If Chris Bohjalian were to write a memoir—or a manifesto on craft—it could be called: I was a teenage magician.
It’s a history that has served him well. A master of misdirection, Bohjalian—the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books including The Lioness and The Flight Attendant—occupies unique territory in the literary landscape. While his novels often incorporate crime, they aren’t often considered crime novels (which is why you’ll usually find them shelved in Fiction as opposed to Mystery). And yet Bohjalian considers crime his MacGuffin, or the pistol that marks an opening salvo.
Case in point: While Bohjalian’s newest genre-bender, The Princess of Las Vegas (March 19, 2024; Doubleday), centers on a popular Diana impersonator simultaneously losing and finding herself in Sin City, it opens with a gunshot—and more bullets fly (and more bodies fall) before the final curtain comes down. It’s casino culture meets cryptocurrency meets organized crime on Nevada’s infamous strip, and everybody’s secrets will be laid bare in a high stakes game of survival that has the potential to become a royal mess.
But the story is really about estranged sisters floundering in the wake of their mother’s (suspicious?) death. Crissy (aka Diana) and Betsy are forced to reconcile when Betsy—who recently adopted a surprisingly worldly teenage girl—follows her boyfriend from Vermont to Vegas, where they’ve both found employment in a lucrative bitcoin venture. The promise of a fresh start, however, is tempered by the reality that their new “business associates” hold all the cards … and can cash out their lives if they don’t fall in line with the family way.
Now, Chris Bohjalian talks about the sleights of hand that add elements of magic and mystery to his transcendent tales.
John B. Valeri: The Princess of Las Vegas, like many of your books, straddles genre lines (i.e., it may not be a crime novel but it’s a novel that contains crime). How do you conceptualize crime as a catalyst for storytelling – and what does the threat of (further) violence/death jeopardize here?
Chris Bohjalian: Crime is often the MacGuffin for me, that element of a story that seems critical, but is actually a bit of storytelling misdirection. (I was a teenage magician, and so I love misdirection.) In some of my novels it figures more critically than in others: it’s more important to The Princess of Las Vegas than to The Guest Room, for instance, even though The Guest Room has rivers of blood in the first two pages, and plenty more later on. But I never viewed The Flight Attendant as a crime novel, even though it literally begins with a dead body in a bed. I always viewed that book as a story of a functional alcoholic with serious demons.
In my mind, The Princess of Las Vegas is an exploration of two damaged siblings, and how they deal with their childhood traumas. But I also wanted to explore the meaning of Princess Diana, and why this remarkable woman is still in the zeitgeist decades after her death. (For the record, I never considered a novel about the Princess herself. I love to write “historical fiction,” but I couldn’t write “novelized history” about a woman whose children and husband are still alive. That feels unfair to them and her memory.)
Now, as I dove deeper into the novel, Las Vegas loomed larger as a character. I’m fascinated by the city and its history. Most people are, even if they prefer not to admit it. And what might have been merely another MacGuffin in another novel grew more integral to the plot. To use a gambling term, it upped the ante for me. It got me excited, because the stakes grew ever higher.
JBV: Crissy Dowling has reinvented herself as a Princess Diana tribute performer in Vegas after having escaped the childhood trauma(s) she survived in Vermont. What of the princess’s life (and death) resonates with her – and how is Chrissy able to both lose and find herself within Diana’s persona?
CB: I think Diana was Crissy’s savior. I shudder to think where Crissy would be if she hadn’t begun channeling her inner Diana. Other than the fact they resemble each other, Crissy shares one thing with Diana, and that is what leads to the profound identification. And I think Crissy understands that the late Princess saved her. Her sister, Betsy, might not agree with that. But – on some level – Crissy views herself as another of the sick and the sad and the wounded who have been touched by the Princess, and, if not healed, made better.
JBV: Speaking of Princess Diana: What drew you to explore the royal family and their enduring cultural significance – and how did you endeavor to balance an honest yet respectful commentary, knowing they’ve inspired endless fascination and reverence among so many?
CB: That first decision I made was the best one: the book would not be historical fiction about the woman set at Kensington Palace or on a Mediterranean yacht. It would be about a wannabe princess, someone who has studied her but is not her.
I must admit, there is so much about Diana I learned that I did not use in the novel, because the book is about two American sisters in Las Vegas, not the Royal Family.
Still, I think I was drawn there for a variety of reasons, including my own interest in the Royals, my interest in Las Vegas, and the idea of marrying the two.
I think it’s fascinating that there is a Princess Diana museum in Vegas. Alas, it opened in September 2022, after I had finished writing the novel. Still, I hope it’s an indication that my pairing has an unexpected logic.
JBV: Crissy’s estranged sister, Betsy, and Betsy’s newly adopted teenage daughter, Marisa, are also POV characters (Crissy and Marisa in the first-person and Betsy in the third). Tell us about the appeal of this narrative structure. How did using multiple perspectives allow for both an organic sense of character development as well as the heightening of suspense and tensions?
CB: I’m a fan of narratives with multiple perspectives – that Rashomon effect. I’ve used it (off the top of my head) in The Lioness, The Sandcastle Girls, The Flight Attendant, Secrets of Eden, and The Guest Room. The truth is, in real life, no two witnesses see one event the same way. Why not use that reality in fiction? And, as you observed correctly, it increases the tension, because readers can know things that a character doesn’t.
JBV: Betsy unwittingly finds herself mixed up with members of organized crime when she follows her boyfriend to Sin City, where they’ve found employment in a burgeoning bitcoin enterprise. Share with us why Vegas, with its colorful past and ever-evolving present, presented itself as the ideal setting for a cautionary tale about the mob’s influence on the cryptocurrency business (which remains a mystery to many of us).
CB: Las Vegas is that fiery meteor that shoots across all our skies at some point in our lives, and demands that we watch. It’s a fever dream of hope and desire. And while the city is known for many things, crime is certainly a part of its DNA, and has been since it was founded. My apologies to the teams in tourism there, but let’s face it: it was a city mayor who helped create a mob museum in Vegas. Organized crime is a part of – and I love your use of this expression – “its colorful past.”
I’m not sure if or when cryptocurrency will become big in Vegas or a currency on casino floors. And most of us barely understood cryptocurrency. So, crypto is – to use that word again – a MacGuffin. It’s a basis for possible next-generation criminality and corruption. But to enjoy the novel, you don’t need to know anything at all about crypto.
Moreover, Vegas is at once ahead of the curve and behind it. It’s cutting edge and old school at the same time. It’s always changing. So, I set the novel in the summer and fall of 2022, because I needed a marker that wouldn’t change. I have no idea the role that crypto will play in the city, or in all our lives, in five or ten years.
JBV: Like crime (organized or other!), history also informs many of your stories. Why is it important to look at the past in contextualizing the present – and how does your Armenian heritage factor into this desire to enlighten readers as you entertain them?
CB: One of the most quoted lines from any of my novels is this one from The Sandcastle Girls: “But history does matter. There is a line connecting the Armenians and the Jews and the Cambodians and the Bosnians and the Rwandans.”
We know that fiction engenders empathy and it can teach history. (I suspect that perhaps millions of people first learned about the Armenian Genocide from The Sandcastle Girls and the publicity around the novel.) I fear that a lot of Americans know too little about history, and if you don’t understand the past, well. . .
We know how that goes. We repeat mistakes and we do that with far more cataclysmic consequences.
So, yes, as a novelist, I want to entertain. But as a human being, I hope to share some of the things I’ve learned.
JBV: In addition to being a novelist, you are also an accomplished playwright and screenwriter. While some might argue that writing is writing, each of these formats requires a distinct skillset (understanding of dialogue, direction, story structure, etc.). Tell us about the disparities and similarities of these disciplines. How can working in one area open up unexpected channels into the others?
CB: I’ve written screenplays and teleplays, but I’m not an accomplished screenwriter. Of the three movies and the TV series that sprang from my novels, I wrote. . .nothing for the screen. Those plaudits belong to other writers.
I have, however, had three plays that I am really proud of, including The Club, which had its world premiere at the George Street Playhouse just last month. Two of my plays were original stories and one was an adaptation of my novel, Midwives.
And one thing I have learned is this: it is a hell of a lot easier to write a new play than it is to adapt an existing novel for the stage. Writing the Midwives play was much harder than writing Wingspan or The Club. The reason is pretty simple. A novel, by design, can be big and unwieldy and you have dozens of settings and scenes and characters. A play has to have a lot fewer. It is not less profound or complex than a novel, but you know your parameters (not limitations) going in.
Also, a play has a cast and crew to solve a lot of problems the playwright hasn’t. I bow before all of the people in theatre who have dramatically elevated my work there.
JBV: You refer to yourself as the “3rd most talented artist in a family of 3”—which includes your wife, photographer Victoria Blewer, and daughter, Grace Experience, an actor who has also narrated several of your books. What has been the importance of curiosity and creativity in your home – and how has watching your wife and daughter pursue their art emboldened your own approach to craft, assuming it has?
CB: Lord, the two of them are so much more talented than I am – and in much harder fields for artists. The fact they do with their lives what they want is inspiring.
I have always depended on my wife as my first reader, but now she is joined by our daughter. I depend on them and my editor, Jenny Jackson. (Jenny is also a brilliant novelist herself – Pineapple Street.) As my wife once said to me, when I was pushing back against a criticism, “Wouldn’t you rather hear it from me than the New York Times?” (Answer? Yes.)
In any case, I love that as a playwright and novelist I have gotten to work with Grace Experience. And I love that – since we were eighteen years old – my lovely bride has been candid with me about almost every word I have written.
