Pyres Interview

Here's the full 58-minute audio of an interview regarding Pyres, conducted on Georgia State University radio last year. It comes courtesy of Nija Dalal, my illustrious interviewer, now of Rock the Province in Sydney, Down Under.

Pyres: The Movie?

Must admit I've been sitting on this news a while, processing whether or not it could be true, waiting for it to mature. But now that the first big step has been taken, hiring a brilliant screenwriter, I must spread the news. So here goes:

Producer Andrew Fierberg at Vox3 Films has optioned film rights to Derek Nikitas' Edgar Award nominated PYRES, the story of a rebellious teenage girl who is forced to come of age in the midst of the criminal conspiracies surrounding her father's murder and the dogged detective atoning for her own family's collapse while investigating the case.

Fierberg is 1/3 of Vox3, a highly successful NY-based independent production company known for actually making the movies for which they acquire the rights, so you can imagine my delight. What's more, their movies are quirky, honest, and alive in ways you don't normally see in movies from the big H (not that I have anything against the big H, mind you; there's a time to every purpose under heaven).

Their most recent release is Rage with Judi Dench, Jude Law (in drag), Eddie Izzard, and Steve Buscemi. They've also made Keane, a truly frightning and moving and intimate psychological character study; Secretary with Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader; Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus with Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey, Jr., among quite a few others. Secretary and Fur are of course Steven Shainberg's two stylish and creepy films, the former of which I've taught in a film class before.

Oh, and they made Broken English, directed by Zoe Casavettes, the daughter of one of my heroes, the late, great independet film giant, John Casavettes. I enjoyed Broken English in particular because it shows how much more Ms. Casavettes is following in her father's footsteps than her brother Nick, who made The Notebook.


But the biggest news yet about all this is that Vox3 has hired James Ponsoldt to write the adapted screenplay. Ponsoldt's first feature film, Off The Black (starring Nick Nolte), was a Sundance official entry. If you've not seen it, run out and rent it pronto. It's a moving, starkly beautiful character study full of authenticating detail both comic and tragic, and it has such a keen eye for the kind of life my characters lead. I'm thrilled to have James making my story his own, and can't wait to read the results.

New Pyres Reviews

Glad to report that last month's publication of the trade paperback of Pyres has eared the book some renewed attention, including some fresh reviews from newspaper and online sources. Here's a sampling:

Nikitas does a nice job of weaving in a surprising amount of Norse mythology into an otherwise very modern thriller. . . [T]he novel's final chapter, titled Ragnarok (twilight of the gods in Norse mythology), vies with any epic opera for explicit and apocalyptic violence.

Nikitas keeps the tension high in Pyres while creating a compelling cast of characters. Detective Hurd could be a springboard heroine for a noir series set in the woodsy idyll of upstate New York.

--Kathy Kerr, The Edmonton Journal (full review here)


Derek Nikitas' Pyres garnered good notices, but not widespread acclaim, when it was published last year. But now that the book, nominated for an Edgar Award for best first novel, is out in paperback, it has a chance to reach the audience it richly deserves.

--Ruth Myles, Calgary Herald (full review here)

An Edgar Award nominee for best first novel, Pyres is a harsh, bleeding nightmare full of Scandinavian angst and American mayhem, a fairy tale with all "the brutal bits."

In a genre ploughed deep, it breaks new ground. Don't miss it.

--John Sullivan, Winnipeg Free Press (full review here)

It's hard to believe this tour de force is a first novel. However, the author is an acclaimed short-story writer and clearly has honed his fiction chops. Another surprise, given the male author, is that the main characters are women and a major theme running through the book is mothers and daughters trying to make peace. To Nikitas' credit, the characters and relationships are all quite convincing. Nikitas is also close enough to his youth that he gets his younger characters right. I admit that when Luc started seeing Nordic gnomes (tomten) that led her on the right path, I paused. This was verging on fantasy, something I usually avoid. But everything about the story was so well done and so compelling that I was willing to suspend disbelief and keep on reading. I was glad I did. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

--Verna Suit at I Love a Mystery (full review here, complete with doofy candid of the author)

And here's a nice bit about my story "Runaway," in the Killer Year anthology (St. Martin's Minotaur, edited by Lee Child):

The best story in this collection is the superbly chilling "Runaway" by Derek Nikitas. Two fifteen year-olds have made a building site their playground and a concrete underground bunker their den - and then they discover that a runaway black girl is hiding inside. The captivating Rhonda Peach is a revelation to the boys. But things increasingly get beyond their control. Nikitas's writing is evocative and sensual and rooted in teenage angst.

--Eileen Shaw, The Bookbag (full review here)

But perhaps my favorite review of Pyres yet comes from the "Nerd of Noir" (aka Peter Dragovich) Here's a snippet, but please do read the whole profane thing:

But what really makes this fucker hum is the action. This is some of the most intense violence you will read anywhere, depicted on a level that is arguably McCarthyian - no shit. ..Some shocking stuff happens in this motherfucker and when it isn't completely disgusting, it is absolutely riveting.

I can't wait for Nikitas to pump out another book. This dude has the chops to intrigue both the beret-wearing totebag-carriers and the folks like you and me who want our pulp to go all the way. He's fighting the best fight and I support the shit out of him for that.

Finally, and by contrast, here's a message board over at Women's Day, where a nice group of folks are currently reading and discussing Pyres.

Pyres in Paperback

Just a quick reminder that the trade paperback edition of Pyres goes on sale today from St. Martin's Minotaur. Now you can have it for as cheap as eleven bucks! And it's smaller, easier to cart around.

Pyres in Ireland

My friend and fellow writer Craig Renfroe, who gets to globe trot all around Europe this summer, has spotted a couple copies of Pyres in a bookstore in Dublin. There's no UK version of Pyres or anything; just a couple volumes of the American edition making one hell of a swim across the Atlantic. Craig has also pointed out that my posts are not tiny like I said they'd be. This was true, until now.

Turning Japanese

My novel Pyres has been purchased by Hayakawa Publishing for translation and publication in Japan! Forgive my excitement, but this is my first translation sale ever. Now my bio can say "Derek Nikitas's work has been translated into one language!" But seriously, all you Japanese fans clamoring to get a hold of a translated version of Pyres shall wait no longer. Not that I've ever heard from a Japanese fan. And not that the book is being published right now. In fact, I don't even know when it's going to come out. Still I can't wait to get my very own copy, full of...

(okay, I was about to write "pictographs," but not wanting to look like an idiot (too late), I did five minutes of research. Turns out Japanese characters are not "pictographs" (pictures that are meant to represent exactly what they picture), nor are they "ideograms" or "logograms" like in some Chinese characters (symbols that represent complete ideas rather than mere sounds like in the English alphabet; our numerals are ideograms, like 1). Anyway, modern Japanese is phonetic (sound based) just like English. The "lettering" is called hiragana, or katakana. There is an element of the Japanese writing system called kanji, which is apparently ideographic, because it is older and borrowed from China. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong about this information. Either one of you.)

I can't wait to get my very of own copy of the Japanese edition full of Japanese hiragana and katakana that I can't read. It'll be fun to look at and to break out at parties, nonetheless.

Some Ecstasy from the Agony

This morning, Terry D'Auray over at "The Agony Column Book Review and Commentary" has posted a wonderful review of my novel Pyres. To quote E of the Eels: "It was more than I thought I deserved." My biggest challenge in writing Pyres was trying to "mind-meld" with female characters who bear no resemblance to me, so I'm humbled any time anyone praises the effort.

Anyway, the D'Auray review heralds the second time I've been compared to John Connelly, whom I have admittedly not yet read, even though his novel Every Dead Thing begins with an epitaph from John Donne's poem, "A Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy's Day, Being The Shortest Day," being the poem from which Connelly took his titular phrase. For reasons clear to those who've read Pyres, I would've used that same epitaph to begin my book, had not Mr. Connelly beat me to the punch. Do I hold a grudge? Of course not!

I must also admit I've not heard of this wonderful website, "The Agony Column..." until today, and this is my own internet ignorance. I'm out of every loop. What I've discovered is not only an amazing repository of reviews, but also an archive of audio interviews and podcasts that are going to keep me glued to my RealPlayer for days.

I also want to thank Amazon Top 1000 reviewer Gary Griffiths for his review of Pyres. Gary lives in Cali. I seem to be getting an inordinate amout of love from California, a state far removed from my (not to mention my characters') stomping ground. The folks at the M is for Mystery bookstore in San Marcos, CA have been amazing advocates of the book, as has Tzar of Noir Eddie Muller in his San Fran Chron review. Here's hoping the love makes its way down to Hollywood.

Meanwhile, the folks at Barnes and Noble have been far too good to me. This link will probably expire soon, but just take a gander if you're reading this and it's still Feb 2008. Scroll down, of course.

Okay, enough love. You can't ego-google and expect everything to come up roses. This guy thinks my book is suffocating, and I agree. I thought thrillers were supposed to be suffocating. I'll try better next time.

And worse: my supposed friend Craig Renfroe has publically accused me of stealing propagan... I mean property from the Paddington, London branch of the Church of Scientology. I am innocent. Kelly and Sarah are the culprits, as he well knows. I merely suggested it. I even felt guily (and curious) enough to go get a free audit, which, for the record, did not make me feel better, but now permits the Scientologists to "have a file on me," as it were. Anyway, this kind of unwarranted accusation and aspersion-casting will never bring you to a state of theta clear, as you also well know, Craig. May Xenu and the Galactic Confederacy show you no mercy.

Introductions...

The pleasure's all mine.

Been blogging with my compatriots down at Killer Year near about a year now. The lot of us are scribes of noir, thriller, crime. A ragged bunch. But the Killer Year is winding down. Sure, we've got an ass-kicker of an antho dropping first thing 2008: Killer Year: Stories to Die For. It'll be our collective legacy. We've got our solo careers to sow. We've got to make it on our own.

So here's this blog, all me. Don't ask why because I don't know. Things to say from time to time and nobody to say them to. I contented myself at Killer Year with once-a-month essays of sorts. It's the academic in me. But round here I won't burn myself out on long-winded musings. Quick jabs, maybe. The occasional autopsy.

So who the hell am I? My book Pyres came out this year from St. Martin's Minotaur. Blurbs from Joyce Carol Oates, Marcus Sakey, Ken Bruen, Wendy Brenner, Duane Swierczynski.
Great reviews from Kirkus, Pub Weekly, Library Journal, Booklist. Not to mention sweet reviews from such luminary rags as the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Omaha World Herald, and the Wilmington Star-News. Book's about a punky teenage girl Luc who's life gets upended when she witnesses her dad's murder. The crime gets the poor kid all mixed up with some dangerous folks who maybe want to see more of her family go down. Up to Luc and police detective Greta Hurd to keep things from going up in flames. Or not. It's got bits of police procdural, noir, and even some fabulist turns for the literary types. Takes place in Rochester, NY and surrounding environs, my own wintery teenage haunts.

Grew up outside Rochester, went to school at a SUNY, then down to Wilmington, NC for my MFA in creative writing. Wilmington's on the beach, beaut weather, but my mind drifted back to the cold and dark and I invented a place called Hammersport. Western, New York. Amalgam of Brockport and some other Erie Canal towns. Hammersport's been home base for all my published short stories and for the debut novel, too. Said stories have popped up in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, The Ontario Review, Chelsea and The Pedestal Magazine.

Down in Atlanta now, chipping away at a PhD because I can't seem to get my fill of the hallowed halls of academe. Writing novel two on the sly, crawling inside a woman's head yet again. Some say write what you know, but fuck it: write what you're desparate to undestand (somebody else said that first, can't remember who). Fall on your ass maybe, but you've got the "transport of the aim," as Dickinson said. Emily's a woman to strive to understand. She'll slice your soul up. Try this Dickinson quip:

"I shall know why--when Time is over--
and I have ceased to wonder why--
Christ will explain each separate anguish
In the fair schoolroom of the sky."

I'm a sucker for great poets: Ms. Dickinson, Thomas Hardy, G.M. Hopkins, Philip Larkin, and my man John Berryman who supplies the quotation affixed to the front of this blog in "A Sympathy, A Welcome." Poem writ in 1958 on the occasion of the birth ("fall") of Berryman's son Paul:

"Feel for your bad fall how could I fail,
poor Paul, who had it so good.
I can offer you only: this world like a knife.
You'll get to know your mother
and humourless as you do look you will laugh
and all the others
will NOT be fierce to you, and loverhood
will swing your soul like a broken bell
deep in the forsaken woods, poor Paul,
while wild bad father loves you well."

It's that splice of noir and heart that slays me, every time. Berryman, you know, threw himself off a bridge when the knife-world stabbed too hard at him. Not a tale for the festive season, but few true stories fit the bill. If you're looking for answers, I got only questions here, dear.