Product DescriptionSome secrets can & rsquo;t be keptâ?¦ Years ago, they were all the best of friends. But as time passed and circumstances changed, they grew apart, became adults with families of their own, and began to forget about the pastâ??and the terrible lie they all shared. But now Gordon, the youngest and wildest of the five, has died and...
Read moreProduct DescriptionSome secrets can & rsquo;t be keptâ?¦ Years ago, they were all the best of friends. But as time passed and circumstances changed, they grew apart, became adults with families of their own, and began to forget about the pastâ??and the terrible lie they all shared. But now Gordon, the youngest and wildest of the five, has died and the others are thrown together for the first time in years. And then the revelations start. Could their long-ago lie be the reason for their troubles today? Is it more dangerous to admit to what they & rsquo;ve done or is it the strain of keeping the secret that is beginning to wear on them and everyone close to them? Each one of these old friends has to wonder if their secret has been discoveredâ??and if someone within the circle is out to destroy them. Amazon Exclusive: Kate Atkinson Interviews Laura Lippman Kate Atkinsonâ??s first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, was named Whitbread Book of the Year in the U.K. in 1995, and was followed by Human Croquet, Emotionally Weird, Not the End of the World, Case Histories and One Good Turn. Kate Atkinson: You employ the first person plural in parts of the new novel. It & rsquo;s quite a startling device (I loved it in Joshua Ferris & rsquo;s Then We Came to the End). Why did you use it in The Most Dangerous Thing? Laura Lippman: The decision was intuitive at firstâ??that is, I knew it was right, without knowing why it was right. When I finished the book, I realized that these passages are a consensual version of what happened in the past, that the survivors have agreed on what happened and that & rsquo;s why the story is, at turns, unflattering to each of them. They are working out their level of culpability in several tragedies and they just can & rsquo;t face this alone. And that voice allowed me to include a subtext of gloom and forebodingâ??the story is being told by people who know how badly it ends. KA: Do you think you write better now than you did when you first began to write novels? (I only ask because I think I & rsquo;m a much better writer than I used to be but no one else seems to have noticed.) Do you feel you can trust your & ldquo;inner critic & rdquo; or are you plagued by doubts the whole time you are writing? LL: At the risk of sounding obsequious, I have to say that you set the bar awfully high for yourself with Behind the Scenes at the Museum, but I & rsquo;ve noticed how your work has changed, although I think the word that comes to mind isn & rsquo;t better, but bolder. You take such big risks and yet you manage them with aplomb. The frustration of being a fan of your work is that there & rsquo;s nothing quite like it. There are lots of wonderful writers in crime and literary fiction, but there & rsquo;s only person who can write a Kate Atkinson novel. I didn & rsquo;t start out on the same level. That & rsquo;s not poor-mouthing, as my Southern relatives would have it, but a fact on which everyone agrees. People tell me all the timeâ??really, all the timeâ??how far I & rsquo;ve come since my first book. But, whether one writes a great first novel or simply a decent one, what are the choices? One can get better, worse, or stay the same. I shoot for better and I accept that there may be some dips, but they & rsquo;ll come from trying new things at least, not doing the same things over and over. I do trust my inner critic, but I'm happy to have a circle of external critics that I trust as well. KA: You & ldquo;honor & rdquo; the dead in your novels rather than exploit them for sadistic effect. Do you think that & rsquo;s due to your background as a reporter butting up against real lives rather than fictional ones? Or because you & rsquo;re a woman? Or just a decent human being? LL: All of the above? At least, I hope I & rsquo;m a decent person. I do think crime writers need to take a moment for introspection about the stories we & rsquo;re telling and the bodies that are piling up around us. It & rsquo;s somber stuff. There should be an agenda beyond sensation. KA: How many novels do you have on the back burner at any one time? Have you ever sat down to write and not had any idea what you were going to do? LL: Onceâ??just onceâ??I managed to have two projects going on simultaneously, a novel and a novella. I do best with one thing in front of me. And, increasingly, I have no idea what I & rsquo;m going to write next. But that & rsquo;s par
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