Best-selling author Karin Slaughter, 38, grew up in Jonesboro and lives in Atlanta. Petite, blond and cheerful, she does not look like someone who has written nine gruesome crime thrillers about twisted serial killers. But her latest book, “Undone,” proves that appearances are deceiving — in more ways than one. Here, she talks about the Southern tradition of storytelling, how she writes her books and why women are less afraid than men of dead bodies.
Literary influences:
"Growing up in the South like I did, every vacation was to Florida, to the Redneck Riviera. I was the youngest of three girls, and all of us would be sitting in the back of the car, me squeezed in the middle on the vinyl seat, with the windows down and my dad driving as fast as he could so the car would stay cool.
"To keep us from ending up in slap fights, he told us stories. But they were really about not just people, but the character of people.
"And when you think about it, anyone writing in that Southern tradition — Flannery O’Connor, William Faulkner, James Dickey — puts the focus on the flawed character.
"I like the thriller genre because it keeps the story moving, and the characters are more raw, so that I can explore these really dark pieces of them.
"You can raise issues with the crime that fold into what the characters are going through and what their emotional journey is."
How her books evolve:
"Usually in bits and pieces. I travel a lot, but when I’m just sitting there, waiting at the airport, I’m always thinking about the story.
"Usually I’ll come home with tons of notes that I’ve made to myself about what the story’s going to do, and so when I sit down to write it, it’s pretty well framed in my mind. I have a cabin up in North Georgia at Blue Ridge where I go and spend a couple of weeks working really hard, and then I come home and I never want to write again because I’m so exhausted.
"It’s a really stupid way to do it, but I’ve been saying that for 10 years and it hasn’t changed.
On fiction vs. reality:
"I often say that the only difference between fiction and nonfiction is that fiction has to make sense. Because we all read the newspaper and think, 'Why? Why do people do this?'
"With my books I have the luxury to explain why my bad people are bad."
On touring GBI:
"For 'Undone,' I visited the GBI and also a field office in Conyers, and met the director of the GBI, an amazing guy who’s also an amateur framer.
"So when you visit, say, the morgue, there’ll be a picture on the wall of a pair of lungs with a penny that’s been aspirated — and it’s framed! Beautifully!
"One thing that really interested me was that in the morgue most of the investigators were women. And they were laughing about how the men can’t take it.
"One woman was telling me that she had just gotten a call about a body in the trunk of a car, and when she got there, there was this big, beefy patrol officer just sitting in his car. She said, 'Did you open it?' and he said, 'No.' Men are so squeamish!
"It was good to meet and talk to these people and to see the stuff that I had gotten right.
"And also to realize how freaking boring it would be if I wrote their jobs as they really are. Because one person picks up the evidence at the crime scene. Another person analyzes it. Another person peer-reviews it.
"You know, there’s like 12 people doing all this stuff, and I have to have my investigator do all of it in one week.
"So I have to lie about a lot of stuff. But I think as long as I capture the overall feel of it, that I’m doing my job."
On her next book:
“'Broken.' I’m about halfway through it. It opens in Grant County, Lena is there, and they’re pulling a body out of the lake. They think it’s a suicide, but of course it can’t be that easy. It’s around Thanksgiving, and Sara’s headed back to Grant County to be with her family. Some horrible things happen, and Will Trent gets called in.
On staying grounded:
"I think of myself as two people. There’s the person who goes out and goes to book signings and does interviews.
"And then there’s the person who has to clean out the litter box. I’m real careful to keep them separate.
"I just keep reminding myself that the only reason I’m doing this is because I want to write.
"I want to be better with each book, and that’s something that helps me stay grounded ... in addition to the litter box."
Meet the author
Karin Slaughter, author of “Undone.” 2 p.m. Saturday. Borders, 4475 Roswell Road, east Cobb. 770-565-0947, www.borders.com
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