Q&A with FROZEN’s Jay Bonansinga

Jay Bonansinga’s current thriller FROZEN is one of those “discovery” books – a title that doesn’t come out with a lot of hype, but yet you somehow stumble upon, buy on a whim, end up loving and want to tell everyone about. We did so in the form of our recent review, which you can find here.

To learn more about the scientific basis behind FROZEN’s unique premise and its upcoming sequel, TWISTED, we shot Bonansinga a few questions.

BOOKGASM: Your novel concerns the discovery of a frozen mummy that appears to have been murdered in a way that mirrors a current serial killer. The mummy part is based on fact. How did the “iceman” come to your attention and, more importantly, what about it made you decide to center a novel around it?

BONANSINGA: I have a dear friend who is a cultural anthropoloigst. He told me about “Otzi,” the ice-bound mummy, which was found in the Italian Alps back in the early 1990s. That got my juices flowing. But the part that really sunk the hook into me was the fact that X-rays revealed that Otzi was a Bronze Age murder victim. When you make up stories for a living, that kind of “what if?” is irresistible. I just started riffing on possible connections to the modern world.

BOOKGASM: Why the decision to make FBI profiler Ulysses Grove a black character? As a bonafide white guy, did this make writing for your protagonist any more difficult than usual?

BONANSINGA: Well, to me, it’s about the process. Half of creating a novel is pure craft, an almost mathematical logic of story structure. But the other half is intuitive or inchoate, almost like dreaming. Grove sort of told me he was an African-American. After that, the logical side took over and I realized that having him black was the only way to tell the story since we are dealing with the birth of civilization, which all springs from Africa. I had also been reading the work of FBI profiler John Douglas, and one of his best profilers was a black man named Jud Ray. So I kind of followed the muse.

BOOKGASM: What’s in store for Ulysses in your next novel, TWISTED?

BONANSINGA: It comes out in the summer of 2006, and it picks up the Ulysses Grove saga precisely where FROZEN left it. The melding of the past and the present, and the eternal cat-and-mouse game between good and evil are explored even deeper – and more eerily – inside the eye of a hurricane. Stay tuned!

BOOKGASM: You write both fiction and non-fiction. Do you have a preference and is one easier for you than the other?

BONANSINGA: I don’t know if one is “easier” per se, but I will admit that non-fiction takes longer and takes more out of me on a manual-labor level. Plus, I’m a believer in the “Capote school” of writing non-fiction in the style of novels, so I don’t make much of a distinction.

BOOKGASM: Aside from FROZEN, of course, are there any recent thrillers you’d recommend reading?

BONANSINGA: My heroes and the people I read are – happily for me – often my friends and mentors. Peter Straub, who has inspired me and helped me immensely, has written the greatest work of his career, which is saying something, with his last two books: LOST BOY LOST GIRL and IN THE NIGHT ROOM. Check these babies out immediately. I also love the work of James Lee Burke. I haven’t yet read the latest Dave Robicheaux novel, CRUSADER’S CROSS – it sits on my nightstand, next in line – but the 2002 Robicheaux offering, JOLIE BLON’S BOUNCE, is one of my favorites, with one of the greatest villains in the English language. I also love the work of Stephen King, Nicholson Baker, Joe Landsale, Erik Larson, Harlan Ellison, Trevanian, William Goldman and Stephen Hunter.

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