Famous (21 page)

HW: What’s the most important thing a book
has to do to keep YOUR attention? 

BC: It’s actually very simple... a great
story told through great writing. I don’t care if it’s western,
horror, thriller, historical, romance, or literary. I just want to
know that I’m in the hands of someone who knows what they’re
doing. 

HW: Who are your literary heroes?

BC: I grew up on southern writers -- Walker
Percy, Pat Conroy -- the fantasy of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.
In college I discovered Thomas Harris, Dennis Lehane, James Lee
Burke, Caleb Carr, and my favorite writer, Cormac McCarthy.
McCarthy just blows me away. His prose is so rich. He is unlike
anyone else out there today. His 1985 novel,
Blood Meridian
,
in my opinion, is the greatest horror novel ever written. 

HW: What makes
Blood Meridian
“the
greatest horror novel ever written?” 

BC: The writing is mind blowing. The violence
(which occurs frequently and in vivid detail) rises to the level of
poetry in McCarthy’s hands. And the story is fascinating. It’s
based on historical fact and follows a bloodthirsty gang through
the Mexico-Texas Borderlands in the mid-1800’s, who have been hired
by the Mexican government to collect as many Indian scalps as they
can. I read
Blood Meridian
every year. 

HW: Reading
Desert Places
and
Locked Doors
, it seems that you’re drawn to the horrific.
The books are filled with horrific acts, and with terrifying set
pieces, as in the descent into the Kites’ basement in
Locked
Doors
. Did the horror genre hold any attraction to you growing
up? 

BC: I honestly didn’t read a lot of horror
growing up, but I always loved the sensation of fear produced by a
scary movie or a great book. Some of my first short fiction
(written in middle school) could be classified as horror. In fact,
there’s a short story on my website called “In Shock” that I wrote
in the 8th grade. 

HW: Might there be a sequel to
Locked
Doors
someday?

BC: Midway through the writing of
Locked
Doors
, it occurred to me the story might be a trilogy. I may
finish out the trilogy at some point. I’m starting to miss my
characters (the ones that survived), and I have a feeling that I
will return to the world of
Locked Doors
at some point in
the future to check in on them. We’ll have to see. 

HW: Your latest novel,
Abandon
, is set
in Colorado, where you’ve lived for the past six years. Did you
intend to write a novel set in that state when you moved there, or
did your surroundings inspire you to?

BC: This was definitely a case of my
surroundings inspiring me. Two months after we moved from North
Carolina to Durango, we had some friends come out to visit. My wife
and I took them on a backpacking trip into the San Juans, and it
was on this trip that I first saw the ruins of a mining
town—Sneffels, Colorado and the Camp Bird Mine. It made a huge
impression, the idea of living in these extreme conditions,
particularly in winter. The claustrophobia, the desperation, the
kind of people who would subject themselves to such a life
fascinated me.

HW: Did you have any particular goals in mind
when you embarked on this project? Did they change as you worked?
Do you think you met your goals?

BC: The idea of writing a “mining town
thriller” was with me for a long time, as early as the summer of
2003, before
Desert Places
was published. Initially, I
thought it would all be set in the past, a straight historical.
Then in ‘05, while on tour for
Locked Doors
, I had a sudden
realization that this was the story I needed to write, and that it
wasn’t just historical. There would be present scenes, too, and the
mystery at the heart of the book would be the mass disappearance of
the town. My goal was to write a book that I would want to read,
and in that regard, I think I succeeded.

HW: How long did it take to prepare to write
the book? How much research was involved? Do you research first,
then write, or answer the questions that arise as you dive into the
writing?

BC: I started outlining in the fall of ‘05,
and finalized the book with my editor in the summer ‘07. There were
7 drafts, and tons of research, which occurred at all stages of the
writing.

HW: Was it tough striking a balance between
writing a thriller and the urge to display all your newfound
knowledge? Any fascinating tidbits that didn’t go into the book
that you want to share with readers?

BC: Lots of stuff got cut, and some of it was
wonderful (and it still pains me to have let it go) but in the end,
it was all about what advanced the story. For instance, there was
an Irishman who lived in one of the Colorado mining towns, and the
love of his life had died on their wedding night some years prior.
Every night, from his cabin above town, the sound of a violin would
sweep down the mountain. Mournful, beautiful music. The town got
used to hearing it. One night, after the violin went silent, a
single gunshot echoed from the cabin. The townsfolk went up and
found him dead, with a note asking to be buried with his wife. I
loved that bit, wanted to put this guy into the story, but it
didn’t belong, so I had to let it go.

HW: Your first two books followed the
adventures of basically the same cast of characters. Was it a
relief or was it scary to move on to a whole new set of
players?

BC: Both a total relief and completely
terrifying. But what’s worse than the fear of doing something new
and challenging is realizing one day that you’re in a rut, that
you’ve essentially written the same book again and again.

HW: Your first two books could be described
as pure, relentless adrenaline. In fact, those are your words. Was
it difficult to work on a novel taking place in two different
times, switching back and forth between the two? How about working
with a larger cast? Did that present you with any particular
challenges, issues, problems?

BC: It was hard at first, but once I got into
the flow of both narratives, it wasn’t such a big deal to go back
and forth, which is the way I wrote it. It sounds silly, but I
wrote the present in one font, the past in another, and for some
reason, changing fonts helped me to get back into whatever section
I was working on. This cast of characters, which I knew was going
to be big going in, was intimidating starting out. I spent a month
on character studies, really getting to know each main character
and their back-story before I dove into the book, and I think (I
hope) that made all the difference.

HW: Has having children changed the way you
look at your writing? Your subject matter? Do you ever pause and
think, I guess my kids won’t be able to read that until they’re
older?

BC:
Abandon
was the first thing I
wrote after my son was born, and being a father for the first time
and that new relationship and life-altering love couldn’t help but
find its way into this work. Parent-child relationships definitely
constitute a significant aspect of
Abandon
. And yeah,
there’s no way my kids will be able to read my first two books
until they’re at least seven or eight (kidding).

HW: Who is your first reader?

BC: My wife.

HW: What’s your favorite procrastination
technique to avoid writing?

BC: Playing my acoustic guitar.

HW: Now that you’re in the business, do you
find as much time to read as before? Do you avoid fiction for fear
of unconsciously copying someone’s stories?

BC: I read more now than ever. You have to.
I’ve never avoided fiction for fear of unconsciously copying
someone else’s stories. You can’t help but be influenced by the
work of others. No one is unique. As Cormac McCarthy said, “The sad
truth is that books are made of other books.”

HW: I happen to know you’ve written an essay
about Jack Ketchum’s Off Season for the upcoming International
Thrillers Writers project
Thrillers: 100 Must Reads
. Was
that format difficult for you? Did the experience provide you with
any special insights into your own writings, or into thrillers in
general?

BC: It was the hardest thing I’d written all
year. I felt like I was in college again working on a term paper.
That being said, it was a great joy to delve into the life and work
of Jack Ketchum. I had great editors on that project. (HW: Full
disclosure time: the editors for that worthy project are the
esteemed David Morrell and yours truly. End of plug.)

HW: Tell us a little about future projects.
You have a short story slated to appear in the ITW anthology,
Thrillers 2
?

BC: Yep, it’s called “Remaking” and also
happens to be set in a beautiful Colorado town called Ouray. It’s
premised on a question: What would you do if you were in a coffee
shop, saw a man sitting with a young boy, and suspected the boy
wasn’t supposed to be with him, that maybe he’d been kidnapped. I’m
over the moon and humbled to be included in such a stellar
collection of writers. Joe Konrath and I have just released a free
short story as an eBook with the help of our publishers. It’s kind
of groundbreaking, both in how Joe and I collaborated, and how our
publishers came together to make it available everywhere. It’s
called “Serial”, and is probably the most twisted thing either of
us have ever written. The
Abandon
audiobook will have a
short story that I read called “On the Good, Red Road,” and finally
Jen Jordan’s new anthology,
Uncage Me
, publishes in July,
and I have a story in that one called “*69.”

HW: Are you working on a new novel at the
moment?

BC: I am.

HW: Where are you in that process?

BC: About a hundred pages in.

HW: Can you talk a little about the new book,
or would that jinx things?

BC: I’m pretty sure I would deeply regret
talking about it at this point. I find if I talk too much about
works-in-progress, it takes the wind out of my sails.

HW: Any book recommendations?

BC: Joe Konrath just published a novel under
the name Jack Kilborn. It’s called
Afraid
, and I think it’s
one of the best pieces of horror fiction to come out in recent
memory.

HW: Work uniform?

BC: A white tee-shirt and pajama bottoms with
snowflakes on them. I know, it’s awful.

HW: Misconceptions about people who graduated
from UNC?

BC: That if by some rip in the space-time
continuum, Al-Qaeda managed to get a Division I college basketball
team together, and if that team somehow made it to the NCAA
tournament, and then survived March Madness, and, now here’s a real
stretch, were facing Duke in the championship game on Monday night,
that UNC fans would put aside their petty rivalry and root for Duke
over the terrorists.

DESERT PLACES

Published in January 2004 by Thomas Dunne
Books

DESCRIPTION: Andrew Z. Thomas is a successful
writer of suspense thrillers, living the dream at his lake house in
the piedmont of North Carolina. One afternoon in late spring, he
receives a bizarre letter that eventually threatens his career, his
sanity, and the lives of everyone he loves. A murderer is designing
his future, and for the life of him, Andrew can’t get away.

Harrowing...terrific...a whacked out
combination of Stephen King and Cormac McCarthy.
PAT CONROY

[C]arried by rich, image-filled prose. Crouch
will handcuff you, blindfold you, throw you in the trunk of a car,
and drag you kicking and screaming through a story so intense, so
emotionally packed, that you will walk away stunned.

WINSTON-SALEM JOURNAL

Excerpt from Desert Places…

On a lovely May evening, I sat on my deck,
watching the sun descend upon Lake Norman. So far, it had been a
perfect day. I’d risen at 5:00 a.m. as I always do, put on a pot of
French roast, and prepared my usual breakfast of scrambled eggs and
a bowl of fresh pineapple. By six o’clock, I was writing, and I
didn’t stop until noon. I fried two white crappies I’d caught the
night before, and the moment I sat down for lunch, my agent called.
Cynthia fields my messages when I’m close to finishing a book, and
she had several for me, the only one of real importance being that
the movie deal for my latest novel, Blue Murder, had closed. It was
good news of course, but two other movies had been made from my
books, so I was used to it by now.

I worked in my study for the remainder of the
afternoon and quit at 6:30. My final edits of the new as yet
untitled manuscript would be finished tomorrow. I was tired, but my
new thriller, The Scorcher, would be on bookshelves within the
week. I savored the exhaustion that followed a full day of work. My
hands sore from typing, eyes dry and strained, I shut down the
computer and rolled back from the desk in my swivel chair.

I went outside and walked up the long gravel
drive toward the mailbox. It was the first time I’d been out all
day, and the sharp sunlight burned my eyes as it squeezed through
the tall rows of loblollies that bordered both sides of the drive.
It was so quiet here. Fifteen miles south, Charlotte was still
gridlocked in rush-hour traffic, and I was grateful not to be a
part of that madness. As the tiny rocks crunched beneath my feet, I
pictured my best friend, Walter Lancing, fuming in his Cadillac.
He’d be cursingthe drone of horns and the profusion of taillights
as he inched away from his suite in uptown Charlotte, leaving the
quarterly nature magazine Hiker to return home to his wife and
children. Not me, I thought, the solitary one.