Michael Elias
Author Interview - Michael Elias
Author of You Can Go Home Now and Bender's L.A.
About Bender’s L.A.:
Set in the coke-dusted canyons and smoke-filled bars of 1970s Los Angeles, Bender's L.A. follows writer Stanley Bender as he attempts to rewrite his life—romantically, professionally, and spiritually—after his wife walks out in Puerto Vallarta with a single sentence and a suitcase. Bender plays tennis with fugitive Abbie Hoffman, arms himself against a homicidal producer, goes back in time to fall in love with a young Marilyn Monroe, runs afoul of Nixon's FBI, and weathers a romantic misfire with a woman suspiciously like Eve Babitz. Haunted by his New York past and adrift in his Hollywood present, guided by his Sun-Tzu quoting uber-agent, Neil Navitz, Bender wonders whether success has cost him the things that mattered—or whether he ever really had them. With Chekhovian tone and a Roth like wink, Bender offers a bittersweet meditation on love, memory, and moral compromise of the Hollywood illusion machine—and the misfits it sometimes mangles along the way. In this tragicomedy about nostalgia, recovery, Bender prevails.
Author I draw inspiration from:
2026: Philip Roth - Goodbye,Columbus
2020: For me “inspiration” works like this: Great writers don't inspire, they intimidate. I read them and say, "I can't write that well."
Lesser ones don't inspire either, they give me confidence: "I can write better than that."
The truth is the best source of inspiration for me is live music: classical, jazz, rock—put me in a concert, the music frees me and the next thing I know, I'm getting ideas for stories, solutions for present problems, and past missteps. I can't wait to get home and write and rewrite.
Favorite place to read a book:
2026: Front porch with my dog under the chair.
2020: When I was young, I hid a flashlight under my pillow, pulled the covers over me and read. I read everywhere now, but the pleasure of reading in bed furtively has never left me.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with:
2026: Sophie (L.A. Woman by Eve Babitz) We'd use all the air laughing and then pass out. And rescued, of course.
2020: I think I'd like to be with James Bond because he would know how to get us out.
Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy would bring her fictional Robert Graves, Wilfred Owen, and Siegfried Sassoon into the elevator. Would there be room for all of us?
Author Interview - Michael Elias
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author:
2026: When my father said, "You know how to tell a story. Now, write it."
2020: I knew early, it just took me a long time to realize it was possible, and to be an author I would first have to become a writer.
In between, I was an actor and part of a comedy act.
One night my partner and I were on The Johnny Carson Show. A Hollywood producer called and asked, "Who writes your material?"
"We do."
"Would you like to come to Hollywood and be television writers?"
"You bet."
It's how I became a writer. The author thing took longer.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook:
2026: I like them all, they are all paths to pleasure.
2020: I read 'em all and listen, too. E-books on my phone. Sometimes I wake up in the morning still holding it.
The last book I read:
2026: Charles Sprawson's "Haunts of the Black Masseur - The Swimmer As Hero" A beautifully written literary history of swimming.
2020: Deacon King Kong by James McBride. Life in a Brooklyn housing project in the 70s.
A moving affectionate novel about unlikely people looking for and finding love. Also, pretty damned funny.
Author Interview - Michael Elias
Pen & paper or computer:
2026: Only computer, and ideas and notes to myself via text in the middle of the night. I do errands until there is nothing more to do and then I write.
2020: Computer, unless I'm at a concert, then it's my little notebook and Muji pen.
I don't remember the name of the comedian who said, "I make my living with a pen. I raise pigs."
Book character I think I’d be best friends with:
2026: Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye - he needs a solid adult friend.
2020: My heroes in my own books: Nina in You Can Go Home Now and Adam in the Last Conquistador.
I couldn't write them if I didn't love them.
Okay, I also could be best friends with Virginia Woolf's Orlando, Ford Maddox Ford's Tietjens in Parade's End, and, not at first, but eventually, Philip Roth's Nathan Zuckerman.
Author Interview - Michael Elias
If I wasn’t an author, I’d be a:
2026: Rick in Casablanca, showing people to their tables, and outwitting Nazis.
2020: It's a scary thought. I'm not good at anything that requires regular hours, taking orders from a boss, and waiting for the weekend.
I am so lucky to be a writer.
Favorite decade in fashion history:
2026: The 50's. Bermuda shorts and narrow ties.
2020: It wouldn't be the 70s—I had to throw out my ties and buy scarves and a Nehru jacket.
I would say the 50s—it's when I fell in love with The Modern Jazz Quartet and button-down.
John Lewis, Milt Jackson, Percy Heath, and Connie Kay were the best dressers ever.
Place I’d most like to travel:
2026: Anywhere with rivers, mountains and forests.
2020: Travel can only be a memory now, so I'd like to try and go to some fictional places: Frank Baum's Oz, Shakespeare's Prospero's Island, Homer's Troy, Aeneas' Underworld.
My signature drink:
2026: In moderation a vodka on the rocks with lots of olives.
2020: Vodka on ice with too many olives.
Favorite artist:
2026: Philip Guston, Sonny Rollins, and Ed Ruscha
2020: It's a toss-up between Philp Guston, Susan Elias, and Reinhard Voigt; two brilliant artists in Berlin."
Number one on my bucket list:
2026: The Orient Express
2020: After not kicking the bucket? One more meal at my sister's restaurant The River Cafe in London, with my wife Bianca and our kids.
Anything else you'd like to add:
2020: I grew up with my two sisters in a small town in upstate New York, population 1,500. My father was the town doctor, my mother the school librarian. For all of us, it was a provincial and Chekhovian existence, we cried New York New York instead of Moscow Moscow.
But our parents knew how to get us out while we were there; they gave us books. I just wish they were around to read mine.
Find more from the author:
Website: www.michaeleliaswriter.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michaeleliasauthor
About Michael Elias:
Michael Elias was born and raised in the Catskill mountains. After graduating from St. John’s College in Annapolis, he went to New York where he acted at the Judson Poets Theater, La Mama, and The Living Theatre.
He and Frank Shaw formed a comedy team and appeared on The Tonight Show, and toured with Ed Ames, Janis Ian, and The Turtles.
Moving to Los Angeles, they wrote the screenplay for The Frisco Kid. Elias went on to write episodes for Mary Tyler Moore, All in the Family, The Odd Couple, and The Dick Van Dyke Show. He collaborated with Steve Martin on his comedy albums, TV specials, and The Jerk.
With Rich Eustis he created Head of the Class that ran for five seasons on ABC, and wrote the screenplays for Serial, and Young Doctors in Love.
Elias wrote and directed Lush Life starring Forrest Whitaker and Jeff Goldblum. His play The Catskill Sonata was named number one on the LA Weekly’s ten best plays of the year.
Novels include You Can Go Home Now (HarperCollins) a psychological thriller featuring a female cop on the hunt for an anti-abortion terrorist, and The Last Conquistador (Open Road Media) about the Inca. Michael Elias is a member of Writer’s Guild and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Michael Elias lives in Los Angeles and is married to Bianca Roberts.
Author Interview - Michael Elias
