美国国家公共电台 NPR Bad Things Happen Out Of The Blue In Sadie Jones' 'The Snakes'

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LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

There are two sets of reptiles¹ in Sadie Jones' new novel "The Snakes." There is the slithering kind and the human version. Bea is a newly married psychologist and the daughter of a ruthless billionaire, and she wants nothing to do with her dad's money. Her husband Dan grew up the son of a single mom and can't understand why his wife is so unwilling² to take advantage of what wealth has to offer. Then there's Bea's brother Alex, who suffers from addiction⁴ and hopes to get his life together while running a ramshackle hotel his father has purchased in France. Sadie Jones is the author of five novels. And she joins us now from London to talk about her new thriller⁵.

Hi.

SADIE JONES: Hi. It's lovely to be here.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: This is a story about an unhappy family with a lot of secrets. And the action centers around a semi-derelict country hotel in France. Bea and Dan, her husband, come to visit Alex, her brother, and find him in a terrible state.

JONES: Yes. They're both 30. They're Londoners. They live a - what Bea thinks is a really good life and Dan finds very hard. They are mortgaged up to the hilt in their very small flat. And when they get to France to really have a break in Europe, for - mainly, for him to find himself - she's very happy with her life. They find her brother. The hotel is - he's meant to be renovating⁶ it, and he's sort of meant to be renovating himself. He's an addict³ and a kind of hopeless, sweet creature. And he's never - we don't think he's probably ever had any guests in the hotel. And it sort of gradually comes out what a mess he is. And they're very close. And they have a mutual⁷ shared memory of the pain of their childhood. And then her parents come to stay, and all hell breaks loose.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Indeed. Their names are Griff and Liv. Griff, the dad, is a very particular and recognizable kind of villain⁸ - selfish, self-entitled.

JONES: He certainly is. I wrote the book - I started writing the book in 2016.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Oh.

(LAUGHTER)

GARCIA-NAVARRO: What could have happened then?

JONES: (Laughter) Exactly. And I was in a sort of state of anxiety and shock at the world around me. And I was worried I was going to be writing too big a moral tale of good and evil. And then the rest of 2016 happened, and I realized that I almost couldn't write it big enough.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yeah. I mean, you have Griff talking politics very explicitly⁹ in this - his opinions on everything, his view of the world.

JONES: He is a quite a charming character, and it's interesting hearing feedback about him that some people love being with him - readers. And other people are completely appalled¹⁰ and shocked and disgusted by him. And he's just absolutely sure that he's right about everything. And he - I think that that level of money does erode¹¹ people's - it erodes¹² empathy, and it allows people to - you know, if they're getting the rewards, they must be right about the rest of the world. And then they gradually lose their humanity, I think.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Liv, the wife, on the surface, seems like a sort of cruel and selfish wife. But there is a horrific secret about her relationship with her son that you reveal very early on.

JONES: She - in a way, you know, Griff is the sort of obvious villain. He's brash, and he's outspoken¹³. And he does what he does. He's sort of - what you see is what you get. But with Liv is this sort of - she's like the hollow to his full or the shadow to his spotlight¹⁴. She's really just this moral vacuum.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Did you want to show the corrosive¹⁵ power of wealth? Because both these - because these parents use their children utterly¹⁶ selfishly for their own ends.

JONES: I think there are very few people who could have that much wealth and not be corrupted¹⁷ by it, and Bea is one of them. She's this good person trying to just separate herself from it and live in a real world.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: We don't want to give too much away, but I do want to talk about, perhaps, the creepiest character in this creepy story, which is Russ. Who is Russ?

JONES: In writing this book, I felt that I was sort of writing an anti-thriller or anti-murder mystery because, really, it's a book about chaos¹⁸ and the surprise terrible things that happen we - that we can't foresee. And it seems to me that, mostly, a murder mystery or thriller is very tidy. And this is a book about things happening out of the blue. And Russ is a character who happens out of the blue. He's the only American in the book. He's - if Griff was the sort of - people have often said, oh, he's a bit Trumpian. But I really saw Russ as my sneaky Trumpian character because he is - he just turns up and breaks all the rules and screws everything up (laughter). So that was my - it was kind of a joke to myself as I was writing, but there's really nothing funny about him at all. He is a desperately¹⁹ dark creature.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And the end is shocking. Did you know that it was going to end that way from the beginning of the book?

JONES: Yes. I always know what my ending will be. Getting there is another thing, but I knew what I was going to do. And I knew the expectations that I was setting up to break down, to get there. And so it was an ending that I sort of - you know, I didn't want to chicken out of the ending because I think that endings really describe - they define a book. And if it's going to be a harsh book and it's going to be truthful²⁰, then you can't mess around and just compromise.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Sadie Jones - her new book is called "The Snakes."

Thank you very much.

JONES: Thank you.