Scary books can serve as ‘ dialysis’ author says
The newest psychological thriller by Dan Chaon continues in what has become the Ohio novelist’s signature style: dark stories that entertain even as they chill bones.
“Ill Will,” set in northern Ohio and Nebraska, follows a trail of drowning deaths of college-age young men (serial murders?) and the troubled life of a widowed psychologist and his wayward sons.
Chaon (pronounced “Shawn”), 53, has written five previous novels and short-story collections — including “Among the Missing,” a National Book Award finalist. The father of two grown sons has taught creative writing at Oberlin College since 1997; he lives in Cleveland Heights.
Chaon spoke with The Dispatch ahead of his appearance Sunday at the Columbus Metropolitan Library’s Main Library.
What was the story that your brother-in-law told you that became the core of “Ill Will”?
He was going to the University of Wisconsin in the early 2000s when there was a series of drowning
deaths — all young men after leaving a bar late at night. Officials had a logical explanation: binge drinking and tumbling into the river. But a wild rumor was going around ... that it was a serial killer. It seemed to be the core of how an urban legend, a conspiracy, gets built.
Your novel was published just a few weeks before “The Girl on the Train” author Paula Hawkins’ novel about drowning deaths, “Into the Water.”
I knew it was coming, so I was glad to get out of the gate before I was accused of copying her. But,
seriously, I think “drowning” is in the national psyche now.
Aside from the entertainment value, what do you hope that readers take from psychological thrillers such as “Ill Will”?
For me, there’s a kind of curative power in scary movies and books. I think some people have a need to rehearse the worst things that can happen or the things they’re afraid of, and it forms a kind of dialysis for us. That was certainly true for me. After my wife died (in 2008), I had a very difficult time with grief. I didn’t lose my mind, but I felt sometimes that I was going to. I didn’t want to write about that autobiographically, but by writing about this really sinister stuff in fiction ... it was effective and useful for me. I hope it will be the same for some readers.
In many of your books, you demonstrate sensitivity for people raised and living in poverty. How did you get so adept at this?
My family was fairly poor, although my immediate family was on the wealthier side of things. Dad was a construction worker, and we owned a house. But I had cousins living in trailer parks, pretty far below the poverty line. It’s something I’ve continued to think about. ... I’m super-aware of the way in which we’re stratified by class.
Is writing fiction harder than writing nonfiction?
I think nonfiction is harder. I rarely write it. It requires a certain kind of objectivity and (writing) outside of your own perspective and prejudices.
“Ill Will” doesn’t wrap up the drowning deaths neatly.
I was influenced by recent true-crime documentaries. “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills” was inspiration for the satanic case that (one of my characters) is involved with. “Making a Murderer” is a documentary with multiple layers of possible solutions. I think our desire to have answers often leads us to jump to conclusions too quickly.
What are you working on now?
Two novels — about a con man living off the grid who gets in trouble and comes across as a domestic terrorist.
Another light novel?
(Laughs) Actually,there is some humor in it.