TERRY HAYES
After one blockbuster thriller, the journalist turned Hollywood screenwriter returns with another
What is your new thriller about?
The Year of the Locust is about what is called a Denied Access Area spy who specialises in crossing borders into the most dangerous and forbidden parts of the world. He is swept into an epic mission that means he is the only person able to save the world from wholesale destruction. His code name is Kane, he hunts a mysterious man whose back is dominated by a tattoo of a black locust, and he is pushed beyond the limits of what he believes he can endure or survive. A quiet and gentle story in other words.
Did you feel a lot of pressure after the success of I am Pilgrim?
Yes, an enormous amount of pressure. It was my first novel and I found the widespread praise from reviewers and its popularity quite intimidating. I thought it was a good book but plenty of good books go largely unnoticed so in that regard it took quite a long time to process it and realise that it was real! Of course, I wanted the next book to be even better so I felt I had to try harder and push further. Plenty of times I thought I should have retired after Pilgrim – life would have been easier.
Is there a book that made you love writing? Hundreds of them. Everything from thrillers and commercial fiction to the work of Nobel-prize winning authors. Speaking of which – Bob Dylan has been a huge influence. Boy, does he know how to tell a story in words and music.
What’s the best book you’ve read? Anna Karenina. A work of outstanding literature that moves with the pace of a thriller. I could not put it down, a monumental achievement.
A book that had a pivotal impact on your life? Joseph Campbell, A Hero With A Thousand Faces. It tells of the way the hero character in stories crosses all cultural and geographical boundaries.
A book you wish you had read but haven’t got to? Fifty Shades of Grey. I feel like I should have read it because it was a huge success. I thought I should try and understand why but I couldn’t just find the enthusiasm.
What book do you re-read? The Great Gatsby. Elegant, haunting, beautifully written. Unforgettable characters didn’t hurt either.
What books are on your bedside table? None. I read newspapers and magazines before falling asleep. I am always looking for story ideas – if they’ve already been used in a book they are not very useful to me.
What’s next? Pilgrim 2. Another epic. Help!
The Year of the Locust by Terry Hayes, Bantam, $35
another connection with imagined unrealities by conversing with the rhinoceros Dürer famously drew without seeing.
What’s Hall doing when he does this? The possibilities are actually broad and lend themselves to a range of interpretations, but when we look at other works, notably the striking In Black and White, which features a ghostly tank spewing a terrifying array of frightening vintage newspaper headlines from World War II, Hall is potentially discussing how we understand and deal with history. He balances imagined narratives that never were with strident and frightening historical reality, and does it all in a manner that has particular hand-created rigour. Everything here must have taken a ridiculous amount of time, and is very obviously the work of intense focus and skill.
Hall’s work, more than anything, is art you really need to see and experience in the flesh, make sure you visit the gallery if Hall piques your interest. This art is astonishingly complex, it’s subtle, it’s filled with comedy and will impress with technique – but what really brings it home is how much Hall is asking about the overload of information, what happened to the future, and where exactly it is we might be heading. Smart and funny.