Brett McBean is a Melbourne based horror writer and the author of the Lothian dark suspense line novel The Mother. His short fiction has appeared in magazines including Dark Discoveries and Post Mortem. His debut novel The Last Motel was published through Biting Dog Press last year.
1. How did the idea for the Mother come about?
I’d had the idea for a while, or at least the basic story of a person hitchhiking along a freeway/cross-country searching for the person who murdered their loved one. The idea of having the story from the POV of the drivers came to me fairly early on, too. The idea, like most, just occurred to me one day. It just seemed like an interesting idea, one that I would’ve read if someone else had written such a book.
Initially I thought it might be a father avenging the death of his daughter, but when I sat down and started brainstorming ideas for the novel, I quickly decided to change that to a woman avenging her daughter’s death.
2. What kind of research went into this book? How long did it take to write?
I did a lot of ‘hands-on’ research for this one. Living close to the area the story is set – the Hume Freeway/Highway – was great, as I could take time off work and travel the Hume, taking copious amounts of notes and photos. By actually being able to visit the rest areas and motels was an immeasurable help in getting the details just right of the various places my characters inhabited. And the story changed a fair bit, particularly where certain scenes took place, because of all the travelling I did and being able to scout for the best locations.
All up, from the time I wrote the first word to when I sent the manuscript off to Lothian, The Mother took me about a year to write.
3. The decision to tell the story from the POV of so many characters is an interesting one. What challenges did you face in doing this and are you happy with how it turned out?
The main challenge was to make the character of the mother still the focus of the story, and an interesting and fleshed-out character, even though most of the story wasn’t from her view-point. Also, I had to be careful not to let the drivers’ stories overwhelm the mother’s; each driver had to relate to the mother and the themes of the story in some way.
4. The Mother includes a lot of signature McBean moments, particularly with the intense and brutal use of sexual violence. Is this something you had trouble with when dealing with a mainstream publisher?
The publisher had concerns with the level of the violence and in particular the sexual violence. So I had to tone down these parts. None of it was gratuitous in my view; but the publisher felt it was a little too much for the mainstream. They wanted to cut the more extreme scenes even further, but after some discussions, they thankfully agreed that stripping the novel of all its guts wouldn’t do the book any good, so those scenes were left as is. So what we have now is still fairly brutal and in keeping with what I wanted for the story, but not quite as hardcore as it was originally.
5. The Mother also has a real emotional depth to it; something that I feel has been a recent addition to your writing. Is it something you worked on getting into your work, or has it been a natural evolution of your writing?
I think a natural evolution. As you mature as a writer and gain more confidence in your abilities, I think you tend to explore characters and themes more deeply. But ultimately it comes down what’s best for the story. Sometimes a story will lend itself to more depth, such as The Mother; other times you aim to write a fun, ‘camp-fire’ type of story, like The Last Motel. It really just depends on the type of story you’re wanting to write.
6. The ending for The Mother is quite tragic but very fitting. Is this something you had planned for the mother all along?
The original ending was very different. But the more I worked on the story, the more I began to realise what the story was truly about – namely the loss of identity, guilt and what harbouring guilt can do to a person. Once I started bringing these ideas out more, the ending I originally had just didn’t fit. There was only one ending I could see for the mother, and that’s the one in the book.
7. The book was picked up by Lothian as part of the dark suspense series, but soon after the series was dropped. What kind of emotions did you go through from the time the book was picked up to its release, and was there any real danger of it not coming out?
My first reaction when I got the acceptance call was to put on ‘Gonna Fly Now’ from the ‘Rocky’ soundtrack and thrust my arms up in the air in triumph (I was elated, but I’m sure it made for a sad sight). When the whole debacle with Lothian getting bought out and the staff lay-offs that followed, I was both angry and sad. Angry at how they treated certain people and sad that, yet again, it seemed Aussie horror had sunk before it was ever allowed to float. I of course was happy when I found out that Hachette were honouring the contracts and going ahead with the books – but was I ever worried they wouldn’t come out? I tried to stay positive, thinking that (perhaps naively), since we had already signed the contracts, and I hadn’t heard otherwise from Hachette, the books would be coming out. Thankfully, I was right in this case.
8. What do you want readers to get out of this book? How do you think it will be received?
I would love it if readers burst their eyeballs from the strain of not sleeping until they finished the book. And I would hope readers find the story deeply affecting and a little bit frightening. As to how the book will be received? That’s out of my hands. I’ll let the gods (and the critics) decide that one.
9. What can readers expect next from Brett McBean?
I’ve got something coming out soon from a US small press, though I can’t divulge any details yet (I know, I’m a wicked, wicked man). I’m also just about to start editing a new novel, one I wrote years ago (after having just spent the last five months working on another novel that I only now realised wasn’t working…sigh, the joys of writing).
Brett McBean's the Mother is available now in retailers and bookstores across Australia. Read Horrorscope's review below.
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