Many people assisted with the completion of this book but none more so than Ben Stephenson. I’ve never been as happy as I have been during these past few years.
Further reading
There would have been no way to write this story without having first read the memoirs, diaries and histories of a number of authors. I’ve enjoyed the research as much as writing and the body of work on the subjects touched upon in this book is of an awesome quality. What follows is a small selection of these works. I should point out that any liberties with the truth or historical inaccuracies in my novel are purely my own doing.
Janusz Bardach’s memoir Man is Wolf to Man (co-written by Kathleen Gleeson, Scribner 2003) offers a powerful portrait of trying to survive in the Gulags of Stalinist Russia. On that subject both Anne Applebaum’s Gulag (Penguin 2004) and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn The Gulag Archipelago (Harvil 2003) have been essential reading.
For general historical background I’ve found Robert Conquest’s The Harvest of Sorrow (Pimlico 2002), Simon Sebag Montefiore’s Stalin (Phoenix 2004) and Shelia Fitzpatrick’s Everyday Stalinism (Oxford University Press 1999) extremely useful.
With regards to Russian police procedure, Anthony Olcott’s Russian Pulp (Rowman Littlefield 2001) went into detail not only about the justice system itself but also literary representations of that system. Boris Levytsky’s The Uses of Terror (Coward, McCann Geoghergan Inc. 1972) was invaluable when it came to understanding, or at least trying to, the machinations of the MGB. Finally, Robert Cullen’s The Killer Department (Orion 1993) provided a clear account of the real-life investigation into the crimes of Andrei Chikatilo.
I cannot recommend any of these books highly enough.
Tom Rob Smith — QA
How do you write? For example, do you have a favourite time of day to write? Or a favourite place?
I start early. I’m a morning person, I like those early hours. Midday is the worst time for me writing wise — I go for a walk, take a long lunch and then start again around two. I rarely work later than seven in the evening. It adds up to a lot of hours but it never feels particularly tough as a regime.
At the moment I work in a study but I’m not sentimental about it, which is fortunate since it’s a rented flat. In fact, I’m about to move, so I’ll be working somewhere new in a month or two.
Which book(s) inspired you to become an author?
I don’t know if there was any one book. I’m pretty sure it was every book I ever loved. And not just books but also television, film, theatre— I’ve always liked stories, it’s nice to be able to make it my living.
Which other writers do you most admire and why?
The list is long, I wouldn’t know where to start — and I’d get nightmares that I’d forgotten someone. Plus, I don’t know how meaningful a list it would be anyway: you love different authors for different reasons at different times of the day. Coming up with a list would be like scratching names in fresh cement, I’d be fine with it today, embarrassed by it tomorrow.
What influenced the creation of CHILD 44?
The television series 24 was an influence. I wanted to write a book that was as exciting as 24, a page-turner in the way that show is compulsive. I buy the DVD box sets. I’ve watched three or four episodes back to back. I’ve never watched one episode by itself. I have to force myself to stop and put them aside for at least another day just to make it last. Of course, there are plenty of books like that, books you finish in a day, but I remember very distinctly watching series three of 24 at the beginning of sitting down to write CHILD 44.
Without wishing to seem oblique, another big influence was public transport. I used to live in South London and commute to East London: it took an hour with no delays and often it was an hour and a half. There was no way to do that journey without a book, and a certain type of book, a book you could get wrapped up in, a book you could read standing up, a book you’d miss your tube stop for. That was the kind of book I wanted to write. I owe a debt of gratitude to the District line.
Were any of the central characters based on real-life historical figures?
The events surrounding real life serial killer Andrei Chikatilo were the springboard for the novel. But the bungled criminal process, the injustices, the system itself — these were more important than any real life characters in terms of inspiration. Soviet Russia is itself a character in the book — a peculiar blend of horror and absurdity. I’ve tried to be as close as I can to that.
However, I didn’t model the character of my fictional serial killer on the real killer. I took his crimes but not his character. Andrei Chikatilo discovered that other people’s pain gave him intense pleasure. That is a very interior, private motivation: one that is essentially unfathomable, indescribable. It belongs to him and no one else. It makes sense to him and no one else. It doesn’t give a reader, or me for that matter, any way in. Therefore, there’s a risk they’d seem flat, a device, a mere monster, rather than a “real” person. It’s ironic since in some ways making the killer dull and flat might have been a more accurate description of the man. Would it have made good reading? I didn’t think it would so I’ve totally rethought his reasoning and, insane though it still is, my killer offers up a warped logic to his crimes, that allows us to get a little closer to him.
What first attracted you to a narrative set in Stalinist Russia?
The story attracted me — the idea of a criminal investigation being hampered by a social theory, the theory that this crime simply could not exist. The story and setting, in that regard, are inextricable. But I didn’t suddenly think Stalinist Russia would be a great place to set a novel and go fishing for a story. Having said that, the more research I did, the more I realised what an amazing stretch of history it was and that definitely powered me forward.
Out of all the research, what was the most illuminating or unforgettable piece of information you discovered?
Some facts do stick in your mind, not always because they’re the most shocking or the most extreme. I remember reading that Stalin ordered a census of his population, I think in 1937. When the results of census came back, stating that the population was much lower than Stalin desired it to be (because he’d murdered so many people) he had the census takers shot. It was jaw dropping: executing people because he was annoyed the population wasn’t higher which was his fault anyway. Stalin then released his own inflated figures, figures he could’ve just made up in the first place.
What works similar to your own would you recommend to the reader who wanted to find out more?