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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Imagine being a small town sheriff, getting a call from a serial killer you are hunting, taunting you with religious passages and threats on your family and those close to you, saying those in your flock are not safe. This is one of the very creepy moments from S.A. Cosby's new page turner. The protagonist of his new novel, All the Sinners Bleed, is Titus Crown, the first Black sheriff ever elected in Charon County, Virginia. Charon is a rural community where murder rarely happens until a young Black man named Latrell, brings a gun to his old high school.

It isn't a mass murderer. He shoots a beloved white teacher while rambling about arch angels and someone called 'The Destroyer' and threats to his little brother. After Latrell is shot by a white Deputy, sheriff Titus Crown is drawn into a complex investigation. It turns out the teacher was a torturer and murderer of Black children. The school shooter was the bait, and a third killer is on the loose. He's the one calling sheriff Crown. The sheriff has more to contend with than just a psycho on the loose. He has a dirty cop, a far-right group in town eager to stir up trouble over a Confederate monument, and his ex-girlfriend is a true crime podcaster who has come to town to cover the case.

All the Sinners Bleed is a follow-up to Cosby's acclaimed last novel, Razorblade Tears, both New York Times bestsellers. S.A. Cosby joins me now to discuss. Shawn, welcome to All Of It.

S.A. Cosby: Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Alison Stewart: When you think about your character, Titus Crown, as a human being, why did he want to go into law enforcement?

S.A. Cosby: Titus wanted to go into law enforcement because he wanted to give order or impact order onto an unforgiving and somewhat-- when he was a young man, his mother had a very serious medical condition, and she passed away. Part of that, she didn't really believe in doctors, she used faith-healing, a Christian science methodology. Titus finds that religion and other institutions that we're supposed to lean on, he doesn't have much faith in them, and so, he's determined that he wants to impose this order on the entropy nature of the [inaudible 00:02:34]. He finds out, I think, as most of us do, if you want to make God laugh, make a plan. I think Titus finds that out the hard way.

Alison Stewart: Your protagonist, sheriff Crown, is trying to navigate the dynamic of being a Black man in law enforcement. He had been an FBI before returning home. At one point, the narration says, "Titus always told himself that he was changing things by working the system from the inside, had promised himself as sheriff, he would make sure his department was different, but Latrell had shown him the lie that lived in that promise. What if you couldn't change the system because it was working as intended? If that was true, then why the hell was he wearing the badge?" How did sheriff Crown think he could change the system?

S.A. Cosby: I think Titus thought that by being a part of the system, if he would just mete out justice in an equitable way, then justice would be equal for all. I think what Titus learns, and I think it's a part of what I think is his great gift, but also part of his naivete is that he really believes that. He believes that he can mete out equal [unintelligible 00:03:50], but it's hard to do that when the justice system, in many ways, is inherently unequal, and it's meant to work against women, against people of color. That's something that I think he learns rather quickly on the job.

Alison Stewart: Did you interview any Black police officers in your research?

S.A. Cosby: Yes, I did. I did. Actually, he doesn't want to be mentioned, so I will respect his privacy. I talked to one of the first Black sheriffs in Virginia. A lot of our conversations made it into Titus [unintelligible 00:04:34]. One of the things that he told me that at one point, there was a big murder case, a local murder case in a small town. While he was navigating this really intense case where all the big three networks came down to cover it and it was pretty infamous case, he still had to do the day-to-day grind of a sheriff. He had to fill out expense reports.

He had to make a request for new police cruisers. He gave me a really good insight on how a sheriff would handle both the most awful situation you can come up with, but also the most mundane situations.

Alison Stewart: We're talking about All the Sinners Bleed. My guest is S.A. Cosby, Shawn Cosby. The book begins with this school shooting. What details were important to include about the shooting and the police response, what did you read or research that helps you write this section?

S.A. Cosby: It's unfortunate that that section when I first started the book, there had been a school shooting. When I was editing the book, there had been another school shooting, and when I turned the book in, there had been, again, another school shooting. For me, I wanted to use that as a way to show how we had become a little accustomed to horrific events. In a lot of books, the school shooting would have been the main thrust of the story, but I wanted to show how terrible things happen, and other terrible things happen, and our attention, our bandwidth is stretched so thin that we have to move on to the next tragedy, almost as a defense mechanism.

Also, obviously for the book, it serves a narrative purpose, but thematically. I really wanted to investigate that. I read up on unfortunate shootings like Parkland and other places where there's a panic that comes to a town where you realize these terrible thing that we see on the news is happening here. It can happen here. It may happen here again, and so I really wanted to articulate that as well.

Alison Stewart: You also are very clever in that you know that we know the rhythms of how this usually plays out, and then you subvert them, because the shooter turns out to be a Black man, usually known to be disaffected young, white men and white boys. Then we seem to discover, "Okay, this is targeted. This is not a mass shooting." It starts taking on a different complexion and different facets. Then we find out the person who was shot was thought to be beloved, but turned out to be part of this group of criminals. Why did you want one of the killers at least, to be a beloved community figure?

S.A. Cosby: I wanted to talk about the masks that we all wear. There's a saying, and I don't know who to attribute it to, that we have three faces. We have a public face, we have a private face, and we have [inaudible 00:07:39]. I'm fascinated with identity. I'm fascinated with who we think we are, versus who we actually are. In my book, Blacktop Wasteland [unintelligible 00:07:49] the protagonist who, he wants to be a loving father and husband and business owner, but also he likes being an outlaw. He enjoys the thrill of the chase, so to speak.

In Razorblade Tears, Ike and Buddy Lee, on the outside, if you look at them, they are a couple of older gentlemen who have maybe had a rough life, but they're also really intense men that you should not [inaudible 00:08:14] and people cross them in the most horrific fashion, they kill their sons. I'm fascinated by this idea of identity and how it plays in our lives and how it plays in our communities. That we all have secrets. We all have inner thoughts and inner monologues that we wouldn't want made public. [unintelligible 00:08:33] of this teacher, it's the most terrible thing, there are worse things. I don't know if this is about me, but I'm fascinated by that dichotomy.

Alison Stewart: There's an amazing poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar, We Wear the Mask, that talks about this.

S.A. Cosby: Yes.

Alison Stewart: You definitely do not shy away from some disturbing plot points. There are some very detailed descriptions of murders and the way bodies are manipulated. What is your gauge for how far to go when it comes to being graphic?

S.A. Cosby: I never want the reader to think I'm doing something just to shock them. Any violence, any graphic natures in my book are always narratively important. They're always story-driven. There's a scene in All the Sinners where a body is staged in a very ritualistic manner. That's not just to make the reader flinch. That is to show the inner workings of the mind of the killer, and how they're obsessed with angelic iconography. In my other books, violence is always a narrative driver. It's never just spectacle. I don't want to do spectacle. In All the Sinners Bleed, the victims of the serial killer, of the murderer that we're hunting are young teen and preteen Black boys and girls. I don't need to tell you every detail what happened to them. All I need to do is suggest it, because one, I don't want to do it. I don't want to have those thoughts in my head. Two, as a writer, it is interesting because if I give you just the insinuation of what happened, there's nothing I could ever write that will be as bad as what you think. I learned that from writers. Stephen King is great at that, where just something wicked or terrible is almost more than what we can put on the page.

He has this great line in his-- he wrote a non-fiction book called Danse Macabre a long time ago, talking about horror fiction. He was talking about listening to old radio shows when he was a kid, and it was a show called The Inner Sanctum. In the beginning of that show, there's this terrible creaking door. He said nothing that you could show on TV would ever be as horrible as that door sounded. That's that sort of flavor, that sort of tone that I want to go for. I don't shy away from violence, but I never use it just for shock value.

Alison Stewart: You brought up Stephen King, Shawn. In the world of believing there are no such things as coincidences. My producer Jordan, he's laughing already, happened to be reading Bag of Bones by Stephen King at the same time she was reading this book. That King book is about the legacy of racism in his case in Maine. She noticed that in that book and in your book, there was a Felix, the cat clock in the kitchen, mentioned a few times. Your laugh is fantastic. Stephen King also wrote the review of your book for the New York Times. Is there a chance that this is a reference to Stephen King or a coincidence?

S.A. Cosby: [chuckles] I'll say this, I did not know Stephen King was going to write the review for my book when I wrote All the Sinners Bleed. If I'd known that, I might not have put the Felix the cat in there because now it seems almost too serendipitous. I love Bag of Bones. I'm a huge Stephen King fan. There's something about Felix the cat clocks that are creepy. I think it's the eyes, the way they move back and forth. Yes, that's a little tiny, tiny tribute to Papa Steve. Again, I didn't know he was going to write the review, so now it's almost creepy that it happened.

Alison Stewart: Additionally, interesting that one of our producers in New York just happened to be reading that book at the same time.

S.A. Cosby: Everything's connected. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: Everything's connected. My guest is Shawn Cosby, S. A. Cosby. The name of the book is All The Sinners Bleed. In the beginning of the book, you talk about how Charon County was founded on bloodshed and darkness. You have this quote from sheriff Titus Crown, "The South doesn't change. You can try to hide the past, but it comes back in ways worse than it was before, terrible ways." You yourself are from Southern Virginia. Is this something that you believe?

S.A. Cosby: Oh, yes. I definitely believe. I believe it wholeheartedly. I think the more we try to hide the past, the more it wriggles out, the more it begs or demands to be heard. I wrote this book in a time where we are dealing with all types of people banning what you can talk about as far as history goes. I think that's such a quaint idea on the part of people who want to ban things. Trying to ban things in the age and time where Google exists, I think, is like carrying coals and new gas. I think it's such a exercise in futility. It's all about posturing.

At the same time, there are people who will miss out on the lessons of history. I think that when we try to hide, whether it's the horror of slavery or racism, or we try to hide the horror of what the patriarchal society has done to women, when we try to hide those things, they force their way out in ways that can be much more devastating than what you thought you were protecting someone from. Yes, I definitely believe that.

Alison Stewart: I remember my sister used to live in Richmond, Virginia, and they started trying to call plantations family farms. She was like, "No. Hard no." [chuckles]

S.A. Cosby: Oh yes, there was a big push down there after that to stop calling the plantations family farms or community farms. It is like, "No, they're plantations. You can't change that." [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: Hard no on that. How do you plot out your books? Do you know the twists and turns in advance? Are you someone who has-- some writers have the last three pages written and then work backwards? How do you do it?

S.A. Cosby: I usually just do a really detailed synopsis where it's just a stream of consciousness thing where I'm telling myself the story. With my crime novels, which are-- Razorblade Tears is a mystery, but not really. Ike and Buddy Lee are not using deductive reasoning to solve the murder. They just ride around town and breaking people's fingers. That synopsis usually works a little better there. With All the Sinners Bleed and with my very first novel, My Darkest Prayer, which are both true mysteries and I had to get a little more detailed, I have a whiteboard with suspects. I have a whiteboard with clues. I have one column of suspects, one column of clues. Everything else is in blue, and at very bottom in red is the actual killer so I remember who it is.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] That's funny.

S.A. Cosby: I don't want to forget. I draw flow charts toward the killer's name and who that is and who I think it should be. Sometimes that changes depending on the narrative, but for All the Sinners Bleed, it was pretty consistent all the way through. I knew who I wanted it to be. I knew why I wanted it to be that person thematically and for the narrative. It's funny because when you write a mystery-- I have a really good friend named Jordan Harper, who's a screenwriter and novelist, and he's written for TV for The Mentalist and stuff. I was asking him, I said, "Man, do I have enough suspects? Do I have enough red herrings?"

He read an early draft of the book. He gave me a really good piece of advice. He said, "Here's the thing. Writing a mystery, all it has to do is ask a question in the beginning that only the protagonist can answer in the end. Everything else in the middle is gravy, so don't worry about it." It's like a magic trick. People want to be fooled. If they like your detective, your protagonist, whoever's solving the mystery, they'll allow themselves to be fooled. He said, "It's just like a card trick. We all know it's not really magic, but we go there to be entertained." He said, "Don't worry about it." I think he was right. I think the story and the reaction that people have had to it has borne out. Jordan's right. I always listen to Jordan Harper.

Alison Stewart: I read in The New York Times you write while listening to music. What kind of music do you listen to?

S.A. Cosby: [laughs] It depends, because if I'm writing a serious scene where someone is giving us a [inaudible 00:17:06] way, I'll listen to classical music. I love Mozart, I love Chopin. If I'm writing a really raucous scene where there's a fight going on, an argument, I love deep southern blues, I love hardcore hip hop. There's not a lot of romance in my books, but if I'm writing a scene that's supposed to be romantic, I love listening to love songs.

Alison Stewart: Oh, there's a little love triangle in this one. There's a little love triangle happening.

S.A. Cosby: Yes, a little bit. I love listening to love songs. I love listening to singer songwriters. I'm a big fan of Leonard Cohen. Jeff Buckley's Lover, You Should've Come Over is one of my favorite songs. Has the best line of any song about love or lost love I've ever heard. He has a line in there, he said, "I'd give my kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder." I just love that song. I love the sentiment of that. When I'm listening to those songs, they influence my mood as to what I'm writing. I make big playlists, too, about the books, some to listen to and some just to inspire me. Also, I'm a big fan of Pinterest. I make Pinterest boards for the books, which I know it sounds weird, but it works for me. I know I don't look like the kind of guy that would be on Pinterest, but it does help me a lot.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] How do you name your characters? Because as I got into the book and I'm like, "Titus Crown," I think to myself, "Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Are we going there?" How do you name your people and how did you name Titus?

S.A. Cosby: Every name in my books usually means something. For instance, Titus' father's name is Albert. There was a famous prince from England who didn't want to wear the crown, who didn't want to be responsible. Marquis is a French term of a royalty. I like giving Titus the name Titus, which means forthright and strong. Of course, the crown, obviously means [unintelligible 00:19:07]. I love the double and triple meanings. The name of the county that [unintelligible 00:19:17] Charon, and Charon is the [unintelligible 00:19:19] sticks in Greek and Roman mythology.

Names have power, I think. Names are important. I have a superstition that I can't start writing a book until I come up with a title, which is sort of a name as well, which is a superstition I inherited purposely from the great late writer, Ed McBain, Evan Hunter, who wrote the 87th Precinct novels. I was a big fan of those as a kid. He used to say he never started anything until he came up with a real pithy title and then built his work around it. I have this [laughs] superstition because I've done it with all my books and they've all worked out okay. I don't start anything-- I can't do placeholder titles. It'd just be like, "Oh, we'll come back to that later." I don't know why that is, that's actually sad, but it's just something I have to do.

Alison Stewart: Well, maybe it's your North Star. You just keep coming back to that title. The book has to support the title, or this title has to support the book.

S.A. Cosby: Well, I think the book has to be worthy of the title. The title has to be memorable and mythic. I think I'm a big believer. My mom was a huge fan of Greek, Roman, and African mythology. In those stories, like I said, names have power, names carry weight. I want the stories to be mythic, biblical, Old Testament. You want those names to go hand-in-hand with the story you're telling. One has to support the other. They can't be independent of each other.

Alison Stewart: The name of the book is All The Sinners Bleed. It is from S. A. Cosby. Shawn, thank you so much for being with us and walking us through your process.

S.A. Cosby: Thank you so much for having me. This was great. Thank you all very much.

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