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| Barry Lyga (photo: Morgan Baden) |
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Barry Lyga is the author of several acclaimed young adult novels, including his 2006 debut, The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl; Bang; Time Will Tell; and After the Red Rain. Before the Hunt (B&Z Books) is an adult anthology that features short stories from the points of view of several characters in Lyga's YA I Hunt Killers trilogy, about teen Jasper Dent and his serial killer father, Billy.
Here, Lyga chats with Shelf Awareness about how the prequels fit into the series, what it was like writing a story from a point of view with which readers are unfamiliar, and the upcoming adult titles featuring Jasper Dent as an adult.
Would you tell our readers a little bit about this book?
Most of the stories in this anthology had already been available in one way or another to readers. One of them was from a mystery anthology from the Mystery Writers of America and a couple of them were e-books. Over the years--even long after the trilogy was over--I would get e-mail from people wanting the stories in print. It only took me 10 years to figure out that if I put them all together, it would make a nice little book that I could sell.
The first thing I loved about this collection was that you included a personal note at the beginning of each story.
To give credit where credit is due, I copied that from author Joe Haldeman, a wonderful science fiction writer I adored as a kid. The first thing I ever read from him was an anthology called Dealing in Futures and that's what he did: before each story, he'd have a piece saying, "This is why I wrote the story and this is what I was thinking." So, since the age of 13, it stuck in my head that that's how you do an anthology. When the time came to do this anthology, I decided I would do the same thing.
And you write in your last note that the final story is the story that pulled this book together.
Yes. I had all the other stories but there was one missing--a story I had never written. That was "Ugly J and the Beautiful Day." I had it in mind for years because Ugly J is a very important character in the trilogy but, unlike every other character, readers never got into that character's head--they never saw what made J tick. I knew, and I always felt bad that the readers didn't know. But there was no way to fit in there--it didn't work in the trilogy itself. I had the short story in mind. So I went ahead and assembled the anthology, wrote my intros, and then prepared to write that last story, the one I've been dying to write. It ended up being so much worse than I thought in terms of content--this is the darkest thing I've ever written. It is really disturbing. I spent some time sitting with it wondering if I was willing to put it out in the world with my name on it. Luckily, I have zero sense of self-preservation, so I said sure.
I tried to reread I Hunt Killers before we chatted, but having read the entire series, I couldn't handle Jazz's flashbacks.
The stuff at the end of the third book where you find out what Jazz's mother did to him--my editor and I had a long talk about that. She was very disturbed by it. Appropriately! She had asked if I could not describe the abuse, and I said I had to--readers wanted to know what happened to him by that point. It's horrible to tell them, but it's also not fair to not tell them.
I'm a parent now, my kids are young, and it hits differently. I think that was another reason why I had to write "Ugly J and the Beautiful Day"--I had to show you she is deeply fucked up. I have been saying to myself from the very first book that everybody thinks Billy is terrible, but they don't know how much worse she is.
I remember tweeting at you when I finished the third book being like, "I cannot believe that you made me feel better about Billy."
That's the twist! Billy is actually a good dad. People don't get that, but I wanted to show how absolutely monstrous Ugly J is.
This collection is a great companion to the series, but I think I think you're right--that final story makes it.
I wish I could claim this was intentional, but it just happened: I think the way the anthology is set up mirrors the trilogy. You start off with Jazz, Howie, and Connie and it sort of mimics the first book. Then you get to the G. Williams and the Billy stories, and it gets a little more grown-up like the second book. And then you get to the last story which is--
Brutal.
--vile and disturbing. Like the third book.
It's interesting to me that I Hunt Killers was published in the same year that Generation Why, what is seen as the first true-crime podcast, started. What was in the cultural consciousness at that time?
I really hate to say this because there's already people who make the comparison, but Dexter was huge. I didn't watch Dexter, but my editor did, and I asked her to warn me if I ever came too close to it. I didn't want to watch it or read it--I wanted to be able to genuinely say I had never read the books or watched the show.
I think Dexter took off and we had a flowering of interest in serial killers, but it was really coincidence for me. I had the idea for the story, and it hit at the right time. I think it was a success, though, because it wasn't just, "I'm going to track down a serial killer." It wasn't just, "Oh my dad's horrible." You know? It was a combination of stuff.
That's what I liked about "Six Ways to Kill Your Grandmother." I loved how much Jazz missed home, despite the horrible things his father was doing.
I was asked to participate in the MWA anthology and the point was supposed to be teenagers' first experiences with murder. I could've written a story about Jazz going off with Billy, but he wouldn't have been a teenager when that happened. My own continuity made it impossible for me to fulfill the mandate of the anthology. Instead, I offered one weird, quirky story where nobody dies.
I was very pleased with how it turned out. I think all these stories fill in something from the original trilogy that I knew was missing but that a reader wouldn't necessarily question. I wanted readers to know how Jazz got his nickname, how Jazz and Connie fell in love, how G. William caught Billy....
I would love a whole book about G. William.
It was such a pleasure to write that story--it's one of my favorite things I've ever written, specifically the two myths of how Lobo's Nod was founded. I think it's the best writing in the whole series.
G. William is simply fun to write. The only problem with both G. William and Billy is once they start talking, I can't get them to shut up. Especially Billy. I realized every time Billy was on the page and had dialogue, I would have to settle in.
And then you have them talking together.
It was going to be a short story, and it became a novella.
It feels like good time to highlight I Hunt Killers, considering the massive pop in true-crime over the past 10 to 15 years and all the YA thrillers. I'm psyched you decided to put this out in print.
It's something I've wanted to do for a while now and for various reasons I kept putting it off. One of those reasons was that I couldn't sit down and get into the right headspace to write that last story. But you know what's funny? Somebody pointed out to me the other day that there's a Dexter prequel series now.
There is.
I can't escape that guy.
Is there anything you're particularly excited about now?
I am currently working on the next segment in the life of Jasper Dent: Bridekiller. It's a new series of books set about 10 years after the end of the trilogy. The epilogue of the original trilogy says that Jasper occasionally helps the FBI, and I've decided it's time to tell those stories. He's in his 20s, still living in grandma's house, and trying to fix it up but the house fights him.
That's awesome! I hope you're going the printing route?
Yes, absolutely. 1,000%. I love physical books. --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness