by Averil Dean
A Conversation with Averil Dean
The Undoing is a dark and powerful story about the events that bring three stunning characters together, and the jealousies that tear them apart. What was your inspiration for this novel?
A couple of years ago, I read a story called “All Through the House” by Christopher Coake. It has an unusual structure, beginning with the aftermath of a mass murder and tracing back through time to reveal certain key events leading up to the night of the tragedy. The story is beautifully formed and absolutely chilling, since you are seeing the victims almost as ghosts in their own lives. I began toying with the possibilities of that structure, putting it together with this older idea of an unstable—though consensual—romantic triangle. The reverse timeline seemed to offer an interesting way to walk back through the wreckage and discover the forces that had caused this terrible implosion, exploring the relevance of each character’s decisions along the way.
The structure of The Undoing is quite unique—a backward-moving timeline where events and emotions are carefully revealed as we trace the lives of the characters from adulthood all the way back to their teen and childhood years. Can you talk about your experience writing this story, and the difficulties/advantages you found in using reverse-chronology?
In some ways, the structure of The Undoing really suited my writing style, which is to skip around from one scene to another, getting it all down on the page and then finding the connection points where I can knit the story together. What was difficult was deciding how to maintain the suspense; after all, we know from the beginning that the main characters are going to die, and we know how. The trick was to keep asking why, and to find new answers all the way through. Eventually, with a lot of help from my editor, I settled on this circular framework in which the deadly confrontation happens near the end, where it matters most.
The characters in this novel are utterly absorbing right from the outset—compelling at some moments, repulsive in others. Were any of them more difficult to write than others?
Only Celia was difficult to write, mainly because what she wants most is to stay in Jawbone Ridge with Rory and Eric; it’s a passive desire, much more difficult to express than those of a character like Julian, for instance, who is continually on the make. Celia’s passivity frustrated me and made it difficult to forge a connection.
I don’t dislike her, though. I have always been drawn to characters who challenge my empathy. Those are the ones who feel most real to me, who surprise me and hold my attention over the months and years it takes to complete a novel. I want to be in conflict with the characters along the way, as they are with each other. I really want to work for that understanding and make the reader work for it, as well. Likable people are easy by definition, but to feel for someone with whom you fundamentally disagree takes a certain amount of perseverance.
The ancient Blackbird Hotel—located in the snowy, mountainside town of Jawbone Ridge that is teetering on the edge of oblivion—easily comes across as a character in and of itself. What drew you to this remote and dilapidated setting, and what helped you bring its walls to life?
The setting was inspired by Jerome, Arizona, a touristy ghost town perched on a steep hillside, held in place by sheer stubbornness and a profusion of two-by-fours. I was intrigued by the idea of living in a home like that and wondered how, over time, it might come to affect the psyche of the residents. Its precarious existence seemed to mirror the inner lives of these characters, who are holding their relationship together in the same way and whose efforts will also ultimately fail. I wanted that failure to feel like a certainty. You just know the town—and the romance—can’t survive.
To the town I added the Blackbird Hotel. Actually, I should reverse that. The Blackbird came first, before Jawbone Ridge, before the characters and any inkling of their story. Stephen King refers to the writing process as an excavation, and I agree. Certainly it was true of the Blackbird, which existed in my mind’s eye for years before I actually uncovered it, blew the dust out of the rooms and moved my characters inside.
Like The Undoing, your previous novel, Alice Close Your Eyes, delves into a complex romantic relationship between dark and damaged characters—exploring themes of love and obsession and the question of whether we can ever truly know another person. Can you discuss the significance of these themes in your writing?
I’m not sure where these preoccupations come from or why writers tend to circle the drain this way. Probably they are an amalgam of experience and observation, childhood terrors and adult infatuation. Whatever the case, for me there is something unbearably poignant about the human desire to know and be known, eternally at odds with the need for privacy and self-protection. We each are separated from one another by the things we keep secret or are unable to express; that distance, no matter how slender, imparts a loneliness to our existence that we never can quite overcome. I’m convinced that this is what lies at the heart of every lover’s obsession. We long to connect, and so we imagine connections where none exist. I feel for Julian in that way. He has realized what the other characters only vaguely sense: that he is, and always will be, alone.
Do you read other fiction while you’re working on a book, or do you find it distracting? Can you tell us about your writing process?
Most stories begin for me with other works of fiction. When I’m starting work on a new story, I spend a good amount of time watching movies, reading and listening to music. I’m looking for something that generates a particular reaction in me, something that evokes a mood or sparks an interesting line of thought.
From there, I decide where the story begins and jot down some ideas for where it might go. It’s all rather nebulous at this point, and utterly disorganized. I actually prefer it that way. Writing can be intimidating, so when I’m starting a new project, I make a concerted effort to take the pressure off. I write the raw stuff longhand, with a cheap pen in a fat spiral notebook. My handwriting is awful, and the pages are covered with angry scratch-outs and incomprehensible notes up the margins, but beginning this way keeps me from having to face a blank computer screen unarmed.
My thought processes are equally messy. I hop from scene to scene, trying not to deny myself any wild idea at this stage, whether or not I understand how it relates to the story. I carry on this way until I’ve assembled quite a scrapalanche—maybe thirty thousand to forty thousand words. Then I go through the scenes one by one and organize them into a new document, using only the ones that seem to matter to the story.
Beyond this point, it’s rare for me to write anything extraneous. I’ve figured out what the story is about and have developed an understanding of the characters. All that remains is to keep adding material until the book is complete.
With two books under your belt now, what’s on the horizon for you? Are you working on a new project?
Yes, I’m just beginning work on a new novel, which is still at such a nascent stage that I’m not completely sure where it will end up. I tend to make several false starts before I really settle on an idea—and with about five of those behind me now, it’s safe to say I’m closing in!
“Hypnotically suspenseful and truly chilling…a very superior thriller.”
—Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author, on The Undoing
If you loved The Undoing by Averil Dean, you’ll devour her dark and tantalizing novel
Alice Close Your Eyes.
Discover an intense and provocative tale of dark secrets, terrifying surrender and deadly attraction!
“Crisply written, wickedly suspenseful…[Alice Close Your Eyes] reads like a dark, sensual nightmare. Don’t miss it.”
—David Bell, author of Never Come Back and Cemetery Girl
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ISBN-13: 9781460346778
The Undoing
Copyright © 2016 by Averil Dean
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