Adam Oyebanji is the author of the new novel Esperance. His other books include the novel Braking Day. Also a lawyer, he works in the field of counterterrorist financing.
Q: What inspired you to write Esperance, and how did you create your characters Ethan Krol, Abi Eniola, and Hollie Rogers?
A: Despite the determined efforts of my mother to save my soul and steer me toward medicine, I ended up becoming a lawyer.
I went to law school at a time when law reports were read from books rather than computer screens. As an inveterate browser, I would often end up reading unassigned texts—little slices of history— from hundreds of years ago.
On one particularly rainy day, I stumbled across a shipping case from the 18th century that was such a stunning mix of incompetence and cruelty that it’s been at the back of my mind ever since.
Then, many, many, many years later, I was literally staring out into the street with a cup of tea in my hand when I had a thunderclap of inspiration (not how it usually works!), and Esperance was born.
As for how Ethan, Abi, and Hollie came to be, I’m not sure anyone has ever asked me that! It’s a hard question because character creation, the mechanics of it, is not something I consciously think about, and so the easy answer is to say that they just happened.
But, as you are making me think about it . . . I guess I would say that I have a mental grab bag full of all the people I’ve met in my life and their various quirks and idiosyncrasies. Then I kind of rummage around in there looking for the type of person who might end up where my characters begin.
A sensitive, socially awkward poet who likes to take long walks in the country is unlikely to be a senior detective investigating a big-city murder, for instance (although that might be a book, right?), so that gives you a starting baseline.
And after that, the characters kind of grow along with the book as I get to know them better and a back story for each of them develops in my head. By the end, they feel as real to me as actual flesh and blood. Which is weird. Please don’t tell anyone!
Q: The writer Julie E. Czerneda said of the book, “In this brilliant story, Oyebanji makes the reader question perceptions of guilt and innocence, of vengeance and justice, of time itself—all the while asking what makes us truly human.” What do you think of that description?
A: I think I’m a little bit in love with Julie Czerneda! What a lovely thing for her to say. I wanted to write a fast-paced, speculative crime story that might make the reader think a little bit, so, if Ms Czerneda’s reaction is typical, I’ve done okay.
Q: Would you call the novel science fiction or mystery--or a combination of the two?
A: It’s definitely a combination. I’ve been invited to speak about Esperance at both crime and sci-fi book festivals, which is objective proof, I guess.
My publisher calls it speculative fiction, by which I think they mean a novel set in the “real” world with sci-fi (speculative) elements thrown in, and Library Journal described it as “recommended for readers who love intricately blended genre stories that ask big questions,” so something along those lines.
Q: Did you know how the story would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: Yes. 😊
I’m a big believer in outlines (for me, not anyone else), so the bones of the story is already settled before I start on chapter one. But the outline is more sea chart than road map: I drift off on whatever heading wind and current dictate while keeping an eye on the hoped-for destination.
When I got to the end of Esperance, I found myself confronting a choice between a poignant or less poignant resolution for one of my characters that I’d not anticipated when I started out. I like to think I made the right choice.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: My debut novel, Braking Day, was a straight-up sci-fi space opera set on a generation ship the size of a small town. There was a supporting character in that book, a police officer, basically, that I very much enjoyed writing. I’m giving them a mysterious death to delve into!
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: If speculative fiction or sci-fi is not your thing, I have also written two fair-play murder mysteries set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: A Quiet Teacher and Two Times Murder. If you end up liking them, I think you’ll enjoy Esperance as well.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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