Oakland had not even changed that much by the time I really knuckled down and began working on just writing it, around 2000. Then a certain inciting incident occurred - no spoilers here! - which made everything crystal clear to me. For years, I didn’t even know what the story was, even though I was taking notes and making lists of potential characters. This is a story I knew I had to tell from the first day I worked in that restaurant.

I’m curious how much of that is your point of view as a writer today, and how much was present at the time? Madge seems to be aware of that, to some degree, to my eye. The responsibility is in trying to make the characters three-dimensional and the story believable.Ĭustomer really feels like a book filled with ghosts, to me: An Oakland that doesn’t exist anymore, a culture that doesn’t exist anymore, and people that don’t exist anymore, in more ways that one - everyone in the book seems aware of the transitory nature of their existence. So, episodes given to me were sometimes gutted for parts and assigned to other characters to make the narrative flow better.ĭoes the disclaimer at the start of the book, firmly identifying the story as a fictionalization of your experiences, grant you a sense of freedom when it comes to writing? Or responsibility? Somewhere between the two?įiction absolutely gives you much more freedom. I collected many stories from my former co-workers over the years I spent researching this, and the point wasn’t to make a factual or literal report of the real place, but to try to make the reader understand what it was like to have been a part of that time and place. I knew Lazlo was at the heart of the the story, so all roads had to lead to him or be driven by him. How did you pare down what made sense to include, and what was peripheral to the experience you’re trying to share?

Despite that, the book never feels like it’s losing focus. The Customer Is Always Wrong continues Madge’s story from 2014’s Over Easy, but it’s a book as much about Lazlo, and those in and around the Imperial Cafe, as it is Madge herself.

Mimi pond the customer is always wrong