S1: Welcome in San Diego. It's Jade Hindman on this episode of KPBS Midday Edition , former NFL football player Andre Hardy writes about his hometown of San Diego in a new crime thriller. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. Hustlers supposed to get in , stack some bread , get ghosts before it goes bad. Because it always does. Those are among the opening words of the novel. Tear the City down. Harkening back to classic noir thrillers. The book follows a longtime fixer as he navigates San Diego's underworld in search of a missing star football player in need of help. I'm joined now by the book's author , Andre Hardy. Andre , welcome to Midday Edition.
S2: Oh , thank you for having me. Glad to be here.
S1: Glad to have you here. Tear the City Down releases today. First off , congratulations to you.
S2: Thank you. It's been quite a journey , I'm sure.
S1: Yeah , because your journey to writing this novel. It's been pretty unique. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. I never thought I would write a novel until late in life. You know , I was a professional athlete and a business person , but a stone cold bookworm. And so crime fiction was always the thing that I read. And when I got the writing bug , there was no question that I would write noir. Wow.
S1: Wow. And in addition to being a successful writer , you also are a former professional football player. You played running back in the NFL. When did you decide you wanted to write?
S2: Many , many years later , I had a situation where I was in a in a board meeting. I was working in a nonprofit , and there were some gentlemen in the room who just weren't getting what we were talking about. We were working on a project in East Palo Alto , and we're talking about the community and and their ideas of how to access the community were so offline. I thought the only way they're going to figure this out is if I write a book. Wow.
S1: Wow. And this is what you've done. Um , you know , and San Diego is almost a character in this book. You take us from La Jolla Estates to Sherman Heights , Barrio Logan , southeast San Diego and downtown and these places in places , you know , they can really feel like entirely different worlds. Um , what did you want to say about San Diego by putting all of those worlds in the same story?
S2: Yeah , I wanted to to share how beautifully complex San Diego is as a city. Most people when you when you talk about San Diego , everywhere I go , I can say I'm from San Diego and people will say , oh my God , I love that place. But I really understand that they're talking about the beach communities. They're not talking about the San Diego that I grew up in and this landscape that you see in the novel. So it was important to me to make sure that all of the San Diego's that I love and adore were a part of the book.
S1: Do you think there are people who can live their entire lives here without ever really even seeing the other San Diego that you write of? Absolutely.
S2: Absolutely. There are people. I had a press event , and there were people in the room who I mean , we were in Little Italy and Barrio Logan is two miles away. They had never been there , never once been there. And and the inverse of that is , I know guys in my neighborhood who have never seen Del Mar. And so there's this crazy , there's this interesting sort of duality of a city that is connected but disconnected. It's it's it's it's strange. And I have had the opportunity of traversing all of these places. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. I mean , and you do a great job of , of painting the picture in the book. Um , you know , very early in the book , Coltrane , the main character , questioned something we're usually taught to kind of celebrate , um , without qualification. And that's upward mobility. Right. Um , he's got money , you know , he's got access. He he can move through rooms that were once close to him. Um , but the closer he gets to this wealth and power , the more morally compromised he he his life becomes. Yeah. Um , is there a question there that you want readers to really think about in terms of what's required to trade in in order to , to , quote unquote , make it.
S2: Yeah , absolutely. And I and seeing that Coltrane is from a. Urban Brown community , oftentimes those trades for the people who live in those communities are things that can be outside of the law. Right. And so , you , you know , you you go on this path with the idea of , I am going to get just enough money to make it. But there's an allure to money that he talks about that you once you start , there's this kind of sickness where you really do not know where to stop. And were it not for love. Coming into Coltrane's life , I don't know that he would have stopped.
S1: That's interesting. I mean , you say your book is built on the architecture of jazz music as well. And one musician in particular , uh , of course. So go back and tell me how that shows up in the book. I mean , you have your main character , Coltrane. How do these things connect? Yeah.
S2: Yeah. You know , when I was conceiving the novel , the conceits of the genre oftentimes have a jazz component. If you think of Bosch. He loves jazz. And when I thought of the novel and the way that Coltrane would need to navigate the city , I thought of him as not loving jazz , but being jazz. So Coltrane is jazz and that the architecture of John Coltrane , because his music is so resonant and so diverse and also has a a really deep spiritual component to it. He was the perfect companion for Coltrane. And what happens is the novel is that in these key moments you will notice songs come to Coltrane's head and he begins to think about John Coltrane's music , even even to the point where he's going into a very dangerous situation where he wants to save this girl and he remembers the song. Alabama , now Alabama was the song that Coltrane wrote after the bombing and that killed the little girls in the church. And so this is the song that he remembers and hums to himself as he goes into this situation , hopefully to rescue a little girl. Wow.
S1: Wow. And I feel like that's something that you wanted to sort of deliberately interrogate in the book , was our idea of what it means to to be able to protect. Absolutely.
S2: Absolutely. And particular what it means for what what does what does protection look like for a male , and what in particular does protection look like for a black male? And then where are those lines between earning enough to buy the external things that we need and being present? And where is. Where is that line and where do you particularly where do you cross it , where you've you've crossed over into not being there. And your absence is an issue because you're spending so much time trying to earn in order to protect. Mhm.
S1: Mhm. You know , there's a also a lot of yourself and your life experience in this book. How did you approach bringing that into the story but also being committed to telling , um telling this , this , this fictional story so to speak. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. You know , that that idea of author intrusions I was very conscious of when it was my voice and not cold. Trained voice. And I was conscious of where we may have shared a particular idea , but but to make sure that it was delivered in a way that was authentic to his character and not and not the author talking to you.
S1: And one of the central characters , of course , is an NFL running back like you. Yes. You know. How did you want to portray the sport? Yeah.
S2: Yeah. Well , the you know , I have a love hate relationship with the NFL. Okay. As do as do most players we make.
S1: Let me know about that. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. We we we make these trades of our health and well-being often most. The thing that mostly gets overlooked is our mental health. We trade it for money. And when you are done with the NFL , You are like exhaust. You don't really exist because you have no more value. You have been used up and they kind of don't care. And they don't care that you are walking around with mental health issues , depression , that you may have , CTE , Lou Gehrig's , Alzheimer's , all of these , or that you potentially die at the age of 55. And so there. There isn't enough concern , in my opinion , by a league who has enough financial horsepower to be concerned and make change. Like if I if I were to make a unilateral decision , when every player leaves the league , they should have mental health services because that ego death is equal to any other kind of death that you may encounter , and we just sort of leave the game and are thrown back into the world to navigate that. And I think it's a shame.
S1: Um , yeah. No , it is the way that you , you navigated that was to really , um , cling to meditation. You've really incorporated that into your life and into your own mental health journey. How has that impacted you? What's that been like for you?
S2: Yeah , I was I was struggling , I was in a very , very bad situation and happened to , uh , through a friend who told me that his therapist saved his life , knowing that I was on the verge of something that was not going to be pretty. I asked for the number , and I went into therapy. And therapy led me to meditation as a tool to deal with my mental health. And once I got on that path and begin to see the benefits of calming those voices in my head that I still deal with. I took to it like water , and I'm like , the entire world needs to know to need to know about this. This is good. Yeah.
S1: So then so how do you help others who might be in a similar shoes?
S2: Well , I am always an advocate and talk openly about my journey and how mental health has affected me. And here we have this book , right? That is into the world. And one of the most beautiful things that's happening to me are people are asking , what is this Dharma thing you're talking about in the book? Yeah.
S1: That is the thing.
S2: That's the. Thing.
S1: Thing. The question. Yeah , I understand there may actually be another book already in the works.
S2: It's in the works. It's due. The publisher is knocking on my door. Where is book two? I plan to turn it in the middle of this month , actually.
S1: All right. Well congratulations again. And what a great book. I've been speaking with Andre Hardy , author of Tear the City Down. And Andre will be at Warwick's tonight at 730 to celebrate the book's release. Andre , thanks for being here. And congratulations again. Hello.
S2: Hello. Thank you for having me. It's been great.
S3: Thank you.
S1: That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.
