Afterword
For me a true ‘psychological thriller’ is propelled not by plot but by psychology. And within this, the possibilities for suspense and twists and intrigue are of course endless – after all, there is nothing more complex than the human mind and human emotion. This is precisely why I love the novels of Carol Shields, Margaret Atwood, Patricia Highsmith and Iris Murdoch, in which the thrills derive from the fascinating momentum of the characters’ internal lives. This realisation, more than anything, unlocked what I wanted to achieve with this book.
I already knew I wanted to write about obsessive love.
And it quickly became apparent that I wanted to occupy a male voice; I wanted to change the perspective away from all the brilliant damaged women I’d read in the last few years, and reveal a damaged man. I like flawed characters – in fact I only believe in flawed characters. I don’t believe in goodness or badness per se, I believe in rounded, whole humans, battered and bruised by circumstance and inheritance. So, my protagonist couldn’t be bad or good, he couldn’t possibly know everything or understand much, but at the same time I wanted him to believe in all that he did. I wanted someone who both repelled and attracted us, who made us uncomfortable and yet with whom we sympathised. It became obvious that I had to write the book in the first person and that I could not deviate from Mike’s viewpoint in any way.
Then, by chance, I watched the Netflix documentary on Amanda Knox. Naturally I knew about the case and had been appalled by the screaming tabloid headlines and the incompetence of the police. But, until I watched that documentary, I hadn’t appreciated how truly terrifying that case had been for women. How no one actually cared about the fact that a young girl had been murdered or who had done it: how the only story which held any traction was that of Amanda and the fact that she liked sex. The trial, I realised, had not been about who killed Meredith, but about how sexualised Amanda Knox was and how she needed to be punished for this.
I decided to write a book about a man obsessed with his idea of what he perceives to be the perfect woman. But more than obsessed, I wanted him to be properly in love, with all the accompanying madness. As such, I knew this woman had to be someone with whom he shared a long history, not simply a fantasy figure. I gave them a sexual game they played, in which they were both complicit and which they both enjoyed. I wanted two dubious, but harmless characters. Two flawed humans enjoying their space in the world, oblivious almost as to what anyone else thought of them.
I knew however that Mike needed to have reason behind his obsession. I remembered a documentary I heard on the radio a few years ago in which a psychologist said that if we have a very damaged relationship with our parents we can get stuck in our emotional development. Our parents are the only people who ever truly love us unconditionally and we need this in order to be able to go into adulthood unencumbered by this need, which gives us the ability to have healthy relationships. It’s an idea which has always stuck with me and makes complete sense and I knew Mike needed a past which made his ability to become obsessed realistic.
I wondered as I finished the novel if I’d gone a bit far in this idea that women are always judged more harshly than men. If maybe I’d over-egged the idea that women still have to be perfect, that if we don’t conform we’re seen as mad or aggressive or different? This was in October 2016 and the American election was ratcheting up to its final crescendo. I watched, open-mouthed, for a month as a competent, intelligent, powerful woman was eroded by a bumbling, inarticulate, pantomime villain of a bully. He can’t possibly win, I kept telling myself, still believing we had come this far, we couldn’t spin the wheel all the way back. Now, terrifyingly, I’m not sure there is a ‘too far’.
It is undeniable right now that we live in a world in which women and men are judged in completely different ways. Women must be perfect, men are allowed to get away with murder. Equality is still a far-off dream and all of our pasts have spun round to again slap us in the face. It seems like we can’t escape who we are both personally or as a collective. We keep taking small, faltering steps, but often we are pushed backwards. It is once again a frightening time to be a woman, to be different, to be other.
But within this there are certain basic human emotions which survive, love being the primary one. This novel often reads as a love story because, for Mike, it is absolutely a love story. I have intentionally blurred the lines. These two people were very in love, very compatible, very sexual, very secretive. I want the reader to wonder at the truth and to feel as if there are parts of the story which are being denied them. I want them to find both characters plausible. I want them to get to the end of the book and find they have made a judgement and then ask themselves where this judgement has come from.
Having said all that, while this novel might have its head in the clouds philosophically, it is unashamed of the ‘psychological thriller’ tag. I teach creative writing on an MA course and I have a class called ‘How to inject tension in psychological thrillers’. It’s always oversubscribed, but I’ve noticed that people seem almost embarrassed when they arrive. So now I begin by asking everyone which genre they are writing in. Out of a room of twenty people, one or two usually say psychological thriller or crime, most say literary fiction. Then I always tell them that I hope that, whichever genre they’re occupying, they’re all writing a psychological thriller: because isn’t that what all compelling literature is? In my opinion all novels begin with character, and believable characters must be fully formed to feel real – which is, of course, psychology. And we create stories by putting these characters into challenging situations, otherwise why would anyone want to read the book? And that is thrilling.