Several readers have asked questions about the book, Shadows in Summer. Perhaps you have similar questions, and are interested in their questions and my responses as listed below.
What authors have influenced the development of Shadows in Summer?
Too many to mention, but let me pick a few:
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Barbara Kingsolver, who proved that multiple first-person narration could be used to great effect in the context of a great story with vividly-drawn characters, i.e., The Poisonwood Bible)
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Umberto Eco, whose endless delight with puzzles in The Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum was infectious for me
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Shirley Jackson, whose elegant, subtle Haunting of Hill House still stands as the greatest haunted house book of all time – not because of what it does, but because of what it refrains from doing.
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Knut Hamsun, whose clean prose style and existentialist preoccupation was literally sixty years ahead of his time, and whose novel Mysteries deserves to be much-better known than it is. This work haunts Shadows from cover to cover.
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Ambrose Bierce, another 19th century writer who foreshadows many 20th century themes; his ability to write about the moment was unparalleled. Parallels between Shadows and An Incident at Owl Creek Bridge are perhaps too obvious
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Nathaniel Hawthorne is here via House of Seven Gables, but perhaps more interestingly via the garden scenes reminiscent of the incomparable “Rappacini’s Daughter”
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John Fowles’ book, The Magus, disappears from the table top, but not from the narrative, as characters manipulate each other without mercy in a “deadly game of sexual betrayal”
Why did you choose to set the book in Denmark?
Several reasons:
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My family and I have lived here since 2005.
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Copenhagen is a gloomy, romantic setting that provides a great deal of “atmosphere” for this gothic tale.
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Denmark connects the story to a host of wonderful literary connections – Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, and Karen Blixen’s Babette’s Feast to name a few.
Why did you employ first-person narration?
Because third-person narration would put the reader in the position of an observer – not close enough to the action. Third-person narration also tends to imply an “objective” point of view, and the whole point of the book, philosophically, is that there is no such point of view.
Why not stick to one character then?
Two reasons:
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It would be hard for the reader to see everything that I need her to see – this can be worked around, for example, through confessions or by finding letters or diaries, etc, but these tricks become tiresome after a while.
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If I chose Katrina, the reader gets a “believer’s” point of view, and we wonder whether she isn’t just mentally ill. This is a variation of the Turn of the Screw question: is the narrator reliable? If I chose Richard or Edvard, then the reader get s “skeptic’s” point-of-view. I very much wanted to show the reader ALL the points of view.
Does each character represent a school of thought as to what’s “really” going on?
Yes, Katrina is a believer – in New Age, feng shui, ghosts, ley lines. Angelina represents traditional religion; Richard starts out agnostic, but becomes more religious later on. Edvard, the ultimate skeptic, represents science, medicine and psychiatry – and existentialism. Ingrid takes a practical, family-psychological approach. Søren represents nature, witchcraft, hypnosis, and ultimately, criminality.
Are the various characters just symbolic, then?
No, I tried to make each character more than just a place-holder for a theory. Richard, for example, grows more and more religious through the course of the book. This a major reason Angelina’s voice fades: we are getting it through Richard. All the characters have doubts, consider other points of view – but ultimately fall back into the paradigm that defines them.
Which authors do you like to read?
For the past 5 years I have read steadily, switching off between literary fiction and scary fiction.
Some of the best literary fiction (mid-20th century):
- Saul Bellow - Herzog
- Truman Capote - In Cold Blood
- Wallace Stegner - Angle of Repose
More recently:
- Tatiana De Rosnay - Sarah's Key
- Barbara Kingsolver - The Poisonwood Bible
- Stieg Larsson - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Classic horror:
- Shirley Jackson - The Haunting of Hill House
- Stephen King - Salem's Lot
- Peter Straub - Ghost Story
More recent dark or spooky fiction:
- Kelly Braffet - Josie and Jack
- Diane Setterfield - The Thirteenth Tale
- Sarah Waters - The Little Stranger
Ghost stories
- Ghost and Horror Stories of Ambrose Bierce
- Roald Dahl’s Book of Ghost Stories
The character Richard becomes more and more religious over the course of the book. Is this realistic for such a highly educated, hard-charging executive type?
Under stress, I find that childhood beliefs reassert themselves. As the old expression goes, “There are no atheists in the foxholes.”
Richard is out there on his own: his father is dead, and he's got no support network -- there are no "buddy" scenes. As the story progresses, he is manipulated and possibly drugged. By the middle of the book, his point of view starts to merge with Angelina's. This is why she can fade away in the second half of the book. Richard is expressing her (Catholic, religious) point of view exactly.
If you have questions about the book you would like to have answered, please do not hesitate to contact me at:
crescentvarrone@shadowsinsummer.com
