Louise Hegarty is a prizewinning author of short fiction, including the story “Getting the Electric,” which has been optioned for a screen adaptation.”Fair Play” is her debut novel, and here she takes the Book Pages Q&A.
Q. Please tell readers about your new book.
My book “Fair Play” begins on New Year’s Eve 2022. A group of friends have gathered at a house in the Irish countryside to celebrate their friend Benjamin’s birthday and to ring in the New Year. They spend the night eating, drinking and playing a murder mystery game devised by Benjamin’s sister Abigail.
The next morning, everyone awakes except Benjamin. Abigail then suddenly finds herself starring in a murder mystery of her own while she tries desperately to uncover the facts around her brother’s death.
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The title of the book comes from one of the defining principles of Golden Age detective fiction: the fair play doctrine – the concept that the reader should have “a sporting chance to solve the mystery.” I use these fair play rules together with the familiar structure of a Golden Age detective novel – with its murder, its suspect, its Watson and the reveal – to explore emotions around death and grief.
Q. Is there a book or books you always recommend to other readers?
I really enjoy Celia Dale’s novels, which are currently being reissued by Daunt Books. These are great thrillers and crime novels set in suburban Britain. I recommend starting with “A Helping Hand.”
Q. What are you reading now?
I am currently reading “The Safe Keep” by Yael Van der Wouden.
Q. How do you decide what to read next?
Generally from personal recommendations, but I also read reviews and interviews and keep a list of books that I find interesting. I also love wandering into a bookshop and picking up something at random.
Q. Do you remember the first book that made an impact on you?
A writer that had a huge impact on me as a child and who I still read and think about as an adult is Diana Wynne Jones. She had an incredible talent of enmeshing the supernatural with the everyday. Her books are well-plotted, creative, imaginative and more than anything else immensely enjoyable. I could name any number of her books – “Fire and Hemlock,” the Chrestomanci series, “Black Maria” – but the book I’ve re-read more than any other is “Archer’s Goon.”
Even though I don’t write children’s books, I think about the plotting and the writing and the ideas in this novel and use them as inspiration in my own writing today.
Q. Is there a book you’re nervous to read?
No, I would read anything.
Q. Do you have a favorite book or books?
“The Savage Detectives” by Roberto Bolaño, “Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry” by B.S. Johnson, “The Ginger Man” by J.P. Donleavy and “The Listening Wall” by Margaret Millar.
Q. Can you recall a book that felt like it was written with you in mind?
There was something about reading “The Savage Detectives” for the first time where something clicked for me – I’m not sure if it was something to do with the writing style or the language or the ideas, but it was the first time as an adult where I was truly excited about a book.
Q. What’s something – a fact, a bit of dialogue or something else – that has stayed with you from a recent reading?
I recently read “Oromay” by Baalu Girma, which has just been translated into English. Reading it knowing that the author lost his life because the publication of the book definitely changes the way you interact with it.
Q. Do you have any favorite book covers?
The original U.K. hardback version of “The Submission” by Amy Waldman is a longtime favorite. I also love the Fontana Books covers for Agatha Christie novels and the wonderful cover for the short story collection “The Start of Something” by Stuart Dybek.
Q. Which books are you planning to read next?
I am looking to start “Careless People” by Sarah Wynn-Williams soon. I also really want to read “Nova Scotia House” by Charlie Porter and “The Artist” by Lucy Steeds.
Q. Do you have a favorite quote from a book?
“…how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.” From “Ulysses.”
Q. Is there a person who made an impact on your reading life – a teacher, a parent, a librarian or someone else?
My parents believed it was very important to read as a child, and so they were very encouraging about books and writing.
Q. What do you find the most appealing in a book: the plot, the language, the cover, a recommendation? Do you have any examples?
I buy most books because of recommendations as that’s a big thing. I am also primarily interested in books that are formally experimental and that are doing something new and have a sense of ambition about them.
Q. What’s a memorable book experience – good or bad – you’re willing to share?
I always enjoy reading books on holidays, especially because in the future you always associate that book with a specific time and place.
Q. Is there a book that tapped into an emotion you didn’t expect?
There is something about the horror genre – especially Stephen King. Horror is such a difficult thing to write in my opinion – and I don’t fully know why these books genuinely scare me so much, when it is, of course, just simply words on a page.
Q. Do you have a favorite bookstore or bookstore experience?
On a recent trip to L.A., I visited The Last Bookstore in downtown, which I could spend hours in.
Q. What’s something about your book that no one knows?
The detective Auguste Bell is written in the vein of Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes. His name comes from C. Auguste Dupin who appears in arguably the first detective story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and Joseph Bell who was the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes.