Charles Palliser

Charles Palliser’s new novel is the Gothic thriller, Rustication.

From his Q & A with Suzanne Fox for Publishers Weekly:

What was the inspiration for the book, and the title?

I started with ideas of exile, remoteness, and failure. My narrator, Richard, is suspended from Cambridge and his family is “banished”—because of both financial pressure and scandal—from [their home] where they have had considerable status. The three of them have been forced to start life again in a lonely and hostile place. I always try to find a single word for a title that packs in as many relevant meanings as possible, and about halfway through writing the novel it occurred to me that the word “rustication” brought all those ideas together beautifully. In the sense of “suspension from an educational establishment,” the word is pretty obscure, but clearly everyone will recognize that the countryside is involved.

The plot involves conspiracy to commit murder, sexual threats, family secrets, and even a possible ghost. Did the complexity of the story present formal challenges?

I wanted to use the form of a diary. Keeping to Richard’s point of view was a serious challenge, since he is unaware of much of what is unfolding around him. The other “voice” in the novel is...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue