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CORRIDOR
OF MYSTERY |
DARK CORRIDORS Vol. 1, No. 13 |
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interviews the queen of thrillers |
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She used to be a romance writer,
But, boy, look at her now!
(Earlier this year, Ron Miller videotaped an on-camera interview with Tami Hoag, which will be used in his upcoming TV documentary on the history of the mystery genre, currently being produced for PBS in partnership with KTEH-TV of San Jose, Calif. What follows is an excerpt from that interview.)
By
RON MILLER
of TheColumnists.com
Tami Hoag's latest bestseller, "Dust to Dust," begins with her rather poetic rendition of a death by hanging, making sure we don't miss the "eerie contortions" as "the death dance continues." She makes us wait while "the rope and beam creak in the otherwise silent room." Brrr. Shiver, shiver.
So, naturally, you picture the author as some serpent-eyed character with the pallor of a morgue attendant and a morbid outlook to match. And that's why it's such a treat to meet Tami Hoag and discovering she's this stylish, chic and awesomely attractive person with a passion for fun and an infectious twinkle in her eyes.
"A lot of people do needle me a little bit about the sex and the violence in the books," she concedes, including a goodly number who take one look at her and say, "Where does all that come from, Tami? Do you write from experience?"
Hoag always has a ready rejoinder for those people, saying, "If I wrote from experience I'd either be dead or incarcerated or maybe in a sex rehab center or something."
Part
of it, of course, is the fact that Tami Hoag used to be one of
America's most popular romance writers, a genre of fiction that
doesn't often include characters like the twisted one in her
last bestseller, "Ashes to Ashes," a nasty dude known
as The Cremator because he liked to incinerate people.
"The violence bothers some people," she recognizes,
"you know, the genre's not for everyone. I write a tough,
dark book. Bad things happen to good people and to bad people.
I don't pull punches. I never apologize. I always say, 'If it's
too dark for you, then read something else.' I tell a story as
I see it, as honestly as I can, whether it's about a relationship
or a murder."
Hoag has always been interested in things that happen in the shadows of everyday life. She remembers responding to the mystery elements in her favorite horse books as a kid -- the "Black Stallion" series by Walter Farley, but she says she was mostly influenced by the movies and television shows she saw while growing up. They, of course, have grown darker and more candid every year.
When she first started writing fiction, though, women weren't exactly welcomed into the darker realms of fiction. Romance was a woman's area and she found she could do quite well there. But as soon as her books started racking up big sales and she gained more control over her manuscripts, she began to nudge them toward darker subjects. She was told that was a mistake, that there wasn't a market for romances with that much suspense. She disagreed and persisted.
Not only did her loyal readers keep buying her new books, but they also began snapping them up like eager little addicts. Finally, Hoag crossed some kind of line with her huge bestseller "Night Sins" and was officially out of the romance world and into the realm of suspense thrillers.
"Things have changed very much in publishing in terms of what a woman can write," she says. "It's very wide open now. Those of us who were pioneering that sub-genre fought to make it happen."
Hoag remembers being told that her readership was almost entirely female and that women didn't want too much sex or violence in their novels.
"Well, that's just bull," she says. "It's not true."
Though most of her readers still may be female, Hoag says she's now read widely by both sexes, from ages 14 to 90, and that her male readership grows with each new book. In the beginning of her crossover to the mystery world, Hoag says she returned to her romantic relationship interludes whenever the hero had to wait for lab results or some other natural delay in the pace of the story. Now everything is much more integrated, which she feels is one of the secrets of her ongoing success.
"It's still important to me to have a relationship at the core of the book," she explains. "because the story isn't just about the pursuit of the bad guy -- it's about the journey of the people who are pursuing the bad guy."
The result has been much more involving stories. You don't read a Tami Hoag thriller just to discover who the killer is or how the cops are going to catch him, but to gain a much deeper insight into the characters and the issues they're caught up with while working the murder case.
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"Commenting on and exploring social issues within the framework of a suspense novel adds an interesting, timely element to the novel," she says. "Whether it's police corruption or child abuse or sexual abuse or how we view different kinds of victims, my goal is to make people think. It gives you a book with a lot of depth and relevance, something more than just a puzzle to solve."
When "Night Sins" hit the bestseller lists, Hoag's career really took on increased momentum. For one thing, it was sold to Hollywood and wound up as a two-part television miniseries starring Valerie Bertinelli. It was also a mammoth ratings hit for CBS and Hoag quickly learned what a boost that can give to book sales. The miniseries made "Night Sins" a bestseller all over again and shot up the sales of "Guilty As Sin," her sequel, which had just come out in paperback.
Hoag didn't do the television adaptation, but she was consulted by the producers and recalls the experience as "excellent. They did a great job." She also learned not to worry about little details, like the fact that they shifted the locale of her novel from Minnesota to Seattle, Washington, "for reasons unknown to me." She was even more bewildered when they filmed "Night Sins" in Park City, Utah.
"So, it bore no resemblance to Seattle or Minnesota," she says, "but that's Hollywood. That's the way it goes."
Though she's only been in the mystery/suspense category for a decade or so, Hoag has been catching up on a lot of the writers in that field that she hadn't read in her youth. She's become an absolute disciple of Raymond Chandler, one of the fathers of the hardboiled school of detective stories, but, more importantly, one of the first mystery writers to move the genre toward serious literature.
Hoag also has familiarized herself with the female pioneers of the genre, especially Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers. Though they didn't write anything as sexy or violent as Hoag's novels, Hoag feels a definite connection with them.
"They were incredibly strong and independent women," she says. "They did things women weren't supposed to do and they wrote things women weren't supposed to write. They did it very well and they did it boldly. So, I think we could go hang out. I think we'd get along just fine."
© 2000 by Ron Miller.
TAMI HOAG's "Dust to Dust" is currently available from all major booksellers in its hardcover edition from Bantam. Her "Ashes to Ashes" is currently a paperback bestseller.
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