Rapid River Magazine: It’s been five years since your last book Iron House was published.
John Hart: Five years is a long time in the publishing world. (Laughs) John Who?
RRM: Why did it take so long?
JH: I always take three months off when I finish a book before I start the next one. I’ve got to let the old wash away. Let the well fill for the new. I took six months off this time because I moved the family to Virginia and we needed time to settle in. So I sat down to write book fiveassuming it would behave in the same manner as the others, only it didn’t. Then some 300 pages later I realized I was writing the wrong book. I scratched that and started over. That was a full year of writing. (Pauses) Then it took me two years to write Redemption Roadand then the publishers had it and that takes time.
RRM: Do you consider yourself a Southern Writer first, then a writer of the thriller?
JH:There are some labels I like more than others. Mystery thriller, Southern Gothic, all that is fine. Southern Writer is a more meaningful term to me only because I think it actually means something that is storied, traditional in a way that a commercial thriller story might not be. I don’t think that just being in the South makes you a Southern writer.
RRM: What writers have inspired you?
JH:Certainly Pat Conroy. He’s one of the big ones. For several reasons, one, his use of language has always been exceptional and I love language and try to do the most I can with language without overwriting which is a perpetual challenge since it is easy to do. But Conroy had such a willingness to expose the raw nerves of family and community and really make people feel whatever pain his characters were living in. Of course, in Pat’s case, so much of it was personal and drawn from his own experiences. So he’s the one who inspired me a lot in terms of the types of stories I wanted to write. For whatever reason I ended up adding more of a thriller element to my work than he did. That was not intentional. I guess that’s just the line I tend to walk. Patricia Cornwell who was 10 years ahead of me at Davidson had become a well known writer. I watched what she did, knowing all along I wanted to be a writer. Then there was John Grisham. We both went to law school. I too didn’t care much for being a lawyer.
RRM: Redemption Roadhas been getting good if not great reviews, and it is my favorite of your books.
JH: Thank you.No writer springs from the well fully formed. Early on I was such a sucker for overwriting, that was always my personal failing. I know I have a tendency to do that, so I pair it back pretty aggressively.
RRM: Your stories are quite tightly written, every word pushes the story forward and honestly I couldn’t think of any part of, well, Redemption Roadfor example, that I would take out, that I would consider padding or as you may call it “Over writing.”
JH: In previous books I may have overwrote a bit and then overcompensated by pulling back a bit which may not have lead to the smoothest of narrative. While I make no pretense of perfection, I think I am honing in with each book a little closure to what I want to sound like.
RRM: How many trunk novels do you have?
JH: I wrote two novels before I ever got published. Both of them went unagented and unsold. I went a long time without getting published. Since then I have have met many writers and I am surprised by how many successful big name commercial writers have similar stories. I think the main difference between being a published and an unpublished writer is perseverance. You have to write day after day with no monetary compensation. You just have the faith that you can do it. And it’s a brutally difficult thing to do, to spend that much time in what is in essence a thankless task beyond the pleasure of writing. I put graduate school on hold. I quit careers to do this.
RRM: Lets talk about character. This is a strong aspect of your writing.
JH: A character needs to be three dimensional, they can’t be all heroic or perfect, they have to be a real person. A trick of a writer is that you don’t present a resume of character traits, you have to offer small reveals that allow the reader to picture this person in their own mind so that they see them without you having to tell them everything. Rookie writers always seem to do what I call an “information dump” where they tell you everything about the character on the first page. If you want a character to be memorable then you have to let the reader know what drives this character, what their goals are and what they are willing to do to reach their goals.
RRM: The past plays an important roll in who your characters eventually become. Do you begin with a developed character and then go back to see why they are this way?
JH: Yes, I do that for the most part. Childhood plays a huge roll with most of my characters, except with the Last Childwhich was mostly about kids so that isn’t the case. All the other books you’ll see that things happen in their childhood that make them who they are today. I’ll come across a character and see that he or she acts a certain way and I’ll then start asking myself “why” and “how come” and then I’ll go back to their childhood.
RRM: After having written several best selling novels do you find yourself writing for an audience? “I’m writing a thriller because my readers wouldn’t want me to write a romance or sci-fi,” or are you writing what interests you at that moment in your life?
JH: Okay. So writers are given a little more credit then they should in having it all planned out from the beginning. I just put things in motion and try to see where it all leads. Non of my books were written to be “best sellers” or “thrillers” that’s just where my mind goes.
John Hart is an American author of thriller novels. His books take place in North Carolina, where he was born. He now lives in Virginia. He is a 1988 graduate of Davidson College. His work has been compared to that of Scott Turow and John Grisham. His latest book is Redemption Roadand is sold at all major bookstores.
