‘Character is the foundation of crime fiction’: Graeme Macrae Burnet, author of ‘His Bloody Project

Graeme Macrae Burnet, one of the most keenly followed Scottish authors of novels where crime drives the narrative, has written three books, two of which are “fake translations”. It’s the one in the middle, His Bloody Project, that catapulted him to literary stardom after being shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2016 – and, according to many critics, a hot contender for the prize. Even though he didn’t win, the novelist found his works getting a wide readership, in multiple languages. In Kolkata during the Kolkata Book Fair, he spoke to Scroll.in on the art and science of crime fiction without talking of the crime. Excerpts from the interview:

For a lot of people, shows on Netflix and other platforms have been a window to the world of Scottish crime stories. Has the digital medium helped in popularising the genre with a younger audience?
Well, I think for as long as there has been any kind of novel, when a film is made, even back in the days of Hollywood, it brings the novel to a new audience. I think Netflix and these kind of long-running series has changed it only a bit. Moreover, if it is something based on one of your books, it brings in an entire wider audience. People seem to have an appetite for this kind of long narrative at the moment.

It is funny, we are talking about other kinds of books, and people at the moment seem to like big, thick books. We live in a world where we think we have really shortened the attention span, we watch something on YouTube and if it’s not interesting after 15 seconds, we go on to the next one and yeah, we also love these long-drawn Netflix dramas.

For a novel you have to sit down, you have to make a cup of tea and relax and then you go into the world of the book. I am pleasantly surprised that the novel is still going strong. The novel is still selling, and selling more copies, electronic books are going down. It doesn’t matter to me whether they are e-books or physical books, but people still want stories you know.

And then the Netflix stories come with characters you care about, that make you think, and maybe you recognise their behaviour. So in a good way or a bad way, all these series that people watch may have different stories, but character is the foundation of crime fiction. And in that sense, the Netflix dramas and the old novels are very similar. I agree with it, whether I follow or not.

Earlier, you spoke about how the landscape, the location, is important in Scottish writing. It is almost a protagonist.
Absolutely, totally. I think it as the same thing as a character. The character interacts with it. If your character lived in a different place, he would be a different person. In my book, The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau, the character is a 17-year-old boy, who lives in his tiny village and he is frustrated like any teenager. He aspires to see, maybe the way the world goes in Glasgow, and the big cities, and fulfil his kind of dreams. But he is trapped there. It’s a reality that he can’t escape. The village is one of the elements that pushes him into the very violent act he commits.

So if Manfred Baumann had been born in Glasgow, the big thriving, rich, industrial city, he would have been a different character. My character in my French books, again, live in a small town and there is this feeling that they can’t escape and the situation they find themselves in, so yeah, it’s a total interaction between the two things. When I am reading something, I love to feel the sense that I can just picture the environment, whether it is set in India or France or Scotland. I think it’s really, really important.

“It was an evening like any other at the Restaurant de la Cloche. Behind the counter, the proprietor, Pasteur, had poured himself a pastis, an indication that no more meals would be served and that any further service would be provided by his wife, Marie, and the waitress, Adèle. It was nine o’clock. 

Manfred Baumann was at his usual place by the bar. Lemerre, Petit and Cloutier sat around the table by the door, the day’s newspapers folded in a pile between them. On their table was a carafe of red wine, three tumblers, two packets of cigarettes, an ashtray and Lemerre’s reading glasses. They would share three carafes before the night was out. Pasteur opened his newspaper on the counter and leaned over it on his elbows. He was developing a bald patch, which he attempted to disguise by combing back his hair. Marie busied herself sorting cutlery. 

Adèle served coffee to the two remaining diners and began wiping the waxcloths of the other tables, pushing the crumbs onto the floor that she would later sweep. Manfred observed her. His place was not exactly at the bar, but at the hatch through which food was brought from the kitchen. He continually had to adjust his position to allow the staff to pass, but nobody ever thought to ask him to move. From his post he could survey the restaurant and strangers often mistook him for the proprietor. 

Adèle was wearing a short black skirt and a white blouse. Around her waist was a little apron with a pocket in which she kept a notebook for taking orders and the cloth she used for wiping tables. She was a dark, heavy-set girl with a wide behind and large, weighty breasts. She had full lips, an olive complexion and brown eyes, which she habitually kept trained on the floor. Her features were too heavy to be described as pretty, but there was an earthy magnetism about her, a magnetism no doubt amplified by the drabness of the surroundings.”

— "The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau"

Would you agree that crime writing gives you that kind of a canvas where you can actually go deeper into the setting in time and in place?
I think you can do that if it’s a crime novel or a non-crime novel. I think any novel can do that, should do that. I think maybe the difference between a crime novel and a non-crime one is the fact that a crime is a dramatic event, that’s all. Often it is a violent event. So of course it is going to have a dramatic effect on the characters.

So for me, the crime element in all my books is the vehicle to explore the characters. How does that impact the lives of the characters or how did they come to commit that act, is what fascinates me. So far, the crime novel has a violent act or a violent event in it and it becomes a bit more dramatic and I think maybe that’s why – I don’t know how big it is in India in general – but in Britain, especially in Scotland, it is very, very popular. I think in Scotland 40% of the novels sold are crime novels and maybe it’s the drama that attracts people to it. But it still has to have the character element, I think.

In a lot of Scottish crime writing, one can’t really call them the antagonist or the protagonist, let’s call them the central characters, are deeply tormented. There is nothing black and white, there is always a past, there is always a sense of isolation as in The Disappearance…, there is a certain sense of claustrophobia. Sometimes there are no more than five people in a setting, and they all know one another and that’s what makes the crime all the more complicated.
Yes, absolutely. It has a back story of the characters and this back story forms or determines the actions of the present. To me it shouldn’t be just about the past they come from. If you tell the back story of the characters, the reader should also understand why this character is behaving like this in the present tense and that’s interesting about the small setting.

If you are in an enormous city like London, you can be anonymous. People migrate for work, for jobs, they go home and they don’t live in the communities of small town or smaller village where everything you do is noticed by your neighbours. You can’t be anonymous, you can’t be invisible and that creates a kind of pressure. And if the character is a troubled person then the torment becomes greater. They just can’t run off. If you are in London, you can just go out, have a drink, try to relax, but you can’t escape from the circumstances.

“There did not appear to be anything remarkable about the accident on the A35. It occurred on a perfectly ordinary stretch of the trunk road that runs between Strasbourg and Saint-Louis. A dark green Mercedes saloon left the southbound carriageway, careered down a slope and collided with a tree on the edge of a copse. The vehicle was not immediately visible from the road, so although it was spotted by a passer-by at around 10:45pm, it was not possible to say with any certainty when the crash had occurred. In any case, when the car was discovered, the sole occupant was dead. 

Georges Gorski of the Saint-Louis police was standing on the grass verge of the road. It was November. Drizzle glazed the road surface. There were no tyre marks. The most likely explanation was that the driver had simply fallen asleep at the wheel. Even in cases of cardiac arrest, drivers usually managed to apply the brakes or make some attempt to bring the vehicle under control. Nevertheless, Gorski resolved to keep an open mind. His predecessor, Jules Ribéry, had always urged him to follow his instincts. You solve cases with this, not this, he would say, pointing first to his considerable gut and then to his forehead. Gorski was sceptical about such an approach. It encouraged an investigator to disregard evidence that did not support the initial hypothesis. Instead, Gorski believed, each potential piece of evidence should be given due and equal consideration. Ribéry’s methodology had more to do with ensuring that he was comfortably ensconced in one of Saint-Louis’ bars by mid-afternoon. Still, Gorski’s initial impression of the scene before him suggested that in this case there would not be much call for alternative theories.”

— "The Accident on the A35"

Do you think that it is a function of Scotland’s distinctive topography, its history, the culture has something to do with the writing?
It’s a difficult question to answer. I mean, for sure I think of the winter in Scotland, particularly in the North it gets dark at 4 o’clock in the afternoon and it gets light at nine o’clock. So the nights are very long and the weather is bleak. My mother is from the west coast, the north-west coast and the Atlantic Ocean is there, and when you look up, the haze is on the loft and you can watch the weather coming and you can see the storm coming and then the blue sky. And then another storm comes. It’s really very dramatic but it does lead to that, particularly in the North these rural areas they are sort of, maybe an inwardness. There is nothing outside. You have to amuse yourself.

The church played a very prominent role in the small communities because it was all the hub of the town. These places, there were pubs and bars and the Church of Scotland preached this doctrine of predestination of Providence, the idea of faith where you can’t really affect the outcome of something you are trusting to be. People would say god willing, as in Islam, so it’s not up to you whether you are enterprising. That’s a kind of Fatalism where you can struggle against your own destiny.

So yes, it may have come from the climate or the isolation and the kind of humour we are known for. Having said this, these things exist in other countries as well, not only in Scotland. I guess when you are in a country, the people outside see the characteristics of your country differently from the way do view yourself. As Robert Burns had said, “Oh would some Power the gift give us, to see ourselves as others see us.”

“Statement of Mrs Carmina Murchison [Carmina Smoke], resident of Culduie, 12th August 1869
I have known Roderick Macrae since he was an infant. I generally found him to be a pleasant child and later to be a courteous and obliging young man. I believe he was greatly affected by the death of his mother, who was a charming and gregarious woman. While I do not wish to speak ill of his father, John Macrae is a disagreeable person, who treated Roddy with a degree of severity I do not believe any child deserves. 

On the morning of the dreadful incident, I spoke to Roddy as he passed our house. I cannot recall the precise content of our conversation, but I believe he told me that he was on his way to carry out some work on land belonging to Lachlan Mackenzie. He was carrying some tools, which I took to be for this purpose. In addition, we exchanged some remarks about the weather, it being a fine and sunny morning. Roderick appeared quite composed and betrayed no sign of fretfulness. Sometime later, I saw Roddy make his way back along the village. He was covered from head to foot in blood and I ran from the threshold of my house, thinking that some accident had befallen him. As I approached, he stopped and the tool he was carrying dropped from his hand. I asked what had happened and he replied without hesitation that he had killed Lachlan Broad. He appeared quite lucid and made no attempt to continue along the road. I called to my eldest daughter to fetch her father, who was working in the outbuilding behind our house. On seeing Roddy covered in blood, she screamed, and this brought other residents of the village to their doors and caused those at work on their crops to look up from their labour. There was very quickly a general commotion. I confess that in these moments my first instinct was to protect Roddy from the kinsmen of Lachlan Mackenzie. For this reason, when my husband arrived at the scene, I asked him to take Roddy inside our house without telling him what had occurred. Roddy was seated at our table and calmly repeated what he had done. My husband sent our daughter to fetch our neighbour, Duncan Gregor, to stand guard and then ran to Lachlan Mackenzie’s house, where he discovered the tragic scene.”

— "His Bloody Project"