Here To Stay began life as a story I heard about a family friend: a guy in his thirties who still lived at home with his overbearing parents and sister. He met someone, married her and she moved in with him. A few months later we discovered they were getting divorced, apparently because his family had been so awful—controlling, critical, interfering—that she hadn’t been able to bear it.
This immediately sparked an idea. What must it have been like for her in that house? How bad had things got and why hadn’t her new husband stood up for her? Why did he choose his family over his new wife? I could imagine how nightmarish it must have been for her, being trapped in that house, trying to make her marriage work while her new in-laws made her life hell.
And that was the initial premise of the book. A young man was going to marry, move in with his in-laws and discover they were evil.
Then I realised a similar story had been told before, for example in movies like Get Out, which was released shortly after I conceived the idea. I almost abandoned the idea until it struck me that the story would be much better, and more original, if I reversed it. In my book, the protagonist doesn’t move in with his evil in-laws. His evil in-laws move in with him.
Almost immediately, his wife’s parents set out to do everything they can to destroy his life. His new marriage, his career, his reputation, his sanity. While researching the book I discovered how difficult it is to use the law to get rid of unwanted guests. And my mild-mannered hero is pushed to the absolute limit . . . until he is forced to take drastic action in an attempt to fight back.
I often joke that most of my books can be described in three words, two of which are ‘From Hell’. Neighbours from Hell (The Magpies). Holiday from Hell (Follow You Home). Office from Hell (The Devil’s Work). In Here To Stay we meet the in-laws from Hell. All of these books are united in another way. They are about what happens when a nice, ordinary person encounters the worst of humanity. My characters are ordinary men and women, living recognisable lives, who find themselves having to deal with psychopaths, liars and sadists. Monsters who don’t have fangs or horns or demonic powers.
My first and biggest influence was Stephen King, whose villains usually were other-worldly. I was influenced, too, by Ira Levin, whose Rosemary’s Baby is perhaps the high point of urban horror. When I started writing I wanted to put people in familiar situations that had turned horrific, just as in King and Levin’s books, and I use a lot of horror tropes eg creepy woods, noises in the walls, mounting dread. But I decided early on that nothing supernatural would happen in my novels. There would always be a rational explanation for everything that occurred, even if the situation at first appeared impossible.
Another influence was Sophie Hannah, who usually starts her crime novels with a fiendish puzzle. I set these puzzles for myself, then figure out the solution as I write. It’s not the most relaxing way of writing, but it’s very satisfying when you finally figure out the answer.
In Here To Stay, the question was whether my protagonist manages to save himself, and how. In the real life story that inspired the book, the new spouse gave in and fled. My character chooses to fight. A terrible mistake? You’ll have to read the book, but I’m confident you won’t guess the ending.
Here to Stay, Thomas & Mercer (1 Sept. 2019) Hbk, Pbk and Digital
