Terry Hayes, author of ‘I Am Pilgrim’: “I would rather die than write something boring, not for the reader, but for myself” | Culture

Terry Hayes (Sussex, 72 years old) is a born narrator capable of turning an interview during a sunny Madrid morning into a chat next to a fire fueled by the fuel of literature. Therefore, when we ask him why it has taken him 10 years to publish his second novel (The year of the locustPlanet) After the global sales and critical success of his debut, I’m Pilgrim, he has two answers. He cuts it off: “I did a lot of documentation and wrote a lot, so to get to the final version of 250,000 words I had to cut 700,000.” And the long one: life passed over this son of English immigrants in Australia, a poor child in an extreme environment who dreams of writing, who later becomes a screenwriter in Hollywood (Pay Back, Total calm either Mad Max 3, among others) and that when he has literary glory within reach he loses his father, his mother and his brother in a few months, the only ones who knew from the beginning of that boy’s secret ambition. “After everything that happened with I’m Pilgrim“, from success and the rest, I decided to stop and mourn my dead, stay home and take care of my children and write another novel, yes, but without wasting time that I was not going to return.”

The year of the locust is a huge spy story (in size and ambition), a novel starring Kane, a specialist agent in high-risk areas who has the mission of chasing and killing a fearsome terrorist, Al Tundra, a former member of the special forces. Russians, converted to Islam, founder of ISIS and now relaunched with The Army of the Pure, a new and radical terrorist cell with an imminent plan to hit the West. He is a refugee in Iran and only the hero of this story (polyglot, solitary, lethal) is in a position to undertake the hunt with any guarantee. Action and a plot that unfolds for more than 800 pages.

But this novel is also a reaction, a punch on the table, the answer through facts to those who asked during these years where the continuation of Pilgrim’s adventures was, to those who blamed him for having lost contact. with his readers. “When I finish I’m Pilgrim I was sick of him: a misanthropic, deeply wounded guy, incapable of going to a party or loving. “I never wanted to see him again in my life.” And yet, the paths of literature are inscrutable: “I created Kane as a scientific, rational, totally different man, with an intense personal life, people around him who help him, with that magnificent woman at his side. But in the end I don’t want to know anything about him and I’ve gone back to Pilgrim: I’m writing the sequel,” he comments with a twinkle in his eye.

The interview takes place in the Eugenio Trías library, in the middle of the Retiro, a few meters from the Book Fair, an ideal location for Hayes to reveal some secrets of his narrative. How do you work on such complex and extensive structures? “I don’t know what will happen when I start my novels. At first I only know what the first and last sentence will be, a system that can seem crazy.” And all those loose ends that end up falling into place? “There is a lot of work, but they emerge. If I knew them in advance, I would be typing, not writing. It wouldn’t be fun, although it would be much easier.”

Hayes’ novels unapologetically embrace the best of the genre (from John Le Carré to Charles Cummings through Charles McCarry) but here everything is at the service of the show, including the characters. What red lines would you never cross? “I love putting them in moral gray areas, forcing them to make difficult decisions. But when it comes to heroes, somewhere inside they have to be good and ask themselves: how much evil can be done for good to win? When it comes to the bad guys, they have to be just as smart and determined as the good guys. “I’m not fooling anyone there.”

Triple somersault

In the last third of the novel, Hayes activates a mechanism (which we won’t say anything about so as not to spoil it) that threatens to blow everything up. Why take these risks? “I don’t know if it works, some believe it does, others think it doesn’t, but it is justified throughout the entire plot. The narrative is changing through television, with very good series, TikTok and the rest of the social networks. I grew up with the great English-language novelists and my children with the Avengers. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but the landscape has changed very quickly and people don’t care about books anymore. Besides, I would rather die than do something boring, not for the reader, but for me,” he concludes with good humor.

Hayes’ novels immerse the reader in a fascinating world of secret services, agents and adventures in inhospitable places, so beloved of the genre. The English author has also been an investigative journalist and this work enriched with specialized sources is noticeable, but he does not hide his other resources —”I also invent, and a lot. The important thing is that it be credible. And, the good thing about writing about the secret services is that they are not going to come out and say what is true and what is not”—nor an essential asset for everything to work: “In the end the thriller It devours that of documentation and that is the key to fascinating the reader.”

I’m Pilgrim It’s a resurrection storyThe year of the locust, in its own strange way, too) and it’s not all over. There will be a sequel, as Hayes excitedly commented above, and it will once again give us, in the form of fiction, keys to understanding this turbulent world. “I was tired of terrorists and having to study the Koran, but I have found a perfect enemy: Russia.” When? “I hope it doesn’t take me ten years.”

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