Novelist Jim Thompson: cross-breeding the American pulp and Nordic crime (Helsinki Times)

Source: Helsinki Times article

A full time novelist, Jim Thompson discusses his second novel, Snow Angels, and finding success as a foreigner in Finland.

Snow Angels opens quickly in a small town in Finnish Lapland. Kaamos, the endless night of Arctic winter, closes in on Northern Finland through Christmas. The darkness, the cold and the silence pile on the pressure in the ski-resort setting of Levi. A gorgeous Somali movie star is found slaughtered on a snowy reindeer farm. As the trail of evidence unveils a tense community riddled with violence, alcoholism, suicide and mental illness, Detective Kari Vaara finds that the investigation draws too close to his past.

I had a chance to ask Jim why he chose to write Snow Angels, he replied: “I tried to sell my first novel [Across the Green Line] through an American agent, yet every publisher felt that a political thriller set in the Middle East touched too many hot buttons in America after 9/11. So the agent suggested I write a crime novel set in Finland, thinking that Northern Finland would be an exotic setting of interest to an international audience.”

“I began with the goal of cross-breeding the American pulp and Nordic crime genres. My editor at Johnny Kniga, Jaakko Pietiläi- nen, and also my US agent, Nat Sobel, [who represents such bestselling authors such as as James Ellroy and Edward Bunker] both encouraged me to weight the book more towards Nordic crime. So over a couple of drafts, the novel became less brutal and more environmental and cultural.”

Jim started to write down his observations and knowledge of the culture after ten years of living in Finland, much of that time spent tending bar at Hilpeä Hauki in the Kallio district of Helsinki, where he also lived.

As for choosing to tell the story in the first person, Jim wanted to put the reader inside the mind of the protagonist, a Finnish detective, and feel the effects of Finnish arctic winter. The first-person dialogue certainly moves the crime story quickly and evokes a sense of the northern mindset. Jim emphasised, “Also, I made the protagonist’s wife an American to demonstrate to Finns how a foreigner might perceive their culture – and to relay those things to an international audience.”

In a timely fashion, Nordic fiction has become an international trend lately, perhaps giving the book wider interest. So far, Snow Angels’ sequel Dead of Winter is scheduled for release in Finland, France, Germany, Spain and the US.

Describing how it feels to gain international attention as a Finnish writer and find success, “I don’t know if I’m creating a new genre or anything. It just feels good to write full time.”