Jeff VanderMeer Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Interview

In a conversation with Kirkus Review's Mark Athitakis the author discusses the fourth book in his Southern Reach series, Absolution.

Were you surprised that you wanted to pursue a fourth book in the series?

I really didn't plan to write another [Southern Reach] book, but there were these questions that had their hooks in my subconscious. I really wanted to know more about what the Séance & Science Brigade had been up to before Area X came down the border. I also had this weird vision of a scientific expedition to the Forgotten Coast, 20 years before Area X occurred, which had somehow created a condition for, or had an influence over, what happened later. And that was very powerful. All of this kind of lived beneath the surface of my mind.

What was the writing process itself like?

Last year, the floodgates broke open. For six months, I really wrote in a fever dream, which is very much like how I wrote Annihilation. Morning, noon, and night, basically. Writers don't like to talk about this phase because it sounds…maybe too surreal. But you're literally in an ecstatic trance—you're basically having visions. So by year's end, the novel was complete. It was the single greatest writing jag of my entire life, and so instinctual that I don't remember large portions of it. I'm still figuring out how it happened.

Do actual dreams play a role in helping you ...