NEWS & REVIEWS

American Writer Sets Thrillers in Finland (Yle news)

Source: Yle news

American expat Jim Thompson has launched an international writing career by publishing thrillers first in – and about – Finland.

“Writing was a hobby. Of course I always wanted to publish something,” Thompson told YLE’s morning programme Aamu-TV.

He has lived in Finland for a decade, and found his writing career almost by accident. While working at neighbourhood Kallio pub Hilpeä Hauki, he happened to make the acquaintance of Jaakko Pietiläinen, the president of publishing company Johnny Kniga.

“One day we started talking and I explained the idea of the book I was writing. Jaakko says he wanted to read the book, and soon we had a deal,” says Thompson.

The book, Blood of Jerusalem (Jerusalemin veri) had been turned down by American publishers for being too graphic. In Finland, however, it flew to the presses in 2007 and was soon on shop shelves. After the success of the first book, Thompson went on to write Lumienkelit (Snow Angels) and Jumalan nimeen (In the Name of God.)

Through another set of happy coincidences, a top American writers’ agent took notice of Thompson and soon secured him a deal with American publisher Putnam. Even so, Thompson says he has no plans to leave Finland.

“I have two careers,” he says. “In Finland I write thrillers and internationally I publish detective novels.”

Ashland native shows dark side in books (The Daily Independent)

Source: The Independent

They say Finnish is the second-hardest language in the world to learn, just after Mandarin Chinese.

Jim Thompson learned that the hard way when he followed his heart to the country nestled between Sweden and Russia and poking its northern quadrant into the Arctic Circle.

It was a woman who drew Thompson to Finland, and even after breaking up with her the Ashland native remained, tending bar and enrolling in Helsinki University, where he met his wife, Annulkka.

So he had to learn the language, the better to serve up beers and understand the lectures at university. Before long, Thompson figured he belonged in Finland. He earned baccalaureate and master’s degrees in English philology.

And he threw himself into writing. Thompson taught himself to write by immersing himself in the craft. He read his favorite authors analytically.

Thinking he might try his hand at a thriller, he deconstructed one of the best — “Day of the Jackal” by Frederick Forsyth. “I took it apart like tearing the walls of a house out to the studs,” he said.

Thompson, 44, is unknown — for now — in the U.S. literary world, but in Finland, he has published two novels and has two more in the works. Both have been released in Finnish only (Thompson writes in English and collaborates with a translator to create the final product in Finnish).

But the U.S. publishing house G.P. Putnam’s Sons plans to release one, “Snow Angels,” in English in January, meaning Thompson is on the verge of gaining a domestic audience at last.

Authors published under the Putnam imprint include Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Amy Tan, Robert B. Parker and Tom Clancy.

Becoming a writer in Finland started when he was a child at Holy Family School, Thompson said Tuesday, lounging on the back porch of his father’s rustic house in the hills of Lawrence County. He and his wife are visiting the United States for about a week.

Thompson’s mother, Judy Chabot, teaches physics at Ashland Community and Technical College.

His family was a bookish one, with cases full of classics, said his father, James, a former photo department manager. Young Jim generally had a book in his hand, his father said.

At Holy Family, assigned to write a book report, Thompson turned up his nose at the suggested young-reader-appropriate selections and chose instead “Lenin in Zurich,” by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

When he first started writing seriously, he encountered a vicious and uncompromising critic — himself. “I was throwing my own stuff against the wall, it was so bad … It’s like somebody who likes to eat thinking they know how to cook.”

His self-schooling included daily writing and membership in writers’ groups. It took time. After 10 years, he grudgingly admits he’s competent.

Seeing Thompson relaxed in the afternoon sunshine, his father and wife beside him and hummingbirds buzzing and flitting among feeders hanging from the rafters, it is difficult to picture him as the author of hard-edged crime novels.

A selection from “Snow Angels” depicts a bleak scene of murder and mutilation driven by racial hatred. The murder mystery draws in readers, who will follow his protagonist, small-town policeman, Inspector Vaara, as he investigates the vicious killing of a B-movie starlet in his resort town near the Arctic Circle.

It is the exploration of racism that intrigues Thompson, however. Americans may believe racial bigotry is an entirely domestic curse, but Thompson, after 11 years in Finland, finds it there as well.

In “Snow Angels, “ Vaara explains it:

“Finns are sensitive about race relations because by and large we’re closet racists …it’s not the overt racism of the American kind, … but a quiet racism. The passing-over of foreigners for promotions, a general disregard and disdain … We don’t talk about hatred, we hate in silence.”

It may be, he reflected, that his Finnish readers resent an American expatriate revealing their cultural skeletons. It’s part of the writer’s job, he believes. “Part of what I do is show people themselves.”

The publication date for “Snow Angels” is Jan. 10; readers should be able to find it in most bookstores. Thompson’s contract with Putnam calls for a sequel.

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.”

YLE radio interview (in Finnish)

http://www.yleradio1.fi/kulttuuri/kultakuume/

Choose the day 30.3.2009.

Across the Green Line paperback

Across the Green Line (Jerusalemin veri in Finnish) will appear in paperback in bookstores around Finland beginning 1.4.2009

Reviews

I just posted some reviews, but they’re all in Finnish, so I didn’t post them here on the English part of the site. If you want to take a look, just click the Finnish flag

French deal for Snow Angels and sequel

A deal has been concluded for Snow Angels and its sequel, Dead of Winter, with French publisher Gawsewitch. This follows international sales with: Germany; Rowohlt, Spain; Roca. United States; Putnam Finland; WSOY

Putnam deal

Author Jim Thompson has closed a two-book deal with Putnam, a major United States publisher, for Snow Angels, a crime novel set in Finnish Lapland, and its sequel, Dead of Winter. Thompson has contracted with Finnish publisher Johnny Kniga, an imprint of WSOY, for a series of thrillers and crime novels, the first of which, Across the Green Line (in Finnish, Jerusalemin veri), was recently released.

Thompson’s US literary agent, publishing industry legend Nat Sobel, negotiated the deal with Putnam. Sobel represents bestselling authors such as James Ellroy and Edward Bunker, and in October showcased Thompson at the world’s largest book fair in Frankfurt Germany. Sobel says Snow Angels was “hands down his hottest book in Frankfurt,” and that nearly every editor and publisher he showed it to requested a manuscript. Interest was so high that Sobel held an auction for North American rights on November 19^th for Snow Angels and Dead of Winter. Sobel says it has been a long time since a novel he represents generated enough interest to warrant an auction, and that he expects to sell Thompson’s works into several European countries and the UK as well as the United States.

Putnam placed the high bid and won the novel for an undisclosed amount. Putnam editor Kathryn Davis says, “G.P. Putnam’s Sons is thrilled to be publishing Finland’s best-kept secret, Jim Thompson. Snow Angels is a page-turner that reverberates with the tension and menace of Finland’s violent underbelly in the dark days of winter. We’re ready to bring this promising new talent to a broader American audience.”

G.P. Putnam’s Sons leads the publishing industry with more New York Times bestsellers than any other imprint in the publishing industry. Its list of award-winning, bestselling authors is well-known around the world. With its unrivaled bestselling track record, Putnam is one of the most respected and prestigious imprints in the industry. Putnam authors include: Tom Clancy, Patricia Cornwell, Catherine Coulter, Clive Cussler, Frederick Forsyth, Sue Grafton, Jack Higgins, Amy Tan and Kurt Vonnegut.

Thompson’s publishing story began a little more than a year ago. He was bartending at Hilpeä hauki, a bar in Kallio, when he met Johnny Kniga managing editor Jaakko Pietiläinen. Thompson told Pietiläinen that he had been writing for many years but had been unable to find a US publisher because they considered his writing too brutal and subject matter too controversial for publication. “They kept telling me I was a good writer, but that I was writing the wrong books,” Thompson says. “Jaakko thought they were wrong.”

Johnny Kniga prides itself on publishing controversial literature. Pietiläinen read Thompson’s debut novel, Across the Green Line, and brought it to the attention of Johnny Kniga publisher Jyrki Nieminen. Pietiläinen and Nieminen had so much confidence in Thompson’s writing that they took the unusual step of contracting with him for three novels before the first hit the bookstores. They now expect to publish five of Thompson’s novels before year end 2010. A second thriller, Snow Angels, will appear in spring 2009, and The True Name of God will follow in the autumn.

“My deal with Putnam never would have happened without Johnny Kniga,” Thompson says. “Jaakko is a brilliant editor. He’s worked with me developing three books so far, including Snow Angels. He pushes me to write as well as I’m able and bring my books up to the quality needed to sell on the international market. And if Jyrki hadn’t believed in me enough to contract for these books and promote me like he has, I would never have gotten the attention of Nat Sobel and Putnam. This is their success as much as mine.”

Foreign sales

Following sales of Jim Thompson’s crime novels, Snow Angels and Dead of Winter, to US publisher Putnam, the novels have also sold to major publishers in Spain and Germany. Sales in other countries are under negotiation.

Publisher’s Weekly 01.12.08

Deals:

New series to Putnam

Capitalizing on the hot Scandinavian thriller trend, Kate Davis at Putnam has acquired two books in a series via Nat Sobel, who sold North American rights at auction. The novels, Snow Angels and Dead of Winter, will feature a hard-boiled detective delving into Finland’s dark, violent underbelly. Thompson is an American who’s been living in Finland for10 years. Projected pub dates are Jan. 2010 and Jan. 2011, followed a year after in each case by Berkley paperbacks.