Tell us about your new thriller, Burn After Reading
A man many believe to be guilty of the murder of his wife hires a ghostwriter to help him tell his side of the story, which is that he’s innocent. But she’s never ghostwritten anything before, isn’t sure who to believe and might be keeping some secrets of her own.
Did you read other novels about ghostwriters, such as The Ghost by Robert Harris or Trust by Hernan Diaz, or would that have been more of a hindrance?
I’d seen the film adaptation of the Robert Harris novel but otherwise no. I stuck to handbooks about ghostwriting and the fascinating piece JR Moehringer, Prince Harry’s ghostwriter, penned for the New Yorker. I think my main takeaways were that ghostwriting is definitely not for me and that what you decide to leave out is just as important as what you decide to put in.
The OJ Simpson case was a spark for the book, how the rich and famous can get away with anything, even murder. What did you learn about the case and the book deal that followed the trial?
I already knew way too much about the case because I’d been following it since it happened – I hurried home from sixth class, age 12, to catch the trial live on Sky News – but I’d forgotten about the book deal until I came across an interview with his ghostwriter in the Oscar-winning documentary OJ: Made in America. In 2004 Simpson signed a contract with HarperCollins to publish a so-called hypothetical confession, If I Did It. It’s an awful book that only confirms his guilt, but the idea of a ghostwriter locked in a room with a man who he knows has killed two people wouldn’t leave me. What’s incredible is that Simpson’s ghostwriter had been a witness for the prosecution – he lived near Brown and heard her dog wailing at a crucial moment. No writer I know would get a coincidence like that past their editor.
Have you suffered from writer’s block, like your protagonist Emily?
A great cure for writer’s block is your writing having to cover the rent, in my experience.
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The book is set in a Florida town called Sanctuary, based on Seaside, where The Truman Show was filmed. Tell us all about it.
The Truman Show is one of my favourite films and I’ve been obsessed with visiting Seaside, where it was filmed, ever since the movie came out. Finally, for my 40th birthday a couple of years ago, I got to go. It’s a master-planned, picture-perfect town built from scratch that adheres to New Urbanist principles – essentially, an antidote to urban sprawl. Houses don’t have private gardens to encourage community through use of public spaces, and you can walk from the central commercial area to the outskirts in just a few minutes. I loved it there.
Your brilliant Covid lockdown thriller, 56 Days, has been adapted for Amazon Prime as a miniseries starring Dove Cameron and Avan Jogia. Tell all
I can’t tell you anything because an Amazon Prime van will instantly pull up alongside us, bundle me inside and whisk me away, tyres screeching, if I do. All I can say is that visiting the set in Montreal last summer was the most surreal experience of my life. It was like discovering that my imaginary friends were real and had all been hanging out without me. I can’t wait for everyone to see the show early next year. Fun fact: there is no pandemic in it.
The Liar’s Girl was shortlisted for an Edgar Award, the top crime-writing prize. What’s it about? Is it your best or which of your thrillers should readers pick next?
It’s about a woman whose first love confessed to five murders 10 years ago but, in the wake of a spate of copycat killings, he says he’s something new to confess, something even worse – but he’ll only confess it to her. I haven’t a clue which novel of mine is my best or what that even means, really, but I do have a personal favourite: The Nothing Man. When you start a book, you have an idea in your head of how it’ll turn out and the process of writing it is almost always a steady drift away from that. The Nothing Man was the shortest distance between those two points and I’m still so proud of the idea. It’s a (fictitious) true-crime memoir that both you and its subject, a retired serial killer, read at the same time. I would love to have another idea like it, universe, if you’re listening.
Which projects are you working on?
I only ever write one thing at a time and only get an idea for my next novel when I’m coming to the end of the one before. As I answer these questions, the second draft of what will be my ninth thriller is due to go to my editors in 48 hours’ time. Thank you for this reason to procrastinate.
Have you made a literary pilgrimage?
I’ve followed Hemingway around an awful lot of French and Spanish hotel bars. It’s really a wonder that guy ever got any work done.
What is the best writing advice you have heard?
Write the book you want to read but can’t find on the shelf.
You are supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass or abolish?
I would jail people who reverse into spaces in multistorey car parks when there’s a queue of cars waiting behind them – and I’d hide the keys to their cells so that even though my reign ends at midnight, they’ll be stuck there for a while.
Which current book, film and podcast would you recommend?
An amazing new novel is out the same day as mine: The Death of Us by Abigail Dean. I have become unhealthily obsessed with Max Rushden and David O’Doherty’s podcast What Did You Do Yesterday? which does exactly what it says on the tin. Shamefully, I cannot think of a film so I’m going to cheat and say a TV show about a film: The Offer on Paramount+. It came out in 2022 but I was very late to the party; I only watched it recently when my friend Sheena downright insisted. It’s about the making of The Godfather and it’s so, so good.
Your most treasured possession?
My Franklin library edition of Jurassic Park. Leather-bound, gold-edged, limited to 2,000 and signed by Michael Crichton. It was a private printing that predated the first trade edition published by Knopf, although I have a signed one of those too. And in possibly related news, no home that I own. I’m still renting.
What is your favourite quotation?
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for” – Epicurus. It’s perfect for publishing. When you start out, you think that if you can just get an agent or a book deal, you’ll be happy, but there’s a far greater chance that you’ll never truly be happy ever again. The goalposts are constantly moving.
A book to make me laugh?
How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely. The longer I’m in this business, the funnier it gets.
A book that might move me to tears?
Novels rarely make me cry, but Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll broke me. A fictional retelling of Ted Bundy’s sorority-house murders, it demotes him to a minor, nameless character and recentres the female victims in the story. The title is a reference to “bright young man”, which is what the judge called Bundy at his murder trial, after he’d been convicted. A (male) critic once tut-tutted about my having used a real crime as a starting point for a book, but this novel more than justifies its actions. I’m all for female crime-writers putting female victims back into the centre of their own stories, even if it can only be in fiction.
Burn After Reading is published by Bantam
