The
Whisperers
(Hodder
& Stoughton, hardcover, £17.99, 13
May 2010)
is the ninth in John Connolly’s best-selling Charlie Parker
series, which began
with Every
Dead Thing in
1999. As a Times
review
said of
John Connolly: ‘‘This man is so good it’s
terrifying’ and never has this been
more true than in The
Whisperers.
During the war in Iraq
a lead box goes missing from the archives deep in the basement of the Iraq
museum. It is a box that should never be opened, for locked inside are
the
whisperers who with the evil they generate affect all those who come in
contact
with it, let alone open it. A few years later in the US
state of Maine,
Parker is called in by the father of a military veteran of the war to
investigate why his son and other returning soldiers have killed
themselves.
Once involved in this mission Parker finds himself dragged deeper and
deeper
into a situation more terrible than he could ever have imagined. The
novel is a
thriller, but as always with John Connolly it goes far beyond the usual
boundaries of the genre and into the realm of the dark spirits of
another
world. The Collector, who has appeared in previous novels, makes a grim
reappearance and looming over him the terrifying Captain. And Charlie
Parker is
caught between the two worlds.
John
Connolly has
an excellent website http://www.johnconnollybooks.com
on which he
patiently answers a great many of the questions that have been put to
him over
the years. Nevertheless he has kindly agreed to answer a few more
…
Q. The X-factor
that makes your
novels so striking is that the narrative has two levels: the real and
– to use
your own word – the nightmarish. Charlie Parker has to
contend with the dangers
of the first and the evil forces of the second. Did you originally plan
for
this series to have this extra level or has it evolved as you were
writing the
novels?
A. Well,
right from the start there was a certain supernatural element to the
books, but
it has become more pronounced as the sequence has progressed.
I suppose
that there were two genres that I loved: mystery fiction, and the
supernatural,
specifically a certain type of English ghost story epitomised by the
work of
M.R. James. While there is a conservative rump in the mystery
genre that
views one genre as the antithesis of the other, mainly out of a blind
loyalty
to a certain form of rationalism, and a very limited view of the
mystery
genre’s potential for development, they actually have very
similar roots: they
both examine the consequences when the ‘other’
intrudes into everyday life,
that outside force that does not operate by the same set of
suppositions by
which we ourselves operate. In one genre, that force is human
by nature,
and in the other it is not, but the results are the same.
Q. The
Whisperers is brilliantly constructed. Firstly,
the plot is developed
on a jigsaw pattern with several groups of interested parties
independently
converging on the box; secondly, Charlie Parker provides a link between
the two
levels, through your use of his first person viewpoint, so that both
the outer
and the inner man have their role in the plot and draw the disparate
strands
together. Do you work on the structure of scenes and technical use of
different
viewpoints before you begin the novel or does this aspect develop
during the
writing?
A. No,
I’m
not much of a planner. Essentially, each novel begins with an
idea, and
maybe one or two scenes. For The Whisperers,
the first
scene that I wrote involved a woman waking up in the night, finding her
partner
missing from their bed, and then watching him as he spoke to something
on the
other side of a locked cellar door. Originally, that was
going to be the
opening for the book, but eventually it ended up about a third of the
way into
it. I tend to be pretty willing to let the novel find its own
way, but
there is always an internal logic at work, and that’s usually
dictated by
Parker’s actions. In the main, though, I view the
first draft simply as a
way of reassuring myself that there’s a book in there
somewhere. My books
tend to be rewritten rather than written, if you know what I
mean. I go
over them again and again, working out the kinks, honing
them. I’m a
compulsive rewriter, and the technical issues that you mention tend to
be dealt
with while I edit.
Q. As
well as thrillers, you have also published other books, including a
collection
of ghost stories. Did your interest in the supernatural world arise
from a love
of classic ghost writers or is it something that evolved in your
imagination,
such as for instance in ‘The Erlking’ where you
take a folk story and build so
impressively on to it?
A. Well,
like I said, I was a big fan of classic ghost stories from a very young
age,
but they didn’t exist in isolation for me. I could
connect them with
other forms of writing in which I was interested, but also with my own
imagination. That’s what writers do: they take pre-existing
forms, and add a
little of themselves to create something new. At least,
that’s what they
should be doing. Oddly enough, I’m pretty sceptical
when it comes to the
supernatural. On the other hand, I still believe in
God. I’ve come
to realise that I’m pretty happy existing in the grey areas.
Q. A major
and deeply moving theme of The Whisperers is
the Iraq war and
more particularly its effects on veterans, both military and civilian.
Have you
visited Iraq or have
you known veterans of military conflicts through your journalistic
career?
A. That was
something that resulted from all of the time I’d spent in the
US in recent
years. I became very interested in the effect of war upon
soldiers, and
followed the gradually increasing coverage of rising suicides, the
jailing of
veterans, and the manner in which so many veterans who were physically
and/or
psychologically damaged were not being treated with the respect and
care they
deserved. In that sense, the book isn’t really
about the Iraq war:
it’s
about the mythologizing of war, and the dehumanizing effect that it has
on
those who serve. I came across a really interesting passage
in Peter
Beaumont’s book The Secret Life of War
that encapsulated a lot of what I
felt, and had learned. In it, he described the changes to the brain
that occur
when it is exposed to particular stresses: in this case, combat
stress.
The brain begins to rewire itself, with the result that, when soldiers
return
home, they are no longer able to function as regular human
beings.
Depending upon a whole lot of factors, these changes may be short-term
or
long-term, but either way the consequences are horrific for families,
for
society, and for the soldiers themselves.
As for
research, I have a friend in the US, Tom
Hyland. He’s thanked at the back of the
book. Tom served in Vietnam, and he
became my touchstone for the experience of what we now call
post-traumatic
stress disorder. The other stuff – details of the
layout of the Iraq Museum, details
of military conduct and practice – can be gleaned from books
and articles,
albeit a great many of them, but at some point you need the human
touch.
At some point, you have to talk to those who have intimate knowledge of
the
subjects about which you’re trying to write. For
that, I think I fall
back on my training in journalism.
Q. For a
long while ghost stories were commercially unpopular. Why do you think
that
they are now cautiously resurrecting themselves in such interestingly
different
guises as yours?
A. I think
horror fell out of favour, particularly in the UK, because
so much of what was being written was kind of nasty stuff.
That’s a
purely personal view, admittedly, and I might be considered something
of an old
fogey when it comes to supernatural writing, as I prefer the older
nineteenth
and early twentieth century writers, and regard M.R. James as a
suitable full
stop. But that fascination with the supernatural has always
been there,
particularly among younger readers. I mean, that was when I
first became
curious about it, in part because I found it thrilling, but also
because, as a
child, you’re interested in fear, in what frightens you and
its potential
limits. Supernatural fiction becomes a way of making abstract
fears
concrete, and thereby exploring the concept of fear itself.
Now, though,
it seems like vampires have returned to
favour. They’re a bit like chicken, really:
they’re a good carrier for
other things. In the case of, say, the Twilight books, they
become a
means of exploring sexuality and, indeed, sexual abstinence, to which
they’ve
always been ideally suited. It’s just another
variation on what I was
suggesting: supernatural fiction, because it deals with what frightens
us, and
why, has the ability to take on all kinds of interesting issues and
concerns
because it is, basically, metaphorical by nature.
Q. In your
short story ‘The Inkpot Monkey’ there’s a
lighter side to your writing,
which naturally doesn’t emerge in The
Whisperers, save in
Charlie Parker’s style of thought. Is this an aspect of your
writing you’d like
to give more rein to, perhaps in continuing to write for younger
readers, as in
The Gates.
A. I think
that a streak of dark humour runs through all of my books, but
you’re right: in
the Parker books it’s essentially Parker and, to an extent,
Angel and Louis who
provide a kind of deadpan commentary on occasion. There was a
little of
that in The
Book of Lost Things as well, although only in the
chapters involving
the seven dwarfs, and I wanted to explore that side of my writing a
little
more, which is why I wrote The Gates.
That book allowed my
imagination to run riot, but it met a degree of resistance from some
children’s
buyers, who I think have become suspicious of adult writers moving into
the
realm of children’s fiction. I didn’t see
any conflict, though: my books
have always been fascinated by childhood, so it just seemed like a
natural
progression to me to write a book that my stepchildren could
read.
As for
‘The Inkpot Monkey’, that is blackly funny, but
it was also a way of exploring the nature of the writing process, and
the deal
that writers strike with their imagination and their subconscious in
order to
produce their work. I’m very fond of that little
story!
Q. Did you
always hanker to write thrillers, or did you set out by wanting to
write ghost
stories?
A. No, I
think my attraction was always to the figure of the detective, and the
idea of
exploration, of digging, of uncovering old secrets.
Gradually, though, those
secrets began to take on an arcane tinge. Now, I just call
what I do
mysteries, but I probably do so with an awareness of the older meaning
of that
term.
Q. The
forces of evil in The Whisperers, represented
by Herod, the
Collector and the Captain, are memorable to say the least. Did they
spring
ready-formed into your imagination as characters, or did you create
them little
by little? One of the most interesting aspects of Herod, for example,
is that
he (like Hitler) has good points (relatively!) which have the effect of
making
the character all the more chillingly believable.
A. The
villains really are strange products of my subconscious.
It’s often not
until I actually reach the point in the book where they make their
first
appearance that they assume a concrete form. Prior
to that, they
tend to nebulous. In each case, though, they bring with them
human
characteristics. They may be monstrous, or grotesque, but
they are that
way because of their warped humanity. Herod is a being in
torment.
He is suffering in unimaginable ways, and he has been promised both an
end to
that suffering, and a means of visiting it on others.
It’s the latter
that makes him evil: again and again, my books come back to the
question of
empathy, and the belief that its absence constitutes evil.
Herod is evil
because he believes others should suffer as he suffers. His
is a cancer
of the soul.
Q. Do you
ever scare yourself while you’re writing, or do you manage to
remain on the
edge of the action in your mind? Do you always know where a situation
is going
to lead you?
A. No, I
don’t frighten myself. I’m sometimes a
little surprised by what I’ve
written when I go back over it, but I think most writers have a couple
of
moments like that in every book, that sense of ‘Where did
that come
from?’ I’m rarely fully aware of how a
chapter, or an idea, is going to
develop, but I don’t want that to sound like I think
I’m channelling God or
anything. By now, I’ve learned that the book is in
my head somewhere, and
the hard work is sitting down at my desk and typing so that those vague
ideas
can assume a concrete form.
Q. Charlie
Parker is a fascinating character, partly because, to me at least, he
is
somewhat of an enigma. Professional sleuth is one side of his role as
the
novel’s protagonist, but he is also the link to the darker
supernatural forces
unleashed in ever increasing fury, which he faces not only on behalf of
the
main plot but through the tragedy of his wife and daughter’s
murders. Quite a
lot for one man’s shoulders, but he comes across to the
reader very vividly –
perhaps because, as you said yourself of this novel, ‘there
is no single
character in the book who is entirely certain of what is happening, and
that
includes Parker himself.’ Do you know yourself where the
novel is going, or are
you sharing the journey with him?
A. My
experience of writing a novel is, at times, a little like the
reader’s
experience of first reading it. It develops in strange and
sometimes
unexpected directions. But when it comes to Parker, there is
so much of
him in me, and me in him, that when I start writing the books I fit
quite
naturally into his thought processes, and I readily inhabit his
consciousness. I was once accused of something called
‘pinball plotting’,
a phrase I kind of understand but don’t necessarily agree
applies to what I
do. Parker, it seems to me, always approaches a problem the
same
way. He even functions a bit like a journalist. He
is told
something. He examines it for gaps in the truth, and finds
the potential
weaknesses. He then goes looking for explanations for those
weaknesses,
and he does so by confronting individuals. He is always
questioning, and
he is prepared to accept that any answers he gets will always be
partial.
But his quest in each book is part of a larger search, one that is
ultimately
tied up with his own hopes for peace and redemption.
Q. After
your first novel Every Dead Thing all
your novels have been Sunday
Times bestsellers. Do you find the consequent pressure to
produce the next
affects your writing or plotting, or can you cocoon yourself away from
it
during the creative stages?
A. I made a
decision very early on in my career that each book would be a reaction
to the
last, and I would try not to repeat myself, or fall into a set
pattern.
That has meant writing non-mysteries, or a book of short stories, or a
children’s book, or writing a book like The Reapers,
which throws away
all of the supernatural elements and the first person narration while
still
fitting recognizably into the Parker series. Often,
the experiments
are done out of contract, although so far my publishers have not turned
any of
them down.
The downside
of working in this way is that,
ultimately, I know my sales have probably suffered a little, because
just as a
certain type of reader is getting a handle on you, you go and do
something
else, and the secret of success in genre fiction is to write the same
thing
every year with only a slight twist. Readers are
more loyal to
characters than to writers, for the most part. They have a
low tolerance
for experimentation.
Had I done a
Parker book every year for the past dozen
years, I’d probably be in a different position from the one I
occupy – and
don’t get me wrong, my sales are good, and I’m not
complaining about them – but
I’d be miserable, and the books would have suffered as a
consequence. So
now, I think, my publishers and my agent and I have reached an
accommodation of
sorts: I follow my heart, I write what I want to write, and if
it’s not a
Parker novel every year, then so be it. I have enough loyal
readers to
sustain me through these excursions into other areas of writing, and
I’m very
fortunate in having publishers who are immensely supportive of what I
do, and
have never tried to steer me in a particular direction.
I’m lucky, and I
know it.
Q. Your 2006
novel, The
Book of Lost Things, not in the Charlie Parker
series, is about the
power that folklore and fairy stories can have, and Celtic folklore is
particularly evocative. Is Charlie Parker’s involvement with
the forces of evil
in The Whisperers taking this
one stage further?
A. Perhaps
all of the books reflect back on one another, and there are elements
that are
common to them all. After all, each is the product of the
same mind, and
that mind has certain subjects that fascinate it: myths, childhood,
evil, love,
loyalty, redemption. Actually, though, I don’t
think Celtic folklore plays
any part in what I do, at least not directly. My exposure to it as part
of my
culture probably makes me more alive to the possibilities of mythology
in
general, but influences on The Book of Lost Things
are primarily
European.
Q.
You’re a
native Dubliner, and Dublin is home
to a great many writers past and present, but all the Charlie Parker
novels are
set in Maine, where
you spend a lot of your time. What drew you to that state in
particular? And
could you envisage setting a thriller in Dublin or is
that too close to home to work for you?
A. I worked
in Maine for a
time in 1991, and just fell in love with it. It was similar
to Ireland, in
certain ways, while being sufficiently different from home to still
seem like a
strange, slightly foreign place. I like the dramatic changes
of season,
the landscape, the history, and I’ve been able to draw on all
of those things
to create resonances in my work between the physical world and the
internal
world of the novels and their characters.
As for
setting a thriller in Dublin, I think
I’d just write a bad Irish book, because my heart
wouldn’t be in it. I
admire the Irish writers who are producing such excellent crime
fiction, but
they’re much better at it than I would be.
I’ve found a way of writing
that suits me, and I haven’t exhausted its possibilities yet.
You write on
your website that all authors are
constantly looking for the one person in the room who isn’t
clapping because
that’s the person who has figured out what frauds they are.
Well, in your case
it won’t be me! No way. Thank you for agreeing to
answer these questions
– and for writing The Whisperers.
The
Whisperers (Hodder
& Stoughton, hardcover, £17.99, 13
May 2010)
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