Journalists can gain many opportunities from their line of work: traveling around the world, reporting on breaking news, or even meeting with prominent celebrities. For Susan Diamond, journalism was the unlikely impetus for a tale of intrigue and revenge that soon developed into her first novel, “What Goes Around.”
Diamond, a writer and columnist for the Los Angeles Times for 17 years, found inspiration for the book while investigating a story for the newspaper on the hidden men’s clubs throughout Los Angeles.
The novel’s beginnings will be one of many subjects covered in a discussion at Borders in Westwood today between Diamond and her brother, author and UCLA professor Jared Diamond.
“In the course of doing a story on some lawsuits that the clubs were facing because of their exclusivity, I suddenly got this mean little image of a female body on the path just outside the periphery of one of these exclusive men’s clubs,” Susan Diamond said.
This imagined scene soon evolved in Diamond’s head into a twisting plot of murder and retribution. After uncovering the murdered call girl, the novel’s five female friends suspect foul play, using their resources as professional women to uncover the murderer.
Diamond quickly separates the book from other typical female-centered novels.
“This is not chick lit,” she said.
Rather, her characters are strong, assertive and ingenious women.
“These women are of the sort that I know,” she said. “They are established, they’re relatively successful in their fields and quite serious about what they do. They’re also funny, witty and very loyal to their female friends.”
Diamond’s background in journalism not only provided the very inspiration for her story, but also gave her the expertise to present the women’s various professions accurately.
“A journalist is somebody who, every week or two, learns a new field, so that’s where this minor expertise in tax codes and real estate development and divorce law all came from,” she said.
Diamond fully utilizes the Los Angeles setting she has become an expert on as a Los Angeles Times writer, with the novel traversing across the diverse city.
“It roves all over Los Angeles,” she said. “L.A. is a wonderful setting, and it’s a rapidly changing setting. You can have seacoast, you can have the Inland Empire, you can have deep downtown city, you can have suburbia, and my book covers all these places.”
Thanks to the presence of her acclaimed brother, the Borders discussion will also cover a lot of ground.
Jared Diamond, a writer of scientific nonfiction and professor in the UCLA Department of Geography, will discuss his works, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.”
The main emphasis of the discussion, however, will be the two siblings’ developments as writers.
“We will be talking about the experience of becoming a writer: how one becomes a writer and the surprising similarities between writing fiction and writing nonfiction,” Jared Diamond said. “We will also talk about growing up in the same household and ending up different people with different interests.”
Although both Diamonds are writers, their subject matter differs greatly. Susan Diamond has always wished to pursue fiction writing, while Jared Diamond remained scientifically minded, turning to nonfiction writing relatively later in order reach a wider audience beyond just scientists and academics.
Despite their varying interests, the Diamonds, in fact, have not actually analyzed each other’s works over the years until now.
“We admired what the other person wrote, but never really sat down and compared the works,” Susan Diamond said. “This is actually the first time we have got together and really looked at the styles.”
Jared Diamond found his sister’s book surprisingly addictive, calling it a “dangerous” novel.
“I call it that because you just cannot set it down once you begin,” he said. “If there’s something important you need to do, you better not pick up Susan’s book until you finish (that) first.”
Although Susan Diamond writes of fictional exploits and her brother covers nonfiction, their themes have recently aligned.
“We’re writing in completely different areas, but there are some amazing similarities in our style and our approach to material,” she said.
“We are also interested in the same subjects.”
Jared Diamond elaborated on the material of his upcoming project ““ subject matter that complements his sister’s writing.
“My next nonfiction book will include a chapter on revenge in tribal societies from a real-life point of view,” he said. “So I was really struck by the parallel when I saw that Susan was writing about revenge from a fictional point of view.”
The Diamonds will explore these unexpected elements further today. Susan Diamond notes that, although there will be a structured discussion, the pairing with her writer sibling will leave plenty of room for unpredictability.
“There is always the fear that you’ll collapse into the in-jokes that brothers and sisters share, but I know the discussion will be a fun, very interesting experience,” she said.