July book club - The Deaths by Mark Lawson

Deedaa

I would like to ask Mark Lawson if the characters were based on people he knows and does he think he is like any of them.

Galen

Do you actually know such stereotypical people? Or is it entirely fantasy?

mary37

Thank you for my copy, haven't finished it yet but am finding the main characters very boring and snobby. I would love to know if they were based on people you know.

inishowen

I finished my book last night and really enjoyed it. I couldn't have guessed the ending! With the heatwave we're enjoying I couldn't sleep much, so I'd pick up my book and start reading. I'd like to ask the author how he got such an insight to the rich people? Does he move in those circles?

glammanana

Does the author know any families such as the ones he is writing about and if he does are people really this materialistic ? I will certainly seek out other books written by Mark this is the first of his I have read,so sorry it is taking me a while to read but it is worthwhile.

grandma1949

My question would be "I am enjoying the different couples and their fascinating different personalities. Are any of them based on people you have encountered or are they simply "figments of your imagination"?

Helen2014

I would like to ask Mark Lawson is that how he interprets his characters, does he see them differently and are they as he planned them to be or did they evolve during the writing?

I think that most novelists’ characters are a combination of aspects of their own personality and life, observations of others and psychological speculation / invention. So I am aware of having distributed autobiographical elements - being extremely tall, Catholic, addicted to football video games, hypochondria and living in Middle England - among the characters. Other details - financial and sexual - are drawn from conversations with others. The third stream - which is behind a lot of fiction - is simply asking “what if?” you discovered you were bankrupt or your husband were addicted to porn. (Like Natasha, I am a keen reader of Zelda West-Meades’ and Bel Mooney’s advice columns, which I find very instructive.)

Buddie

I was delighted to receive a copy of The Deaths by Mark Lawson and have made good inroads into it already. I have found it very readable and certainly keeps you turning the pages. The blurb gave some indication of what to expect but even so I have been quite surprised at the depth of observation shown in the opening chapters so my question to Mark Lawson is

"You have a number of main characters with the four couples yet each is very different and readily identifiable which is great for the reader. Are you a conscious people-watcher or does your characterisation come from the people you meet or see on the media for example?"

As mentioned in the above answer, yes, I tend to store away mentally certain physical and verbal aspects. For example, I noticed that a number of women I know had started saying “little” as “liddle” (or, perhaps, Lidl.) And, for example, the sequence at the Dunsters’ Christmas Party in which Nicky Mortimer overhears various comments such as “I’ve completely lost the knack of meringues” - all of those comments were taken down in shorthand (the advantage of a journalistic training) at a Christmas party near me.

Deedaa

Although I've seen Mark Lawson on television I didn't realise that he's a writer. I've thoroughly enjoyed the book. Obviously they were all people you would never let into your house, but it was fun finding out what happened to them.

I would like to ask Mark Lawson does he think he is like any of them.

Some of that is also touched on above. There’s a famous quote from Flaubert: “Madame Bovary, c’est moi.” And I think that contains a basic truth about writing fiction: you have to give something to every character. If they are not you, they are your children. And, in both cases, if they turn out to be serial killers, then you can’t approve but nor can you entirely disown them.

annodomini

It's skilfully constructed to be as intriguing as possible. Every time I think I have worked out which family is dead, I find another clue that points to another family. Although I find most of the characters distasteful it is this that has kept me reading.
I have noticed a distinct resemblance to the style of John le Carré's later novels, especially the use of the present tense. I wonder if Mark has been consciously or unconsciously influenced.

Yes, that’s very sharp. Le Carre is my favourite recent English writer and so I am strongly aware of the influence. (The Deaths shares with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy the technical difficulty of holding back who the traitor is until the end.) My favourite American writer is John Updike and I can see the influence of him in the willingness to follow characters into the bedroom and bathroom. But my favourite review ever was by John O’Farrell in The Guardian because he referred to “Tom Wolfe-like detail.” That thrilled me because, in the tradition of Wolfe, I do try to go to as many settings as possible as a reporter: I went clay pigeon shooting and to a Citizens Advice Bureau, for example, and, at the production of A Delicate Balance, I thought “they ate coming to see this” and started making fictional notes separate from my notes as a theatre critic. Having said that, though, the book isn’t in the present tense because of Le Carre or anyone else but because we are in the heads of the characters in real time and they are (though in third person) narrating the novel in relay. If the book were narrated in the past tense, several of the characters would be unavailable to narrate because they would be dead. As I have found from interviewing many writers in my other lives, what seem to be stylistic decisions are often simply technical.

nonnanna

Mark - how did you keep track of everyone, their relationships, their jobs, their pets, their lifestyles, their taste in coffee? I am visualising you in front of a huge board, like those we see in detective series, with names and lines running everywhere.

jocelyne

Did you have to draw up a family tree for each of the families in 'The Deaths' in order to help you keep clear in your mind who was who and doing what, or did you manage to keep everybody and everything neatly filed away in your head?

You’re right: this kind of book can’t be done without a vast apparatus of charts and character biographies, which I had in a big notebook. And the chronology and connections then start to shape the narrative. For example, if Max has another child quite close in age to a child from his second marriage, then he must have left his first wife with a baby, and so on. Another thing I find in writing contemporary fiction is that the rapid changes in technology have made it harder to write back-story. I mean, if someone was dumped by a girlfriend 15 years ago, you have actually to research whether it would have been letter, text, mobile or phone-box call. Whereas there were many decades or even centuries when writers could rely on a letter or a phone call having been in use.

Lotie

I think this is a very well written book in general. It does take a little time, and rereading to get the characters properly established in your head but I'm happy with that. Nowhere near as complicated as Wolf Hall in that respect. I would like to ask Mark Lawson how he wrote a book like that. Did he deal with one character at a time and then slot them all together, or was he able to write them in the order we read the book in?

Yes, from my interviewing experience, authors basically divide between those who proceed scene by scene and those who write random or key scenes first. I need to have a sense of the whole structure before I start: for example, I know that the novel I am currently writing will have four sections, which are (currently) called The Falls, The Trials, The Facts, The Future. I may scribble down dialogue or scenes for later sections but I essentially write in order.

Helen2014

My main question and comment to Mark Lawson is 'where do you find the time'? This is not a facetious question because it is a weighty tome and given the fact that he is a busy person, I just wonder what his writing regime is.

The Deaths took almost five years to write, working early mornings, weekends, holidays and breaks from my other duties. I prefer to write very early (say 6-9am) and then can’t write fiction much beyond that, so do other things.

sunseeker

Did you set out to write a "whodunnit" which turned into a social commentary or was the killing always meant to be secondary.?

goose1964

I loved this book & in no way did I find it confusing - haven't quite finished but can't wait to do so -would love to know why he chose to have the murders in it

In common - again - with a lot of writers I have interviewed, I have found that a book begins when two ideas come together. So I had always wanted to write a “whowilldoit?” and was also very keen (from around 2007) to write about the increasing sense that both individuals and nations were living beyond their means on debt. When a near-neighbour happened to tell me how much money he had borrowed from banks to fund his lifestyle, the ideas came together. In the same way, I had always quite wanted to write a detective novel in which the detectives are minor characters and - in this plot - it turned out that the cops realistically would be in the background because, as someone says in the book, the murderer is soon known and all they have to do is write a report for the coroner. One of the most intriguing aspects of fiction for me is why a book happens when it does. For example, there has been a novel I have wanted to write for 20 years but didn’t have the necessary experience and then - suddenly - the experience presented itself to me. So now I can write the book

Maggiemaybe

I've loved this book and am now busily recommending it to all and sundry.
My question to Mark Lawson would be:

Do you think the Loadsamoney culture of conspicuous consumption is on the wane in the current economic climate, when even those with money are giving Lidl a try? Or do you think it's primed to bounce back as big as ever and twice as nasty?

I did feel a thrill of confirmation this week when I read in the paper that Waitrose customers are defecting to Lidl because of the recession - a journey I gave to Natasha Lonsdale at least four years ago. Certainly, from the offers of loans I receive from banks every morning, I don’t think we have learned the lesson of the risks of fantasy economics.

Rosannie

Finally finished 'The Deaths', I found it difficult to find my rhythm in reading this book with the erractic lengths of the chapters - some relating the narrative of 'The eight' being up to a hundred pages and those relating to the conduct of the investigation of the event being only 6 pages long.

I would like to ask Mark if this was a deliberate device and if so to what purpose. I could not relate to or like any of the characters and this made it difficult for me to maintain interest in their shallow lives.

As I mentioned above, I have to know the structure before I start and always felt that this book would have short chapters of discovery / police investigation alternated with much longer chapters in which we witness the events of the past. I had a sense that the shorter cop chapters - without revealing who will eventually do it - would introduce certain elements (a pregnancy test, the fact that one of the dead is not part of the main family) that would then introduce tension and speculation into the next flashback chapter. I think - as it has worked out - the present-day chapters are always shorter than the flashbacks ones and I think that is to do with the fact that far more of the significant events and details lie in the past.

NannyPam

I really enjoyed this book although I did have trouble to start with remembering who was married to who. I don't think I've read another book where you didn't know who was actually killed until quite near the end - never mind who did it.

I would like to ask Mark whether he had decided at the start of the book, which family had been killed or whether it evolved as he wrote the story.

Yes, I always knew who it would be and the narrative and certain details (the extra-length coffin) were dictated by that.

GrandmaH

I enjoyed this book & read it very quickly so I could respond before I go away.

My main problem & a question I would like to put to Mark Lawson is (trying not to make this a spoiler) why did the one who killed the others choose to kill the extra one?? I understand the 'keeping safe' idea but he was Ok with someone else to look after him- maybe with less money but they would have got by. That was just cruel.
Sorry to be vague but I know people will read through this before they finish book & I didn't want to spoil the ending.

I have to say if that is the level of conversation & company on First Class rail travel I am glad I travel off peak & cattle class!
Very glad I read it- a possible future Reading Group choice.

Pennyjw

I was so delighted to receive the book - many thanks - I took it to Spain to enjoy during a week's holiday!

A real treat.

The book is bang up to date and refers to current issues, fashions and way of life, all of which I thoroughly enjoyed and found very amusing. At times I too found it tricky to recall which character was which and I totally gave up where the children were concerned!

I loved the book overall and thought it was cleverly written. My only disappointment was the last "death" which in my judgment seemed out of character with the person concerned. I would love to know why it was put in? It seemed to me an incomplete scenario or perhaps its the theme for the next book in the series!?

Ah, you have touched on one of my obsessions. In real life, people behave “out of character” all the time. When we are surprised (as I think we all have been) when a friend has an affair, commits a crime or (and I have experience of this) takes his or her own life, then we see the behaviour as “out of character”. In fact, they may have more than one character - I think we all have - or may have misled us about their nature. At an absolutely extreme level, I am sure that Rolf Harris’s family and friends found his eventually-exposed behaviour “out of character”, but it now appears that he had the character of a paedophile. So what does “character” mean? In the case of the final death in the book, I would argue that his public confidence and bluster is a deliberate “characteristic” but that we have seen - especially at night and in the GP’s surgery - the vulnerabilities of character that drive him to do what he does. His doctor fails to spot his true pyschological condition: I am sure every GP will tell you that does happen.

mbody

Thank you for my copy of the book which I am reading now. The story is quite intriguing but I hate having to read the c word and why do most of the sex references sound as if they have been written by a fourteen year old boy? Pity really as it could be an excellent book.

GrandmaH

It is a novel of modern times & I accept that - what I consider -unacceptable language is a sad part of modern culture - but I did find it excessive. I was also surprised about all the condom references- have these people never heard of the pill or vasectomy?
Do QCs really have schoolboy smutty humour with regards to sex? Maybe they do- I don't know any so cannot judge.(sorry about pun).

In the structure of the book, we are inside the heads of the characters at all times and I’m afraid that there is considerable evidence that a lot of that stuff is in male minds. Otherwise, why would there be such a huge market for pornography which, of course, is one of the themes of the book. I never set out to offend anyone - and am sorry if I do - but a convincing internal psychological portrait can no more exclude sex than it can ignore death or money. These are the drives that shape so much behaviour.

Gagagran

My question to Mark Lawson is did he aim this book at the 30-40 year old age group rather than the GN generation? Maybe that's why so many of us have struggled with it.

Crocky

My question would be 'who would be your target audience whilst writing this book?'

Well, I am genuinely thrilled that the book has been chosen for discussion by both Gransnet and by a teenage reading group. But you can’t plan for that. The most common answer from writers to this one is that they try to write a book they would like to read and that hasn’t been written yet. That’s certainly what I try to do.

dartmoordogsbody

I found the book tragic, and far from the amusing comedy and 'hilarious' satire referred to in the reviews. 'Bleak' would be my one-word description, with its unlikeable characters (with the notable exception of the GP, who appears to be derided for her honourable and caring conduct), self-made dilemmas, and selfish lifestyles. So I would ask Mark Lawson, firstly, did he enjoy spending so long in the company of this set of characters, and secondly, whether he felt the reviews chosen to entice readers to pick up the book accurately reflected how he sees the book?

I assume you are talking about the reviews quoted on the paperback and in advertising? I leave all that to Lord Picador but I was very happy with the selection. I’d like the Tom Wolfe reference from John O’Farrell to be there, I guess, but I am thrilled that the quotes include those from The Tablet - because I see myself as a Catholic novelist - and from the Financial Times: because, as I said above, I did set out to write about the economic consequences of the financial crash.