Bryan Gruley

Bryan Gruley is the Edgar-nominated author of six novels – Purgatory Bay, Bleak Harbor, the Starvation Lake Trilogy, and his most recent, Bitterfrost - and one award-winning work of nonfiction. A lifelong journalist, he shared in The Wall Street Journal's Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the September 11 terrorist attacks. He lives in northern lower Michigan with his wife, Pamela, where he can be found playing hockey, singing in his band, or spending time with his children and grandchildren.

My Q&A with Gruley:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story? 

Bitterfrost struck me as an arresting and descriptive word that would grab browsers’ attention. It’s the title of the book and the name of the fictional northern lower Michigan town where the story is set. I don’t recall precisely how I came up with it. I know I did some trolling through Finnish words (the river that runs through the middle of town is called Jako, which is Finnish for division). Somehow, I stumbled on Bitterfrost and immediately liked it, for the feeling of coldness it evokes, and the sharp three-syllable rhythm. I barely knew then what the book would be about, but I assumed it would be dark because my books are always dark, and Bitterfrost also evokes dark. The story is also about the town itself and how it divides against or for the protagonist, Zamboni driver and accused murderer Jimmy Baker, so Bitterfrost seemed fitting.

What's in a name?

Naming characters, towns, churches, taverns, and other stuff is one of my favorite parts of writing novels (besides finishing). Generally, I like character names that are memorable and easy for readers to pronounce. Jimmy “Bakes” Baker is a fine name for a hockey player, easy to pronounce, easy to remember. The other two main characters—defense attorney Devyn Payne and detective Garth Klimmek—have slightly more unusual names that are still easy to remember and pronounce. Devyn was a major character in an earlier novel that went unpublished. I went back-and-forth with my agent on various names until we agreed on Devyn Payne. I love the name and the character (and it was easy to name her twin brother with the rhyming Evan). Klimmek’s surname is the same as that of a woman who helped solve an 18-year-old double homicide in Michigan that inspired parts of the plot of Bitterfrost. Garth just felt right, and with Klimmek his name feels vaguely Scandinavian.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

Pretty surprised. I didn’t read a lot of mysteries and thrillers as a teen, gravitating toward more “literary” novels like The Catcher in the Rye and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I recall enjoying The Day of the Jackal when I was twenty-one, but that was an exception. The first serious mystery/thriller I remember loving was Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River. God, that was good—and by then, I was forty years old. That was the novel that made me tell myself, it’s time to try to write the novel you’ve been dreaming about forever. Some years later, I finished my debut, Starvation Lake. I didn’t really think of it as a mystery or thriller until my then-agent told me it was a “literary mystery.” Whatever that is.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Beginnings are easier if only because I never know how a book is going to end when I start it. I change both quite a bit. After Severn House acquired Bitterfrost, my then-editor, Victoria Britton, urged me to consider making Chapter 6 into Chapter 1. Of course I initially resisted because, you know, insecure writer, but I pretty quickly concluded that Vic was right. Now the book begins: “Jimmy wakes to a pinging sound in his head. And the smell of blood.” Our hero is on his kitchen floor, covered in blood, and he has no idea what happened to the last several hours. The ending changed too after a friend who’d read a draft of Bitterfrost told me something that I knew intuitively but hadn’t actively incorporated in the book. I went back and rewrote the final scenes. I think—I hope--it worked.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

There’s more of me in my early books than the last three. I play hockey and in Bitterfrost both Jimmy and Devyn dwell in that world. I love the culture and geography of northern lower Michigan, where Bitterfrost is set. But I’ve never been a lawyer or a detective or a hockey fighter, though I’ve certainly observed them. I’m definitely a flawed human being, and I strive to imbue my characters with the kinds of flaws and regrets that even the best of us carry around.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Hockey, of course. Small towns all over the United States where I wrote stories for The Wall Street Journal. My mother, who encouraged me to write, and my father, a helluva joke-teller and, therefore, storyteller. Also, my favorite TV series: Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, The Night Of, Mare of Easttown, Slow Horses, The Day of the Jackal. From these terrific shows, I think I’ve learned a good deal about using compression to move the plot along, making scenes as cinematic as possible, giving even minor characters strong personalities, and getting inside characters’ heads so I and my readers feel what they’re feeling. Poor Walter White. I knew I would dearly miss him in that final scene of Breaking Bad at the same time that I knew it was the perfect ending to that superb series.

Learn more about the book and author at Bryan Gruley's website.

The Page 69 Test: Starvation Lake.

The Page 69 Test: The Hanging Tree.

The Page 69 Test: Bleak Harbor.

The Page 69 Test: Purgatory Bay.

The Page 69 Test: Bitterfrost.

--Marshal Zeringue