Jurica Pavičić is the author of the novel Red Water, now available in an English translation by Matt Robinson. Pavičić's other books include Mater Dolorosa. Also a journalist and film critic, he is based in Croatia.
Q: What inspired you to write Red Water, and how did you create your cast of characters?
A: The idea started with an image of a billiard pool table. I was just imagining how a billiard game starts: all the balls are still and in a perfect order. Then the first ball hits the second, then second hits some other balls, and within few seconds balls are randomly dispersed in all directions. That's how I conceived Red Water.
There is an initial event - a huge blow - which hits all the characters and disperses them physically and emotionally through the space and time. That initial event is the disappearence of an 18-year-old girl in a small Dalmatian coastal community.
With that idea, I started thinking: which characters would have been hit by such a blow? Obviously, parents. Then, brother and even better, a twin brother. Then a boyfriend. Then someone who would have been a suspect.
And then a policeman, the Investigator Šain, who is member of then-communist police and son of a partisan resistance hero. With the change of regime in 1990, his ideological and family background would have been an obstacle itself. But, his professional failure that he didn't find the missing girl precipitates his fall.
I tried to follow all these characters through time, observing how their lives took turns that they wouldn't have had under some other circumstances. For that, I needed a long timespan.
One French critic wrote that the main character of my novel is time - and I love that description. But with that in mind, I also wanted to keep all the pleasures of the good crime novel: mystery, suspense, cliffhangers, revelation.
Q: Le Monde said of the book, "Pavičić brilliantly utilises the noir genre to portray ordinary lives caught up in the collapse of communism, the rise of nationalism and the shock of war." What do you think of that description?
A: As I said, concept of the novel needed a long timespan. The story of the book encompasses 26 years. If I was a Swiss writer, that would have been a rather monotonous 26 years in terms of social upheavals.
But not in Croatia. During the 26 years in Croatia it was a period with the fall of communism, dissolution of Yugoslavia, war in the '90s, the rise of tourism in the 2000s, and the real-estate collapse in 2008. In my book, these events are background: I don't see them as a main topic. But, I liked that idea of a very dramatic background.
My characters are totally focused on their one personal/familiar drama which fades as it become unimportant to all the others, because they become focused on a collective, national drama. And vice versa: my characters pay almost no attention to social changes and war, because they have their own open wound.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: I always plan novels very thoroughly. My writing process is similar to a process of a screenwriter. I write a synopsis, then a treatment. I create composition and then write a short description of each chapter. At the end, I get the "model" of the future novel, which is usually 20-40 pages long. Before that, I never start writing the text itself.
When I was at the beginning of writing Red Water, I was hesitant about structure. My initial idea was to go back-and-forth in time, but it didn't work well. So, I abandoned it very early. I decided on the structure of the novel as it is now instead, and when I realised that it worked I started writing.
The final novel deviates from the "model" in only one single motive. To avoid a spoiler, I'll just say that it's a motive of a character jumping through the window.
Q: How did you research the novel, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: I didn't need much research, because I was writing about a region I live in, and a period I lived through. I was in a war as a soldier, therefore I am able to describe war. As a journalist, I write a lot about speculative real-estate development of the Adriatic coast, so I know the topic very well. I have chapters taking place in Toronto, Goeteborg, Belgrade, and Barcelona beacause I have been in these cities.
The only chapter I had to research was the one taking place in a merchant ship in a China sea. But my first cousin is a chief engine officer in a merchant ship. He helped me with a precise description of equipment, procedures, and daily routine.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I've just finished a new novel. Its title will be Mouth Fall of Sea, and it's a crime novel again. Next year, Bitter Lemon, the same English-language publisher of Red Water, is publishing my novel Mater Dolorosa, which was written after Red Water. It's already been translated into French and German.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: As with many Dalmatians, parts of my family emigrated to California in the 1920s. Mostly in the San Pedro area. I have cousins there. I'm glad that they will be able to read something I wrote finally.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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