Karin Slaughter Meet the Author

My guest today is one of the world's most popular crime writers,

the rather aptly named Karin Slaughter.

After finding fame with her first novel Blindsighted,

she's gone on to sell more than 35 million copies of her books,

including the Will Trent and Grant County series.

Her latest book is called The Good Daughter.

It focuses on two sisters whose family is torn apart

after a terrifying attack on their home, which leaves

their mother dead and both of them damaged in very different ways.

Years later, the horrors of the past return.

Karin Slaughter, The Good Daughter links to deadly events,

this terrifying attack on the family, and then 28 years

later, a shooting in a school, as seen through the eyes

of two sisters, Sam and Charlie.

Why was this the story you wanted to tell?

About two years ago, I was writing notes about different characters,

because that is what I do.

It always starts with character for me.

The character of Gamma came to me.

I had this great line, or I thought it was a great line about her,

that I used in the book.

It said she was as pale as an envelope and just

as likely to cause tiny cuts in inconvenient places.

So that note was in my shower actually, I've got a waterproof

notebook because I'm such a nerd!

I clean my shower, but it's there in my shower.

I thought about it for a couple of years every time

I was in the shower, and the story started

to gel in my head.

I had this choice between writing a new Will Trent book or writing

this, and I thought that Will Trent story isn't where I wanted to be

in my head right now.

But these characters just really kind of came to me

and begged to be talked about.

We should explain that Gamma is the mother of the two sisters,

and they don't always see eye to eye, do they?

Their relationship is quite fractious.

I know you were the youngest of three sisters,

I wonder how much your relationship informed the relationship we read

about in the book.

You know, I think with writers, it is probably the same with

news presenters and interviewers, you know, everything in your life

informs how you approach the work.

Of course, being the youngest of three girls,

I knew about sister relationships, and the thing I love is,

when I'm around my sisters, it's like I'm 12 years old again.

I'm thinking of things I can tattle on that they've done,

and even if my sister comes to my house,

she'll make lunch for me and cut the crust off my sandwich!

We just fall back into those patterns.

We really just still see each other as those kids.

Sometimes I'm almost afraid she's going to hit me

with a clothes hanger or something.

I like writing about those relationships, because I think

who we are as children really informs who we are as adults.

The opening chapter of the book in particular, is very,

very violent, and I wonder, do you set out to

shock your readers?

A long time ago a reader said to me why do you spend so much time

on character development if you're just going to kill them?

And I said, you wouldn't care, right, you wouldn't care

if they died if you didn't care about the characters.

Every single person in this book has to have some sort

of resonance for the reader, and I work very carefully.

I think that's sometimes why people think I'm more

violent than I actually am, because they very much care

about who this victim is, and what it does to the family,

the community, and everyone involved in the investigation.

And that's really important to me because I don't

want to write about violence just for the sake of violence.

I don't want to just be someone who wants to shock.

I want to have it happen for a reason, and the reason

is always to explore, what does crime do to communities?

How does it tear people apart?

How does it put them back together?

It's interesting that you mentioned community because one of the things

that struck me about the novel is the sense of place.

It's set in this small, rural conservative community,

Pikeville, where everybody knows each other's business.

Is that similar to the sort of place you grew up in?

It is.

When I first started writing my Grant County series

a million years ago, I chose to write about a small town

because everybody said, "write what you know."

And I know small towns.

I know that insularity, and the thing is though,

you don't really know the people.

You think you know them but then something shocking happens

and you really learn about who they are.

That's the fun of writing a book like this.

I know you said growing up you didn't think you fitted in.

I wondered why that was?

You know, I just didn't.

I remember very specifically, because I found the actual lunchbox

that I carried to school years ago, and I had taped a picture

of Marilyn Monroe after the autopsy on to the side of my lunchbox,

and I remember this had an immediate effect in school

and my parents were called to the school.

My dad was sitting there and the principal was saying,

"This is very unusual that she's done this

and we are a little bit worried."

My dad said, "Look, she's weird, she's always been weird."

You say you were weird, you were always writing

as a child, weren't you?

Am I right that you wrote a story if cats had thumbs,

about a man who had lost his thumbs in a boating accident?

How old were you when you wrote that story?

You know, I think I was 14.

Right.

And I had this great teacher, an English teacher,

who introduced me to Flannery O'Connor.

As this little girl growing up in a small Southern town.

There were a lot of messages we got like, always sit

with your legs crossed, and don't be too loud,

let the boys talk, and don't let them know how smart you are.

Don't be interested in things that are not ladylike.

Then I read Flannery O'Connor and I thought, wow, this

is the pattern I want to follow, someone who speaks their mind,

and more importantly, as a writer, who writes the way people talk.

The colloquial language in there was very much like my family

and everybody around me.

It just gave me this understanding that women

can talk about these things, and you should really tell

the story you want to tell.

I really took that message home with me, and this was my homage

to O'Connor when I wrote that.

Of course, she probably didn't imagine a man without thumbs,

but it was my way of doing it.

You have been writing since you were a child, as I said,

you wanted to be a writer, but you got diverted into doing other jobs.

Why was that?

You know, when I graduated high school, and was going to college,

my dad said to me, actually on my graduation day, he said,

"You know, I'm so proud of you.

You can do anything you want but you can't live at home."

Financial independence was his main goal, which I think

is a laudable thing for a parent to want their kid to be successful.

So I was an exterminator, I painted houses.

Hold on, an exterminator, of what?

Of insects.

So you did these other jobs, and then you decide to take

the plunge and become a writer full-time?

How did that happen?

It didn't really happen that way.

I never thought I could call myself an author until I was published.

All along, even through these jobs I was writing, working on stories,

sending stuff to agents, trying to get something in

a magazine or something like that.

And it took probably eight years.

I had the goal that I wanted to be published by the time

I was 30, and it came at 29, so I was right under that.

It was really a struggle and trying to find my voice

actually is what it took, just writing really bad stories

before I could write the good ones.

What made you decide it was thrillers and crime thrillers

in particular that you wanted to write?

I think really if you are a writer it kind of chooses you,

what kind of stories you're going to tell.

My first book I got with my agent was actually historical fiction.

I grew up in Georgia, I was a woman, I thought I had to write

the next Gone With The Wind.

Even that, it had a lot of crime in it for

a Southern historical fiction novel.

No one wanted to publish it.

I asked my agent, what should I do now, and she said I think you should

write whatever you want to write.

I stopped thinking I had to write a certain way and I really embraced

what I loved reading which was thrillers.

So final question, is Karin Slaughter your real name?

It is.

I got beaten up in school a lot for it so I think I have earned it.

Karin Slaughter, great to talk to you, many thanks.

Thank you.