AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
In the new novel "Fair Play," two things can be true. Abigail can be hosting a New Year's Eve murder mystery dinner party at an Airbnb...
LOUISE HEGARTY: (Reading) In this envelope, you will find a character carriage which gives you information that no one else knows. You will see that there is specific instructions, but you...
RASCOE: Abigail can also be in deep mourning for Benjamin, her only sibling.
HEGARTY: (Reading) Our sincere condolences to Abigail on the tragic and sudden passing of your dear brother.
RASCOE: "Fair Play" is the debut novel of Irish author Louise Hegarty. It honors the golden age of crime novels, just as it turns the genre on its head. She joins us now to talk about it. Welcome.
HEGARTY: Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here.
RASCOE: So, when we first meet Abigail, I mean, it seems like a setup for, like, this typical murder mystery, and I've kind of gotten into cozy murder mysteries now. I like them. You know, you have the usual elements. It's a country house, a gathering of friends and associates and, you know, someone who you don't know very well. Can you tell us more about how your novel begins?
HEGARTY: So it begins they have gathered together at a country house to ring in the new year, but they're also there to celebrate their friend Benjamin's birthday. His sister, Abigail, has devised a murder mystery game that they all play. The next morning, everyone wakes except for Benjamin.
RASCOE: And then you have this great detective who shows up, Auguste Bell. How would you describe his contributions to the story and the plot of the story?
HEGARTY: Yeah, so Auguste Bell, we first meet him in Part 2 of the book, and he kind of suddenly springs up out of nowhere. And he's very much in that vein of, like, a Hercule Poirot type of detective. And he's there to facilitate Abigail. She's trying to uncover the clues around her brother's death. And it's also about providing her with kind of a comforting pathway through that and a comforting narrative that she's familiar with because she's a big fan of detective novels.
RASCOE: So much of the way Auguste Bell talks is, like, he's very blunt about this is the way murder mysteries work. These are the rules. And then he also goes, on Page 23, I said this. I'm not going to get to this till Chapter 22. Like, it's meta, right? Like, what made you decide to put together the book in that way and to wink at the audience that way?
HEGARTY: The idea of having a detective in a murder mystery who is aware that he is a detective in a murder mystery novel, and he's aware of the tropes of the genre, and it's all kind of wink, wink, nudge, nudge at the reader. It's a playful take on a murder mystery, and using that structure to look at the emotions around grief and around sudden death. I suppose I was thinking a lot about those original golden age detective novels. I mean, that period between the wars, where people were coming out of the First World War, dealing with a huge amount of trauma, who were grieving and looking for familiar narratives as a comfort. And so ultimately, that is what Abigail is doing.
RASCOE: It's a lot going on because you have, like, the murder mystery of, like, who killed Abigail's brother Benjamin. And then you also have the mystery of, like, Abigail's brain, like, the story that she's telling herself. I want you to read this part where she's thinking about her last Christmas with her brother, which is just a few days before his death.
HEGARTY: (Reading) Benjamin came over to my house on Christmas Eve and left on Stephen's Day. We had breakfast on Christmas Day morning and unwrapped presents. We went for a walk before lunch. During the meal, we took a call from our aunt. It was a normal Christmas. Benjamin was in a good mood.
RASCOE: And then, over the next, like, few pages, Abigail keeps repeating and then striking through and repeating and adding details and subtracting details, and she's replaying it over and over in her mind, trying to make sense of it. Where did you get this idea from? Have - has this happened to you?
HEGARTY: You know, well, I think we've probably all lost somebody, and we've all grieved. And it is that kind of normal thing that you do, that you look back at the last time you saw them, or kind of recent visits with them, and you start examining. Everything that they did suddenly becomes a very important thing. You start looking for clues as to what was going on for them or what was happening. Abigail, she's kind of stuck in examining this last Christmas with her brother in minute detail, hoping that she'll remember something where everything that happened after that will suddenly make sense.
RASCOE: Yeah. It's interesting because murder mysteries, you're often not dealing with the grief of the murder or the pain of the murder. It's just like it's a puzzle to be solved. This book kind of forces you to deal with that other hard part.
HEGARTY: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm a big fan of those detective novels myself, and the characters in them, you know, people are dropping dead all around them, and they don't really seem that pushed. You know, there's not a huge amount of grieving for people who died. And from the reader's point as well, like, I'm never that upset when someone dies in a murder mystery 'cause that's the point of them.
RASCOE: No, no. Yeah.
HEGARTY: And, I mean, there is that kind of puzzle to be solved, and they're a form of escapism as well.
RASCOE: It makes me wonder, like, are "Fair Play" mysteries kind of like the horror stories that I like, a way to consider mortality in a safe way, in a fun way? Because there are rules like you can't have supernatural happenings. It can't just be an accident.
HEGARTY: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I'd agree with that. I mean, I think death is kind of the one thing - I mean, we will never figure out that mystery. And as people, what we do is assign narratives and stories to our lives in order to make sense of them. I think the idea of trying to make sense of death is such a large part of human existence.
RASCOE: That's Louise Hegarty. Her debut novel is "Fair Play." Thank you so much for talking with us today.
HEGARTY: Oh, thank you so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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