I met April Henry at--where was it? And (after I gushed for probably too long) we were talking about that book coming out on audio. See how lovely that is? And then I had another question for her:
What’s a nice girl like you doing writing about torture and bio-weapons?
APRIL HENRY: I’m one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. I tip more than 20 percent. I’ve mailed books to kids in foster care and book groups for homeless people. When I’m running, I pick worms off the street and return them to the dirt.
But I also like to write about murder, kidnapping, arson, bioweapons, and what happens after someone yanks your fingernails out with a pair of pliers. Which are just a few of the issues that the main character in The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die has to deal with. I would tell you her name, but in the beginning of the book she’s lost her memory and isn’t sure of anything, not even her own name.
So why do I write such books? It could be that my criminal genes have been watered down to the point where they can only come out on paper.
My bad blood
Or perhaps I should blame it on my father. My dad was a TV newsman who shot all his own footage. Even when he wasn’t at work, he would pull over to film events. I remember hearing an injured woman screaming as she was pulled from a car wreck. Once we were running errands when he stopped to see why two cops were parked next to a ditch. I remember sitting in the back of the car staring at the legs of a body lying in the high weeds.
Bad things in real life
I don’t do bad things. I don’t even film them. But I do write about them. And most of my books are inspired by real-life events. Girl, Stolen was inspired by a local blind teenager who was accidentally kidnapped after her mom left her in the car - with the keys in the ignition. The Night She Disappeared was inspired by the 30-year-old case of a missing pizza delivery girl.
The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die
The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die was actually inspired by a song lyric, Kathleen Edwards’ Scared at Night, in which a boy is told he has to finish off an injured cat. I was listening to this song on my iPod shuffle when I was running, and I thought, ooh - What if there was a girl? And she woke up on the floor of ransacked cabin and two men were standing over her and one said, “Take her out back and finish her off?”
The more I ran, the more I thought about it, and the more I knew she had been tortured and the two men were mad because she wouldn’t - couldn’t - tell them something they really wanted to know. For the book, I researched fugue state amnesia and bioweapons. I spent so much time researching anthrax, smallpox and the like that it’s a wonder the FBI didn’t come after me. When I ran the scenario past a scientist who is an expert in bioweapons with a top security clearance, she told me it was “very plausible - and evil.”
So have you ever run across a real-life situation that you thought would make a great book?
(Oh, and thanks to the Reds for letting me drop by! I’m proud to say that I gave Julia Spencer-Fleming her very first blurb.)
HANK: And a copy of The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die will go to one lucky commenter! And hey, another one will with an ARC of THE WRONG GIRL!
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April Henry is the New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen mysteries and thrillers for teens and adults. Of The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die, Booklist said, “If you liked Girl, Stolen, you’ll love Henry’s latest tale of abduction, escape and paranoia.”
In 2013, look for A Matter of Trust and The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die
