back
KS: Anyway…thanks for saying I pulled it off in Indelible. This was another case of my brain being smart without me knowing how. Originally, I assumed I'd write the Sylacauga part first then go back and do the present-day narration, then blend them together afterward. It didn't work out that way -- I ended up writing the book in a very straight-forward manner, juggling both plots in my head as I moved from chapter to chapter. That I could manage to juggle all of this in my head at the same time is surprising considering I often forget the punchlines to jokes as I'm telling them.
Do you find that you have better focus where your books are concerned than you do in your real life? Because I have to say that the thing you pulled off best in Tokyo is what I like to think of as a writer's contract with the reader: you have the ability to make me trust you implicitly. I know when I read one of your books that no matter which direction the story takes, it's for a reason that will be made clear by the end. And I know that you got lost in Atlanta traffic the one time you came here, so your ability to suspend my disbelief about direction says a lot.
Mo: Yeah, and thanks for the gallant offer to come out and help. Actually, far from being lost I was simply bogged down in your APPALLING beltway system. I knew where I was going. But as I had time (lots of it) to sit and admire your beautiful city from the parking lot -- aka I-285 -- it crossed my mind that there's a tendency to set crime novels in big, very cosmopolitan cities: it's certainly the backdrop I've used in the past (South London, Tokyo). But you've chosen a very small-town setting. I wonder if that's what makes the series so powerful, what makes the menace really hit you between the eyes, the juxtaposition of the horror with sleepy little Heartsdale? Is it like the world you grew up in, or where you live now? Because if the answer is yes, then statistically it's all over for you. If not now then next week, next month, next year…
Oh, right -- there's never traffic in London. Still, my hat is off to you for not abandoning your car on the interstate (which some folks have been known to do).
I grew up in a small town, but I did what a lot of folks do as soon as I was old enough -- moved to the big city. In my case, that was Atlanta. It seems to me that in America, all the "interesting" crimes happen in towns of 30,000 people or less. Atlanta, which is statistically one of the most violent cities in America, has its share of shootings, but usually it's for your average stupid reasons: drugs, gangs, robberies gone wrong.
Kids killing parents, pedophiles hiding in the woodshed, pregnant women hacked to death in their sleep -- this sort of thing is happening in small-town America. If I were a serial killer, I'd certainly look for a place to hide where people don't lock their doors. And you're right about a small-town setting being an unexpected place for violence. It makes what happens that more horrifying. Walking through Atlanta, I'm much more alert to my surroundings than I am when I'm taking a stroll in downtown Blue Ridge, which is a very small community in the North Georgia mountains. That feeling of safety is something we all want -- unfortunately, it is just a feeling. Bad things happen everywhere. For instance, you'll see about six churches per person up in Blue Ridge, and folks have signs with the ten commandments posted in their yards, but then you read the local paper and find out that just on the outskirts of town, one of the largest methamphetamine labs in the state was busted that weekend and Hazmat was called in and sixteen people were arrested. I love that dichotomy.
On the other hand, what I've found with Triptych is that it's very freeing to have Atlanta as a backdrop and all the resources that entails. The book opens with a dead prostitute. You don't see many hookers in Grant County. I'm sure there are some, but they certainly don't feel free to walk the streets.
Was it conscious on your part to write about crime in an urban setting? I made up Grant County in my head, so I'm the only person who knows where everything is. Are you ever worried you'll have Jack take a left on a one-way street and bring down the wrath of all of London? I've been very nervous about writing about Atlanta, even though I've lived here for almost fifteen years. I know I'm going to make a mistake, it's just a matter of how many people notice.
Mo: I know what you mean: I'd lived in Tokyo for two years and made copious notes before I wrote a book about it, but I was still insecure enough to put in the acknowledgements an apology to the city for the liberties I'd taken with its geography. For Birdman and The Treatment I knew that corner of London pretty well so I wasn't too worried -- although I did get one very miffed reader complaining the plot in Birdman was completely implausible because there were no houses big enough in that part of Greenwich to accommodate Hartveld's unseemly behaviour with corpses. The fact that said reader went on to enumerate six points in the narrative where I was sending him coded love messages did nothing to assuage my mortification at getting a detail wrong. So I can identify with your caution around the residents of Atlanta, especially with their predilection for shooting (and BTW never let it be said we don't try and follow in your footsteps, US of A. Like our Atlanta-style traffic, we're working hard on the gun front: gun crime is now the fastest rising crime in the UK. So ner ner.)
But I think the larger point you're making is that in this genre details have to be really authentic -- so you surprise me when you say you made it all up. I'd always had you down as someone who did exhaustive research. What about all the police procedural passages -- you didn't make those up, did you?
Well done you on the gun crime! I do a ton of research, but I'm sure you've found that for every book or article you read, maybe .01% actually ends up in your finished story. I do make up a great deal of things, mostly because following every rule in the book is pretty boring. For instance, in any police-involved shooting, the officer is immediately taken off duty until there is a full investigation, but A Faint Cold Fear would've been pretty boring if Jeffrey's story showed him sitting around in his underwear all week watching the History Channel. I will say that I think it's very important to know the rules, because then you can break them in such a way that keeps it realistic for the reader. A good case in point is Sara's medical knowledge. I have a lovely doctor who helps me with those things, but if I followed every step for, say, intubating someone, that would take about three pages to show properly and it would seriously slow down the story.
I don't know if you've found this, but thriller readers tend to be a very savvy bunch, and if you try to trick them too much, they'll just close the book (or load their guns, as the case may be). I understand getting upset when a detail is wrong. I love Eric Garcia's books -- he writes about dinosaurs living among us, only they wear human disguises. His main character is a crime-solving Raptor name Vincent. So, in one of the books, Vincent was talking about how he passed out from a basil overdose (don't ask) on the Emory University football field in Atlanta. Emory is an egghead school (Sara's alma mater) and does not have a football team. So, this really stopped me in the book until I thought, "wait, you'll buy that he's a dinosaur in a human suit, going around solving crimes and standing up to the dino mafia, but not the football field thing?" I guess it's all a matter of suspension of disbelief. No author can get everything right, but I understand when something in your own back yard is misrepresented. What puzzles me is why folks get so angry. As Harlan Coben says, "It's fiction!" We are not writing textbooks or how-to's.
When you lived in Tokyo, was it specifically to research the book? Or did you just take notes because you knew one day this was a story you'd have to write? I think the whole idea of escorts is fascinating and very foreign to Americans. The whole idea of "renting" someone for non-sexual companionship is not a part of our culture. Maybe it goes to our growing sense of entitlement. I have a friend who used to be a stripper as well as a prostitute, and she hates men because of the ones she came into contact with during that part of her life. I write a little bit about that in Faithless when Lena and Jeffrey go to a strip club looking for information. Did you find yourself feeling that sort of hate, or did taking the sex out of it make a difference?
Mo: Well first off I'm not saying there aren't places in Japan where sex is for sale: at one end of the spectrum of hostess clubs in Tokyo are the "Snack Bars," down-at-heel places that employ yakuza-trafficked Thai and Filipina girls, and in these places the customers really can get a hand-job under the table. (Then there are 'Soaplands' -- but let's not get into that.) But sex most definitely was not on the menu in the club I worked and I certainly didn't leave my experience in Japan hating men. Nor did I feel degraded or abused because all I was doing was being paid unfeasible amounts for sitting around drinking and smoking. The only hardship was talking to people whom I wouldn't normally have talked to (though there were some I definitely wanted to talk to -- I dated one of the customers for two months). I don't believe there's a soul in the world who can say that in their job they don't sometimes have to make small talk with people they don't like.
So really, it was nowhere near as seedy as the words "hostess club" imply. The girls I worked with tended to be part of that traveller community Alex Garland portrayed so well in The Beach. That community is a movable entity because they gravitate to the same places in whatever city, so you very often meet someone in Bangkok, say, and run into them months later in Kathmandu. In a strange way -- considering it extended across several countries -- it was quite a cosy group.
On the subject of men hating (!) it sometimes occurs to me that for those sex workers who, like your friend, hate men it is often the cause as much as the effect of being in the industry. Which came first, the hatred or the behaviour?
It's the Aileen Wuornos syndrome, isn't it? When I think about Aileen I'm amazed what she did doesn't happen more often -- hatred stepping over into violence. A lot of the questions I'm asked by readers and the press circle around these issues -- women and violence -- and particularly about what it means to be a woman who writes about violent crime (often inflicted on women). When I think about some of your toe curlers (especially the crime in Blindsighted -- I mean, ahem) I feel sure it's something you've been asked about over and over again. How do you answer this question? Is it a male prerogative to write about violence? And do we write differently from men?
Read more...