By Jae-Ha Kim
Tribune Content Agency
January 19, 2016
Author Matt Marinovich says that his ultimate excursion would involve his career. “As a writer, I would love to be able to cover a true crime story that would lead me to strange places across the country, preferably in a mid-sized rental car,” says Marinovich, whose latest thriller — “The Winter Girl: A Novel” (Doubleday, $24.95) — is set in the Hamptons.
“I’ve always envied the backstory of how Truman Capote became involved with ‘In Cold Blood.’ It was one of the most memorable books I’ve read.”
To keep updated on the 49-year-old Brooklyn resident’s book tour, check out his page on Goodreads for upcoming events/readings.
Q. What is your favorite vacation destination?
A. I’d have to say Dubrovnik, in Croatia. My late father was born there and it’s an unforgettable city, right from the moment you drive in from the airport late at night and see the walled city lit up far below you. It doesn’t have sandy beaches. All the shoreline there is rocky. But there is a wonderful island that’s just a 15-minute ferry ride from the old town, called Lokrum, and they have these ladders that lead directly down to the sea. My daughters loved it.
Q. To someone who was going there for the first time, what would you recommend that they do during their visit?
A. Dubrovnik gets pretty crowded during the summer months, especially in the old town. If you have kids, the best place to stay is in Lapad Bay. And if you can splurge a little, there are some really nice hotels there like the Hotel Splendid. You can sit on the terrace and have espresso while your kids splash around in the calm water. If you’ve really saved up a little vacation cash, you can hire a boat to take you to one of the nearby islands, many of which still have bullet holes in the facades of the buildings from the civil war in 1991. The snorkeling is amazing. You can rip a sea urchin off the rocks and eat it right on the dock.
Q. What untapped destination should people know about?
A. Untapped is so hard for me to find. But it’s funny, because I’ve lived in New York City almost my entire life, and I went out for the first time on one of those fishing party boats where you drift about half a mile off Coney Island and hope to catch some fluke. After years of waiting in three-hour traffic to get out to the Hamptons, there’s something even nicer about staying in the city on a summer weekend and watching a kid reel in a small shark under the Verrazano Bridge. The boat was called the Sea Queen, by the way, and it’s a bargain. Twenty bucks for four hours of fishing and you can bring your own beer.
Q. What was the first trip you took as a child?
A. My first big trip that I remember distinctly was somewhere in Miami. There was a red tide and all these dead, bloated jellyfish were washing up onshore. So we spent the whole vacation cooped up in a hotel room with the air conditioning on max and nothing to do. Maybe that’s where I get my sense of impending dread from.
Q. What’s the most important thing you’ve learned from your travels?
A. That at some point I’m going to wig out. It could be in a train station where a train leaves just as you figure out the ticket kiosk, or on a beach where I lose sight of my youngest daughter, or waiting an hour for my kids to figure out how to put their snowpants on. And then I’m going to feel bad about wigging out, and want to make it up to my kids by handing them all the coins in my pockets so they can explore every weird Italian vending machine on track 28.
Q. Have you traveled to a place that stood out so much that you felt compelled to incorporate it into your work?
A. That would be what happened when I was getting a divorce and wound up sitting in my mother’s house in Atterbury Hills, near Southampton, Long Island. I got tired of watching seagulls flying around through my father’s old pair of binoculars and so I started exploring the gully that led to the house next door. That’s when I realized all the furniture was there, all the dusty books, all the cookware, and even a ceramic pig in the kitchen with a cheesy chef’s hat. I had this tremendous urge to get in there somehow, sit on a stranger’s sofa, see what they were hiding upstairs, get clues as to where they had gone. And because I didn’t have the guts to physically do it, I wrote about it instead. That became my novel, “The Winter Girl.”
Q. Where are your favorite weekend getaways?
A. I recently traveled up to Beacon, New York. It has a great vibe and it’s right on the Hudson River. You can rent out kayaks on a calm day and paddle all the way out to Bannerman’s Island.
Q. If you’ve ever gone away for the holidays, which was the best trip?
A. It was just two hours away, but skiing with my kids in Belleayre, New York, was the most fun I’ve had in a long time, aside from watching my daughter’s ski fall off her foot at the highest point on the chair lift. Pretending you know how to jump when you’re followed by two children is kind of hard to beat, especially when you get six inches of air.
Q. What are your five favorite cities?
A. New York, Los Angeles, Dubrovnik, Montreal, Miami.
Q. Where would you like to go that you have never been to before?
A. My favorite authors — Chekhov, Dostoevsky — are Russian, so if the political climate ever thaws there, I’d love to go to St. Petersburg.
Q. What kind of research do you do before you go away on a trip?
A. I’ve become addicted to TripAdvisor and I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Because when everyone likes something, you can sometimes end up at a crappy gelato place in Florence that charges $14 bucks for a single scoop. I told my daughter she was stuck with it.
Q. Where is the most romantic destination?
A. Any of the islands near Dubrovnik, especially Lopud island (not to be confused with Lapad Bay).
Q. What are your favorite hotels?
A. There’s this ultra-luxe place in Dubrovnik called the Hotel Excelsior. View of the city at night. Right on the ocean. One of those places that’s maybe a little too nice. I feel really self conscious whenever I realize I can toss away a towel after wiping away a bead of sweat. I think I’m more comfortable in seedy motels.
© 2016 JAE-HA KIM
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.
