The Long Passage

by Jonathan on January 16th, 2011

I’ve just finished Justin Cronin’s The Passage (Balantine), a book that received a lot of attention at the time of its release for a number of reasons, among them that it was perceived as a genre work by a “literary” author, its large rumored advance, and the $1.75 million that Ridley Scott paid for movie adaptation rights. It was a shrewd move on Scott’s part – the book is an excellent read, fresh and cinematic in scope.

The Passage begins with the story of Amy, a little girl whose mother, a decent woman, is forced by circumstances into prostitution. Gradually braided into that narrative are a series of emails from a scientist on a research journey into the South American jungle; he expresses concern that the US military is involved in the expedition, mentions bats and finally reports that they’re being massacred. Back in the US, two federal agents travel around the country, picking up a squad of death row inmates for a sinister and secret government project.

And with that, the basic seeds of The Passage are sown. But the story fairly quickly takes an abrupt jump from thriller-y set-up to post-apocalyptic quest story – it reminded me of anime, in the way that the narrative suddenly blasts from quotidian to cosmic in implication.

As you are probably aware, The Passage is a vampire story, but it’s a vampire story only in the sense that the creatures are incredibly strong, fast, blood-drinking monsters. Cronin has very cleverly reimagined the biology of vampires, which gives the book an appealing freshness; the sexy-European-man-with-retractable-fangs thing is banished, replaced by hairless, glowing, feral humanoids with long claws and rows of razor-sharp teeth.

No, it’s not a typical vampire book at all. Instead, it’s a bit like The Lord of the Rings, in which a band of ordinary individuals come together and undertake a journey to save the world against impossible odds. The Passage, however, is LoTR as a scorched earth Stephen King novel, set in a depopulated wilderness filled with fear, dread and blood.

This world – its physical appearance, its human and predator ecosystems – is what sets The Passage apart. Cronin has created a highly realistic, intricately detailed portrait of a devastated America. He presents vividly the evacuation of Philadelphia as it falls to the vampire hordes; humans clinging to life in a walled colony, defended by watchers on high catwalks and a barrier of bright electric lights that paralyze attacking virals (as the vampires are called); the Gulf of Mexico a chemical swamp filled with the rotting hulls of ships in a vast slick of oil gushing from abandoned drilling platforms.

The story kicks into high gear when it is learned that the colony’s lights will soon fail. A band of colonists must set off through a wasteland teeming with virals, making the long trek by foot to Colorado in a desperate attempt to find a solution.

The Passage could in no way be described as “a quick read” – the hardback weighed in at 784 pages. And it’s not without its flaws, the chief of which can be deduced from the page count: Cronin can be extremely and needlessly digressive, particularly in the second quarter of the book, filled with minutiae of life in the Colony. He writes well – often beautifully – but can’t stop himself from chronicling every little detail and side journey of even minor characters. Much of this is in the service of sculpting the setting, but the book would have been much better if some cruel editor had cut it by 100 or even 150 pages. Seriously, 634 pages still gives you a lot of stuff to read! There are plot holes, the length of the book means lots of characters – some of whom aren’t memorable enough to be distinguishable – and sometimes even already-suspended disbelief is strained to the breaking point, but the plot gradually takes over, and the book moves faster and faster. Overall I really liked it.

I read it on the Kindle (a bit disorienting, given its length), and so I was slightly surprised at the abrupt ending. And then pleased to hear that it’s the first of a trilogy. I really liked the book’s plotting; that there are two more to come makes it all the more impressive, if Cronin can deliver again. The fact also makes Scott seem like the canny, uh, Scot that he is.

By the way, for a funny dissenting opinion, see the one-star Amazon review entitled “It’s like somebody accidentally the last 600 pages” by ikt “Example of a Real Name”. Actually, don’t – it’s funny, and not inaccurate, but it also gives away major end-spoilage. Save it for after you read the book!

A Place for Everything

by Jonathan on September 27th, 2010

Normally when I find appealing images while crawling around the web, I dump them onto my Facebook page, but they don’t always fit. Case in point: this photograph, which is so tall and slim that it completely baffles the system.

No real reason for this, other than that it’s an amusing sight. I can’t remember where I found it – on Random Pictures, maybe.

Live, in Person!

by Jonathan on September 19th, 2010

I’m a terrible blogger, with an unprofessional blog – case in point: my thriller writer friends’ blogs all have ample coverage of their upcoming appearances. I appear, but I never wake the town and tell the people that I’m appearing.

That all changes now!

Some upcoming appearances:

September 24 – 26, 2010: The Writers’ Police Academy, Jamestown NC: I’ll be giving a lecture on forensic pathology for writers. And hopefully, at some point, gettting tased.

October 14 – 17, 2010: Bouchercon by the Bay, San Francisco, CA: I’m on serial killer panel on Saturday morning, plus walking around looking dazed for the rest of the session.

February 21-26, 2011 American Academy of Forensic Sciences, Chicago, IL: I shall be lecturing on suicide. This is a professional meeting, so you pretty much have to get through years of training, experience and accreditation. Although I’ve never noticed them checking IDs.

March 24 – 27, 2011: Left Coast Crime, Santa Fe, NM.

April-May, 2011: I’ll be doing a West Coast tour for A Hard Death. This will likely kick off with an event at the New York Public Library on 42nd Street, with a couple of local readings, then a reading in Naples, FL (the inspiration for the fictional town of Port Fontaine), and then probably San Diego, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.

May 19 – 21, 2011, Crimefest, Bristol, UK.

July 6 – 9, 2011, Thrillerfest, New York, NY.

I’ll do my best to update this info as it, uh, evolves. Or devolves, as the case may be.

Enjoy the Silence?

by Jonathan on December 13th, 2009

Sorry about the gap, but I’ve been driving and train-taking and dining my way across northeastern France, taking photos, asking questions and generally laying the groundwork for Untitled Jenner Project 3.

I’ll be making a couple of make-up posts in a little, but in the meantime, there’s a surprisingly direct and lengthy interview with me on Falcata Times. Brace yourself: you have been warned.

Audio: Interview on Irish Radio

by Jonathan on December 1st, 2009

Last week, I was on Moncrieff! – not literally on Sean Moncrieff, but on his popular afternoon show on Irish talk radio.

Sean Moncrieff: The work of a pathologist is often characterized as somewhat ‘glamorous’, yet this is a person who, on a daily basis, cuts up dead bodies – who would do such a thing? Well, Jonathan Hayes, for one. He’s a novelist and has worked as a forensic pathologist in the U.S. for over twenty years…

Moncrieff/Hayes

Oh, Shiny Metal Beast – I love you so!

by Jonathan on November 20th, 2009

I’ve had the visual elements for this lying in the post hopper for almost a year. It was going to be a post about how easily we anthropomorphize things, how we can feel pity for inanimate objects. Or, at least, how I can.

It was triggered by this rather perverse battle between a tiny robot and a big robot, or rather by how moved I was at the plight of this little manikin made of metal strips and cogs, continuing to fight the good fight while hopelessly outmatched. Click on the image for heart-breaking little-robot-on-big-robot action…

I felt similarly stricken at the loss of the Phoenix Rover, the space explorer probe, when it shut down last year with the approach of  Martian winter; after five months of glorious data collection, it would be encased in carbon dioxide ice for a year – pretty much certain death. The demise of the Rover was all the more painful because I’d been following its blogs on Gizmodo – thank God I’d not become addicted to its Twitter feed! Click on the photo below to link to its farewell message.

Finally, to bring it all home, Spike Jonze’s fantastic Ikea ad:

The Right Direction

by Jonathan on November 19th, 2009

Things are going  well for A Hard Death in the UK. Yesterday, I got an excited email from my agent to let me know that the book is on the UK Bookscan Top 20 Fiction Heat Seekers list, bumping shoulders with work by some really strong authors. I’m amused to see that I actually beat out the Master, James Ellroy; I’m sure it won’t last long, but if I ever meet him, I’ll be sure to let him know.

Next Monday, I have a feature article in the Independent, a British broadsheet newspaper. It’s a peculiar piece, about my experience with blood, covering everything from how I became a forensic pathologist to my feelings about the Twilight series; we’ll see if that affects sales at all. I’ll be sure to post it here when the piece goes online.

I’ve been meaning to record a podcast, some thoughts and a brief reading from A Hard Death, but there seem to be a thousand and one things that need attention at any second – the penalty of living a disorganized life, I fear. I’ll get to it this week, or die trying. Or a reasonable facismile thereof.

What I did during my 11 month blogvacation…

by Jonathan on October 28th, 2009

Well, a lot of stuff, really.

Mostly I’ve been working on A Hard Death; that’s now done, with Random House putting out the English edition on November 5 of this year, and Harper Collins still figuring out the US release date, Droemer the German date, etc.

I wrote it mostly here in New York, and a bit in my place in Paris. The whole experience was delayed a little because I fell  in love, which was great, but also tumultuous – in the end, a short ride in a fast machine. I emerged from it a little scalded but better for the experience.

My renovation in Paris is nearing the end. And so am I! It’s been a ridiculous experience. I can’t really justify it, either as an expense or as an investment, but it’s really pretty perfect, the ideal place to chill, read, write.

I stripped down the old fireplace, and rebuilt it in a more modern way; you can see it more clearly here:

I left the floors raw, without finish or oil; I really like how they look. We’ll see how well they hold up…

My bed is insanely comfortable; since the place is so tiny, I decided I would spare no expense in fitting it out. I have a Swedish  mattress, topped with a goose down feather bed, linen sheets and a linen and silk coverlet. Please believe me: when I say “insanely comfortable”, I mean just that.

I designed a small desk, and had it built in padauk wood, a beautiful African hardwood that darkens over time. I don’t like the proportions of the desk; when I’ve adjusted it a bit, I’ll post a photo. I’ve also got two chairs, very plain.

I know it’ll probably be too spare for some people – there will be art work going up, but not a lot: I’m going for a “luxury monastic cell” look. Essentially, it’s a more austere version of the bedroom in my loft in New York, where my original design brief was “a TB sanatorium near Prague in the 1930′s”.

And I think I’m getting there…

OK! There you go – an actual real post with content – including photos and at two (find ‘em!) links! I’m making my way back!

Saints be praised! It’s a miracle! Et cetera!

Bouchercon II – A Virgin No More

by Jonathan on October 18th, 2008

As Bouchercon went on, I could feel myself wearing out. At home, I’m frequently woken during the night by my two cats (one inherited from my ex-girlfriend, the other acquired when my ex-girlfriend insisted the first needed company. Ever since, the two have waged a full-on yakuza-style feud, the violence unrelenting, the body count high. Actually, I am the body count, my chest leaped on every night at 4AM  by a 20 pound cat with claws of honed stee – mine is a truly Promethean existence.), but for some reason, I slept badly every night I was in Baltimore. Adrenaline, I suspect.

Saturday was my birthday, and a pretty fun and hectic birthday it was too. I spent a slightly sluggish morning, drifting groggily through the halls, and was pleased to find that many of the attendees were in a worse way than me. Some had rolled back into the hotel well after 5AM, but were pressed back into action before 9AM, sore of head, furred of tongue and possessed of photographs of themselves chugging down champagne bottles in seamy-looking bars, and of the police cruisers dispatched to greet them (reflection of the City of Baltimore’s devotion to literature). I realized that being tired because I’d slept poorly was a pretty damn feeble excuse – while they’d been out on epically worthwhile Bukowskian benders, the stuff of writerly legend, while I’d stayed home and played the Princess and the Pea like a wuss.

At 11:30AM, Brian Lindemuth was the ringmaster for the Serial Killer panel, with Mark Billingham, Michelle Gagnon, Alan Jacobson and myself roaring and batting at his questions with our paws. We went back and forth on the realism question, on whether or not the motive of a serial killer could ever be really understood, discussed some prominent real and fictional serial killers, and debated Hannibal Lecter’s underwear choices (full credit to Brian for keeping the discourse snappy with carefully crafted questions, including the occasional curveball).

Afterwards, I signed books in the uh, book-signing room. Through a pleasant accident of alphabetical coincidence, I found myself next to Christa Faust, a strikingly pretty, compact blonde whose preference for sleeveless tops won her the Most Visibly Tatooed Author at Bouchercon 2008 award. She’d also be a shoo-in for the Most Direct Conversationalist award – I knew her as a wildy popular author of hard-boiled fiction for Hard Case Crime, but was pleased to discover that she was a professional dominatrix specializing in bondage and foot worship within two minutes of striking up conversation (Englishmen are always delighted to learn things like that, trust me.) Since the first friend I made when I moved to New York City was the infamous photographer Eric Kroll (warning – if you have a delicate constitution or are easily offended, do not click on that link), it wasn’t surprising that we had friends in common. With a funny, smart and beautiful companion, my minutes in the signing room blasted by, and I was soon sprung to find Alafair for a bite of lunch.

In the afternoon, I visited the book stores, but couldn’t find a copy of the book I’d been looking for (James Crumley’s The Last Good Kiss, since successfully located). I milled around the halls a bit, repeatedly bumping into Jonny Santlofer – a man who’d hold impromptu court on a lily pad, if that’s all that was available – and finally decided I’d be better off back in bed. A nap later, I swung by the bar, where the New York branch of the Mystery Writers of America was holding a get-together, chatted with Meredith Cole for a while (admiring the scarf she’d whipped together, which had the cover of her upcoming book printed on it – true Williamsburg hipster crafting!), then with Joanna Powell and Sharyn Rosenblum from Harper Collins, spotted Tasha Alexander and, I think, Danielle Emrich and their posse plotting malfeasance in the lobby, then Alafair summoned me to dinner.

 

Harry Hunsicker and Margery Flax had hastily assembled a small group; superior logistical technique resulted in a minivan magically appearing to whisk us away to dinner at Oceanaire, a sleek modern seafood restaurant where one could freely eat crabcakes without risking the food poisoning that had gutted the Bouchercon ranks.  It was a fun group of people – Margery, Harry and his wonderfully stylish wife Allison, Alafair, her friend McKenna Jordan from Houston’s Murder by the Book, Tim Maleeny, Dan Hale, Charlaine Harris and her agent Joshua Bilmes.

Not only was it fun, it was raucous fun: the rendition of “Happy Birthday” I endured on the way to the restaurant had the sort of bracing ferocity one only encounters once in a lifetime, if one is lucky. Alas, they nailed me with it again when my Baked Alaska arrived, and quite possibly once more on the way home, although by then I’d packed my ears with a prophylactic paste of birthday candle wax and meringue. When my hearing finally returned, Margery was telling a blood-curdling story of dancing the Hustle in a New York City bank in the early 1970′s – apparently that kind of behaviour, like leisure suits and snorting cocaine, was acceptable back then. O tempora, o mores!

I’m a huge fan of True Blood, the bodice-ripping Southern Gothic vampire series on HBO that Alan Ball has created from Charlaine’s Sookie Stackhouse series. It was a real treat to meet her, and to hear that she’s a huge fan of the show, too. Of course, how could she not be? – the week of Bouchercon, it was announced that all seven of Charlaine’s Sookie books had bounced onto the New York Times bestseller list. She was supersweet (and probably continues to be), and had all sorts of choice gossip about the show.

By the way, about the show: on various groups, I’ve heard people complain about the explicit sex and violence in the TV show. WTF??? That’s like being outraged to discover bacon or chocolate in your dinner! Sex and violence are the spice of premium cable! It can’t all be Wheel of Fortune and Everybody Loves Raymond…

Back at the hotel, I was flagging again. I said hi and bye to a few people, then watched Jonny Santlofer holding court again in the corner of the lobby, this time sprawled on a banquette, showing off his expensive and curious footwear to Dan Conaway and Megan Abbott,the foxy Wednesday Addams of Crime Fiction. They were fading fast too, and so I left before I had to carry them up to their rooms.

On my way back to my room, my Bouchercon visit effectively finished, I passed the electronic podium in the Sheraton lobby that showcases the best that Baltimore has to offer. I realized I hadn’t taken a single photo at the festival, so I did:

Then I went to bed, after offering a little prayer that I’d survive another trip on I-95 with Alafair at the wheel.

Poison Dart

by Jonathan on October 17th, 2008

A slight diversion from my Bouchercon coverage…

The other day I watched the video for the song “Poison Dart” by London post-grime, post-dubstep musician the Bug (click here):

That record has never sounded better than when Kode 9 dropped it this summer in his set at the Winter Garden, down in the Financial Center. Hearing “Poison Dart” unleashed into the high arches of the atrium triggered the kind of transcendence I’ve felt all too rarely in recent years. Everything was perfect for me that night – Kode 9 was just killing on the turntables, the Brooklyn-based ragga MC rocked it, the projections were stunning, and everyone danced about the palm trees, hands in the air, waving them like they just didn’t care. Around the margins of the marble floors, bewildered tourists and bankers drifted in and out, ambling past Godiva Chocolates to suddenly find themselves in the middle of a riotous dancefloor where a DJ was blasting music they’d never heard before (and probably never will again) – and blasting it loud. I managed to get a few photos off despite energetic interference from the impressively polite security staff.

It’s weird for me – still! – to be at the Winter Garden. My strongest memories of the place are from the night of September 12, 2001, walking in single file through the dark and the dust, the metal uprights bent and twisted, the glass blown out, the palm trees knocked about, everything covered in dust. The dust was extraordinary, thick and velvety, tamped down into a footpath on the route to Ground Zero; I remember thinking  this is what Pompei must have been like. A bit.

In the flashlight, the smell of burning, the heat, the all-embracing unrealness of the experience, I was overwhelmed, and as I traipsed along, I spewed out a series of vigorous obscenities. Someone up front asked what we all did, and I said I was an M.E., and then the man in front of me said he was a priest; I apologized for my foul mouth, but he told me he understood.

In the above photo, the light at top is outside, over Ground Zero. I have avoided that dismal pit as much as I can since the ceremonies that marked the end of the recovery dig, sometime in the summer of 2002. I visited once, stuck my head in to look sometime in 2003, but when I go to the World Financial Center, I take routes that avoid the site.

It’s really only this year that I’ve felt OK with going back to the Winter Garden. It’s astonishing how perfect it is now, like some high end shopping center in a rich neighbourhood in Asia, all shining marble and gilt and glass. It’s like nothing ever happened. I sit there, I listen, I dance a bit. Life has moved on, and, I suppose, because I can go there, and listen, and dance a bit, I have moved on too. So I go and I hear Kode 9, and I dance a bit, and I take photos, and I can feel happy in this place which I associate with the cruelest, most desperate time of my life, and I don’t understand how that can work. I don’t feel “normal” again, and yet… I act as if I am.

I took my tripod to photograph Ground Zero. At the Ulrich Schnauss concert, I’d climbed the amphitheater steps to escape the crowd, and at the top had been astonished to find myself face to face with the hole. The superslick finishes of the World Financial Center make it feel like being on the observation deck at an airport. The glass, the metal, the cranes, the lights – it could have been a vista from any superheated Asian economy, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Bangkok, any of them in the middle of a glitzy building boom.

Only there was no building going on. Seven years on and it’s still a hole in the ground, concrete foundations enmired in an endless polemical grapple of money and politics. Everyone gets their say, and nothing gets done. At some level, I wish we could just fill it in with earth, bury it in forgetful grass, make some beautiful park with hills and trees where we could just be; not remember, not make money, feel the absence, respect the loss, just be.

But this is some of the most valuable real estate on earth, so that’s not going to happen. And I distrust my sentiment – I’m sure that some of me feels that to rebuild there, to put up something soaring and financial, to do that is to ask to be attacked again. And some craven corner of my soul quails at the thought.

It hurts to see it still there, still empty, this huge void in the heart of the city, aching and empty while the surgeons squabble about what to do next. Ground Zero, annihilated and annihilating:

Last night, cutting across Union Square, the wind picked up, and I could feel the chill, and I remembered how I welcomed it back then, when we let go of that hideous, dazzling Indian summer of 2001, and the city grew dark and cool, and the adrenaline passed and we finally began to accept the truth and to mourn in earnest.