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Written by Staff
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Wednesday, 11 March 2009 04:31 PM America/New_York |
 The author of mainstream suspense thrillers Don't Say a Word and True Crime on his new Christian retail young adult release The Last Thing I Remember (Thomas Nelson), writing for young adults, God and patriotism.
- What brought you to want to write young adult (YA) fiction?
- Young people are the greatest audience in the world. They're here to be entertained, and if you entertain them, they'll come with you, if you don't, they'll move along. I'm betting I can deliver something they don't see too often: a breakneck thriller that will make them think about the world.
- Tell us a bit about The Homelanders series and the direction it may be headed.
- It’s a story about a really good guy, a really upright, straight-arrow teenager, Charlie West, who goes to sleep one night and wakes up tied to a chair being tortured by terrorists. He has no idea how it happened or why or what they want. All he knows is he’s got to escape. But when he does escape, he finds that it’s not just the terrorists who are after him. He’s wanted by the police as well. The series traces Charlie’s efforts to stay alive long enough to find out what happened.
 What is he looking for?- Well, he’s looking for answers, first of all, but it’s more than that. Everything in Charlie’s life has been undermined and brought into question: his identity, his assumptions, his values. It’s as if he has to reinvent himself, to start everything all over again. It sort of brings up some questions that I think are important for all of us to face: 'Who are we?', and 'How do we know what’s right and wrong?' 'Are our values just an accident of culture, or do they have some permanence?' 'What can we truly believe in, and why?' Charlie’s got to figure all that out—and fast because if he makes one slip, trusts the wrong person, walks through the wrong door, the bad guys have got him and he’s dead.
- At one point, one of Charlie’s friends accuses him: 'You walk around all sure of yourself. You think good is good and bad is bad. You think: work hard, pray to God, respect your parents, love America and everything’ll be great.' Is that really what Charlie believes?
- No, of course not. He knows that everything isn’t always great, no matter how hard you try to do what’s right—in fact, no one knows that better than he does. I mean, he’s a good guy and look what’s happening to him! The whole world is trying to hunt him down and kill him. But Charlie does believe that there’s such a thing as truth. Not just scientific truth, I mean, but inner truth, moral truth. And the question he now has to answer is: can he hold on to that kind of truth under fire, under duress? How can he keep his faith—why should he keep his faith?—when everything is so difficult for him? Charlie’s life depends on him figuring out where good and evil lie and how to tell the difference.
- How do patriotism and God play into what you write these days?
- You know, you can't tell good stories if you're preaching and lecturing at people. All I've tried to do is change the rules of the game a little, to create a hero who believes in God and loves America—something a little different from the usual hero we get nowadays. Personally, I think that makes him a pretty cool dude, but in the end, it's the audience who'll decide.
- How do you think writers can better reach young readers?
- Personally, I'd like to see us all stop trying to be hip and sophisticated or sensitive and politically correct and just shoot straight from the heart, tell stories that are informed by universal, age-old values, the values that have made stories great for thousands of years. The truth is like a spark, it can set a story on fire. I believe the audience will recognize that fire when they see it.
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