Monday, April 2, 2012

"I call it the novel of immersion [...]"


"[...] What do you call the type of book you write?

      'I call it the novel of immersion – the book you take on vacation but you’d rather stay in your hotel room because you have to know how it’s going to end. Or the book you start late at night thinking you’re going to read for 10 or 15 minutes and the next thing you know it’s 4 in the morning and you’re deliriously happy. I love when I have that feeling and the idea that I give that feeling to other people is really heady.'

     What kind of story ideas most appeal to you?

     'It’s often something mundane that I twist around. I ask “what if?” all the time. One time I was picking up my family photographs at the store, and for one second I thought there was a photo there I didn’t take. And I thought, What if there was a picture I didn’t take? What if that picture changed my life? What if that picture changed everything I thought about those I knew and loved? That became Just One Look.
     'I don’t normally write about big serial killers who hack up people for no reason. I don’t usually write the conspiracy reaching the presidency. It’s normally about people like you and me trying to do their best, but wrong still seems to find them.'"
— Harlan Coben in conversation with John Barber, The Globe and Mail
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Get Harlan Coben's latest book Stay Close (and all his previous books) here...

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