Before moving to Los Angeles from his native Canada, Hanson created the multiple award-winning Global Television Network program Traders. Before Traders he wrote and produced, amongst others, several Canadian TV series, including Beachcombers, The Road to Avonlea, and North of 60.
After making the move to Los Angeles, Hanson started his American TV career writing and producing TV series Cupid, Snoops, Judging Amy, and Joan of Arcadia before creating Bones.
Hanson’s first book The Driver — a crime novel set in Los Angeles — was lauded as one of The New York Times’ Best Crime novels of 2017.
His new novel is The Seminarian.
My Q&A with the author:
How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?Visit Hart Hanson's website.
Apparently, I am very bad at titles. Everything I’ve ever written has been retitled. My first novel Clear Shallow Water was too hoity-toity so it was re-titled The Driver. My current novel The Seminarian was originally entitled The Irritation Mojo which, I was told, would not do because the word “irritation” is off-putting.
The Seminarian isn’t about a seminarian – my protagonist is a former seminarian who has been thrust back into the real world. However, he approaches his job as an investigator as a seminarian would, so maybe the publisher is right and it’s a good title?
What's in a name?
A lot. My main character is a severely lapsed Catholic so I hung his name around him like a millstone. “Xavier Priestly”. His friends call him Priest. He can never shake his past. His best friend is named “Dusty” – from the biblical quote about how we all return to dust.
I fuss about names and often change them as the character develops.
How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?
He would be shocked and delighted because my teenage reader self never even dreamed of writing books. Books were magic things written by mythical creatures. He’d also be dismayed that he didn’t become a professional musician or a pilot. The first due to lack of talent, the second due to extreme color-blindness.
Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?
Both are a nightmare. I outline so I know where I’m supposed to be going – but deciding at what precise moment to start the story is tough.
In The Seminarian I wanted the reader to meet Priest before his whole life got tumbled and disrupted. But that part had to be exciting too, so … shark!
And the ending is constantly trying to get away. I knew where the investigation/mystery ended but the story picked up a lot of baggage along the way that needed to be paid off.What about the boy? What about the contract killer? What about the missing escort? How do we set up another book and leave the reader satisfied and wanting more?
It was very tempting to bring the shark back again.
Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?
You have to find a part of yourself in every character you create – I think I’m most like the rule-following lawyer in this book – Baz – even though she is a Black woman. However, more than one person has told me that I was “brave” to put so much of myself into Priest – who is, yes, a white man, but also irritable, judgmental, impatient, socially awkward, ungrateful, and a very iffy father.
What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?
Music affects the whole (excuse me) vibe. I have soundtracks for everything I write and playlists for every character.
I also live in Venice Beach, California, where characters are thrown into my face every day.
Don’t even get me started on my family! What a plethora of characters and stories and unexpected outcomes. I would steal more from friends but many of them are also writers. Alas, they see when I take their great lines and rants. I still do it.
--Marshal Zeringue