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Photo credit: Lauren Perry.
The Sun Down Mote
By Simone St. James
Berkley Hardcover
February 18, 2020
$26.00
I just finished reading “The Sun Down Motel” by Simone St. James about an hour ago. I was thrilled to be given the chance to read a book that’s so well known on Instagram. It was the first book in a long time that I read while cooking dinner, before punching in at work, and while sitting back in my mother’s recliner. This book needs to be a movie! You are dying to find out what happens next. You actually feel like you’re with Vic and Carly in the motel office while ghosts restlessly roam the grounds.
Here’s what Simone had to say about her book:
How would you describe “The Sun Down Motel?”
Oh, that’s a tough one. It’s about two women, one in the present day and one in 1982, who end up conducting very different amateur murder investigations. It’s a little “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark,” a dash of “Mindhunter,” with some “Bates Motel” thrown in. It’s creepy and spooky and oddly moving. At least, that’s how I felt when I wrote it.
What kind of research did you do for the novel? Did anything surprise you?
I read a lot of true crime books and listened to a lot of true crime podcasts. The stories didn’t make it directly into the book — What I wanted was the mood, the feel of what it would be like to investigate a crime, to follow it to its end. Both heroines from the past and present storylines get sucked in to their own investigations, so I used a lot of detail to get the feel of that right.
As for surprises, when you read true crime, you get surprised all the time, usually by something unimaginably horrifying. That’s part of the addiction.
The out-of-time quality of the motel and the deteriorating small town add to the creepy and compelling atmosphere of the novel. How did you decide to set “The Sun Down Motel” in Upstate NY?
I’m only about two hours’ drive from upstate New York, so I’ve been there any number of times. My writer friends and I regularly do writers’ retreat weekends there. It’s a great place, a terrific place to get lost in, and it was easy for me to set a story there.
The fictional town of Fell, NY has many unsolved murders. Are any of the murders based on real-life cases?
All of the cases are fictional, I wanted the murders to be almost generic, in a way, because the idea of a murder being generic is upsetting. I wanted to hammer home that this is something that happens a lot, and that unsolved murders get forgotten about. That idea bothers both of my heroines, and they can’t sit back and let it happen. Writing about someone trying to right a wrong was very fun.
The novel is told from two perspectives — Viv Delaney in 1982 and Carly Kirk in 2017. Was one perspective particularly easy or challenging to write?
Carly came easy to me, because I’d love to be friends with her, but Viv came a bit harder. Viv is a darker character, more self-contained, and she goes on a journey to some very dark places. In some ways she’s almost an anti-heroine, which was a challenge. I loved writing her.
Viv Delaney and her niece Carly Kirk are both drawn to Fell for different reasons, but ultimately feel at home there and end up leading similar lives. How are Viv and Carly alike? How are they different?
Both Carly and Viv get drawn into righting some very serious wrongs, at risk to themselves – they are everyday women who find themselves pulled into something dangerous that they can’t let go of. But they both have to make some big choices in the book, and Viv takes one path while Carly takes another. I won’t spoil it, but that divergence was what I wanted to explore between those two women – the different choices they make and the paths they end up on.
What challenges did you face while writing “The Sun Down Motel?”
The same challenges I face with every book — getting it finished on time, making it the best it can be. I revise each book at least two or three times before my editor sees it, and then it gets revised a few more times after that. Even after my seventh book, I’m still amazed I finish anything. When I’m deep in the middle of writing, finishing always seems impossible, yet somehow it still happens every time.
You’re an expert at crafting an eerie and atmospheric tone in your novels. Are there any writing techniques or habits that inspire this mood while you’re writing?
I have to have complete silence while I’m writing to keep the flow — or even better, I put on headphones and listen to the sound of a thunderstorm. I’ve written to thunderstorm sounds in all different seasons, when it’s hot summer or cracking cold. There’s something about that soothing white noise. I think I’ve written four books to the soundtrack of thunderstorms at last count!
Ghosts appear in many of your novels, including this one where The Sun Down Motel is haunted. Are you personally a believer?
I’ve never seen a ghost, but I don’t disbelieve. My books are about the possibility and they always have been. That’s what I think is more important to explore. What if? What if that sound you just heard was the wind? What if that legend the kids tell each other was actually true? You don’t know it is, but you don’t know it isn’t. That gray area, where the words “what if” come in — that’s always the place I travel in my books.