Tim Johnston's latest novel is The Current.From his Q&A with Deborah Kalb:
Q: How did you come up with the idea for The Current?--Marshal Zeringue
A: The idea dates back to a short story I wrote just before I began my previous novel, Descent, back in 2007.
That story, called "Water," is set in small-town Minnesota and concerns the drowning of a young woman in the local river and the search for her killer. The law casts a serious eye on one young man, but charges are never filed, the truth is never known, and everyone in the story is damaged irrevocably, The End.
The inspiration, you might say, came seven years later, in a café in Memphis. I was reading student stories, minding my own business, when two young women pretty much demanded that I stop reading student stories and begin writing theirs. (These were young women in my mind, just to be clear, and not actual young women.)
They intended, they let me know, to...[read on]