The Ridge - Softcover

In this Amazon exclusive, Michael Koryta is interviewed by fellow thriller author Steve Hamilton. The tables get turned when Koryta interviews Hamilton on the Misery Bay page.

Hamilton: You broke in the same way I did, through the St. Martin's Press/Private Eye Writers of America contest. That first book, Tonight I Said Goodbye, went on to be nominated for an Edgar Award. How did you handle such sudden success at such a young age?

Koryta: Well, the positive side of being 20 when the book won the contest and 21 when it was published was that I knew absolutely nothing about publishing. I was an undergrad, working two jobs. Between all that and writing, I didn’t have time to worry, I just kept my head down and got work done.

Hamilton: You did two more Lincoln Perry novels after that first one, then broke out of the series to write Envy the Night. That’s a fairly early departure from a series. Were you conscious of the risk you were taking?

Koryta: You know, I didn’t think of it as a risk. I thought it was a better book than what I’d done before and therefore a wise move. That was the book that had to be written. I didn’t feel as if I had much choice in the matter. You’ve got a limited number of shots, so the only risk I see is in letting those slip past for stories you’d love to tell.

Hamilton: You returned to the series for one more Lincoln Perry book (The Silent Hour). Now, these were all very well-received, well-reviewed books. You were definitely on most everyone’s short list of favorite private eye writers. Any sane, normal person would have kept going down that same road. But you? Not so much. Please explain yourself.

Koryta: Again, we come back to the idea of the story you’ve just got to write. I’d been entranced with the folklore and history behind So Cold the River for years, and I just couldn’t put the brakes on. I went off to write a 500-page ghost story, and it prompted a change in publishers, but that book also ended up selling better and getting better publicity than anything I’d done before. So sanity, schmanity, says I!

Hamilton: Seriously, no matter what anyone says now, it was a radical departure for you to try something so different. You probably don’t like categories any more than I do, but you’re probably going to find So Cold the River on the “Horror” shelf in many bookstores, right next to Stephen King. (King, Koryta--okay, maybe Dean Koontz is in the middle there.) The thing that makes this so amazing to me is that just a few years ago, the horror genre was essentially left for dead. You had to know this. And yet here you are, breathing new life into it. What on earth made you decide to attempt such a leap?

Koryta: Ironically, it found me shelved in “fiction and literature” instead of either mystery or horror. I never considered it all that different from my past work. To me, it was still suspense, just with a supernatural thread. But of course I knew some people would feel differently. I tried to take comfort in knowing that other writers--King, Koontz, Matheson, Levin, McCammon, Straub, Bradbury--had done just fine by focusing on writing well. And Joe Hill! Before he got any bump from being King’s son, he got a lot of attention simply for writing a great book. Heart-Shaped Box was an encouragement for me, a reminder of how much fun a writer should be having at his craft. You can feel how much fun he’s having.

Hamilton: You’ve kept working in this same vein, with The Cypress House and now with The Ridge. As good as your crime fiction was, I can’t help but think that you’re really hitting your stride now. Does writing a story with paranormal elements give you a better opportunity to do something truly original and amazing?

Koryta: It opens things up a great deal. I think of Hitchcock, who always created suspense, but delivered it in a lot of different ways. Any writer who’s interested in putting a real squeeze of tension around the reader’s heart probably considers a spooky tale at some point, and I’m surprised more don’t chase the impulse. I find that it allows me to wrestle with larger issues thematically and symbolically. Now, that’s a personal experience. But the past three books feel bigger to me in those ways.

Hamilton: Any plans to return to crime fiction (or for that matter, to Lincoln Perry)?

Koryta: Absolutely! The next book is going to be a traditional crime novel, a story I’ve been kicking around for years, about two brothers who lost a sibling to violent crime and grew up coping with that tragedy in radically different ways. It’s also a football book--one of the brothers is a high school coach in Ohio, where high school football is a very big deal. As for Lincoln, we’ll wait and see.