AN INTERVIEW WITH NORA GASKIN,
AUTHOR OF THE WORST THING
Do you feel like women, working as
models and actresses, invite stalking and/or
harassment by being so alluring—like
Angel, in your novel The
Worst Thing?
Simple
answer: no, they don’t invite it. But it’s a complex question because it is one
women
have
had to deal with since Adam blamed Eve. I would hope young girls could skip the
princess stage and go right to the astronaut, athlete, writer, entrepreneur
stage.
Then
again, I worry that STEM (education based on science, technology, engineering,
and
mathematics)
leaves out some important stuff, too. STEAM, with the A for Arts, is better.
I
admire creative women, women who are successful in business, and women who take
control of their own destinies writ large or small.
The
problem is, not everyone can distinguish between the costume and the person who
wears it. Sometimes, the person in the costume loses her grip on that
distinction, too. In The
Worst Thing, Angie loved her life of
make-believe, as she worked as a model. Her maturation was interrupted by a
traumatic event, so we don’t know who she may have become. Another character,
Dorrie, fought back.
I
hope my characters stand on their own as individuals who make choices, even as
they are
influenced
by the choices others make, as we all do.
Do you follow real-life crime
stories?
Which?
Lots.
I miss the old days of Court TV. I could get home from work in time to see half
a day’s
testimony
from California during the O.J. Simpson trial and the Menendez Brothers’ trial,
then the networks would replay it all. I DO still watch crime shows on TV, both
fiction and factual.
And
I published a non-fiction book, Time
of Death, about a devastating crime in
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, my hometown, that influenced me as a child, and
continues to fascinate me. I think of the hows and whys of the crime, the way
it was investigated, and the resulting false conviction. It still has impact on
me and also on my community.
I’m
drawn to stories about justice gone wrong, especially wrongful convictions. I
want to see justice done, but that means justice for the accused as well as for
the victim.
What draws you to reading and
writing about crime?
Why are crime stories compelling?
The
writer and the reader work together to try and understand where evil comes from
and
how
it works. And usually, the stories end with order restored. The bad actor is
caught and gets his due, society is safe again. Or at least, we can hope.
Tell us about the title of the book
you just published: The
Worst Thing
The
title came to me early in the process. It was inspired by Kate Atkinson’s
title, When Will There Be Good News? The answer is, pretty much never.
In that book, things go from bad to worse to worse to worse.
Early
in The Worst Thing, we learn that our young
protagonist, Kellah, believes the deaths of her parents in a freak accident is
the worst thing that will ever happen to her. That belief gives her a
fearlessness that borders on recklessness. Then she finds out the accident is
just the worst thing so far. That is what happens in life. We can’t know what
will come tomorrow, or five years from now.
Yet
we survive and continue to live in a world in which terrible things happen.
Kellah must dig deeper than she ever thought she would to move forward.
Tell us about the character, Kellah,
who starts out believing the worst thing for her
has already happened?
In
May or June 2014, I had just reread Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, and I wondered, what is it like
to write a character like Ripley, a pure sociopath. Then I wondered, what would
it be like to write a female character like Ripley. Kellah sprang to life. Kellah
turned out not to be the sociopath that Ripley is, not to be as amoral, but she
is outside of some cultural norms. Her fearlessness, amounting to recklessness,
sets her apart. She doesn’t behave as other people do. She’s small, pretty,
bookish—not the woman you expect to take on evil. But she doesn’t give it
second thought. Kellah is still my female version of Tom Ripley.
What did you come to learn when
writing about the stalker, Albert?
You seem to show fully the mindset of
the criminal.
Albert
is trying to do the right thing. He is proof that we all want the same things
in life, to love and to be loved. But he got it twisted and turned inside out.
His is a life wasted.
How did your editing the anthology
of Carolina Crimes: 21 Tales of
Need, Greed and
Dirty Deeds, introduced by Jeffrey Deaver as “some
of the finest crime writers ever to set ink to paper and pixels to disk,”
influence your writing of The Worst Thing?
I
was well into The
Worst Thing when the offer to edit the second
anthology in the Carolina
Crimes series came along. Having the
opportunity to edit 21 stories and work with 21 writers certainly added to my
understanding of how crime fiction works. Some of the stories are darkly funny.
Some are purely creepy. Most hold up a mirror to world, reflecting the same
issues that lead me to read and write suspense.
What are you working on now?
Years
ago, a man who was clearly guilty of murder chose to plead guilty. As a person
living the community in which his crime happened, I felt cheated. Since there
was no trial, a lot of questions went unanswered. I felt that he was truly
remorseful and even though there is no doubt about his guilt, I felt there was
more to his story than ever came out. I want to explore a character with a conscience,
who has a hard time living with what he’d done. I’m eager to see where that
takes me. I’m sure it’ll be to unexpected places.
