{"id":19062,"date":"2013-06-06T00:01:18","date_gmt":"2013-06-06T04:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=19062"},"modified":"2013-06-05T21:13:35","modified_gmt":"2013-06-06T01:13:35","slug":"ten-questions-about-the-shining-girls-by-lauren-beukes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2013\/06\/06\/ten-questions-about-the-shining-girls-by-lauren-beukes\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten Questions About The Shining Girls, By Lauren Beukes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

It is my crazy pleasure to have Lauren Beukes here to talk about what is genuinely my favorite book so far this year. Here’s what you’re going to do: you’re going to read this interview, and you’re going to nod and laugh at all the right parts, and then you’re going to go and visit your favorite meatspace or online book retailer and you’re going to get a copy of this book because it is that goddamn good. Now, hey! Here’s Lauren to talk about it.<\/em><\/p>\n

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF: WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?<\/h2>\n

Jeez, that cues all kinds of metaphysical philosophical quandaries. Can I be a mismatch of atoms and carbon and mind thoughts in the restless dreaming of a post-dimensional crocodile god?<\/p>\n

Okay, seriously, I\u2019m a South African writer who is incredibly lucky to get paid to make up stories all day. It wasn\u2019t always like this. Over the last 15 years, I\u2019ve been a journalist, a TV scriptwriter, a documentary maker and a mom to a small and amazing daughter \u2013 and had to find time to write novels in between.<\/p>\n

I guess I\u2019m best known for winning the Arthur C Clarke Award and the Red Tentacle in 2011 for Zoo City, a black magic detective story set in Johannesburg about refugees, redemption, criminals with magical animals and the evils of autotune.<\/p>\n

GIVE US THE 140-CHARACTER STORY PITCH<\/h2>\n

Harper, a time-travelling serial killer is untraceable, unstoppable until one of his victims, Kirby, survives and turns the hunt around.<\/p>\n

WHERE DOES THIS STORY COME FROM?<\/h2>\n

This is a little embarrassing. I was messing around on Twitter instead of writing (as you do) and threw out the idea in the middle of a random conversation. I immediately deleted the tweet because I was like, YES! That must be my next book! Quickly! Before someone else thinks of it!<\/p>\n

But I think that\u2019s often the way of interesting ideas \u2013 they come around when you\u2019re least expecting them, in those moments when you\u2019ve let your subconscious off the leash to romp in the grass.<\/p>\n

HOW IS THIS A STORY ONLY YOU COULD HAVE WRITTEN?<\/h2>\n

There are a lot of social issues that leak through my novels. It comes from having grown up under a terrible repressive racist regime (aka apartheid) and ten years as a journalist, getting backstage in the world.<\/p>\n

I could have done a Bill And Ted\u2019s Excellent Killing Spree from the dinosaurs to the middle ages to killing Hitler, or a Jack The Ripper Doctor Who, but I wanted to mess with the conventions of both genres.<\/p>\n

I wanted to use time travel as a way of exploring how much has changed (or, depressingly stayed the same) over the course of the 20th<\/sup> Century, especially for women, and subvert the serial killer genre by keeping the focus much more on the victims and examining what real violence is and what it does to us. The killer has a type, but it\u2019s not a physical thing \u2013 he goes for women with fire in their guts, who kick back against the conventions of their time.<\/p>\n

WHAT WAS THE HARDEST THING ABOUT WRITING THE SHINING GIRLS?<\/h2>\n

Keeping precise track of the multiple timelines was tricksy, but really the hardest thing was the killing. I wrote deep portraits of interesting women, from an African American World War Two single mom welder to a troublesome broad architect accused of pinko sympathies in the 50s to a gentle abortionist and a burlesque dancer with a terrible secret\u2026 and then I had to kill them.<\/p>\n

The attacks usually happen from their perspective, so you\u2019re not riding along with the killer, complicit in the murder, getting off on it. You\u2019re with the women, feeling their fear and their outrage and grief and trauma and that was pretty hard to write, to make it more <\/em>than a gratuitous murder, to get at the shock and emotion of it, because violence should be shocking. It should punch us in the face, that this <\/em>is what it means when a murder is reported on the news or a woman turns up dead in a story. It was about creating characters rather than pretty corpses.<\/p>\n

WHAT DID YOU LEARN WRITING THE SHINING GIRLS?<\/h2>\n

That history is amazing! Okay, I knew that already. But the resonances of stuff that happened then with stuff that is happening now was a little scary.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of echoes, some of them obvious, like the Great Depression and our current recession, or the Red Scare\u2019s tactics coming up again in the War on Terror, sneakily eroding our privacy and stirring up fear for political control, or the fact that women\u2019s rights to control their bodies is apparently still up for debate, somehow?<\/em> Which just makes me sad and mad.<\/p>\n

But there were others that creeped me out, like the Motion Picture Association of America\u2019s role in McCarthyism and politics which explains so much about their political clout now in trying to get people cut off from the Internet for illegally downloading a movie. Seriously. Losing access to the Internet, which the UN has determined is a basic human right and is pretty fundamental to the way we live now, because an entertainment company is pissy that you pirated The Hangover 3? Not okay. (Which is not to say I\u2019m endorsing piracy \u2013 pay creators, kids, but that\u2019s a lot of political power for a movie organization).<\/p>\n

And a lot of amazing detail I just couldn\u2019t fit in, except in passing, from the first labor case, by the women who painted undark dials on watches during World War One with radium paint and died horribly of radiation poisoning or how abortion got legalized in New York or the first nuclear fission in a lab under the University of Chicago\u2019s football field. So. Much. Good. Stuff.<\/p>\n

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT THE SHINING GIRLS?<\/h2>\n

The women. All of them, how they\u2019re sharp and bright and curious and ready to set the world alight in some small way, and if they\u2019re scared, they find a way to push through that. Especially Kirby. And I love her relationship with Dan. The love unfolding, if only she\u2019d let it, if only she hadn\u2019t let her whole life be derailed by her obsessive quest to find the man who did this to her.<\/p>\n

WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME?<\/h2>\n

I really want to write Nella\u2019s story. She\u2019s the daughter of the African American welder who is killed in 1943 and starts trying to put the puzzle together before Kirby does, because Harper left an impossible clue on her mother\u2019s body \u2013 a 1993 Jackie Robinson baseball card, but real life gets in her way and there are too many missing pieces, literally, as she develops Alzheimers and can\u2019t keep track of the threads any more. I may still do it as a short story.<\/p>\n

GIVE US YOUR FAVOURITE PARAGRAPH FROM THE STORY.<\/h2>\n

Okay, it\u2019s a long one. But it\u2019s my favourite moment between Dan and Kirby. Shit\u2019s getting real. Kirby, the determined-as-hell survivor and Dan, an ex-homicide reporter turned sports journalist are heading towards a terrible confrontation.<\/p>\n

She is tense in the car. She keeps playing with the lighter. Flick. Flick-flick-flick. He doesn\u2019t blame her. The pressure is unbearable. Flick. Catapulting towards something that can be averted. A car crash in slow motion. Not just an ordinary fender-bender either. This is like your ten-car pile-up halfway across the freeway with helicopters and firetrucks and people weeping in shock on the side of the road. Flick. Flick. Flick.<\/p>\n

\u2018Can you stop that? Or at least stick a cigarette in the hot end? I could use one.\u2019 He tries not to feel guilty about Rachel. About driving her daughter into danger.<\/p>\n

\u2018Do you have one?\u2019 she says eagerly.<\/p>\n

\u2018Check the glove compartment.\u2019<\/p>\n

She pops the latch and the cubby dumps a bunch of crap in her lap. Assorted pens, condiments from Al\u2019s Beef, a squashed soda cup. She crumples the empty packet of Marlboro Lights.<\/p>\n

\u2018Nope. Sorry.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Shit.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018You know there\u2019s still as much cancer-causing stuff in the light versions?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Never figured cancer would be the thing to kill me.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Where\u2019s your gun?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Under the seat.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018How do you know you\u2019re not going to hit a bump and blow your ankle off?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t normally carry it around.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I guess these are special circumstances.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018You freaked out?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Out of my mind. I\u2019m so scared, Dan. But this is it. My whole life. There\u2019s no choice.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018We getting into free will now?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I have to go back is all there is to it. If the police won\u2019t.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I think you\u2019ll find that\u2019s \u2018we<\/em>\u2019, pal-face. You\u2019re dragging me with you.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Dragging is a strong word.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018So is \u201cvigilantism\u201d.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018You gonna be my Robin? You\u2019d look good in yellow tights.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Hold on there. I am definitely Batman. Which makes you<\/em> Robin.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I always liked the Joker more.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s because you relate. You both have bad hair.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Dan?\u2019 she says, looking out the window at dusk creeping in over the empty lots and boarded-up houses and the rat-traps falling apart. Her face is reflected in the car window with the flame as she clicks the lighter again.<\/p>\n

\u2018Yeah, kiddo?\u2019 he says tenderly.<\/p>\n

\u2018You\u2019re Robin.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

WHAT\u2019S NEXT FOR YOU AS A STORYTELLER<\/h2>\n

A novel set in Detroit, working title, Broken Monsters<\/strong>, about weird monstrous bodies turning up and a police detective\u2019s relationship with her daughter and I can\u2019t say more, because I\u2019m still in the middle of it and talking too much steals the story\u2019s soul.<\/p>\n

Lauren Beukes: Website<\/span><\/a> \/ @laurenbeukes<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Shining Girls: Amazon<\/span><\/a> \/ B&N<\/span><\/a> \/ Indiebound<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is my crazy pleasure to have Lauren Beukes here to talk about what is genuinely my favorite book so far this year. Here’s what you’re going to do: you’re going to read this interview, and you’re going to nod and laugh at all the right parts, and then you’re going to go and visit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-4Xs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19062"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19065,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19062\/revisions\/19065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}