Brianna Labuskes is the author of the new novel Clean Slate. Her many other novels include The Lies You Wrote. She lives in Pennsylvania.
Q: What inspired you to write Clean Slate, and how did you create your character Olive?
A: I wanted to find a slightly different way into writing a crime book than using an FBI agent or detective. I had always loved the movie Sunshine Cleaning, which features a crime scene cleaner, and giving Olive that job opened up a lot of neat avenues for the book.
For example, Olive could break the rules that (good) detectives can’t. She didn’t need to follow any chains of custody with evidence, couldn’t talk to people without warrants, and could even find her way into places she shouldn’t be.
At the same time, this character does understand the legal system and isn’t getting in the way of the official investigation.
I really wanted her to be tough on the outside, funny and sarcastic, but then soft as a marshmallow on the inside, both of which she needs to do her job. She has to be okay with the gore and also help her clients get through some of their most emotional days they’ve ever gone through. It was fun to use the job itself as a way to forge her personality.
Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?
A: There’s a great book out there called Mop Men, which follows crime scene cleaners into their hour-to-hour lives, and gave me a great sense about what a normal workday would look like for them.
There’s also a docuseries following a crime scene cleaning company, which walked the audience through real-time jobs. It highlighted the variety of messes the cleaners had to deal with, from drive-by shootings to vomit in police cars.
They both gave such great insight into both the personality traits of the cleaners, the workflow and then the cleaning itself.
One of the more surprising things I learned while reading and watching them was that brain matter hardens into cement when it hits the air. I actually use it as my opening line, because it was so interesting to me.
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 knew the broad strokes but filling it in is always fun and surprising. Sometimes my whole plan will pivot when the characters get a mind of their own and the ending of a chapter takes me in a whole new direction.
Q: As someone who writes both psychological thrillers and historical fiction, do you have a preference?
A: I don’t actually have a preference, I just love the way writing in both genres lets me build narratives that have naturally high stakes, either through murder or war. It doesn’t really matter if their opposition is a serial killer or Hitler, pushing the characters to their upmost limits is when it gets really exciting as a writer.
Q: This is the start of a new series--can you tell us what's next?
A: The second book dives deeper into Olive’s history, and what really happened with her parents on the day her mother killed her father. It let me bring out even more layers in Olive’s personality—her flaws and her strength, her fears and her gumption. I can say not everything is as it seems in the first book.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I really wanted to create a character in Olive that readers could root for, and maybe think of as their funny, if a little messy, friend who can also hunt down serial killers.
And for them to walk away thinking about the importance of the communities and support systems that we build for ourselves. That’s what I would love to see.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
No comments:
Post a Comment