Dinner and Murder with Lauren Beukes, Author of The Shining Girls

One of the best parts about working in the book industry is that one gets to meet great authors, and sometimes have dinner with them. Last night Exclus1ves went to dinner with Random House and Lauren Beukes, and we celebrated the launch of this year’s most interesting book (in this bookseller’s opinion). We were also able to bombard Lauren with plenty of questions, and get a great deal of insight into the making of the novel, which involved more research and meticulous planning than most military campaigns are likely to get. Like this murder wall. (Even the Joey Hi-Fi book jacket could be the basis of a thesis.) Visit Lauren on her Books Live blog for more details.

@brodiegal: there are different editions of #theshininggirls coming out – including a collectible, ltd ‘black’ ed #livebooks

— Books LIVE (@BooksLIVESA) February 27, 2013

Briefly: In Depression-era Chicago, Harper Curtis finds a key to a house that opens on to other times. But it comes at a cost. He has to kill the shining girls: bright young women, burning with potential. He stalks them through their lives across different eras, leaving anachronistic clues on their bodies, until, in 1989, one of his victims, Kirby Mazrachi, survives and starts hunting him back.

@laurenbeukes: someone called #theshininggirls ‘Margaret Atwood crossed with Stephen King’ #livebooks — Books LIVE (@BooksLIVESA) February 27, 2013

The Shining Girls started as a tweet, and the tweet only lived as long as it took to write the idea down. The tweet contained a single idea – what about a time-travelling serial killer? – which Beukes spun out into a novel spanning a century and discussing crime, history, philosophy, architecture, violence and baseball. (There’s more there, to be sure.) She set the novel in Chicago and across the 20th century to be able to incorporate her knowledge of Chicago into a wide discussion of broader 20th century issues. She had briefly lived there before, and returned to do research, aided by friends found on Twitter. Her research included going through old cases with a cop, visiting historical sites with a historian who also ran a ghost tour and some sneaking around the Congress Hotel (which makes its way into the novel.) The novel is a must for crime readers: it is a bloodless, bloody book that is a triumph of research, as each murder is set in a different decade and detailed through dress, language and location. In order to research everything from language to location to dress to history, Lauren had the help of two researchers, one here and in the US- the latter had named his company after a character in Moxyland. They dug up amazing bits of research, including the story of the glow girl. Lauren listened to podcasts and watched YouTube videos, doing a great deal of research into serial killers to base Harper on.

@laurenbeukes: Serial killers as apex predators who drink Chianti is bollocks. They’re men who can’t get it up.#theshininggirls #livebooks — Books LIVE (@BooksLIVESA) February 27, 2013

One of the major impetuses of the novel is to really look at what violence of women really means – a fuller understanding of what it means for a life to be cut short, and the ripple effects of violence through a community, through a family. She didn’t want the violence to be gratuitous  but she wanted it to be visceral. Her research is evident here: one of the influences on the book is Anthony Altbekker’s Fruit of a Poisoned Tree – one of the murders comes from the opening chapters of that book. She also read South African murder cases and the letters from families, and some of the lines from those letters appear in the book.

@laurenbeukes: I wanted readers to need to pause for a cup of tea or a double Scotch. #theshininggirls #livebooks

— Books LIVE (@BooksLIVESA) February 27, 2013

Lauren is about to set off on a world tour to promote Shining Girls, which will be published in sixteen countries, though South Africa will be the heart of the launch. The Shining Girls is one of those rare books – it is speculative fiction of the highest order, encompassing the landscapes of history, time and human behaviour, and a profound exploration of violence.

And, you know, time travel. Roll on April 15th!