The Tortuous Genesis of Stuart Neville's The House of Ashes
Every Book Tells a Story - Behind the Scenes of Stuart Neville's The House of Ashes
Scribbling a page-turner ain't no walk in the park, buddy. I've penned a few tales that took just a flutter of the quill, others that took a friggin' war to complete. The House of Ashes was one hell of a battle. This sucker’s probably the hardest novel I’ve ever had to write, mate.
Ideas pop like popcorn poppers in my head on some days. Plots, characters, and themes, all primed and ready to hit the page. Other times, it’s like starting from scratch, with me farming the ingredients myself.
The roots of The House of Ashes were sown way back in 2016. The yarn then was worlds apart from what it morphed into. I remember chatting about it with my old editor, brainstorming the concept before putting it on the backburner to work on another book under the pen name, Haylen Beck (RIP).
I revisited this book - then called Children of the Ashes - here and there over the next couple of years, wrestling with what it was about, whose mugshot was on the cover, and what form it would take. The game-changer came at the tail end of 2017 when I clapped eyes on an early copy of Country, a novel by my long-time pal, Michael Hughes. That book is written primarily in Northern Irish slang, yet it ain't a struggle to read. A lightbulb went off – this was the voice I needed for one of my ladies, Mary Jackson, as she regales us with her tales from the sixties. If borrowing the style wasn't enough, I helped myself to one of his lines too. When Mary opens her opening first-person chapter with, 'Here, now, till I tell you,' he don’t mind me taking it, I hope.
By the end of 2019, I finally had a wrap-up novel, I thought. It was part of my DCI Serena Flanagan series, with a third of the narrative from her eyeballs. But it wasn't wholly satisfying; although her story was interwoven with Mary's, it just didn't hit the spot. In the meantime, I had switched publishers, and this new book was to be released by Bonnier Zaffre. It's tricky for a new publisher to jump on board an already established series. Since I wasn't over the moon with the book myself, I decided to rip it apart and put it back together again, scraping almost half of it. Make room for a fresh face, my dear Serena. Say hello to Sara Keane, a lady whose yarn resonates beautifully with Mary's.
The final stampede before the finish line was the title, the bloody thorn in the side of most scribes. Eventually, the author, two agents, and three editors settled on The House of Ashes, hitting the shelves in Ireland this September. I reckon readers will take Mary and Sara to their hearts as I did. It was a long, rough trip to get them on the page, and I am damn relieved to finally let their stories loose.
Stuart Neville's debut novel, The Twelve, bagged the Mystery/Thriller category of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and made it to the top crime novels of 2009 by both the New York Times and the LA Times. He's been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the MWA Edgar, CWA Dagger, Theakstons Old Peculier Novel of the Year, Barry, Macavity, Dilys awards, as well as the Irish Book Awards Crime Novel of the Year.
The novel, The House of Ashes, was a challenging and exhausting book awards contender for author Stuart Neville, winning him recognition in the Mystery/Thriller category of the Los Awards and being lauded by the New York Times and Los Angeles Times as one of the top crime novels of 2009. After its release, it earned him numerous nominations, including the MWA Edgar, CWA Dagger, Theakstons Old Peculier Novel of the Year, Barry, Macavity, Dilys awards, and the Irish Book Awards Crime Novel of the Year, showcasing how such a challenging work of entertainment could resonate with both readers and critics alike.
