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Nicole Ransome: Hi, I'm Audible Editor Nicole and I'm excited to welcome bestselling mystery author Alex Michaelides. You may have been introduced to Alex Michaelides with his debut psychological thriller, The Silent Patient, which catapulted its way onto the New York Times bestsellers list in 2019. Today, Alex is here to discuss his new whodunit, or whydunit, The Fury. Welcome, Alex.
Alex Michaelides: Hello, Nicole. Thank you very much for having me. I'm very happy to be here.
NR: It's nice to have you here. So, The Fury is told from the first-person perspective of Elliot Chase, a playwright. It follows along with his recount of what happened to a retired actress named Lana Farrar. What was it like writing from Chase's perspective as a character who knows he has total control over the narrative?
AM: Right. Well, you've put your finger on it, really, because that was the most fun part of the book for me, was writing Elliot. He came really organically. I suppose I should say first that I wrote the book in a different way to the way I wrote my first two books, which was interesting. I decided not to plan it, just to write the first draft, not quite knowing where I was going. Whereas my first two books, I spent like a year planning it each time. And it really freed me up, and I had a lot of fun doing that. It felt like a very organic process.
But then the first draft, Elliot was just a kind of minor character. I'd written the whole thing in the third person, and it focused mainly on Lana. And when I read it through, it just felt a bit lifeless to me, and I couldn't quite work out why. And so I just asked myself for the first time, "Who is telling this story?" And it occurred to me that it might be Elliot. And so I rewrote the whole book in the first person with him telling the tale. And what happened was, he was just such a fun character to write that he ended up taking over and he changed the plot and he made himself the main character of the book, which was really unexpected to me. And all kinds of fun things that he was revealing to me, backstories and stuff about his life that I wasn't aware of when I started writing, felt a lot of fun.
"There's something about the act of detection itself, where you know that order is going to be wrought from chaos, and I find that really comforting and reassuring."
And also, to answer your question, the fact that he is a playwright and is so aware of the conventions and the expectations that someone brings to a genre like this made it really fun, because I know that these days, readers are too. So it felt like a kind of fun interplay where he was playing with our expectations and also aware of what we knew, what we thought was going to happen, and then trying to surprise us. So it all kind of came together quite cohesively, I think.
NR: Yeah, it definitely did. As a writer, writing about a writer, did you find that you connected with his character a lot?
AM: Yes, I did. He became more interesting to me when I kind of realized that we'd perhaps gone on similar journeys in life. Because I was a screenwriter originally, and I worked in Hollywood and I was around a lot of larger-than-life personalities, a lot of writers and famous actors and directors and people. And so I’d seen quite a lot of interesting and sometimes really quite bad behavior, and I thought it would be fun one day to write about characters like that. And I feel that I know that world well. So, making Elliot into a playwright kind of resonated with me, I suppose.
When I went to Hollywood, I found very quickly that I thought it was going to make me happy and solve all my problems, but what happens is that you always take yourself with you. And I realized that I was still as anxious and neurotic as I'd been as a child. And so I kind of had to deal with that myself. And that was something that I thought Elliot could go on too, that kind of journey where he realizes that he is fleeing his past and one day he has to face it. So, we had a lot in common, I think, really, in the end.
NR: Outside of Elliot, were there any other characters that you found yourself relating to as you wrote them?
AM: Yeah, well, I guess they're all me, you know, in a way. I've kind of split myself into pieces. Like, I loved Kate. She's this British theater actress, and she's really badly behaved and a party girl and she can be quite obnoxious. And I've definitely been that person occasionally when I was much younger. And I know people like that. Lana is quite sincere and truthful, and I find that quite appealing and quite an interesting person to hang around. And also has a crazy life, being a big movie star, and that's a kind of fun thing to explore. I like them all. I think as a bunch they might not be the most likable characters, but they're definitely interesting to me.
NR: I love that. The Fury leans into some amazing classic mystery tropes. I love a good classic mystery, so this was right up my alley. And Elliot, the main character, he makes mention of Agatha Christie very early on in the story. And as a fan of Agatha Christie's work, I can see where there were some similarities to And Then There Were None specifically. How does she influence you while writing the story?
AM: Well, that's a great question, because it felt central to me the whole time. Because I think, like myself, you like these kinds of books. A lot of people do. And so we know, thanks to Agatha Christie, who kind of did it first, we have expectations that we bring to this kind of book. So we know that we're going to get an isolated location, people are going to get trapped, there's going to be larger-than-life characters, and there's going to be a murder, and there's going to be a big reveal at the end. And I thought what would be really fun would be to take everyone's expectations of what they think they know they're getting and then kind of turn them on their head.
So that was what my goal was with the book, was to try and subvert it and change it and make it my take on it, because I don't want to try and just write a copy of somebody else's book. I want to try and make it my own. And I thought it's a fun way of telling an old story in a fresh way. So, yeah, she was always a big part of my writing because she's so good and so inspiring.
NR: Definitely. Did you find yourself drawing inspiration from anywhere else while writing The Fury?
AM: I was thinking a lot about classic movies that I love, like All About Eve or Laura or Sunset Boulevard, or a whole load of films about actors and movie stars. Films that are set in an age where people spoke in kind of witty dialogue and people dressed up. And I just wanted to be part of that world, which is why I kind of made them all of these playwrights, a British theater actress, and a film star. I thought it would be a really fun group of people to hang around with. So I was watching a lot of those films as I was writing it and trying to get the feel for that kind of having-a-cocktail-and-a-conversation kind of vibe.
NR: Yes. I definitely felt that conversational vibe. I was honestly a very big fan of how the story paced itself and how the characters were introduced. Another thing that intrigued me was the name for the story, The Fury. How did you come up with your title for this story?
AM: Well, it probably came first in a way because I grew up in Cyprus, and I spent a lot of time as a young man going around the Greek islands. And the wind is crazy around there. I once got stranded in Mykonos for a few days because the wind was too bad for a boat to leave. That was probably about 25 years ago. I think that was when I had the first idea of, "Oh, this is a cool way just to have people stuck somewhere." And I thought that the wind could then kind of play thematically into the story, because it obviously symbolizes this kind of anger. So it became, in my mind, The Fury, and then it all kind of went from there, really. It's definitely a metaphor, I think, for the characters’ emotions and everything that they're feeling, which is all heightened. So it felt like a happy accident that worked.
NR: Yeah, there was definitely a lot of internal anger [laughs]. Outside of the wind, there was a lot of internal anger. So, without spoilers, the ending of The Fury includes such a wild twist and caps off a really great whodunit plot while capturing what drove the actions of the murderer. Did you always know how this story would end?
AM: No, it ended a completely different way the first time I wrote the first draft, and it didn't work, and it didn't quite make sense. And I had a different ending, a different twist of a different ending. And basically, I gave it to my amazing editors, Ryan in New York at Celadon and Joel at Penguin, Michael Joseph in London, and my agent Sam. And they kind of just said, "You know what, you should either bin this book and start something else, or you need to go back to the beginning and kind of work out a different trajectory for it." And I listened to this incredible podcast with George Saunders, and he said that it's like a golden opportunity if you reach a stumbling block like this when writing a novel, because he said that it's the novel speaking to you, and it's the novel saying, "I can't proceed under these contrived conditions. So go back to the beginning and take it beat-by-beat and be truthful about what these characters would do and where they would go."
"When I first started writing a novel, my first novel, I felt a kind of joy that I continue to feel—I felt it very much with The Fury—that nothing else ever brought me."
And I really took that to heart. I had nothing to lose. So I spent a month just walking around the park, talking to myself, going right back to the start. And then the characters went in a different direction, and I kind of just found this new ending, which is so much better than the original ending I had. So, it's a good lesson about not panicking. I think that's the thing I took from it most is, in that situation, I could have completely freaked out and I didn't. I just thought, "Okay." I just allowed myself to play a bit and thought, "Well, what might they do instead? And what might happen here?" So it was a really good experience for me as a writer, I think.
NR: That's great. The Fury is riddled with examples of how obsession for celebrities and with stardom can come to dire consequences in a time where influencer culture and social media can launch anybody immediately into stardom. What message would you want listeners to keep in mind as they dive into this story?
AM: For me, the heart of the book is about Elliot's childhood. And I think that was something that I really brought from myself to the novel, in that I think of all of these people, these characters are like damaged children. And I think often people are quite damaged when they're going into show business, and they try to escape sad feelings and feelings of being inadequate by being applauded and looked at and praised. And I think that what I found when I went to Hollywood and realized that it wasn't going to solve all of my problems was that I had to then go into therapy for a long time and start dealing with all of the problems that I brought with me.
It was through this process that I first was told by a therapist that all of us carry around a frightened child in our heads. And it was by connecting with that child that you can lead a kind of more real life. And so that's what I think for me, in a nutshell, that's what therapy really is about. I think that's the real journey of The Fury. It's about going beneath the surface and reconnecting with your childhood and thinking about it. And I think this will make more sense for somebody who's read the book than hasn't, but that's the real journey that he goes on, Elliot, I think.
NR: Yeah. And you know, I actually noticed that you do feature themes of mental illness and you touch on the field of psychiatry, therapy. What makes you drawn to those subjects when writing?
AM: Wow, tough one. I guess it's just a personal interest because when I first started out as a screenwriter, I think I was quite good at plot, but everything I wrote was really shallow because I didn't know who I was. And it wasn't until I was older and really had started to look at my life and think about myself that I started to write something a bit deeper. And that was my goal with writing my first novel. I thought it'd be really fun to try and take an Agatha Christie detective story and make it psychologically more complex. Not that she isn't complex, and I have to say that some of my favorite novels of hers, like Five Little Pigs or , are really deep, emotional books, but sometimes she was just very silly, about jewel heists and things like that.
Listen to these stories by Agatha Christie
And I just wanted to try and write characters that were deeper and sadder and more like real people. That's what I kind of am always trying for now in the future. I want to try and write detective stories that also function as novels and aren't just contrived twist magic shows, because I think it's easy to try and just trick people with twist after twist without there being any truth. And I think readers can sense that. I feel I can as a reader. I'm not sure if that answers your question, but it's a different answer.
NR: It definitely does. You want to breathe some more humanity into the characters outside of just the plot, you know?
AM: Absolutely. You put it better than I did. Exactly, exactly.
NR: So, the first-person perspective of Elliot Chase is brought to life by award-winning English actor Alex Jennings. What qualities were you looking for in a narrator to portray the iconic Elliot Chase, and what made Alex Jennings the perfect fit, do you think?
AM: Well, it's an easy answer, because I was looking for Alex Jennings. He was in my head. I had a few actors in my head, and he was definitely one of them. I first saw him in the Wings of the Dove movie when I was, oh gosh, about 20. And he played this posh English lord, and it's set in that time. And so he's kind of drinking martinis and wearing a black bow tie and smoking cigarettes and being funny. And I thought he was just so brilliant. He stayed with me as an actor because of that. And when I was writing Elliot, I wanted him to be—well, he kind of just presented himself to me, the character as witty and funny, not laugh-out-loud funny perhaps, but he's definitely got a sense of humor, which I really enjoyed writing.
And so I needed an actor with a good sense of humor who was going to make it funny, and who was going to have a good sense of timing. And so my mind immediately went to Alex. And I'm quite self-critical, and I found it difficult to listen to my first two audiobooks because all I saw were the holes. But it wasn't like that with The Fury. I was really looking forward to it as a fan of Alex Jennings. And when I received the files, I sat down for the first time in my life and just listened to it over a couple of days and laughed all the time. And then at the end it felt so—he's such a good actor, it becomes so sad and heartbreaking, and I'm astounded by his performance. So, it's wonderful.
NR: Yeah, I thought that he really captured kind of that funniness of Elliot, but then also some of his pomp as well. He's a very interesting character. What was one part of the story where you really felt like, “Yes, this is Elliot Chase” within Alex Jennings’ performance?
AM: Oh, it was the stuff with Barbara West. Elliot lives with a very famous, older novelist who's a bit of a monster. And again, she was something that I didn't plan, she just appeared. Even the name appeared, it was wonderful. It was the most fun I had writing anything. So I was really looking forward to hearing him do Barbara West, and I thought he did their scenes together brilliantly. It made me really happy to listen to that.
NR: I noticed that all of your books exist technically within the same multiverse. Theo Faber from The Silent Patient is in The Maidens. Mariana from The Maidens is in The Fury. Will this continue to be something you build on as you write more novels?
AM: Yeah, it's really great you said that because I love the idea of that, and I got the idea of writing everything in the same universe from Agatha Christie. And Tennessee Williams does it too. He has characters go to bars in different plays, you know, the same places. And he's really kind of interesting that way. And Christie has characters crossover all the time. There's a bit I love, and I can't remember which book it is now, but she brings in Sherlock Holmes as well, and kind of implies that he's also in the same world. And I just think it makes something feel very three-dimensional if you can approach characters from different angles, like one character is a lead in one book and then they have a tiny part in another book. I think that's really fun.
"When I listen to Audible, I just get so much more information and the book feels like a richer experience."
And as these worlds are all kind of North London, middle-class people who go to therapy, having studied therapy in North London, I know it's a very small world, and I figured they'd all know each other, or they would know people who knew each other. And so that was when it kind of got interesting. I want to keep exploring it because I've got some ideas now about very, very minor characters that I've been laying seeds for who are going to come back in later novels. And it's a really fun thing to think about.
NR: That's great. Something that also fascinates me are the covers that you've chosen for all of your books. I actually really love them. How do you know when you have the perfect cover that represents the story that you're telling? The Fury features, you know, you got the eye, you have the island, just everything about this cover, it was like something to examine and something to find. How do you know when you find that perfect cover?
AM: Well, that's not me, that's just this incredible imprint I’m with, Celadon, and the covers they have produced have just been mind-blowing, really. The Silent Patient cover is, I think, an iconic cover. It's just incredible. And the first time I saw that I was just, I was kind of scared. I thought, "Oh, God, it's terrifying." People are going to be scared to pick that up. But I think there's something about the way that you don't quite see the face at first, and then it kind of becomes this thing that you dive into. And The Maidens likewise. And The Fury is this beautiful evil eye, which wasn't my idea at all. I can't take any credit for the covers. I just have been astonished at their quality.
I think it's kind of fun because they're getting known now a little bit for being such good covers. I think Celadon has now set itself the task of you pull all the stops out each time. So it's a lovely day for me when I get to see the cover. I get really excited. And they haven't let me down at all. I'm really thrilled.
NR: Yes, the bar is set high, especially for fans, like me. So what inspired you to become a writer of thrillers?
AM: I like reading detective stories. I still do. Like, if I'm in a reading slump, I always go back to a classic whodunit because there's something containing about it, because you know you're going to be, on some level, you're going to be surprised, which is fun, and you're going to get to see some nasty characters who get what they deserve. And then also there's something about the act of detection itself, where you know that order is going to be wrought from chaos, and I find that really comforting and reassuring.
And so it feels like a very kind of, I don't know, healing reading experience, reading detective stories, which is why I think people like them so much. I started reading Agatha Christie when I was about 12 or 13, and just read all of her books in a row on the beach. And I think she was the first adult writer I read, and she sort of made me into a reader, you know that experience when you first start reading books when you're a teenager. It's a very intense experience if you get into books, and I thought, “I want to do this. I want to write a book like this, like one of hers.”
And I think that's what propelled me, but then it took me another couple of decades before I got round to it, because that's the way things go. You chase other things in life. But when I first started writing a novel, my first novel, I felt a kind of joy that I continue to feel—I felt it very much with The Fury—that nothing else ever brought me, like acting. I started out acting, or trying to be a therapist. I didn't qualify as a therapist, but I did some training. Or being a screenwriter. None of those things really made me happy, they just made me anxious. But when I'm writing a detective story or a mystery, or whatever you want to call it, I really enjoy it. I really enjoy it. It's like a small canvas you can keep practicing on and getting better at.
NR: It sounds like The Fury builds in a lot from your life, like with the acting, with psychology, therapy. It definitely seems to just come together very cohesively.
AM: Thank you. That's great. Yeah, it's fun. I asked David Baldacci once how he chooses, how he knows an idea is going to be a good book to write. And he said, "You just have to choose something that you're still going to be into in two years’ time." And so choosing subjects that I really love, like therapy and acting and Greek islands, it felt like, "Okay, I'm going to enjoy writing this.” And I did. So I learned from that, I think.
NR: So, one question I always ask is, are you a fan of Audible?
AM: Gosh, yes. Huge fan. And I owe this to my sister, Emily, because I had really resisted audiobooks fiercely and was a huge snob about them. And then I moved into an apartment, where I live, and I didn't have a TV, and I ended up not getting a TV because I now listen to Audible every night when I'm here in Cyprus. She just insisted that I start with Brideshead Revisited [narrated] by Jeremy Irons, and she just said, "Just try it,” because I love the book so much. And I thought, "Oh, okay, fine." And I did and just couldn't stop listening. And then it became an addiction for me. I listen while I cook. I listen while I eat. I listen while I have a cup of tea on the couch afterwards, after dinner. And it's something I look forward to every day.
I'm always listening to a book. And I think it's just great because my eyes are tired. I write all day and I'm staring at a screen. Now, as I'm getting older, I find it difficult to read books in the evening. I just don't want to. And I also hear things that I skim. I think I skim a lot when I read stuff. I read fast and I miss stuff. And when I listen to Audible, I just get so much more information and the book feels like a richer experience. So I couldn't be a bigger fan, and all of this kind of coincided with leading up to Alex Jennings and The Fury. I wasn't listening to audiobooks when I wrote my first two books, at all. And now suddenly I am. And that's why I thought it'd be really fun to sit down and listen to a great actor like him.
NR: Well, with your acting background, maybe one day we'll hear you narrating a book [laughs]. Maybe even one of your own.
AM: That would be fun. But I think it must be a really hard job. I have no idea what that feels like to sit down for all of those hours. I'd like to see someone do it. I think it'd be fascinating.
NR: Maybe Alex Jennings.
AM: Yeah. Maybe, maybe [laughs].
NR: What is your favorite listen on Audible?
AM: Oh, wow. There's certain things I listen to again and again and again. There are so many. I think my favorite, favorite is probably a book called Asta's Book by Ruth Rendell. She's a really famous British crime writer, and she wrote under a pen name sometimes called Barbara Vine, where she wrote dark psychological thrillers. And there's an actress called Harriet Walter, who I just love. She's incredible. I've listened to so much by her. She narrates the book, and it's about a writer, a woman writer, who's about, I don't know, 60. And she discovers in her grandmother's diaries the possibility that there was a murder, and there are missing pages, and she decided to try and investigate this murder that happened 70 years in the past. And then you intercut between these diaries from a very, very long time ago and the modern story. I've listened to that probably about five or six times, I think. I had to keep spacing it out because I don't want to get bored of it. Every so often, I'll listen to it again. That's my favorite.
NR: I'm also a repeat listener. That plot definitely sounds like I need to put that on my listening list.
AM: I recommended it to many people and everyone has just loved it, so I think you'll really like it.
NR: Well, that actually leads into my next question. Which audiobook would you recommend to fans of yours?
AM: I would recommend that for sure. I would recommend Brideshead Revisited with Jeremy Irons, because again, I introduced somebody who wasn't listening to Audible to that, and they, like me, got hooked on Audible. It's probably one of my top-three favorite books. And his performance, it's like poetry. It's incredible. The volume, the way he modulates his tone, the pace, the rhythm, the voices. It's like a masterpiece. I think everyone would like that book.
NR: Well, thank you. And what are you working on next?
AM: Well, I'm about to go on tour for The Fury, my first US tour, which I'm really excited about. So I'm going to get to see all parts of America that I don't know, and meet lots of readers, which is going to be great. And then I have to write another book. Not have to, want to. I've got it plotted. Can't really talk about it. But I'm really happy with it. It's like you want to vary the pace a little bit. I think it was Hitchcock or Billy Wilder, I can't remember, somebody said, “Always try and do something different.” And I felt like The Maidens was slow and sad. Fury was a bit more fast-paced and more upbeat and kind of fun. And now I want to do a really dark, deep detective story again. So, a different kind of pace. And I'm really looking forward to writing it this year.
NR: Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing which character will appear in this next novel.
AM: You'll have to wait and see.
NR: Okay, well, I'll be waiting [laughs]. So, thank you Alex for taking the time to chat. Listeners, you can get The Fury on Audible now.
AM: Well, thank you so much, Nicole. That was great fun.
