10 Questions About A Quiet Teacher
I’m not sure I decided so much as it just happened. I literally woke up one day with an image of Greg, the main protagonist, in my head. I had no idea what to do with him as he clearly wasn’t an SF character. I tried to cast him aside but, bit by bit, I found myself building a story around him in my head. Then one day, and with an enormous amount of hesitation, I sketched out an outline and started writing.
From people who aren’t me! My original title was Varsity Reds but no one — and I mean no one — liked it. My publisher and agent settled on A Quiet Teacher because it encapsulates what Greg feels he needs to be and is also a bit of a homage to Graham Greene’s The Quiet American.
Like I said, I literally woke up one morning and he was there in my head. As for how he got there in the first place, that’s a lot trickier. When asked where he got his ideas, Harlan Ellison, the American science fiction writer, used to joke that he bought them from a lady in Schenectady, New York. I guess he found that easier than trying to explain the workings of his subconscious. I totally get that. So: Schenectady . . .
I’m not sure I’d go with “very.” Greg is a person of color, as are a couple of the other major characters and that’s about it. I think the mix reflects the story’s setting more than anything.
Gosh, no! The man’s an uptight neatnik with a dark backstory and I am . . . not. He does talk like me, though.
For sure! I think the first murder mystery I ever read was Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, published in 1934. That book is largely inspired by the aviator Charles Lindbergh, whose baby was kidnapped in 1932. It was an enormous story at the time. If taking a real-world event is good enough for Agatha Christie, it’s certainly good enough for me. I thought it would be an interesting basis for a novel.
Fundamentally? No. Whether you’re writing space lasers or bloody footprints, stories, ultimately, are about people: what makes them tick, how they react to particular situations, how we would react if we found ourselves in a character’s shoes. So, whatever you’re writing, sci-fi, mystery, literary fiction, you’re trying to tell an engaging story that will tempt the reader to spend time with the people who live on those pages. But that’s not to say there aren’t any differences. I think, more than anything, the plotting of a murder mystery has to be a lot more precise. It’s like a Rubik’s cube. The clues have to fit in exactly the right way or it will all go belly up. You have a lot more flexibility if you’re galivanting about the galaxy in a rocket ship.
It just seemed a natural fit for his character. Greg’s mother went through a very tough time bringing him up as a single mom and religion helped her keep it together. It would have been a little odd if some of that hadn’t rubbed off on her son. The problem for Greg is that his religion doesn’t bring him much in the way of comfort. Instead of solace, his beliefs open up deep-seated internal conflicts about who he is and the things he has done.
Because it makes for a more interesting story. I hear what you say about him — and you’re not wrong — but I don’t think of Morosov that way. I think Morosov and Greg are actually more similar than not. Both are highly intelligent, both have bloody pasts, both — and this is really important to understand about Morosov — are motivated by things outside of themselves. In some ways, Morosov is Greg with a different upbringing. It makes them enemies. But it also makes them closer to each other than anyone else on the planet.
I hope so! But that is very much up to the readers. They might tell me to stick to science fiction.