers?
I sat down with my good pal and colleague, Lee Matthew Goldberg, just a few days ago to talk writing, life in the big city, publishing choices, movies, cable television series, writing in the park with his back pressed up against his own personal tree and, of course, his much anticipated and lauded new novel, The Mentor.
Here’s what we came up with.
Interview:
Vincent Zandri: When did you first realize you wanted to write for a living? What was the golden moment when the realization filled your veins and you knew there was nothing else for you but writing?
Lee Matthew Goldberg: As a kid, I always wanted to be a writer but I really thought about it as a career after being fired from my first job at a TV production company. The way it went down was spectacularly awful and hilarious so I put all my frustration into my first novel, Slow Down, which begins with the main character getting fired. Instead of interviewing for new jobs, I’d write every day. A few months later I had a draft and became hooked. I knew a 9-to-5 wasn’t for me.
What writers inspired you then and now? What books?
Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney were two of my biggest influences. I enjoy unlikable protagonists and they do it very well in Rules of Attraction, American Psycho, and Bright Lights, Big City. F. Scott Fitzgerald was one of my earliest inspirations. His sentences are so lush and descriptive and bled into my early work after reading The Great Gatsby and The Beautiful and the Damned, along with short stories like “Babylon Revisited.” Also Hemingway with A Moveable Feast and The Sun Also Rises. Hemingway really helped me pare down any prose that came off as flowery. My grad program was a big influence on my style, too.
Yes, grad programs. You earned your MFA in Fiction at New York’s The New School? Expand if you will on what effect it had on your craft? Did you like MFA school? Or like me, did you feel like there were too many egos in the room?
I loved the New School. I started The Guerrilla Lit Reading Series there with other New Schoolers and got my agent Sam Hiyate soon after. I’m still close with a lot of people I met and learned a lot from professors Helen Schulman, Dale Peck, and Jonathan Dee. Luis Jarmillo runs the program now and I highly recommend it. While there were sometimes too many egos in the room, it’s important to know how to deal with critique. Also which opinions to listen to and what to ignore. The program also made me want to rewrite what would become my first book.
I hate criticism. But that’s for another interview down the road. So, Slow Down, your first novel, is a dark, noir-inspired crime thriller. How did it come to be published and what drew you to the noir genre?
I wrote a first draft of Slow Down when I was twenty-three and then picked it up years later and decided it was worth rewriting. The structure was really there. But then it got rejected by all the big houses. Editors were into it, but found the protagonist too unlikable. It wasn’t until the writer Jon Bassoff, who ran New Pulp Press at the time, published it because he loved my fucked-up protagonist Noah Spaeth. I’ve always been into the noir genre with authors like James M. Cain and Jim Thompson. The films Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity, and The Killers are classics. I like characters that get in a jam and have to weasel their way out, usually with disastrous results.
Beyond being a bookworm, you’ve taught for a decade as a professor too. How has that intersected with your own writing, and what advice do you have for budding writers?
I’m taking a break from teaching right now, but it’s a great side-gig for me. I’m in my head all day when writing, so it’s nice to interact with a class. I’m a very laid-back professor so it’s all about discussion rather than lecture. I like when students have a different opinion than me. For budding writers, the best advice is just to keep at it and edit your work over and over until it really sings. It’s very difficult to make a career in writing, but if you’re really talented and it calls to you, it’s worth going for it.
Would The Mentor have been written without your having been a professor? And while we’re on the subject tell me the story of how The Mentor came about. Is it more literary, more mystery/thriller or, like I’ve already hinted in my blurb, Hitchcockian?
First of all, I love the cover blurb you wrote for The Mentor. “Hitchcock couldn’t write a more insidious story” is a huge complement, especially from a guy who’s written over twenty thrillers!
I’ll gladly take a bow. You were saying?
Since the antagonist in The Mentor is a professor, I definitely drew from experience, except he’s pretty psychotic while I like to think of myself as a nice guy. The book came about in a very cool way. My editor Brendan Deneen at Macmillan had pitched my agent the idea of Cape Fear set in the publishing world. He was looking for a writer and Slow Down had just come out so it was really lucky timing. I’m a big fan of blending genres and while Cape Fear is a great thriller, I wanted The Mentor to be literary as well since it’s set in the publishing world—for it to read like a Hitchcock tale, but also be a sharp and bitter satire of the publishing industry and the sensationalism and barbarity that consumers crave.
The Mentor is about writers and writing teachers. That said, you write a lot about writers and moviemakers. I often use writers as my protagonists. I know why I do it, and I could tell you why, but this ain’t about me. So what’s with the metafictional (if you will) attraction with writing about writers?
We’re always told to write what you know. While I’ve had other jobs, I certainly know the most about what it’s like to be a writer. And I’ve always been fascinated by films and would love to be involved with making movies, too. I also find it interesting to focus on writers whose own lives wind up becoming more salacious than the stories they’re creating. That being said, I’ve also written about a Wall Street executive, an ex-Army sniper, and a hippie cult leader in the Ozarks. I enjoy doing research on what I don’t know as well.
The movie rights for The Mentor have been acquired by Macmillan Entertainment. That’s a huge deal and it establishes a dramatic upward shift in your career trajectory. Tell me, are you more interested in a full-length feature movie or do you foresee The Mentor as more a cable TV series like The Americans or The Affair?
Thanks! I’m very excited. Right now the film is in the development stage, meaning it hasn’t been optioned or greenlit, but we have interest and people attached so hopefully it continues to move forward. I think it would work best as a feature-length film, but I could also see it as a closed mini-series. You see that a lot more now. Like Big Little Lies, which was great, or The Night Manager. We’ve also sold the French translation rights, and Editions Hugo will be publishing it in the fall. Albatros Media will also be publishing the Slovak edition.
I also find it interesting to focus on writers whose own lives wind up becoming more salacious than the stories they’re creating.
I wanna talk a little about the writer’s life. I’m only up in Albany, 140 miles along the Hudson River line, as Billy Joel, another New Yorker, once sang. Yet it’s a million light years away from Manhattan and the enormous literary possibilities here. I can be in the city at any given time in less than three hours, but still, I don’t live here so I remain an outsider. So what are the advantages to living in NYC as a writer?
To keep with your Billy Joel references, I definitely have a New York State of Mind. I was born and raised in NYC so it’s a huge part of my work. New York kicks your ass in a good way so I feel like I can’t be lazy. That’s important since I make my own schedule and I’m pretty good about keeping regimented. You also interact with so many different kinds of people here. There’s a huge community for writers. I run a reading series and have the opportunity to go to so many great other series. There’s so much culture at your fingertips. I’ll take a day off here and there and go to a museum or a play if I feel blocked. That being said, I love nature and in a place like Albany you can actually have peace and quiet, which must be nice. There are pluses and minuses to both. In an ideal world, I would have a place in the country and in the city so I could go back and forth.
Rumor has it you work outside in Central Park for a good chunk of the year when the weather holds up. How does nature affect your work in contrast to living in a concrete jungle? Talk about your daily writing process as well and what you view as a successful day.
That rumor is true! Central Park is my main office and I like to think it’s the greatest office a writer could have. I have a few spots there but my favorite is my tree, which perfectly contours to my back. I give it a shout-out in the acknowledgments of all my books. There’s something about being outside in fresh air that gets my neurons firing and so from about April through November I’m either in Central Park, Gramercy Park, or Tudor City Park. During the winter, I write from the main quiet room in the 42nd street library with its beautiful fresco ceiling. It suffices.
I aim for about five solid pages a day when I’m really into what I’m working on. Sometimes it’s less; sometimes it’s ten or even fifteen pages on a great day. Sometimes I literally leave my body and suddenly hours pass. I go into the story, as weird as that sounds. That’s when I have a really good day.
I’m a hybrid author. That is, an author who publishes traditionally and independently. I do it because I write a lot of material and no way a traditional publisher is going to put out all those words. Right now you are predominantly traditionally published, yet you write every day, which means a serious word count. Do you anticipate a time when you will start your own independent label to handle the overflow and/or to please your fans who can’t get enough Goldberg in their lives?
I’m thoroughly impressed with your output, Vince! I write a lot and fast, but I think you’re the fastest writer I know and publish multiple books every year. This year alone you have The Corruptions, Moonlight Gets Served, Dressed to Kill, and two books in the Chase Baker Series. That’s crazy impressive.
Right now, I’m dealing with overflow. I have a few novels that are already done, but it’s impossible to sell them all at once. So there might come a time that I might want to start an independent label, but I’m not there yet. I’m also getting into screenwriting and TV writing and enjoying alternating between the two. So for the people who can’t get enough Goldberg in their lives, they should be satiated!
Since the two of us are working on a TV pilot that reimagines Norman Mailer as a P.I., how has screenwriting affected your prose style?
It’s been so awesome to collaborate on our pilot The Monster and Mailer. It’s about the underbelly of 1950s New York City as our fictionalized Norman Mailer attempts to fix his writer’s block by becoming a P.I. while partying with the likes of Truman Capote, George Plimpton and others in the literary scene. Screenwriting has definitely had a huge effect on my writing style. It’s helped pare down my prose and focus on story and plot first and foremost. Sentences that make your heart ping are certainly important, but more and more I find that when the plot isn’t unique and engaging, I lose interest. Writing both prose and screenplays really keeps me from getting bored.
I know you work on a lot of projects at once, so what else are you working on now, and how can readers get in touch with you?
In addition to The Monster and Mailer, I’ve written a script with my good friend Margot Berwin that’s a sci-fi take on the disappearing Malaysian flight. And an action script that’s a John Wick/Predator hybrid set in the future with a Trump-like villain as president. A lot of that one came from my anger at what’s happening to our country right now.
With prose, I have two books in a thrillogy called The Desire Card about a card given to elite clients that promises “Any desire fulfilled…for the right price.” The first book is from the point of view of a Wall Streeter who contacts the card to get a liver replacement, the second is from the point of view of a ex-Army guy who works for the Card and decides to quit after some of the desires people request become too immoral.
I’ve also been working on a series of books about a cult in the Ozarks with a sci-fi Twin Peaks tone. And two YA books, one about a time-traveling teen detective and another about a runaway girl in the ’90s set against the backdrop of the grunge music scene. I just finished a draft of my ’90s girl book, but it still needs work. I grew up with that music, so the research was a lot of fun.
You can follow me on my website leematthewgoldberg.com or @LeeMatthewG. I love hearing from readers, so I definitely encourage anyone to hit me up!
Thanks so much, Vince! Great chatting.
QUOTED: "The compelling plot is likely to carry readers with a high enough tolerance for gore."
The Mentor
Michele Leber
Booklist.
113.17 (May 1, 2017): p24.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
The Mentor. By Lee Matthew Goldberg. June 2017.336p. St. Martin's/Thomas Dunne, $25.99
(9781250083548); e-book, $12.99 (9781250083555).
A junior editor at a Manhattan publisher reunites with his college mentor with disastrous results in
Goldberg's second thriller (after Slow Down, 2015). Kyle Broder has just acquired a probable best-seller for
Burke & Burke publishing when he hears from his former literature professor, William Lansing, who
pitches the still-unfinished opus he's been working on for 10 years. Lansing's book is not only badly written,
it's also disturbing, featuring a narrator literally eating the heart of the woman he loves. Lansing turns
vengeful when his "masterpiece" is rejected, but Broder's concerns about his mentor are dismissed both at
home and at work: Broder's girlfriend considers Lansing charming, and a rival editor feigns interest in
Lansing's book. Broder revisits his college and delves more deeply into the cold case of a missing exgirlfriend,
and as the plot darkens and spirals downward, it's unclear who will be left standing. The
compelling plot is likely to carry readers with a high enough tolerance for gore to the final twist at the end.--
Michele Leber
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Leber, Michele. "The Mentor." Booklist, 1 May 2017, p. 24. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495034915/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=50ead3a6.
Accessed 28 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A495034915
QUOTED: "A lack of suspense helps sink this middling thriller from Goldberg."
"unlikable characters."
1/28/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1517166905948 2/4
The Mentor
Publishers Weekly.
264.18 (May 1, 2017): p40.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Mentor
Lee Matthew Goldberg. St. Martin's/Dunne, $25.99 (336p) ISBN 978-1-250-08354-8
A lack of suspense helps sink this middling thriller from Goldberg (Slow Down). William Lansing, a
professor at Connecticut's Bentley College, is excited to learn that a former student of his, Kyle Broder, is
now an editor at a New York publishing house and has just signed a lucrative contract with a debut novelist.
William has been laboring for years over his own novel, which he hopes his protege will publish. When
Kyle rejects the manuscript, which is full of torture and cannibalistic fantasies, William turns on Kyle and
others in Kyle's life. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that details of the manuscript reflect events that occurred in
William's and Kyle's past. William is a stock psychopath, and Kyle comes across as a crass fool. For no
clear reason, Kyle's girlfriend insists that he finish reading William's manuscript even after he tells her
about the unpleasant subject matter. That these unlikable characters do nonsensical things presents another
obstacle to enjoyment. Agent: Sam Hiyate, Rights Factory (Canada). (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Mentor." Publishers Weekly, 1 May 2017, p. 40. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A491575290/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=39212d96.
Accessed 28 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A491575290
QUOTED: "As often happens in satire, the characters quickly become caricatures, but the deeper implications about our society's obsession with violence are resonant and disturbing."
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Goldberg, Lee Matthew: THE MENTOR
Kirkus Reviews.
(Apr. 15, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Goldberg, Lee Matthew THE MENTOR Thomas Dunne Books (Adult Fiction) $25.99 6, 13 ISBN: 978-1-
250-08354-8
A book editor confronts the darkness of his past in Goldberg's (Slow Down, 2015) psychological thriller, a
savvy parody in the vein of American Psycho.Kyle Broder's life looks golden: he's got a beautiful,
successful, and undemanding girlfriend; and, as an untested editor at a big publishing firm, he's just
discovered a young writer and nabbed her a huge advance on her raw first novel. When his former creative
writing professor and mentor, William Lansing, contacts him to offer congratulations, Kyle is happy to
invite William to dinner at his upscale apartment and introduce him to Jamie, the perfect girlfriend--who is
also a phenomenal cook. Over dinner and vast quantities of good red wine, William asks Kyle for a favor:
would Kyle be willing to read the novel he's been working on for 10 years and maybe put in a good word
for him at the publishing house? Kyle enthusiastically agrees, but when he begins to read through William's
novel, Devil's Hopyard, he's shocked and horrified to discover that it's not only badly written, but that it's
rife with pornographic violence and cannibalism. As William becomes more and more insistent that Kyle
help him publish his "masterpiece" and begins stalking both Jamie and Kyle, Kyle finds that William has
even written him into the novel as a possible villain. Desperate to save his relationship, his reputation, and
his life, he must confront William's madness--and try to keep this novel off the shelf. Goldberg's novel is
not particularly well-written, but it is gripping. Like the Bret Easton Ellis novel it resembles, it succeeds as
sharp and bitter satire--in this case, of the publishing industry and the sensationalism and barbarity that
consumers crave. As often happens in satire, the characters quickly become caricatures, but the deeper
implications about our society's obsession with violence are resonant and disturbing.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Goldberg, Lee Matthew: THE MENTOR." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Apr. 2017. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A489268652/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d694394a.
Accessed 28 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A489268652
QUOTED: "a tale full of unedifying characters scrambling for the elusive, perhaps
imaginary, brass ring."
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Slow Down
Publishers Weekly.
261.48 (Nov. 24, 2014): p55.
COPYRIGHT 2014 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Slow Down
Lee Matthew Goldberg. New Pulp, $14.95 trade paper (270p) ISBN 978-0-9899323-7-0
In the prologue of Goldberg's frenetic first novel, Noah Spaeth sets out to explain how he was robbed of the
best-director Oscar for his film Slow Down. Flash back four years to New York City: actress Nevie Wyeth
introduces Spaeth, who dreams of becoming a famous author and filmmaker, to director Dominick
Bambach at a Lower East Side bar. Bambach becomes Spaeth's mentor, and while Spaeth plots to use
Bambach, Bambach, a master manipulator, uses him instead. A mysterious yellow-circle tattoo, a deadly
new drug called fast, and any number of would be actresses, actors, and writers figure in the meandering
plot. Spaeth twists and turns as he woos Nevie, spars with Bambach, and makes a risky deal with
Bambach's estranged wife, in a tale full of unedifying characters scrambling for the elusive, perhaps
imaginary, brass ring. Agent: Sam Hiyate, Rights Factory. (Jan.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Slow Down." Publishers Weekly, 24 Nov. 2014, p. 55. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A393098247/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=626da3cf.
Accessed 28 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A393098247
QUOTED: "a first novel and eventually a pretty good one."
"There’s no one to like here, but there’s no denying it’s fun to watch rich snots destroy themselves."
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Slow Down.
Goldberg, Lee Matthew (author).
Jan. 2015. 270p. New Pulp, paperback, $14.95 (9780989932370).
REVIEW.
First published January 12, 2015 (Booklist Online).
Noah Spaeth is a 22-year-old New York City trust-fund millennial. He knows he’s destined for wealth and, more important, fame as a novelist and filmmaker. Except he doesn’t write and has never directed. When we meet him, he’s just been dumped from a job with a media firm run by a woman he disparages as a “trust fund kid.” Noah is a jerk. A girl he crushed on in high school calls him up and invites him to a party thrown by hotshot indie film director/writer Dominick Bambach. All she really wants to do is let Noah know she’s one of Bambach’s mistresses. At the party, Noah engages Bambach in a conversation that consists of pompous, self-aggrandizing pronouncements from the director followed by nods and the occasional “yea, yea, yea” from Noah. But the connection is made. Self-proclaimed geniuses need sycophants. Bambach flaunts his infidelity in front of his wife, Isadora. He thinks she understands because he’s an artist and somehow entitled to a harem; she’s angry and biding her time, waiting for the right moment. The right moment may have arrived when Noah passes out in her bed. In Noah, Isadora sees a morally immature, horny, and pathologically ambitious child whom she can manipulate to extract her revenge on her philandering, insufferable hubby. This is a first novel and eventually a pretty good one. The setup in the first couple of chapters is slow to develop, but once Noah hits that first party, the plot takes off. There’s no one to like here, but there’s no denying it’s fun to watch rich snots destroy themselves.
— Wes Lukowsky
QUOTED: "The Mentor by Lee Matthew Goldberg is a twisty, nail-biting thriller that explores how the love of words can lead to a deadly obsession with the fate of all those connected hanging in the balance."
Review: The Mentor by Lee Matthew Goldberg
DAVID CRANMER
The Mentor by Lee Matthew Goldberg is a twisty, nail-biting thriller that explores how the love of words can lead to a deadly obsession with the fate of all those connected hanging in the balance.
Take a visual tour of The Mentor with GIFnotes!
Bentley College Professor William Lansing shoots a question out to his students, “Why does Meursault insist to the chaplain that he didn’t know what a sin was?” (Meursault is the protagonist from The Stranger, a Nobel winner in literature, written by acclaimed author Albert Camus.) Lansing scans his classroom to find the usual assortment of the bored and the clueless. William eventually supplies his own definitive answer:
“Expressing remorse would constitute his actions as wrong. He knows his views make him a stranger to society, and he is content with this judgment. He accepts death and looks forward to it with peace. The crowds will cheer hatefully at his beheading, but they will be cheering. This is what captivates the readers seventy years after the book’s publication. What keeps it and Camus eternal, immortal.”
Kyle Broder, ten years previous, was one of the students who not only got it but found a helping hand in William, who led the drug-addled young man away from the substances that were destroying a promising future. Kyle went on to work as an editor at Burke & Burke, a major publishing house. Most recently, he has discovered a hot new author with all the chops to go the distance. Movie deals have already been signed, and Kyle basks in his early success.
William reads about Kyle’s triumph in the paper and decides to take a chance by asking his former protégé if he would be interested in the novel he’s been working on for ten years called Devil’s Hopyard. A magnum opus clocking in at 1,000 pages, Kyle is delighted at the prospects of working with the man who changed his life—a mentor that helped make him the man he had become. He invites William to his home to introduce him to his girlfriend, Jamie. They catch up over a bottle of vino, and Kyle showers him with gratitude for all that he did to guide his life.
Stoked to read Devil’s Hopyard, Kyle tears into it the following day and finds an uneven start, to say the least:
Maybe just the first few pages were wonky and then the real story would begin? Kyle decided to flip to a passage toward the end.
And taste the FLESH and the FLESH tastes like love and the heart has been digested and beats inside of ME now. It gives me power. I am powerful with her organ. And the body has been discarded and left to rot, and sometimes I dig it up for more, more, MORE!!! And then I shit her out of me until her FLESH stinks up the bathroom.
Kyle dropped the pages onto the table. He had a terrible taste on the back of his tongue.
“What the fuck...?” he said.
Maybe it’s being an editor who has read my share of the dreadful, but I busted a gut laughing at Kyle’s predicament. There are god-awful written stories, and then there are the inane god-awful stories from which William’s descends. The professor can be filed under the Dunning-Kruger effect in which a person is too incompetent to grasp his own incompetence.
For Kyle, with great regret, he turns down his mentor only for the man to become an obsessed loon who tries to destroy Kyle’s personal and professional life. As Kyle’s life becomes a swirling hell, he turns back to reading the manuscript for answers and gets that sinking, stomach-wrenching feeling that he’s reading a psychopath’s confession, of sorts, to a missing girl’s case years before.
Like the lush Sequoia Grove Cambium red wine that William first shares with Kyle and Jamie, The Mentor is a rich, rewarding thriller that offers plenty of suspense and a few satirical laughs. Since The Stranger is referenced more than once, I’m reminded of the perfect Camus quote to end this review:
“A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.”
QUOTED: "Fans of stalker stories will find plenty to love in Lansing’s demented efforts to wreck Kyle’s relationship with Jamie and his career. Readers who relish thrillers with brisk pacing and compelling characters will rank this as one of their all-time favorite books. And people in the book business will appreciate the story-within-the story and Lansing’s outlandish plan for literary fame, which could never happen in real life—unless, just maybe, it actually does."
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The Mentor: A Thriller
Image of The Mentor: A Thriller
Author(s):
Lee Matthew Goldberg
Release Date:
June 12, 2017
Publisher/Imprint:
Thomas Dunne Books
Pages:
336
Buy on Amazon
Reviewed by:
Chris Beakey
“Readers who relish thrillers with brisk pacing and compelling characters will rank this as one of their all-time favorite books.”
If you’re a writer who’s obsessed with your craft and striving mightily to get published, you probably feel a certain rage when you struggle to get through that insanely buzzed-about celebrity author “blockbuster” and then discover, by chance, an unknown thriller with a remainder mark and realize it’s one of the best things you’ve ever read.
Wallowing in bitterness over such crazy serendipity is a waste of time. For the sake of your heart and your longevity you’re better off simply recognizing that publishing is a business that really is filled with lots of good people doing their best to discover great work while also figuring out how to protect their backsides.
Picking up The Mentor by Lee Matthew Goldberg is another way to cope. As a reader you’ll be captivated by stunning suspense with Fatal Attraction-like thrills. As a writer you’ll relish it as a head-tripper that sometimes reads like a send-up of the publishing industry until you realize it actually isn’t nearly as over the top as some might believe.
The good guy at the center of the story is a young, smart publishing executive named Kyle Broder whose career takes off when he wins a bidding war for a partially written novel by a young woman. Despite some details about the book’s appealing authenticity as a heartbreaking coming of age story, some readers might wonder how it could warrant such a high-stakes roll-of-the-dice among the Big Six (now the Big Five) publishers—a situation that accurately reflects the way such things sometimes happen in real life. Yet we immediately trust Kyle’s instincts as one of the first people to see something uniquely magical in the work. From the beginning, he’s a likeable guy and believable as an editor with strong literary and business acumen.
Unfortunately, headlines about Kyle’s career trajectory draw the attention of college professor William Lansing, a villain who’s got the motivation and the means to mess up Kyle’s mind from the inside out.
We know from the book jacket that Lansing is both a psychopath and an aspiring novelist who mentored Kyle as a student. In a stroke of brilliance, however, Goldberg introduces the professor by making him seem quite normal as he takes a vigorous morning walk around the college town, bringing us inside his head as he thinks seemingly ordinary thoughts about his life as a teacher, writer, husband, and father.
This everyday guy persona continues as Lansing reconnects with Kyle and is introduced to his girlfriend, Jamie, over a long boozy dinner at Kyle’s New York apartment. The deceiving characterization is effective because it makes Professor Lansing initially easy to relate to—and his descent into madness all the more compelling.
The first indication of that madness comes with the professor’s ardent belief that the novel he’s been writing for years is a masterwork. He then becomes obsessed with the certainty that his former student is going to acquire and market it to stunning success.
It’s a yearning that many writers will easily understand, right up to the first crack in the professor’s façade. It happens after Kyle discovers the book is poorly written, filled with sickening gore, and too disturbing to even finish.
For obvious reasons, Kyle tries to avoid a conversation about the manuscript . . . and for several days is taunted practically by the hour with Lansing’s obsessive demands for a response. The text messages and voice mails go from passive aggressive to outright aggressive before Kyle, in the kindest way he can muster, declines to publish the book.
Which is all it takes to flip the switch in Lansing’s head, turning him from a longtime “mentor” and friend to a psycho hellbent on destroying Kyle’s life.
Fans of stalker stories will find plenty to love in Lansing’s demented efforts to wreck Kyle’s relationship with Jamie and his career. Readers who relish thrillers with brisk pacing and compelling characters will rank this as one of their all-time favorite books. And people in the book business will appreciate the story-within-the story and Lansing’s outlandish plan for literary fame, which could never happen in real life—unless, just maybe, it actually does.
Chris Beakey's first novel, Double Abduction, was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. His next novel of suspense, Fatal Option, will be published in February 2017.