LISA JEWELL
The UK author publishes the sequel to her best-selling thriller The Family Upstairs
Readers love dark, psychological thrillers, why are we so attracted to being scared by books?
I think in uncertain times, such as these, there’s something very reassuring about being able to read about horrible things happening to good people in the knowledge that by the end of the book the bad people will be punished, the good people will be safe and all the uncertainty will be resolved.
Is there a book that made you love writing?
Every good book I’ve ever read has played a part in making me want to be a writer, but what makes me love writing is another thing entirely; it’s not to do with other people’s writing, it’s to do with mine, to do with the putting together of puzzles and the chance to live in people’s’ heads and see how they deal with the things that I decide to throw at them.
A book that had a pivotal impact on your life?
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby was the book that inspired me to write my first novel in the ’90s.
The book you couldn’t finish? So many books! I wouldn’t want to name one for fear of the author seeing this and taking offence.
A book you wish you had read but haven’t got to? I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes.
The book you are most proud to have written? I think probably The House We Grew Up In as it tackles
Obsessive Compulsive Hoarding Disorder in a really authentic and sympathetic way, despite me having no experience with the subject.
Your earliest reading memory? Reading Ant & Bee on a carpet in my local library with my sister.
How do you read books? I only read on paper. I spend enough time looking at screens, then to want to read books on a screen too. And when I walk I like to hear what’s going on around me which deters me from listening to audio editions.
Your favourite place to read? A sunlounger.
What book do you re-read? I never re-read; there are too many unread books on my TBR that I fear I will never find the time to read unless I give up writing!
What books are on your bedside table? I have The Choice by Penny Hancock which I’m halfway through and thoroughly enjoying. Then after that, The Girls Who Disappeared by Claire Douglas, and An Inconvenient Woman by Stephanie Buelens.
What are you writing next? I’m two weeks away from the deadline for my 21st novel. It currently has no title but is about a podcaster who stumbles unwittingly into her very own real-life crime podcast while she’s in the process of making it.
The Family Remains, by Lisa Jewell, Century, $33, out now