If Readers Want to Learn More About the Johnstone Family, They Should Read
In the latest instalment of our Editor to Writer interview series, Doug Johnstone has a frank and illuminating conversation about his latest thrillerCrash Landwith his Faber editor Angus Cargill.
Angus Carg
Doug Johnstone: I didn't, not this time. Information technology's different with different books – sometimes I accept the title from the kickoff, other times it goes through numerous names before I hit on the right one. In this case it was a wee scrap unfortunate considering I had a great initial title – After The Crash. But so that French dude Michel Bussi brought his book out with the aforementioned name, and it sold millions and won a bunch of awards, so that was that.
I then floundered around for a bit. For a while it was called Nighttime Island (influenced by the Orcadian beer of the same proper name), then How To Die In The North (influenced by a song of the same proper name) before settling on Crash Land, which I actually like. Information technology works on a couple of levels, which is always good, and information technology does give readers an idea what information technology'southward well-nigh too.
Y'all brilliantly evoke the landscape and atmosphere of Orkney, what was the initial impulse to gear up the volume there, take you been yourself?
I've been a few times, and I went dorsum to enquiry once I decided to write the book. I'd visited in summer before, simply the volume is set around Christmas, so I wanted to experience the bleakness of the Orcadian winter first paw. I had the thought to gear up a volume there manner back twelve years ago, before I was ever published. Sometimes stuff takes that long to swirl round and coalesce in your head.
Orkney is stunning, that's a given, but there's something else going on there, an atmosphere that's more than just big skies, amazing moorland, steep cliffs and all that. It's to do with the feeling you get at that place with all the ancient sites scattered beyond the islands. There's a real sense of the continuity of human life on the islands, a sense that the by and the nowadays are intermingled, and I really wanted to tap into that.
In the volume, Finn becomes kind of obsessed with that thought, hanging out at the Neolithic Tomb of the Eagles site and communing with the ancient skulls at that place. It's a great backdrop for sinister happenings and conflict, and hopefully it adds a layer of resonance for the reader that wouldn't otherwise be there.
After Smokeheads (set on Islay) this is your second book prepare on an island, well-nigh like a locked-room mystery, what kind of possibilities does this ready-up give y'all, as a thriller writer?
I am a self-confessed insulaphiliac, or lover of islands. It's non so much virtually the locked-room affair for me, it'southward more about the innate sense of claustrophobia that can be created in an isolated and independent environment. All my books, information technology turns out, are very restricted geographically, even the ones set in Edinburgh only occupy small pockets of the city. That wasn't a witting thing at all, but I love that added pressure, the sense that the characters can't escape their fate, tin't escape their confines both physically and mentally. That plays into the classic noir concept of fatalism – that no matter what the characters do, they are condemned to play out this shitstorm the only way they can. I love that.
Of course, there is an element of the locked-room in play as well, every bit you rightly point out. In an isolated customs there are simply so many places to go, places to hide, and it'southward unlikely that anyone can keep secrets from anyone else for long. That'southward grist to the mill for a thriller or criminal offence author. For what it's worth, the book I'm writing at the moment is based around a fictional isle. Let's expect and come across how that pans out, shall we?
Maddie Pierce is very much in the tradition of the classic femme-fatale, was that a deliberate nod to some of your influences?
God yes, admittedly! In my mind, when I sat downwardly on day one to write the beginning typhoon of the commencement chapter of Crash Land, I wanted to write my version of Double Indemnity by James Thousand. Cain. Stupid, I know, and incommunicable, simply that was the goal. I love those classic American noir novels then much, and Cain'southward writing in particular, where men get involved in all sorts of crazy shit because of the apparent love of a bad adult female. Fatalistic and tragic and stupid – great stuff. Val McDermid wrote a great quote for the comprehend of Crash State, but she likewise sent me another, alternative one: 'Doug Johnstone offers a powerful argument for not thinking with your dick.' I am so proud of that.
At the same time I wanted Maddie to be a kind of updated version of that femme-fatale trope. I didn't want her to be all bad, using the man for her own purposes with no moral ambiguity, then I tried to make her as rounded and circuitous a character as I could, with the proviso that the story is told from Finn's bespeak of view, and she has to remain something of a mystery to him, out of necessity. And I deliberately didn't resolve those problems. When I sent this volume to my agent, he asked me: 'So did Maddie… X, Y and Z?' I won't say what, considering of possible spoilers. But my answer was: 'Does it matter? What exercise you lot retrieve?' I know what I call back, but I've hopefully left it open up enough that readers can make upwards their own minds about who was guilty of what, and to what extent.
You've a substantial body of piece of work now, with the two novels you published with Penguin, and now this, your sixth with Faber. I just referred to you as a thriller writer, but how would yous define your work?
Thriller writer is fine with me. I don't actually intendance what I'm referred to, or how the books are referred to, as long as people read them. I think writers in general remember about that stuff a lot less than publishers, booksellers or readers. Nigh writers I know just write the stories they feel compelled to write, and let the rest of the stuff have care of itself.
It's interesting, though, looking back at your trunk of work later viii books. The first two Penguin novels feel overwritten to me now, and if I'm honest, they feel like I hadn't quite found my vocalisation. I was trying a fiddling too hard to impress the reader, to say something about LIFE and SOCIETY and shit like that, instead of concentrating on telling the best story I could.
Since Smokeheads, though, I experience like I've found my voice and am exploring it in unlike ways. Some of the books are more straightforward noir, like Hit & Run and The Dead Trounce, while others such as The Jump and Gone Once more are more emotional, domestic noir, I suppose. I don't set out to write them that fashion, but the subject area affair usually dictates the feel of the book somehow.
Most ofttimes I'll write a book as a kind of reaction to the one before. For example, The Leap was very personal for me, and hard to write, all about suicide and its repercussions. Then for Crash Land I wanted to write something that felt like more than of an old-schoolhouse romp of a thriller. It'south my idea of a fun read, if you lot can say that about a harrowing aeroplane crash and the bloody aftermath. Fun times!
Your books are always admirably tight, free of digression and flowery prose, is at that place ever a temptation to strike out? Practise yous secretly have a 1000 folio magic-realist novel hidden away in one of your drawers?
It's funny you should say that… subsequently those two Penguin novels and before I wrote Smokeheads, I wrote a big, sprawling epic family saga affair called The Coalbiter. It remains in a drawer of my desk. Considering it'south shit, by and large. It wasn't exactly massive – I call back one draft got up to 120k words, which is twice my normal book length, but average length for big law procedurals, I think. But it was big enough for me, too big, in fact. Ach, information technology was a mess – you know what information technology was? It was my try to write The Crow Road by Iain Banks. Simply information technology turns out that Iain had already written The Crow Route and it was pretty fucking amazing, then my book was totally unnecessary. And shit.
Simply the tight prose thing – I experience similar I actually hammered that with Smokeheads and Hit & Run, merely I recall that I've slightly loosened the reins since then. I'm willing to throw in the odd snippet of description or backstory if the story needs it now. But I still hark back to James M. Cain – he could pack so much plot, graphic symbol, atmosphere, description, dialogue and action into a hundred pages – that's the goal, that'southward the ideal.
I read somewhere that people like watching disaster movies on planes, practice you lot call up, following this line, that airport bookshops should be rushing to stock this ane in their departure lounges?
Ha, definitely! I know a couple of people who have read it on planes already, and information technology didn't brand them feel very well. In fact, a lot of the early feedback has been well-nigh the early plane crash scene. Just more of import than the bodily scene, I hope, is the build up to it. I worked really difficult on the opening few scenes over and over, trying to become the tension and the pacing just right. It'southward hopefully clear from the commencement that something very bad is going to happen, but I tried actually hard to increase the suspense and tension until absolute breaking indicate just earlier the big clusterfuck scene.
And finally, yous're a great reviewer and champion of contemporary fiction too, is there anything you've read or reviewed – a debut peradventure, or a new discovery – this year that you'd really like to press on people?
Tin can I have two? I'll recommend a debut and a book from a veteran, one of my favourite ever writers. The outset is Bill Beverly's Dodgers (No Get out). It merely won a couple of big law-breaking writing prizes, and I can see why. It's a kind-of crime novel, a gang tale, a coming of age story and a road trip all thrown in together, as immature LA gang members travel across the States to carry out a hit on a witness in an upcoming trial. Information technology's written with real mode and fizz, and it packs a large emotional dial by the end likewise.
And the other book I've really loved this year is Willnot (No Leave) by James Sallis. I am a massive James Sallis fan, and I think Willnot is up in that location with his best work. He writes criminal offence, essays, sci-fi, music books, poetry, short stories and God knows what else, but I specially similar his standalone crime novels. Willnot is only just offense, I suppose, based around the goings-on in the eponymous smalltown, and focussing on the md who works in that location and gets involved in local police investigations. It's brave, assured writing, full of existential angst but in a manner that'southward palatable and nigh homely. Information technology'due south a hard volume to draw, just information technology'southward but wonderful.
Crash Country past Doug Johnstone is published by Faber & Faber (r.r.p. £12.99, Faber Members get this title for £ten.39)
If Readers Want to Learn More About the Johnstone Family, They Should Read
Source: https://www.faber.co.uk/journal/editor-to-author-an-interview-with-doug-johnstone/