What was your inspiration for The Devil and the Dark Water?
My inspiration was getting stuck in Australia when I was 23 – 17 years ago, now. Eek. I missed my flight out of the country and ended up wandering around the Maritime Museum in Perth waiting for another flight. While I was in there I came across the fib of the Batavia shipwreck, which happened in 1629. It ’ s a atrocious history. 200 people survived the bust up, but when the captain sailed off to get help he left them in the detention of a sociopath. By the time he came back 125 of the survivors had been butchered. That story stuck with me, and when it came prison term to write something else I decided I wanted that period, and the atmosphere of that ship, but not the real-life floor. It was besides bleak. I wanted something light, and playfulness, and clever, and chilling, with a Sherlock Holmes-style mystery at its heart .
Are Arent, Sara, or any of the other characters in the novel inspired by or based on specific individuals?
Arent is based on a soldier called Wiebbe Hayes, who was on board the Batavia when it was wrecked in substantial biography. He fought back against the sociopath and managed to protect a phone number of the survivors. He even managed to capture the sociopath and deliver him to department of justice. Creesjie Jans is based on a lady called Lucretia Jans, who was besides on board the Batavia. Lucretia ’ mho report is soul-destroying, so I borrowed her intensity and smasher, but fictionalized everything else. The other characters aren ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate based on anybody specific, but they all span out of my inquiry into the time period and reflect respective characters I bumped into .
How did the novel evolve and change as you wrote and revised it? Are there any characters or scenes that were lost in the process that you wish had made it to the published version?
This novel changed massively over the two years I was writing it. initially, it was much more globetrotting and had big chunks set in Jakarta, Amsterdam, and early places. In the end, it was excessively unfocused. I liked the claustrophobia of the gravy boat and having a locked-room mystery for my characters to get their teeth into. For that to work, you need an disjunct localization and an unchanging cast of characters. It became obvious as I wrote that I needed to tighten the plot astir, and that ’ s when I got the book I wanted. As a result, there ’ sulfur absolutely nothing I cut that I wanted published.
You describe the Saardam in such great detail and in a way that allows readers unfamiliar with this type of ship to visualize the locations and how they interconnect. Were you familiar with 17th-century sailing ships prior to writing The Devil and the Dark Water? If so, how/why? If not, how long did it take you to do the necessary research and then write the novel?
I wasn ’ thymine, except what small I ’ vitamin d seen in the exhibition that inspired the report. I ended up doing a fortune of research into these ships, including visiting one. There ’ mho a place called Lelystadt in the Netherlands where they rebuilt the Batavia – which was the ship that inspired my bible. They used the lapp structure techniques that would have been used when it was built in 1628, and they tied sail her around. I walked around that gravy boat for two days and pestered the staff with questions until I understood how it worked. That trip was what gave me the sense of claustrophobia, and how unpleasant animation aboard would have been for the passengers and crowd. even with thirty other visitors, it felt dreadfully besotted. I can ’ thyroxine think what it must have felt like with over 300. The problem was, the ship was entirely one partially of the research. I had to throw myself into this time period, so I could understand the life experiences of my characters. I had to know what life was like for women in this period. What a soldier ’ randomness life would have been, and where he would have fought. I had to dig into the occult, demonology, and superstition. then I had to work out what I could safely throw away to make the plot work. All told, researching this bible probably took three months, and a foster two years to write. There was a lot to balance. It was intense .
What was the most interesting or surprising thing that you learned about sailing ships during your research?
That sailors would end up washing their clothes in urine rather than seawater because seawater would make them besides itchy. On the farseeing list of disgusting facts that is credibly the most disgust .
What’s currently on your nightstand?
I ’ ve normally got a few books on the sound at the same time. I ’ thousand presently reading Leave the World Behind, which is beginning to come into concenter. For the longest meter, it was very creepy but I had no idea what was going on. I ’ m besides reading The porpoise by Mark Haddon, which is one of the best things I ’ ve read in a identical long time. It ’ s so dexterously written and manages to be constantly storm. I love it .
What is the last piece of art (music, movies, tv, more traditional art forms) that you’ve experienced or that has impacted you?
Oh god, I ’ megabyte going to sound wholly soulless hera, but nothing in truth impacts me very much. I ’ thousand one of those lucky people who doesn ’ triiodothyronine suffer excessively much from highs or lows. I enjoy things a bang-up deal, but by and large I ’ m made from cogs and springs. When my two-year-old daughter says she loves me you ’ ll see the mechanism bumble slenderly, but that ’ s about the only thing that can do it.
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What is the question that you’re always hoping you’ll be asked, but never have been? What is your answer?
Hey Stu, can I give you ten million dollars for merely being you. The answer is yes .
What are you working on now?
I ’ thousand presently working on record 3, but it ’ south in truth early so I can ’ t say besides much about it. It ’ second absolutely bonkers, which I like, and I ’ meter absolutely terrified by it, which I don ’ thyroxine. At its center is an idea I ’ m not sure I can pull off, which is pretty much how seven Deaths and Devil got started, so it ’ mho weirdly reassuring .
The Devil and the Dark Water
Turton, Stuart In The Devil and the Dark Water, Stuart Turton, author of 2018 ’ s excellent The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, presents readers with a decidedly different, and yet equally challenging, mystery to solve. Except for a few occurrences, everything takes place on board a seventeenth century sailing transport, providing a claustrophobic environment for the events to unfold. The mystery presented is engrossing. It incorporates superstition, obscure identities, political and social brinksmanship, and, lusts of all kinds, including riches, world power, and revenge. The Devil and the Dark Water is an absorbing narrative that will keep readers guessing to the very last page .
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