IOULI TSAKALOU – BOOK CRITIC
How did you choose the subject of your book?
I wanted to do an introspection on the role of evil as a concept in our society, where it probably comes from, what is its starting point and how far it can go. I wanted to research how the human psyche is gradually altered by the childhood traumas that are created at that tender age and what effects are caused on the child’s personality but also on the lives of those around him or society in general.
Your heroes live adventures that lead to extremes, you test them, raising the tension to the highest. Do mystery, action, twists, or well-developed characters set the stage for success in your story?
Without the depth and honesty of the characters, there is no story, since the readers, all of us, connect with the man who has what happens to him, connect with his needs, dreams and fears. But all the magic is how the actions and decisions of the heroes will be combined in an exciting plot that will overturn their worldview and all together will raise the adrenaline, the tension and the emotional state in the readership.
What hidden corners do you want the reader to understand so that they can trace the dark sides of the characters?
Each character in the book is unique, with different motivations, so different “darknesses” follow them. Perhaps the hidden corner that I want them to understand is this, that depending on how everyone grows up, with the circumstances that will happen in their life, they will act accordingly and the corresponding consequences will occur. Then, maybe if we try to understand others we might also learn something regarding ourselves, regarding our own darkness. When we see others throwing their lives in the wastebasket, it becomes a lesson for us, not to follow their depraved path.
The challenge for a crime writer is to write a crime that has never been written before, or to write regarding a crime that has been written by others, but in such a way that it has never been written before?
I think both are true. Of course, in this particular novel I feel that the plastiga leans more towards the first, since a journey begins for the protagonists to find out how their friend died, suicide or murder? And in fact, the search for the truth becomes more and more complex as the plot progresses, turning everything upside down, since in the end the solution of the mystery is transferred from this question to “why” what happened happened.
Instinct is a wonderful thing. It can neither be interpreted nor ignored,” Agatha Christie used to say. How much value do you place on instinct?
I absolutely admire Agatha Christie and understand the concept of instinct. However, we are experiencing an era full of knowledge, research and science. Study has, I believe, largely replaced instinct and chance. Personally, I study each character’s personalities in depth, methodically analyze their motivations, socioeconomic class, past and experiences, design the structure consciously, and shape the story with a specific purpose and goal. Thinking and writing adapt, like everything, at the given moment in time to the given record of social developments around us.
You write: “We are all monsters. All. We just hide it inside ourselves so as not to be judged by society. But as soon as we find the opportunity, our true need emerges that wants to destroy everything and everyone. To impose ourselves, to torture, to conquer”. Are we all monsters following all?
Maybe we all are, if you consider that our instincts prevail at the beginning of our lives and we gradually learn to socialize and coexist. However, these always remain there. They are waiting for their moment and if we don’t satisfy our group thirst or grow up in an environment full of positive feelings of acceptance, love, but also boundaries, then our instincts to protect us will wake up and devour everything to give us little individual satisfaction to cover the lost ground of the problematically formed personality.
TIME IS THE PROTAGONIST
Is it a descent into hell of the mind? In the end, who wins, evil or good? Will the turnaround happen?
Again time is the star here. Evil can only win temporarily, as the healthy collective of humanity is a separate, biological, genetic, de facto state. If this ever changes, then we are talking regarding the end of our species. So, good will win until it loses. And then we will not exist to analyze it, to describe it, to feel it.
#Andy #Papadimitriou #monsters
