MARCUS SAKEY

By Derek Nikitas

Marcus Sakey’s debut thriller The Blade Itself will be released in January 2007 from St. Martin’s Minotaur, but Publishers Weekly has already called it “Brilliant…a must-read,” and Library Journal writes, “What a thrilling ride Sakey has concocted.” With this novel about reformed criminal Danny Carter, whose respectable new life is threatened when his former partner Evan returns from prison, Sakey has drawn comparisons to artists as diverse as Dennis Lehane, Quentin Tarantino, and James Ellroy. Curious to know more, fellow St. Martin’s Minotaur debut Derek Nikitas spoke with Sakey about his explosive new novel.

DEREK NIKITAS: Why did you choose to make the main rivals in The Blade Itself, Danny and Evan, former childhood friends?

MARCUS SAKEY: I wanted to explore the idea that two people coming from the same place can head in wildly different directions. Danny and Evan, growing up, were more than friends—they were essentially brothers. But over the years, they slowly grew to be very different men–and a single moment set them on very different paths.

DEREK: Speaking of that moment, I'm struck by the prescience of the first chapter. Every detail of that fated pawn shop robbery has its payoffs later in the novel. Did you carefully plan the first chapter to set up the rest of the book, or did the book follow intuitively from the first chapter?

MARCUS: I did have a plan for the book as a whole, but it was loose enough for a lot of organic change. What I really knew well were my characters--I spent a couple of months exploring them before I sat down to write what became the final book. That involved a lot of exercises ("What's in their closet? What do they daydream about?") as well as some short scenes. A few of the scenes made it into the book, but mostly they were just ways to explore.

I like to know what music my characters listen to, what color their favorite pair of jeans are, what their first kiss was like. I don't write all of it down, and I obviously don't try to put it all in. But playing with it, interviewing the characters, helps me make them real.

Sometimes I even literally interview them: I freewrite a scene, working as fast as I can, where I sit and ask questions like we’re in the same room. I even tell them I created them, and see how they respond. If I do it fast enough, I always surprise myself with what I learn.

Anyway, because the book is at heart a rivalry story, knowing the characters and understanding the complicated dynamic of their relationship really powered a lot of what came later.

DEREK: In regards to the rivalry, what makes Danny's dilemma—how to deal with the horrible demands of his violent former partner—so compelling?

Marcus: One of the comments I hear a lot is that people found it scary because they could imagine it happening to them; that, but for the grace, they could be in a similar situation. Which is surprising to me, because Danny is not really your typical Everyman. He's a former criminal; a guy who, while not violent by nature, robbed people, fought, broke the law.

But he's remade himself into a very normal person, a loving, successful guy. So maybe people see his past as a symbol of the darkness everybody feels inside, the secret they don't want anyone to know. And Evan, returning, is fate coming back to settle the tab.

DEREK: Why did you choose construction management for Danny’s legitimate occupation?

Marcus: Danny is building a new life for himself, finally doing a job where he creates something, instead of just taking from others. So there's obviously some symbolic resonance there. His father had been in construction, and this was a job Danny knew his father would respect, even if he weren't around to see it. And if you're South Side Irish with a couple of prison falls on your record, there aren't many opportunities. Danny took what he could get, then used his brains to climb out of the yard and into management.

DEREK: Why did you choose Chicago as the backdrop for The Blade Itself?

Marcus: Chicago is more than just an environment in my writing; it's a character and a crucible, and so I wanted to use the tension between Danny and Evan as a symbol of the tensions in the city: south side vs. north side, poverty vs. wealth, hard-scrabble vs. white collar. To my mind, this story couldn't be set anywhere else.

DEREK: In the novel you make several references to the distortion of police procedural truths in cop TV shows. Why is it important to you to distinguish the "reality" of your fictional cop world from the fictional cop worlds you see on TV?

Marcus: Most of the stuff you see on TV police shows is crap. Cops hate that stuff because it's just nothing like their job, and I wanted to be as realistic as I could while still feeding the narrative needs.

But those references are really a subset of a personal stylistic quirk in favor of pop culture. I'm often riffing off movies, having characters sing song lyrics or reference books. It's a way to make the fictional world more like the real one. After all, pop culture is the mythology of our times, so when Danny remembers playing at being Han Solo, he's immediately connecting himself to a generation of men, myself included. It adds a level of verisimilitude.

DEREK: If not the writers of police shows, then what writers have positively influenced you?

Marcus: My holy trinity of crime writers is Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos, and Elmore Leonard. These are guys who create vivid, believable characters, who really care about them, and who use them to explore not only good stories, but larger issues.

But I think it's a mistake to limit yourself to reading just one thing. When people ask about my favorite writers, they're often surprised to hear me say David Mitchell, or Michael Cunningham, or David Foster Wallace. But not only do I love those literary authors, I feel it's crucial to read them to write a better crime novel. These guys are doing brilliant work, balancing emotion and philosophy and ambition into something shining and pure. Why WOULDN'T you read them?

DEREK: What is the story behind the book's publication?

Marcus: My friend J.A. Konrath calls me Cinderella Boy, because I got incredibly lucky at every step. I finished the manuscript in about nine months. Let it cool, rewrote it, then started querying agents. I was fortunate enough to get interest from two, both major agents, and signed with Scott Miller of Trident Media Group. After another round of revisions, he took it out to about 20 publishers.

Two weeks later, we got our first offer, and Scott went to work. We ended up at auction, and sold in a two-book, six-figure deal to Ben Sevier at St. Martin's Minotaur.

DEREK: What are you working on next?

Marcus: I'm revising my second novel, the story of a discharged soldier who returns from Iraq to find a similar war raging in his old neighborhood. It's another standalone, also set in Chicago, and slated for hardcover release in early 2008.

Marcus Sakey’s novel The Blade Itself will be released on January 9, 2007.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER

Derek Nikitas’ debut novel Pyres will be released by St. Martin’s Minotaur in late 2007. In Pyres, a detective investigates the murder of a college professor and stirs up a nest of barbaric thugs hell-bent on terrorizing the professor’s widow and daughter.

Derek’s fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen, The Ontario Review, and Chelsea.