Mice

Mice

Even the meekest of mice have their breaking point...
What would you do if you were pushed to the limit?

Electrifying and unputdownable and controversial suspense thriller with an outrageous twist!

"My aim was to write a novel that would be so gripping that even if the reader wasn't a 'good' reader, wasn't a habitual reader, they'd be compelled by the narrative to carry on reading to the end,' says Gordon Reece.
"For that reason, Mice is strongly plot-driven with twists and turns designed to take the reader on the proverbial white-knuckle ride."

'Shelley, darling,' Mum said. 'Don't be frightened. He just wants money. If we do everything he says, he's going to go away and leave us alone.'
I didn't believe her, and I could tell from the trembling of her hands and the catch in her voice that she didn't believe it herself. When a cat gets into the mousehole, it doesn't go away leaving the mice unharmed. I knew how this story was going to end.

Shelley and her mum have been bullied long enough. When they retreat to an isolated cottage in the country, they think their troubles are over, and they revel in their cosy, secure life. But one night, an intruder disturbs their peace and something inside Shelley snaps. What happens next will shatter all their certainties.

Gordon Reece is a writer and illustrator. He has been a lawyer and a teacher. Originally from the UK, he lived in Spain for a number of years and emigrated to Australia in 2005. His books include picture books for trade and educational publishers, comics and graphic novels and fiction for adults.

Mice
Allen and Unwin
Author: Gordon Reece
ISBN: 9781742372358
Price: $19.95

Interview with Gordon Reece

Question Why did you decide to call the book, Mice?

Gordon Reece: Mice is generally understood as shorthand for weaklings or victims, people who can't stand up for themselves in a confrontation (Are you a man or a mouse?). So as a title I think it gives you an immediate insight into the type of characters you are going to meet and hints at the issues around self-defence and violence that they're going to have to deal with. It's also a word that seems to deconstruct itself on the page, so that while ostensibly a word with weak or passive connotations, at the same time it contains a certain menace when isolated and emphasized in this way. The lettering used on the Australian edition clearly brings out that hidden menace, and in the English edition the word is razored in half - a little like the way the word 'Psycho' is cut in two in the posters for the Hitchcock movie.

Question How hard was it to ensure your book contained suspense and an outrageous twist?

Gordon Reece: From what I remember, the plotting was one of the easier aspects of writing Mice. I know I went off track at one point and wrote a whole section where Shelley and her mum visit a farm shop (I have no idea why now!) and I know I was unsure where to go with the last third for a while, but I didn't agonize over the plot in the way I did over the simple nuts and bolts of saying exactly what I wanted to say in the most effective way I could find to say it. As a kid I was strongly influenced by horror and sci-fi comics, and I've always loved dark, strongly plotted stories - and I love the twist in the tale. I've been writing stories like that since I was ten I'd say, so I've had a lot of practice!


Question Can you talk about how you went about creating the character of Shelley?

Gordon Reece: It does sometimes strike me as odd that I've written a novel in the voice of a sixteen-year-old girl, but I didn't think twice about it at the time. I had a very clear idea who Shelley was and her voice came quite easily - even after a six year break, when I came to write new sections to the book, I found I could still hear her voice very clearly - I knew what she'd say, I knew what she'd be thinking. I suppose she's in part a feminized version of myself at that age - I had a very close relationship with my mother, but it also had its darker undercurrents, as does Shelley's relationship with Elizabeth. And I suppose there's a little dash of Alice in there too - Honeysuckle Cottage opens a door onto a garden, not of wonders, but of surreal horrors.

I hope to write more female characters in the future. I can completely understand Ibsen's obsession with women in his drama - I feel there's still a lot to say that hasn't been said. In many ways women are still 'the undiscovered country' in literature.


Question What research went into writing Mice?

Gordon Reece: I read various newspaper reports on the internet about girl on girl bullying that had ended in the victim's suicide. That's where I noticed schools denying responsibility and boasting about their excellent anti-bullying policies (when clearly those policies had failed). I contacted the Royal Geological Society to find out about mines and mine depths, and I also did a little bit more research on paramedic procedures, drugs and firearms (luckily my brother is a criminal barrister in London and he's always happy to help out). I have to admit I don't really like research though - I'd rather make something up and then check later to see if it's okay. Shelley says early in the book that if she's going to be a writer she has to know all the names of the flowers in the garden of Honeysuckle Cottage - I've never felt comfortable with the idea of the writer as font of all knowledge. To me, writing's more about intuitions and capturing the clairvoyant images that you see. Somehow fact-checking reality seems to pull against that dream weaver impulse.


Question Where you able to use your previous careers in teaching and as a lawyer to help write Mice?

Gordon Reece: Definitely. I enjoyed studying academic criminal law - how we define murder or theft or burglary almost becomes an exercise in moral philosophy. And the definition of self-defence is particularly interesting. In a certain sense the whole plot development of Mice revolves around Shelley's mum's interpretation of that definition in relation to what happens when the intruder breaks into the cottage.

When I was an articled clerk I did a lot of crime work, mainly attending court and liaising between the client and their barristers. Paul Hannigan is a mix of the criminals I met then - the housebreakers, and especially the drug addicts who could scarcely finish a sentence or keep their eyes open they were so out of it.

I didn't see any systematic bullying when I was a teacher - more random acts of cruelty. I remember a boy who'd had every one of his colour pencils snapped in two for example, that always stayed in my mind and I put that into Mice.