Author Inga Vesper talks to us about her latest novel This Wild, Wild Country and gives us a sneak peek at her next novel idea.
Inga Vesper is a journalist and editor. She moved to the UK from Germany to work as a carer before the urge to write and explore brought her to science journalism.
Inga's debut novel was the stunning 1950s set mystery The Long, Long Afternoon which was published in 2021. It has also proved to be popular with Suffolk readers. Inga's latest novel, This Wild, Wild Country, was published on 4 August by Manilla and is available on our catalogue.
Definitely Ronja Robbersdaughter. I loved all the Astrid Lindgren characters, but I was never that keen on Pippi Longstocking. But Ronja, the adventurous and brave child of robbers who live in an abandoned castle, had me fascinated. My other hero, much in the same vein, was Asterix of the comic books. We had all of them, and my friends and I played out entire story lines in the hills and forests around my home village.
Definitely! The book I wrote before The Long, Long Afternoon is about a mysterious disappearance during a hiking trip to Iceland. It follows a group of people who have met on the internet to do the hike of a lifetime — but things go wrong very quickly. I also wrote a murder mystery set in an opera house in 1901. That may need a lot of editing, but I’m very much in love with the concept and plot, so I may revive that book some time.
I did as much research as I could, including downloading mail order catalogues from the time and picking outfits, interior designs and cars for every character in every scene. I watched a lot of documentaries and original footage from the time and made notes on how people spoke, how they acted and what they had in their houses. The rest was instinct and trying to transplant myself into that situation. Heat coming off tarmac, the sound of a neighbourhood, the smell of a large city in summer... all these are things I have experienced.
It was always going to be the crucial relationship in the book, but it was also really difficult to write. In the first draft, Mick was transporting a lot of the anxiety I felt about writing Ruby. He was always apologising to her about racism and trying to empathise with something he really couldn’t... in the second draft, I rewrote a lot about the relationship and made Ruby a much more proactive partner for Mick. It was a very difficult balance to get right — especially while trying to correctly reflect the racist attitudes of the day. My love and appreciation for both characters meant I never got tired of bringing them together in new formations, until I felt it worked.
Yes, please! It’s set in 1970s in a remote town in New Mexico. A hippie commune sets up shop and instantly clashes with the conservative locals. When a commune member is murdered, the police dismiss it as a drug overdose. But Glitter, a young hippie woman, begins to investigate and teams up with Joanna, a former cop who has fled an abusive marriage. Together, they uncover a very dark secret in the town that reaches back to the Great Depression... it’s a wild ride, covering the burning-out of the counterculture, the Dust Bowl years and even some Wild West legends. But at the heart of it is another compelling murder mystery.
I am planning to leave America behind and look a bit closer to home. I’ve been toying for a while with writing a crime novel set in immediate post-war Germany, when there were no formal authorities, no proper police, no country to speak of. At this time, many women — the men being mostly dead or imprisoned — moved together to form ad-hoc flat shares among the rubble of ruined cities. They did so for protection and to pool resources, but also to cope with their shared trauma and to forge a future. I want to write about these women, and what it must have been like to face the total collapse of your country and the humongous guilt — all while trying to scavenge for coals and awaiting their denazification trial...
Read The Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann. It’s a whopper, but one of my favourite books. It’s all about family relations, about chains of bad decisions, about big secrets that no one wants to address. My favourite writing music is chillhop, a little-known online genre, and some amazing artists such as BLUME and Dreamhop are on Youtube. A painting I can stare at forever is Edward Hopper’s Morning Sun. What is going on with that woman? What is she looking at? There might be a whole novel in there.
How long have you got? There is Denise Mina’s Confidence, Kirstin Innes’ Scabby Queen, Seaon O’Connor’s The Fatal Passion of Alma Rattenbury, CJ Tudor’s A Sliver of Darkness, Scarlett Brade’s The Hive... it goes on forever.
Am I allowed to swear? “It’s ok to write a s**t first draft.” I used to be held back by the conviction that ‘proper’ authors poured perfect novels onto pages, while my writing was chaotic, stilted and overworked. Then I discovered the joys of editing, and now I write away with abandon, knowing that I can improve anything – except for a blank page.
I really got into hillwalking last year after I moved to Glasgow and have, to date, climbed 24 Munros—Scottish hills higher than 3,000 feet. There’s 282 of them, so I’ve got some more to do... behind my desk is a Munro map, which my mum gave me for Christmas. If I get overwhelmed by writing, I look at the map and am reminded that big achievements take time and perseverance. That’s great motivation for both hills and books.
