At Shots eZine we are always
on the look out for books that provide sleep deprivation, books that keep you
reading way past you bedtime, and books that make you “think”. One of our early
finds was this
little book.
Carin Gerhardsen’s The
Gingerbread House, is one such book. She has become Sweden’s number one
bestselling crime fiction writer, having sold over 500,000 copies of her books
internationally and published in over 20 countries. The Gingerbread House is
currently being filmed by Yellowbird
Productions, the producer of the Millennium Trilogy films. She worked as a
mathematician before she became a writer. Carin suffered many of the vicious
bullying incidents herself as a child and found that these experiences never
truly left her. Carin is now well-known
for her taut, calculated thrillers and the second novel in the Hammarby series
will be published in 2013.
So what’s so special about The Gingerbread
House?
The Gingerbread House is a dark, suspenseful,
psychological crime novel that challenges the reader’s instincts throughout. In
the opening chapter we uncomfortably witness a vicious attack on a
6-year-old child at a picturesque urban preschool, near Stockholm, where adults
look the other way. And so it begins…
Some years later as night
begins to fall, a man sits down on the underground train with a newspaper in
his hand, content. He is successful, happily married, a father of three
beautiful children and has every reason to be cheerful. However, in the window
reflection he catches a glimpse of a dishevelled-looking character – a man that
seems to be staring at him. This momentarily unnerves him, but then thinks
nothing of it as he leaves the train to head home, unaware that the shady
character observing him also alighted.
Not long afterwards,
criminal investigator Conny Sjöberg and the Hammarby police are bought in to
investigate a series of violent and seemingly unrelated murders that all occur
in south of Sweden. The team begin to
think these crimes are connected, while Sjöberg chillingly realises that the
killer’s motives are very personal and won’t let anything stand in their way.
The Gingerbread House raises questions where the answers
might be hard to determine; can you ever truly escape the effects of
traumatic childhood and do these experiences define your character irrevocably?
Carin kindly agreed to talk to Shots Ezine
How did the film of your book come about?
Quite a good story from what I’ve heard. The receptionist at Yellowbird
Productions had read my crime series and loved it. Then she persuaded one of
the producers at the production company to read my books. Which she did, and
she enjoyed them, she called my agent and then bought the first six parts of
the series. …
How closely will it stay to the book version?
At the moment I don’t know; the production company is still working on
the script. I will be involved in the end, but not before that.
Your biography in the book mentions that you
were a victim of childhood bullying, how bad did it get? What was the worst
incident you encountered?
The
first scene in The Gingerbread House is my own experience. I was six years old,
and on my way home from preschool the other children tied me to a light pole
with jump ropes and scarves. I was sitting on the wet, cold asphalt while the
kids threw rocks at me, banged my head against the light pole and whipped me
with their jump ropes. This was physical abuse, easier to see, easier to talk
about and to prevent. I still think that the psychological harassment is a lot
worse. The long-lasting kind of abuse that gives you a feeling of not being
wanted and not being worthy of love, that breaks you down on a deeper level.
Having said that I want to emphasize that I overcame any despair. But then
again; that’s me. In this novel I explore how different people react
differently in times of misfortune, how bad childhood experiences could
form a human being.
‘The Gingerbread House’ includes some of these
incidents, why did you include them?
I guess I wanted to put them to paper. Letting
people know what goes on among children. And obviously it’s easier to create a
credible and vivid scene if you’ve actually been there yourself.
Do you think childhood bullying should be spoken
about more?
It’s everyone’s duty to be
informed about what’s going on in the world around us, to try to understand
people and what they are going through. In order to create functioning adults
we should all be involved in creating a functioning everyday life for the
children around us. Even the odd ones. Even the ones that are not our own. So
yes; enlightening is always a first step to understanding and involvement.
Did you speak to anyone else about their
childhood bullying when writing this book?
No, I didn’t. But the bullying scenes in the
novel that aren’t my own I wrote from memories of stories I’d heard other
people tell, or abuse I’d been watching from distance. All the harassment in
the book is real, experienced by me or people in my surroundings.
Your books have become hugely popular, did you
ever anticipate this?
The hard bit
is to get the books published at all. I never doubted that they would become a
success if they were published; there
is a lot of hard work behind my novels. But naturally I am very happy about the
success. An old dream I’ve harboured since I was a child has been fulfilled.
But I blame myself that I didn’t take action before. If I hadn’t been so lazy I
could have done it twenty-five years earlier…
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