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Author Introduction
John Sandford on Chosen Prey
A lot of people don't recognize it, but the movie The Big
Lebowski is a nineties comedic tribute to the old noir movies and novels
set in Los Angeles of the 1940s and fifties.
Lebowski, a completely stoned-out, leftover hippie, functions as the
private eye. The rest of the story, in its own twisted way, is typical noir
fare: the powerful millionaire with his too-young, and now missing, trophy wife;
the scandalous relationship with the pornographer and his thugs; the
millionaire's seductive daughter and weird friends; Lebowski's off-center
sidekicks who help solve the mystery.
The Lebowski story really isn't much, not a lot of big surprises. But the
characterization is terrific.
I thought of that while reading through Chosen Prey
for this new introduction. Chosen Prey is a noir novel. I don't even
particularly like noir novels, though I love Lebowski. Looking back, though
(it's been thirteen years since I wrote Chosen Prey), I think I must
have been channeling something noir. The book is full of snappy lines,
quick comebacks, nice sleazy characters, and some really, really bad
jokes.
In fact, the monkey balls joke is probably the worst one I've ever put in a
novel. It may, in fact, be one of the worst jokes anyone has ever put in a
novel. But I gotta tell you, in rereading it, I cracked myself up. And
basically, when you think about it, as a literary device, what's more noir than
monkey balls? Or an elegant, artistic, insane villain who eats Froot
Loops?
Not that he's funny. I am not going to unload any spoilers here, but the
villain, James Qatar, is a vicious little weasel, which makes him a lot more
creepy, and a lot less potentially likable, than a stand-up gunfighter-type
outlaw.
How do you stick together a character like Qatar? Or Lebowski?
Some writers may have them spring into existence fully formed, but I don't. I
start with the idea for the character and sketch him out early in the book, but
then I keep going back to him, adding a touch here and a detail there. How do
you think of that stuff, all those little touches, people sometimes ask? Do I
have a particularly sick mind? Do I research famous serial killers? Do I steal
it from movies?
Well, no.
What I do is... I watch you.
I was in a Santa Fe gun store not long ago, looking for some .22s, and
there was a guy in there wearing camo pants and boots and a bow-hunter's camo
hat and a regular work shirt, and he was talking guns with the clerk. He was a
little on the short side with a fleshy face — friendly enough — blue
eyes and a button nose, and he knew his guns. It seemed like he knew
everything there was to know about black rifles — the brands, their
defects, their accuracy, who customized them and where you got the best
magazines. The clerk was right there with all of his stories about this guy and
that guy who did this thing or that thing with his AR-15.
I can use that, and I will.
Later that day, I was in a Walmart, still looking for some .22s
(there was a terrific .22 shortage that lasted all of 2013), and a small child
had a meltdown in one of the aisles. What impressed me was how insanely angry
the kid's mother got. She was a large woman, looked a little worn, tired and fed
up, and she was yelling louder than the kid. At some point, she jerked the kid
to her feet, and looked like she about pulled the kid's arm out of its
socket.
I was worried I might have to step in to keep the kid from getting hurt,
but they finally got themselves back together, more or less. Still, I could hear
the kid screaming all the way across the store, through the cash registers, and
out the door.
I can use that, too.
And thirteen years ago, more or less, I was talking to a book
reviewer in a New York café about Chosen Prey. The book both
intersted him, and somewhat creeped him out, the very idea of an artist
doing all of this terrible stuff to women. He asked the standard questions
— Do you think you have a particularly sick mind? — and I
said no, I just take my models for killers from people I see in the
street.
And he said (creative quote alert), "When I thought about you writing the
book, I visualized you as somebody who looks like... that."
He nodded at a guy who was sitting across the café, with a cup of
coffee. The guy was probably six feet tall, very thin, with a large bony nose,
reddened at the end, probably from a cold because he kept dabbing at his nose
with a wad of Kleenex. He had a sallow, New York mid-winter complexion, a kind
of disheveled Hitler haircut, and small dark eyes; he was wearing a tweed
overcoat that covered him from his shoulders to his ankles.
And I thought, Holy shit, that's James Qatar, the killer in
Chosen Prey, the book we were talking about.
I'd already used him.
But I gotta tell you, there's lots more where he came from.
All you have to do is look around. Or in the mirror.
— John Sandford, January 31, 2014