In Conversation with Alex Lake, author of AFTER ANNA… The premise of AFTER ANNA is every parents’ worst nightmare. How did the idea for the book come to be?
I guess it’s because I’m a parent and it’s my worst nightmare! I think all parents have had a moment on the beach or in the supermarket or at the playground when their child is not where they last looked, and there's that sense of mounting panic and then, a second later, they spot them and it's all ok. But what if it wasn't? And that was the seed for AFTER ANNA. At the same time I also had an idea for a novel based around a married couple who decide to break up, but then have to stay together for some reason – a sick child, maybe, or some other crisis involving their kids. And then I put them together, and AFTER ANNA was born. And then of course, there's the twist - the abduction is only part of the story; we find out the rest when Anna is returned… Alex Lake is a gender-neutral pseudonym. Can you explain your choice for writing under a pen name? Does this have its challenges or advantages?
I chose a pen name because AFTER ANNA is a different kind of novel – a psychological thriller – to my other novels. I also found that writing as Alex Lake puts me in a different frame of mind. Alex is a different person to me in many ways - possessed, paradoxically, of both a darker imagination and a more playful side - and that is quite liberating. I write differently as Alex Lake, which sounds kind of pretentious, but it’s true. I don’t really think about why I have to pretend I’m someone else to let my darker (and more playful) sides out. I prefer not to know… AFTER ANNA was a runaway best seller in the UK. Tell us what that experience has been like. (Especially as a British writer who now lives in the US.) I found it thrilling, and a bit unreal. It was amazing that so many people were reading something I’d written. I was – and am – extremely grateful. Growing up I was a bookworm (something which hasn’t changed) and I used to read the Sunday Times Top Ten bestsellers as a teenager and pester my parents to buy me the books. To see AFTER ANNA there was amazing. The thing with living in the US is that I’ve never actually seen AFTER ANNA in a book store. I’m looking forward to changing that in a few weeks.
What do you hope readers take away from AFTER ANNA? I hope they enjoy reading it, mainly. And I hope that they remember that there is a human story behind what we read in the press - Julia, Anna’s mum, comes in for some pretty rough treatment on social media from people who judge her without access to all the facts, something which is sadly all too prevalent in today’s world. AFTER ANNA ends with a shocking twist. Had you always known how the novel would end or did the ending unfold during the writing process?
I had the twist in mind, but not the details of how it unfolded. I tend not to plan too closely – I like to leave room for unexpected things to happen, which is not uncommon. Often the characters surprise me with something they say or do – but I do like to know the ending, if only so that I know I can get the book finished. I have a few manuscripts that I got 150 pages into then realized they were going nowhere. They’re now lying in a drawer collecting dust. I hope to resurrect them someday. Are you working on anything now? I have a new book - KILLING KATE - coming out in the UK in October and in the US in January 2017. It’s set in the same part of the world, a place loosely based on my home town. I tend to set my books in a real location; it helps ground them. The Village Sweet Shoppe in AFTER ANNA, for example, is a newsagent I used to buy candy from as a kid. I’m working on the next one at the moment; it takes place in Maine, where I live now. I’ve also got a follow up to AFTER ANNA in the works, although right now I only have the opening scene written.