Catching Up with Bob Mayer

For our most devoted readers, this face may seem familiar. Bob was featured in the very second magazine we ever published! Yep, he has been a friend of InD’tale for that long. One of the  biggest pioneers in Indie Publishing and also one of it’s premier authors, Bob has finally written a most anticipated sequel to the huge hit, “Agnes and the Hitman” written with Rom-con legend, Jennifer Cruisie. As he hits the road for “Shane and the Hitwoman” Bob, sat down to catch up and give us a look at all that has happened and what’s in store for this amazing man and incredible talent!

InD: You were the feature interview, in our second edition!
BM: I remember that. What year was that?
InD: It was 2011 or 2012, almost 10 years ago. You have to catch us up! First, tell us about your growing up years.
BM: I grew up in the Bronx, then I went to West Point, and into the military. I served in the Infantry, and then in Special Forces.
InD: What was growing up in the Bronx like?
BM: It was pretty crazy. Actually, my latest thriller series is based on the years I grew up there. It has been fun to revisit. The first book is set in 1977, which was my senior year in high school. The Son of Sam was active. He shot a girl I went to school with, in the neighborhood where we lived. We had the blackout that summer. July 13th, the city was on fire. My dad worked for the city and the place was going down the tubes, and everyone was writing it off.
New York is different now. I go back and walk around and feel like a tourist. It’s like, “I know I’m actually from here, but I don't feel like it.”
InD: What do you see as really different from the New York of 1977 and the New York now?
BM: I was there about three or four years ago, driving through the Bronx. I went by the house I grew up in, and it is 600 ft². We thought that was huge, and there were six of us in there. Manhattan is totally touristy now. I remember going down to the Port Authority from West Point, one early morning on a bus in uniform, and walking over to Lexington Avenue to the subway. I got propositioned at least 20 times by prostitutes. That area was totally seedy.
Now, it’s like Disney World! New York is still a neat city and I love to visit it, but it’s lost the soul. Greenwich Village used to be really cool. Now, if you don't have a couple million dollars, forget about it, you don't belong.
InD: So where do you think all of the people like you gravitated to and ended up?
BM: I guess many just left. Prices have just pushed many out of the city, others just make it work.
InD: What made you decide on a military career?
BM: Honestly, I wanted to get away from home and go to college, but my dad was a garbage man so that was the only way I saw how to do it. That is a choice a lot of people make. The fire department is New York's bravest. The police department is New York's finest. But people quickly figured out that if the sanitation department goes on strike, you better pay them because they are critical.
We had visited West Point a few times and once I started the application process, I got really interested. It seemed like a good challenge. I think that’s one reason why I do a lot of things. I want a challenge and to see what I can do.
InD: After you graduated from West Point, you went into the Special Forces?
BM: I went into the Infantry first. I went to 1st CAV division. That was a bad time for the military. We still had the hangover from Vietnam. There was an officer there who had been in the Special Forces and I thought that was pretty neat, so I applied for the qualification course and went to Fort Bragg, passed the training and was assigned to a Special Forces group. That was fantastic. It was really interesting going to work because we were always doing very unique stuff and traveling. Some of it obviously wasn't so much fun on certain deployments, but you are working with some really smart go-getters.

Read the entire fun and informative interview in the Dec/Jan 2021-22 issue of InD'Tale magazine.

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