Terry Roberts visits 1924 Asheville in new novel

Editor’s note: The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape was published Oct. 1. Due to the disruptions caused in Western North Carolina by Tropical Storm Helene, the author has rereleased the book.

Stephen Robbins is back — and no one is more surprised than his creator.

Asheville-based author Terry Roberts continues his protagonist’s saga in The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape, which was published on Oct. 1. It’s the third book in what Roberts calls “a sort of accidental series” — one he didn’t consciously set out to create but that nevertheless arose.

“When I finished writing my first novel, A Short Time to Stay Here, I assumed Stephen Robbins’ story was complete, and he could rest in the arms of his beloved in New York,” the author says. “But as it turned out, he had much more to say and do.”

Roberts was soon inspired to write a novel about racial and tribal hatred and set it on Ellis Island in the 1920s. As the narrative took shape, he says, “There was Stephen.” And when that 2021 novel, My Mistress’ Eyes Are Raven Black, turned into a hard-boiled detective story, Stephen’s career as a troubled private investigator was born.

“Sardonic, tough, relentless — turns out that he is a natural fit for the genre,” Roberts says.

From there, it became a relatively easy transition to bring Stephen back for a 1924, Asheville-set investigation into the world of politics and prostitution that’s at the core of The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape. Given the nature of the world as it’s portrayed in the novel, Roberts feels that “perhaps only Stephen could do what has to be done here, both as a character and a narrator.”

Days of future past

Before Stephen’s arrival at the Grove Park Inn to search for Rosalind Caldwell’s killer, Roberts took a detour from the PI’s story to focus on Jo Salter in The Sky Club, which was published in 2022. Set in Asheville in the late 1920s, the novel spotlights a period when much of the city’s upper crust was, in Roberts’ words, “drunk on possibility” and confident that more riches awaited. Instead, the Central Bank and Trust Co. and additional financial institutions closed in 1930, sending the Asheville economy into a free fall.

“The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape is set six years earlier, and it explores the social and economic hierarchy that is Asheville society from the perspective of a private operative who has been brought in to solve a murder,” Roberts says. “The cast of characters is different, but the setting is much the same, which means that the money and power in the city is kept tightly within the grasp of a few wealthy, white families.”

In turn, Roberts sees numerous parallels between the Asheville that Stephen encounters and the world of speakeasies and bootlegging that Jo discovers in The Sky Club. Roberts says the main difference is that Stephen “has to deal with a much darker, more violent aspect of that world,” the rendering of which is informed by the author’s research and writing of The Sky Club.

“The important thing for me about Stephen Robbins’ story as it extends into a series is that it gives me as a writer — and you as a reader — the opportunity to explore several characters’ lives through decades,” Roberts says. “These novels aren’t the same basic story retold in different settings; rather, they are an exploration of how the characters evolve across time — both within themselves and in relation to others. In that way, the books can go much further and deeper than a single book ever could.”

Roberts notes that the events in The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape aren’t based on any historical precedent. And the characters likewise do not reflect well-known individuals from the period, despite fictional Grove Park Inn manager Benjamin Loftis sharing some superficial similarities with Fred L. Seely, the business’ real-life manager in 1924.

“The one significant element that is based on a historical model is the Grove Park Inn itself, but keep in mind that the inn of 100 years ago is quite different from the inn of today,” Roberts says. “The lobby with those wonderful fireplaces, the elevators in the chimneys, the Palm Court, etc., are all similar to what was there in 1924, but actual operations have evolved greatly since then.”

Informed investigations

Roberts conducted significant historical research on Asheville for The Sky Club and The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape. And as Stephen’s PI career took flight in My Mistress’ Eyes Are Raven Black, the author immersed himself in classic hard-boiled detective stories. His goal was to achieve a similar fast-paced, gritty quality that characterizes the best of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Dorothy B. Hughes, Ross MacDonald and other giants of the genre.

“I was working on the theory that what you read is like what you eat: a sort of diet for the imagination. You pick up the sense of pace, language [and] attitude of those great writers,” Roberts says. “The same lineup spoke to The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape. As for contemporary writers, we must all bow to Walter Mosley and James Lee Burke. They are both inspired and inspiring.”

Though these literary heroes’ stories occasionally take place in the same era as Roberts’ novels, and the 1924 centennial of his latest work’s setting provides a neat but unintentional tie to modern-day reflection, other factors inspire him to continually write about the 1920s and ’30s.

“The more time I spend there in my imagination, the more convinced I am that those decades hold up a powerful mirror to contemporary American society,” he says. “We struggle with the same existential questions as they did in the years between the World Wars, and we are haunted by the same ghosts. For me, these novels are not ‘historical’ in the sense that a book set during the Revolutionary War is historical. These books are just as much about October 2024 as they are about October 1924.”

That pull remains strong for Roberts, yet he’ll leap forward four decades for his next novel. The book is tentatively titled In the Fullness of Time and slated for an August 2025 publication, after which the writer plans to return to more familiar surroundings.

“At this stage, I imagine that I’ll go on alternating writing about other settings and characters after every adventure with Stephen,” Roberts says. “And here lately, I’ve begun to imagine where Stephen’s life takes him next. He lives in a dark and mysterious world, as do we ourselves from time to time.”

WHAT: Terry Roberts in conversation with Denise Kiernan

WHERE: Citizen Vinyl, 14 O’Henry Ave., avl.mx/efk

WHEN: Tuesday, Jan. 21, 7-9 p.m. Doors open at 6 p.m. Free with RSVP