We chat with author C. B. Everett about The Other People, which follows a group of strangers gathered at a mysterious country house who are in a race against time to stop a serial killer in this twisty, high-concept thriller that combines Agatha Christie with Shutter Island.
Hi, C. B.! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi there. Well, the first thing I should say, is that CB Everett doesn’t actually exist. Or he may do, but it’s not me. It’s a pseudonym that I adopted to differentiate these novels from my earlier stuff. They were more straightforward noir thrillers while CBE is a bit different. As Martyn Waites (my real name) I’ve written over twenty novels, some critically acclaimed, some international bestsellers, at least one award-winning. All crime, apart from one horror. And some Doctor Who audio plays for Big Finish. CBE is, for me, a completely different approach to writing crime novels.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I honestly don’t know. Seriously. I don’t come from a background that encouraged me to write, or even to read. I read so many pieces where writers say how much they loved their library when they were growing up and were in there constantly. Our local library was run by a real miserable twat who hated kids and made us all feel unwelcome. When I wanted to read HG Wells’ The War of the Worlds when I was about nine or ten he told my mother he wouldn’t allow me to. She got quite angry. He backed down. We didn’t go back there much after that.
I used to make my own comics, just for my own amusement, as a kid. Write and draw them. Tom and Jerry, Doctor Who, then superheroes. I loved comics as a kid, especially Marvel. That was my first love as a reader, I think. And Doctor Who. I absorbed their storytelling techniques by osmosis, I think. When I left school I went to drama school and studied to be an actor. It was while I was inbetween acting jobs that I decided to write a novel. Looking back, I think whriitng was the thing I loved the most, rather than acting. Whenever I got a new script I’d always look at it as a writer, rather than an actor., in that I wouldn’t just read my part. And I was devouring crime fiction at the time. So when I sat down to write, a crime novel seemed like the perfect thing.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: I think it was something called PETE AND PIP FIND A WINTER HOME, about two dormice settling in to hibernate for the winter. I kept that book for years. No idea who wrote it. There’s no trace of it anywhere online. My Dad bought it for me. I loved that book.
- The one that made you want to become an author: That’s quite a difficult one. I’m not sure that there was one single book that did it, more a kind of cumulative movement at the time. I read Chandler’s FAREWELL MY LOVELY and it was like someone blew the windows and doors out. Loved it and started to find anything from that period that I could. That in turn led me to Hammett, who led me to James M Cain and Ross MacDonald, Thompson, Goodis, all of them. Then I discovered (then) contemporary American crime fiction: James Ellroy, Andrew Vachss, Sara Paretsky, James Lee Burke, James Crumley, Walter Mosley, George V Higgins . . . and I realised what could be done with the crime novel. It was genuinely thrilling discovery.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: That’s a hard one, because there’s so many. And it changes constantly, which is as it should. The one that’s taking up valuable mental real estate at the moment, or the most recent one, is Adam S Leslie’s LOST IN THE GARDEN. It’s like if David Lynch and Michael Powell remade Midsommer and set it in Scarfolk. Phantagsmagorical folk horror. Couldn’t put it down.
Your latest novel, The Other People, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Things aren’t what they seem . . .
What can readers expect?
A good time, I hope. Seriously. I know that sounds flippant but if people are parting with their money and choosing to read my novel then I’m very grateful. And I want them to have the best time they possibly can have. There’s no point writing a novel people aren’t going to read and hopefully enjoy.
Where did the inspiration for The Other People come from?
Initially it came because I wasn’t connecting with anything I read. I found crime novels to be boring, bland, hackneyed, cliched, dull. No one was doing anything that surprised me or intrigued me. The writing was dull,the plots perfunctory. There was nothing new about, nothing to get me excited. Obviously, I’m well aware this could have been me and that all the novels I was reading and hating were actually scintillating masterpieces and I was just a tedious old curmudgeon.
But in that moment I decided to do something different. Something that took the tropes – or even cliches – of crime fiction and turned them on their head. But did so in a fun way or even, dare I say it, a clever way. Once I’d decided that, the plot for THE OTHER PEOPLE arrived fully formed. This never, ever happens, by the way.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
All of it. Seriously. I’d been writing a novel during lockdown that I hated. Every day was the worst drudgery just sitting at my desk. Really, really horrible. So when I finished that, I decided I wanted to do something just for me. I had no publisher or anything lined up, no contract. So I sat down and wrote THE OTHER PEOPLE. And really, really enjoyed it.
When you write a novel it always consumes you, but this one did so in a a way that kept me energised and excited all through the process.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
It took a lot of work to make the ending land properly. It’s so difficult to pull of twists and surprises and make them arise organically out of the narrative. I had the story more or less fully formed when I started, and the ending never changed but it changed in the placing and explaining and structuring. For a long time it wasn’t working as well as I wanted it to and that it needed to. It took months to get it right.
What’s next for you?
Another CB Everett novel called RUSSIAN DOLL. On the surface it’s very different from THE OTHER PEOPLE, but because it’s by CBE not Martyn, there are a lot of similarities. It starts off like a spy story. Then widens out to become . . . well, that would be telling.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up this year?
I’ve been lucky enough to get proof copies of some of the novels I’m really looking forward to. Ronald Malfi’s SENSELESS and Tim Lebbon’s SECRET LIVES OF DEAD PEOPLE come to mind. Both great writers, both great books. THE GET OFF by Christa Faust has just come out and she’s one of my faves, as is Alison Gaylin, whose new one, WE ARE WATCHING, I’m looking forward to diving into. There’s also a new Megan Abbott coming soon that I’m excited about and I’ll read anything by Jordan Harper. I should also mention I was lucky enough to read an advance copy of Keith Rosson’s COFFIN MOON and I think it’s going to establish him as one of the major horror writers of his generation.
