“All Eyes” – Justin Cronin – WORD Christchurch

"All eyes", opens a new window I sure will keep my eyes out for those “virals,” “flyers,” “slims” or “smokes”.

 

Justin Cronin had us all eating out of his hand during his interview with local young adult author Karen Healey.

His motivation for writing his virals trilogy - still can't bear to call them vampires - was his daughter Iris who was then something like 9 years old. A prodigious reader she had taken a look at his previous novels Mary and O'Neil, opens a new window and The Summer Guest, opens a new window and pronounced them boring and wanted to read a book about a girl who saved the world! Each day they would cycle around Houston and talk about what would be in such a book. Through this process he lost his inner critic.

Iris has an audiographic memory (like a photographic memory but for sound) she would always know what chapter they where up to when returning to a book. She had lots of suggestions - there would be a girl with red hair like her and she named the characters. There was only one rule about what would be in the book - it had to be interesting. After a while he realised his current novel wasn't going so well and he had 30 pages of notes so he thought he'd write the first chapter and see if it went anywhere - and here we are ten years later with the last volume of the trilogy.

Justin Cronin and Karen Healey
An evening with Justin Cronin. WORD Christchurch event, supported by Hachette. The Piano. Thursday 15 September 2016. Flickr 2016-09-15-IMG_6021

An English professor at Rice University, his only rule for Iris at college is don't take any creative writing courses I can do that. Now publishing her own work it looks like dad has successfully taught her the family business although I don't know who taught who ...

Why vamps? They are the most interesting out of the four monsters in human form: Frankenstein, werewolves, vampires and zombies. Although I wonder if he forgot about yeti, and Karen was putting a great case for old-fashioned fairies. He excuses himself saying those other Vampire stories, opens a new window were not on his radar, at the time Twilight had only just come out.

At the heart of the vampire noir is the premise that immortality is a terrible state to reassure us that we would rather be human than live forever. He takes vamps and puts them into a new narrative and that's what makes it interesting. Vamps but with a twist - you've always got to bring something else in to make it interesting like a road trip and a viral epidemic. He was inspired by a couple of B grade movies one called Near Dark, opens a new window directed by the talented Kathryn Bigelow, opens a new window. It blended to the western narrative of a drifters story also Magic Johnson, opens a new window had just come out and there was the AIDs epidemic.

Justin's not averse to a bit of vampire seduction but in a different way, a seduction utilising rhetoric. Fanning as the charismatic narrator, Fanning sitting around for all those years in a library reading books using language to seduce Amy. A rhetorical seduction to make us feel sympathy with him.

Justin Cronin and Karen Healey
An evening with Justin Cronin. WORD Christchurch event, supported by Hachette. The Piano. Thursday 15 September 2016. Flickr 2016-09-15-IMG_6032

On characters and community

  • Since you are running for your life what is the one thing you would carry with you? In most cases people would carry someone else, therefore you have a love story and bonds of community.
  • Survival is not sufficient. We read end of the world stories for reassurance and resurrection is an important part of that.
  • You need survivors to have hope for their children. You think what does it mean to have a child? A child is a deal you make with the future.

Describing the novels as an apocalyptic western road trip, part of the inspiration for The Passage trilogy was the depressing world events at the time. Hurricane Katrina had just hit, G.W. Bush had been re-elected and a second less known Hurricane Rita had triggered an evacuation of Houston which he found himself in the midst of.

One morning stuck on the motorway at 2 am going nowhere in a massive traffic jam watching the fuel gauge go down he did the maths and decided they weren't going to make it out and made a u-turn and headed back home. Luckily the main force of the hurricane hit further off than predicted.

He is interested in the response of community to disasters like the Christchurch earthquake and how community survives. Community is a social lifeboat with a group of mostly good people who are resilient.

Why Mirrors?

The vampires can't see themselves in the mirror and after a certain age that is the case with everybody.

On making things creepy

I look to nature - things that creep me out like fish, why do they all turn the same way like that? Crickets - how they can jump so much further than their body length. The virals are like bugs in hives.

On imagination

He deliberately doesn't describe the virals too much leaving it to you to bring the things that scare you to your picture of them. Everyone's picture of a viral would be different. That's why movies can be disappointing and on that topic he has sold the film rights but it may be a TV show that will eventuate. TV shows are now where the story is at.

Favourite things

Watching The walking dead, opens a new window and The Americans, opens a new window.

What drives him crazy

When the guns don't run out of ammo on The Walking dead, and cars start whose batteries would have gone for years and the tyres aren't flat. You have to think these things through.

Justin Cronin and Karen Healey

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