So Cold the River
by Michael Koryta
List Price: $14.99
Pages: 528
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9780316053648
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Michael Koryta has won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Great Lake Books Award, and St. Martin's Press/PWA Best First Novel prize, while also earning nominations for the Edgar, Quill, Shamus and Barry awards. In addition to winning the Los Angeles Times prize for best mystery, his novel Envy the Night was selected as a Reader's Digest condensed book. His work has been translated into nearly 20 languages. A former private investigator and newspaper reporter, Koryta graduated from Indiana University with a degree in criminal justice. He currently lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Bloomington, Indiana.
top of the page
Q: In many ways, So Cold the River is a departure from the Lincoln Perry series and Envy the Night. Was there something in particular that inspired you to move in a new direction?
A: Really the setting itself called out for a change. I’d wanted to write a story set in this fascinating area of Indiana, utilizing its bizarre history, for a long time. I just couldn’t settle on a crime novel that felt as if it were making full use of the potential. I’ve long been a ghost story fan, love a good supernatural thriller, and it occurred to me that if I took the story in that direction I could really build on the power of the bizarre --- but true --- history of Springs Valley. It was intended to be a novella; as you can see, that notion felt apart pretty fast! Once I made this departure, though, I found myself feeling more at home as a writer. It was a good change.
Q: Are there any writers who have particularly influenced you?
A: Dozens upon dozens, yes. To keep it fairly short: Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly, Stephen King, Raymond Chandler, Daniel Woodrell, William Gay, Richard Matheson, Joe Hill, Ron Rash, Stewart O’Nan.
Q: Why did you decide to write about the West Baden Springs Hotel? Do you feel that there is something about this place that lends itself to the supernatural?
A: Absolutely. You have to see it to fully appreciate how surreal the place feels. You’re driving along through beautiful but unpopulated farm country, and then you follow a bend in the highway and there appears on the hill what looks to be a European castle. Once you step inside the hotel and see that incredible rotunda --- the world’s largest freestanding dome from 1901 until the 1970s --- it truly does take your breath away. The best word for the hotel is misplaced. It just doesn’t seem to fit. So then you inquire as to how it came into existence, and the answer, ultimately, is in the region’s mineral water and
its mythic reputation as a healer. Those qualities felt so wonderfully spooky to me that they paired much better with a supernatural story than a traditional crime novel.
Q: Your novel opens with the line “You looked for the artifacts of their ambition,” which becomes Eric’s primary goal as a filmmaker. Does a similar drive influence you as a writer?
A: You know, that was a phrase I settled on because I simply liked the sound of it. So far, it seems many readers do, too, which is pleasing. I think it does capture what a storyteller should be trying to do. Now, Eric is telling true stories, and I’m working with fiction, but ultimately we should both be concerned with removing the layers from our characters, with determining those driving influences and ambitions and passions, because that’s where you’ll find the truth. Such an approach is key for journalism, of course, but it’s also essential for fiction, because a story lives or dies with its character depth.
Q: Throughout the novel, several characters confront the past. For example, Anne McKinney experiences her memories as though they happened yesterday, and Eric sees scenes from the past in his vivid hallucinations. For you, is the presence of history primarily tied to the hotel and the towns of French Lick and West Baden, or is it more ubiquitous? How does it influence your writing and the stories you tell?
A: It is more ubiquitous, certainly. The sort of fiction I love is fiction that demonstrates an awareness of what a deep impact the past makes, and how that impact extends from the obvious --- family, friends, personal experiences --- to people we’ve never met or even heard of but who have played a role in shaping the land we call home. If you look at my past work, you’ll see that in every one of my novels, the events of the past hang heavy over the present. In one, Envy the Night, this concept is even tied to the setting itself. I think Envy the Night has some very Gothic elements, and that book certainly built my interest in trying a supernatural Gothic. What I love about the form is the sense of direct involvement between the past and the present; they’re wedded to each other in a supernatural Gothic in a way that resonates very deeply with me.
Q: Music also plays a critical role in the story, and the boy’s haunting violin solo in many ways provides a sound track to the narrative. How does music influence your writing? Were there any artists or songs that particularly inspired you while writing So Cold the River?
A: A large portion of the plot comes from a single song. Joshua Bell and Edgar Meyer did a gorgeous strings piece called “Short Trip Home” that has this early-American folk sound, and while I was immediately struck by its beauty, I also became kind of obsessed with imagining the story behind the song. That’s the beautiful thing about an instrumental piece; there are no lyrics telling you what it means, so you can let the imagination run. Well, I became stuck on the image of a Depression-era violin prodigy who is playing in the rotunda of the West Baden Springs Hotel, playing for coins and with his eyes squeezed shut so he can avoid facing the audience. The song itself turned into an elegy in my mind, a song for the dead, an ode to the boy’s lost parents. Obviously, that thread became hugely significant to the novel.
Q: After suffering increasingly intense hallucinations, Eric notes that the only way he can separate reality from illusion is with his video camera. Yet in many ways, his visions seem nearer to the truth than what he actually experiences. Do you think that there are times when fiction can be a better vessel for the truth than pure documentation?
A: Certainly. Going back thousands of years, we see countless cultures grappling with things beyond their understanding by offering stories to explain them. It’s one of the things I love about supernatural fiction as a writer: you have this opportunity to deal with a character who has to confront something in which he doesn’t even believe intellectually. The circumstances of the story force him to believe. It’s the idea that we haven’t figured it all out, and it’s dangerous to believe otherwise. I like dealing with that concept in writing.
Q: What are you working on now? Can we expect more books like So Cold the River?
A: Well, the next book is called The Cypress House, and it certainly has a supernatural element, although I would say the core of the novel is a gangster story. It’s a fathers-and-sons tale, which I always enjoy, and a love story, and, oh yeah, there’s also a train car full of dead men. So, something for everyone! Ha. I’m very excited about that book. Beyond The Cypress House, I am returning to something perhaps more similar in tone to So Cold the River. It’s a book called The Ridge, and although it’s early, I’m really pleased with how the story is beginning to take shape. I’m having a lot of fun with it.
© Copyright 2012 by Michael Koryta. Reprinted with permission by Back Bay Books. All rights reserved.
• Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.
top of the page
