In another exclusive interview,
John Parker, our Spanish reviewer and editor reports back from the Celsius 232 film and literary event hosted in
Avilés, where he found himself chatting to Hanna Jameson who makes her first visit to Celsius 232. John’s
previous interviews from the 2019 festival are archived with links to his interviews
with John
Connolly and Sarah
Pinborough.
Shots Editors Mike Stotter
and Ali Karim, with their friend and colleague Jon Coates, the renowned bibliophile
and journalist found themselves at the launch of The Last, at Theakston’s
crime-writing festival 2018, where the publishers made a mock up, reflecting
Jameson’s apocalyptic theme, from the book; which we recorded below
For those with an avid
interest in apocalyptic thriller fiction, The Last is an extraordinary
work, and as thought-provoking as Deon Meyer’s
recent THE FEVER.
For background Hanna Jameson is the author of
four novels. The fourth entitled The Last,
an apocalyptic thriller, was the hot book from
Frankfurt’s Book Fair in 2017.
Since its paperback release it
has spent several weeks in the seat marked Numero Uno in Waterstones paperback
fiction charts, and here’s the author talking about The Last.
The Last is a dystopian psychological thriller follows
an American academic stranded at a Swiss hotel as the world descends into
nuclear war—along with twenty other survivors—who becomes obsessed with identifying
a murderer in their midst after the body of a young girl is discovered in one
of the hotel’s water tanks.
Jon thought he had all the time in the world to respond to his wife’s text message: I miss you so much. I feel bad about how we left it. Love you. But as he’s waiting in the lobby of the L’Hotel Sixieme in Switzerland after an academic conference, still mulling over how to respond to his wife, he receives a string of horrifying push notifications. Washington, DC has been hit with a nuclear bomb, then New York, then London, and finally Berlin. That’s all he knows before news outlets and social media goes black—and before the clouds on the horizon turn orange.
Jon thought he had all the time in the world to respond to his wife’s text message: I miss you so much. I feel bad about how we left it. Love you. But as he’s waiting in the lobby of the L’Hotel Sixieme in Switzerland after an academic conference, still mulling over how to respond to his wife, he receives a string of horrifying push notifications. Washington, DC has been hit with a nuclear bomb, then New York, then London, and finally Berlin. That’s all he knows before news outlets and social media goes black—and before the clouds on the horizon turn orange.
Now, two months later, there are twenty survivors holed up at the hotel, a place already tainted by its strange history of suicides and murders. Those who can’t bear to stay commit suicide or wander off into the woods. Jon and the others try to maintain some semblance of civilization. But when the water pressure disappears, and Jon and a crew of survivors investigate the hotel’s water tanks, they are shocked to discover the body of a young girl.
As supplies dwindle and tensions rise, Jon becomes obsessed with investigating the death of the little girl as a way to cling to his own humanity. Yet the real question remains: can he afford to lose his mind in this hotel, or should he take his chances in the outside world?
So over to our reporter in
Spain
John Parker: Hello, here we
are in Avilés at Celsius 232 with Hanna Jameson. Welcome, and when did you get here?
Hanna Jameson: Thank you. I flew
in last night, just in time for dinner, basically.
John: But no jetlag?
Hanna: Well, no. I didn’t come
from that far; basically, from London.
John: London makes me think of
your previous work, the London
Underground series. There were 3 books if I recall, Something You Are, Girl
7 and Road Kill. They were quite successful, I believe.
Hanna: They did all right, yes
John: But now you have come
onto something that is even bigger than those because there is a lot of talk
about The Last.
There have been comparisons with J.G. Ballard, David
Peace, Graham Greene… nice company to be in.
Hannah: Yeah, I feel ok about
the Ballard comparison because he’s, like, my hero.
John: Is he really?
Hanna: Definitely. As far as I
am concerned, he’s
the god of dystopian fiction.
Editor’s note: As a fan of
Ballard, and curious about Alien Megastructures, I came across an extraordinary
audio adaptation of his short story “Report on an Unidentified Space Station” from
Knifepoint Horror. It can be accessed from this link HERE or read online HERE – apology for
the interruption.
John: Hey, David Peace as
well. I’m a fan of David Peace. Have you read any of his stuff? Did that
influence you?
Hanna: Well, the Red Riding
Trilogy was a huge influence on my first three books, mostly because it was the
first time I had read violence written in such a poetic way and it had a real effect
on how I wrote. I mean, even my sentence structure was very influenced by David
Peace.
Editor’s Note: apology for
another interruption, but this archived interview with David Peace may be of
interest, it’s HERE
John: And the Graham Greene
connection?
Hanna: Graham Greene? I’m
extremely flattered but I don’t know that my writing resembles his, but I quote
him a few times in my work, I think. I definitely quoted him in The Last.
John: And I hear you are a big
fan of Quentin Tarantino and his way of looking at death and things on the
screen is an influence on your writing. Is that true?
Hanna: Definitely. Well, I’m
really influenced by film and TV in general. I think Tarantino was a much
bigger influence on my first three novels because you’ve got that kind of
almost comedic level of ultra-violence which I really enjoyed. And then I think…
I don’t know… in terms of film and TV I think TV shows like The Leftovers and
Twin Peaks were a huge influence on The Last.
John: Is there any other
author I haven’t mentioned that may have been an influence on you in the past?
Do you like detective fiction apart from the Agatha Christie type of thing?
Hanna: …………..laughing………..Do
you know I’ve never actually read any Agatha Christie. I think the comparison
is probably accurate as far as themes go but I’ve never actually read any of
her work so my influences are probably more Martina
Cole, because I think most crime fiction is like, well…it revolves around
the whodunit and I think with regards to The
Last, I wanted to write a dystopian novel but then old habits die hard and
a murder mystery was kind of the perfect way to explore themes of justice and
holding on to ideas of right and wrong even though the structures binding our
society together are completely gone.
John: The future for writers
with adaptations of their novels is rosier than ever because of the sudden
surge of platforms like Amazon, HBO and Netflix.
Hanna: Indeed, Absolutely.
John: Is there any possibility
of your stuff being adapted for TV or similar?
Hanna: I couldn’t possibly say…
John: You can’t say. That’s
good news. Or is it? Well, regardless of
whether you can tell me or not, do you see it as a great platform for you and
your contemporaries?
Hanna: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
And not just for adaptations, to be honest, even though adaptations Netflix
recently did with Annihilation and Bird Box, I didn’t even know they were
novels, they were adaptations. So I think in terms of bringing genre fiction to
even bigger audiences than it currently is - well, they’re incredible. But then,
TV has always been almost a bigger influence on my writing than authors have
because I think so much of the best writing and the best characterisation and
the best dialogue, it’s all in TV at the moment. So, I think The Last, it feels episodic, I think. It
feels like a TV series.
John: interesting. I imagine
you are a big fan of series like Killing Eve?
Hanna: Yes, I enjoyed Killing
Eve, it’s pretty good.
John: Which did you prefer?
The first series or the second series? I preferred the first.
Hanna:………….Oh, that’s hard to
say! It’s hard to say! Probably the second series because I think the sort of
combination of horror, violence and comedy was better assessed and I think the
writers really hit their stride with the characters whereas in the first one,
though very good, it didn’t quite jibe with the tone, and there were certain
things about the humour that didn’t quite land for me - but then everyone else
loved it, so I think that’s just a matter of personal taste.
John: Fair enough! What are you reading now? Are you reading
anything you’ like to recommend to people reading Shots?
Hanna: I’m reading… I read a
lot of non-fiction actually. I’ve only just got back into reading fiction and
it was because I’m writing another novel at the moment so I need to get back
into that mind-set of, like, prose, in general. Usually I’m reading History.
I’m reading a non-fiction book at the moment called One Nation Under God by Kevin
Cruse which is about how corporate America invented Christian America and it’s
about how the radical right evangelical movement that elected Donald Trump was
created back in the 1950s with President Eisenhower and the introduction of the
words, “Under God” to “The Pledge of Allegiance” and all the religious phrasing
on the currency and stuff; that was all introduced in the 1950s so that’s
really interesting. And I’m also reading Stephen
King at the moment, a novel called 11/22/63.
John: I loved it!
Hanna:…….I’d never read it
before. and I’m 4 chapters in.
John: Have you seen the TV
series?
Hanna: No, I haven’t. I don’t
like to watch TV shows before the book.
John: I didn’t like it.
Hanna: Yeah, I’ve heard about
it… but the book is incredible so far. I’m really enjoying it.
John: Ok, to finish up let me
change tack as today is July 20th, 2019 which means it’s 50 years
since Man walked on the moon. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon 50 years ago.
Do you believe we actually went to the moon, or do you think it’s a big
conspiracy and that we’ve all been fooled for the last 50 years?
Hanna:……………..laughter….. Oh, I
believe… thought i’m kind of an agnostic at heart, so I’m very much in the camp
of “I believe we did it”, but if I found our one day that we didn’t, I wouldn’t
be surprised.
John: Ok, good answer! Hanna,
thank you very much for your time. I totally appreciate your being here. I hope
you have enjoyed your time in Aviles, and that you like it so much you’ll come
back next year.
Hanna: I really want to!
John: Thank you for your time.
Hanna: Thank you too.
More information on the work
of Hanna Jameson is available from Twitter HERE and Penguin HERE and
Simon and Schuster HERE
Shots Magazine pass thanks to
Jorge Iván Argiz and the organisers of the 2019 Celsius 232 festival, and to Hannah
Jameson.
And thanks to our Spanish
representative, writer, reviewer and editor John Parker,
who is a Graduate-qualified English/Spanish Teacher, owner and director of CHAT
ENGLISH, an English Language Centre in Avilés on the north coast of Spain John
is a voracious reader, and has loved horror fiction for many, many years. He also
has a passion for propagating citrus fruit, and root vegetables.
Photos (c) 2018 - 2019 John
Parker, Ali Karim, PenguinRandomHouse and Simon and Schuster
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