A Reformed Con Man Makes for an Unforgettable Protagonist in "The Gift"

Note: Text has been edited and does not match audio exactly.

Nicole Ransome: Hallo, I'm Audible Editor Nicole, and I'm excited to introduce listeners to Sebastian Fitzek, international bestselling author of Therapy and now the Audible Original The Gift, which was originally translated from German. Willkommen, Sebastian.

Sebastian Fitzek: Hello, Nicole. Thank you for having me.

NR: So, The Gift's main character, Milan, has a reading ability called alexia, where he has issues with reading and comprehension due to a head trauma or injury. So what inspired you to write this story?

SF: It was in a book fair in Germany. I think it's the second-biggest book fair or maybe the biggest book fair in Frankfurt, and I was just going through the hall and there was a stand and there were people who have this ability not to read or write, they can't read and write. I was shocked, because those people told me that we have seven million people in the German-speaking world that are unable to read or write. And these are adults. I thought, "This is amazing." And I learned about them, how they manage to survive and to have their everyday life, because they don't want other people to know that they can't do this. They have a hidden secret and they are, for me, true heroes, because they, for example, they work as a waitress or as a waiter, and they have to learn everything by heart, because they can't write down what people want to order. And so they are working, but they don't want anybody to know. And a hidden secret in everyday life, this is usually a great start for a hero.

NR: Yeah, I was going to ask about that. Milan struggles with illiteracy. Can you talk about the stigma that exists today in Germany that might cause Milan to go to such extremes?

SF: I thought there's a stigma, but what people who suffered from this and now are able to read or write because they learned it when they were adults, they always told me that was usually in their head. They thought when they reveal that they have alexia, people would laugh or bully them, but it wasn't [that way]. They were offered a lot of help. Usually, the worst enemy is in our head and is saying, "You're weak and you won't get where you want." So, actually, that was a good part of the story. There's one story I learned from a guy called Tim, and he is intelligent and everything but he wasn't able to read or write, because in school, he never went there. And when he was there, he managed to slip through. And then he has a first girlfriend, and was, I think, 20, 21, and he had to come to the house to get to know the parents. And then the parents started to play Monopoly. And he had to read a card. So, this was the moment when he had to say, "Well, I can't read it," and he was so ashamed that the next day he started to learn it, and later on he said, "Well, I should have started earlier. Someone maybe should have helped me earlier, because it wasn't that the society really was bullying me."

"Usually, the worst enemy is in our head and is saying, 'You're weak and you won't get where you want.'"

NR: I think that's probably why my favorite character was Andra, Milan's girlfriend. You know, she seemed to be the most understanding character. After the therapy session, and he didn't respond too well, I felt for her, because she really wanted to get to the bottom of everything. So, with the story of Tim, were you trying to portray kind of a similarity within her perspective in this story?

SF: In the story you find a lot of aspects that other people told me, because there's a group of former alexia patients who now are able to learn. They teach others, and they really told me stories that they were so ashamed. For example, there was one, it was at a wedding and just before the ceremony, [some]one came up with the idea "You should read something out loud, and here's a card." And she couldn't, she was too ashamed. So she went into the bathroom and she slammed the drawer with her fingers in it, because she wanted to get hurt and to get to the hospital and not to say anything to her friends or to the relatives.

I heard a lot of these stories, and a lot of hero stories from people who worked somewhere and were asked, “What's in the news today? What's in the paper today?” during lunchbreak. And this guy invented stories, because he doesn't want others to know that he never read a newspaper. But this is how it came up, because the people asked, "Well, this is a great and interesting story, but I can't find it in the news today.”

This is one stigma. We think they are maybe a little bit dull, they are a little bit behind, because otherwise they would know how to read or write. But this is not true. A lot of them are really, really intelligent, and mostly they really try to survive. The stigma is that people usually say you need to read or write, but nobody says, for example, "Oh, he can't cook, or she can't cook" or "She is not good at fixing things at home." It's a disadvantage, in our society; we have a reading society. Not, at Audible [laughs]—this is more of a hearing society, which is great, actually, for people with alexia, too, that they can hear books. Because they really want to be part of the community.

NR: Yeah, and you incorporate a lot of real-world and psychological struggles in your characters, for example illiteracy, schizophrenia, and depression. How are you hoping to bring awareness to these topics through these characters? What do you hope listeners take away from your stories?

SF: First of all, I write for entertaining reasons, but it's always good to have a focus on something which is relevant. I think still in our society that you have no problem when you say, "Well, I'm going to the doctor. I have a flu and I need some medicine." This is not a problem. But if you say, "Well, I suffer from deep depression" or "I see weird things and hear weird voices and I'm going to a psychiatrist," then people in Germany say, "Whoa." They are not talking about this. They're not talking about mental illnesses. I think this is really a stigma. If your brain is not working right, it's a problem. If you broke your mind, there's a problem, if you broke your leg it's accepted. I did a lot of research, and I have some friends. I had one friend, he had a severe issue, and he died, which is a really sad story. And what I was living through with him inspired me to write my first book, Therapy. So, I want to say, “Don't be ashamed if you need help. It's like every other illness.”

NR: Your novel Therapy is coming to Amazon Prime Video as a TV show. Can you speak to a bit of that?

SF: Yeah, I'm very excited. The release day is not fixed yet, but somewhere around October. There are six episodes, and it starts with a father waiting for his daughter to come out of a practice room of a doctor, but she never comes out. You wait there, and everybody keeps telling you, “Well, you sat there alone and your daughter [never] went in, and you have no appointment today.” This starts the beginning of a nightmare. And it was the beginning of my career. It wasn't planned that it was going to be a success, but it started on Amazon, actually, because there were only a few copies in the shops. But then word of mouth, "Well, you have to read the book," and it was only available on Amazon in the first place. So, it went number one on Amazon, and stayed there for a very long time. And so it was a lot of luck in the beginning of my career. I'm very, very happy that it's now going to be a series.

NR: Well, congratulations, I will be tuning in.

SF: Yeah, thank you very much. I think they really did a good job.

NR: So, can you tell me which character you enjoyed writing the most for The Gift?

SF: Yeah, actually, it was, of course, Milan, because I don't know a lot of books and audiobooks where you have a character that never reads. I mean, this is a character, actually, which needs to be in a book, because I wanted to show how does the world for him look like, and it's different to us. We don't see the world and we don't recognize that it's so visual, that we live in a visual world. You're texting, you're commenting on Instagram. If you want to book a flight, you have to go online. Your bank stuff and everything is now online. And then you have to text. This was so interesting, and it reminded me of writing another book where I have to focus on the person who can't see anything, a blind person, which is a totally different world of course also. But this is something that it's really hard to describe. Maybe you can imagine that you've been to a foreign country and you can't even see the letters and you don't know what anything means, and you have to figure out [how] to survive there. But to me, it was a pleasure, it was a little bit hard to dive into this world sometimes to see “Now, in this chapter, no, he can't see this, he can't see the WhatsApp or the email coming in or the telephone number or anything. He needs to do everything with his voice.”

"I always think that I know the ending and every twist, but then when I start writing, I know it comes to a point where all the characters are no longer doing what I planned them to do and intend them to do."

NR: Are there any characters that you see a bit of yourself in?

SF: I think I'm in every character. Even the father. In every character, an Andra or a Milan, there's a little bit of me, but usually I try to avoid that somebody else is recognizing his or herself because I fear that they're mad about me when they say, "Well, you put me in a psychological thriller." [laughs]

NR: Yeah. One of the things, actually, I also wanted to talk about, no spoilers, but there are many twists and turns in The Gift. Did you already know how it would end when you began writing?

SF: I always think that I know the ending and every twist, but then when I start writing, I know it comes to a point where all the characters are no longer doing what I planned them to do and intend them to do. They are having their own life, and they do what they want. The thing is that, usually, this is a great moment and a moment which I fear because now these are no longer just fictional characters, they come to life, and I can feel, I can hear them. But the other side is that I'm not sure if where they go, does it lead to anywhere? Will there be a logical story in the end? So, this is usually when I take a break and I rethink everything. It sounds strange, but it's true. I can't force them to do what I want. If I do this, I think the listener, he or she will hear that there's something wrong, because this is not the usual behavior of a character. Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, I'm really surprised, even about the ending and who turns out to be the evil guy.

NR: You utilize time-jumps, I've noticed, in a few of your stories. So how do you think these time-jumps add to the flow of your story or understanding of the characters?

SF: Well, psychological thrillers are usually not so easy to follow, because I want to give the listener the feeling or the understanding of the feeling of the main characters. So, when people say, "Now I'm a little bit lost and I don't know what's real, what's fiction," I think, "Well, that's exactly the point, where I wanted to lead you, because this is how the main character feels." So, I think it's not only the time-jumps, it's the construction of the story, which is a little bit more complicated [than] maybe a crime story that leads from A to Z.

NR: Ari Fliakos narrates The Gift. So, what was it like working with Ari Fliakos on the narration? What were you looking for in a narrator for the story?

SF: Well, actually, as I'm not a native speaker—you hear this—I really had a lot of trust in Audible to pick a right speaker, and they suggested, and I heard his voice and his art, I said, "This is great, I would be really happy if he would be willing to do this. "I'm so glad because I now understand why he's got [such] good ratings, and he has a fanbase, which is always important for beginners. In Audible Germany, when my book Therapy came out as an audiobook, nobody knew my name. But there was Simon Jäger, which is the German voice of my audiobooks, and he had a fanbase also. And people just gave it a try. So, he's a star and I'm the beginner, and I hoped really that I don't disappoint his core audience.

NR: I don't think they'll be disappointed at all.

SF: Because he really did a great job. He really, really, really did a great job.

NR: He really did. I really enjoyed his narration. And I just wanted to ask, how long have you been a fan of Audible, and what do you like about the spoken-word format?

SF: I'm a huge fan of Audible in many different ways. My career, my working career, started as an editor for a radio station, and I worked for [RTL 104.6] radio stations in Berlin and for a lot of different stations. And so this is why I like books, audiobooks, and everything which deals with the spoken word, because you have to create pictures with words, and you don't show the pictures. They are only in the mind of the listeners, of the readers. And this is so great. So, I like podcasts, I like Audible, audiobooks, and books. I think they have a lot in common.

NR: And do you have any favorite listens you would like to recommend?

SF: So, actually, I'm a huge fan—people know this—of Harlan Coben. When I started writing and my book became a success, I always was asked if there are any tips that I have and what I can recommend. And I was so glad that I could, in Germany and in Switzerland, in Austria, I could recommend Harlan Coben. Because not a lot of people knew him here. And then I was really, really lucky that they asked me for a quote to give, and I say, "Well, of course." And they put my name on one of Harlan's books, and it was the first time that he hit the bestselling list in Germany. It's just a coincidence. It had nothing to do with my quote, but I was really happy. But now when I say Harlan Coben, everybody says, "Yeah, okay, I know him. Do you have any secret tip?" Harlan, even in the German-speaking market, is no secret anymore. He's a huge, huge star, and I like the way that he combines a story which is intense and has a lot of suspense, but also humorous. Sometimes, really, I laugh out loud. Especially his Myron Bolitar stories. I really like them.

NR: Yes, he's very funny. So, thank you so much for taking the time. Vielen dank, dass sie heute mit mir sprechen. [Thank you for speaking with me today.] Listeners, you can get The Gift on Audible now.

SF: Very good, thank you very much.

NR: Thank you.