In Always
, the six-foot-tall fury (who proved in her previous two books that she can kill you as easily as look at you) is shaken by the shocking consequences of the self-defense class she's been teaching, and her investigation of what seems to be run-of-the-mill real-estate fraud is turning out to be more than she bargained for.Seattlest: Though there are conventional whodunit mysteries within them, the biggest mysteries to Aud seem to be her own nature and the inner lives of other people. How comfortable are you with the label “mystery novel” for them?
Griffith: I have no quarrel with any label a reader feels is appropriate to my work--except, of course, that labels are reductive and I'm not partial to being reduced. But are the Aud books mysteries? No, not really. They're less interested in asking, Who did it?, or Why? than in What does it mean?, and How does it fit? The Aud books could, conceivably, be called crime fiction. To the extent that Aud is progressing from near-sociopath to almost-hero, she is learning to do good in the world.
Seattlest: Do you have a grand plan for Aud – more novels, and a narrative arc? Or does Always complete her story?
Griffith: I'd always imagine Aud as a sequence of five novels. I had another two after this one all mapped out. But Always took a turn I hadn't expected and now I'm not sure how to proceed. I think I'll have to sit with Aud a while and try to work out what she'll do in light of my deeper understanding. But I'm definitely not done with her. There's at least one book to come.
Read the rest of the interview with Nicola Griffith on Seattlest.com here.
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