In Reference to Murder welcomes Geoffrey Girard for the latest "Author R&R" (Research and Reference) segment. Geoffrey was born in Germany and raised in New Jersey, earning a degree in literature from Washington College. He is currently the English Department Chair at a famed private boys' high school and also an award-winning author whose works have appeared in several best-selling anthologies and magazines.
Geoffrey's techno-thriller novel Cain's Blood and an accompanying spinoff novel for teens, Project Cain, were just published by Simon & Schuster. Both novels are based on Girard's novella Cain XP11, which ran as four installments in Apex Digest in 2007, and both deal with a secret U.S. Department of Defense project.
In Cain's Blood, the government scientists use DNA from the world's most notorious serial killers to clone dozens of young men who have no
clue as to their evil heritage. Playing a twisted game of nature vs.
nurture, scientists raise some of the clones with loving families and
others in abusive circumstances. But everything changes when the most
dangerous boys are set free by their creator.
Here's Geoffrey's take on the inspiration and research behind the novels:
My favorite part of writing has always been the research. (A genetic bent, perhaps, from my historian father?) I once wrote an entire book (Tales of the Eastern Indians) because I felt I didn’t know enough about Native Americans and read for a year before writing a single word.
Cain’s Blood and Project Cain (about, in short, cloned serial killers) became my excuse to study everything from the early lives of serial killers to posttraumatic stress disorder. The genetics of violence to statistics of crime. Modern cloning capabilities and laws. Military scientific tests, human-rights violations, and subsequent cover-ups. All very interesting topics told through books, articles, taped interviews, etc.
The trick was (and always is) not to get lost in all that research. While the teen version of the book (Project Cain) is meant more as an “Intro to Serial Killers 101” for readers new to these men, both novels are (or should be) stories about people. And any research achieved needed to go toward that. How does that “fact” help shape a specific character? How does that new technical paper affect a character’s knowledge or reaction/attitude?
Jeff Jacobson is the teenaged clone of Jeffrey Dahmer, so I needed to know Dahmer pretty well. Many books, articles and taped interviews later, I felt I did. Of particular interest were an autobiography by Dahmer’s father and My Friend Dahmer, a graphic novel by a high-school friend. Because these books discussed Jeff as a teen. I watched hours of tape of in-jail Dahmer. Studied the voice, delivery, mannerisms. How many would he have had at sixteen? How many were genetic in nature? His emotional detachment was, I believe, mostly physiological. How would that look/sound in the 16 year old version? Now I started to imagine this kid. I started to imagine Dahmer in a different place and time. Had (I admit) an old photo of Dahmer as a little kid as my laptop background for a couple weeks. Kept thinking about THAT kid. Before it all went so wrong. That’s the kid I now wanted to write about. Jeff Jacobson was born. I could not have written a word of Jeff Jacobson’s story until I’d done my research first. He just would have become some lame version of ME as a kid. And my kid problems were not the same as Dahmer’s – or Jeff Jacobson’s. For this character to become “real,” I had to fill my head with facts and slowly let the boy within all those facts start to take shape. Add in a dash of studying several real-life teens and Poof! It was like Pinocchio springing to life. There was no stopping him.
Castillo, the main protagonist in Cain’s Blood, was another guy who needed some research before I let him get into too much trouble. Again, he’s not me. I never served in the military, still can’t throw a proper punch, and PTSD wasn’t something to just dress him up some. It was, for me, an important piece in the books’ exploration of Nature versus Nurture. So, I read half a dozen books by vets with PTSD. I talked to real vets about war and coming home. Scoured for the latest books and articles on the treatment our vets are really getting and the most-effective solutions to recovery. Watched countless military training videos on various forms of combat fighting. [Did I still mistakenly call his magazines “clips” a few times, yes. (Learned that one too late!)] But, again, I didn’t let Castillo loose until I’d done my research and combined much of what I’d found with some qualities of real people I know into my new “real” character.
Real people are the products of the facts around us. We live in – are nurtured within -- a world driven by statistics, dates, physical evidence, and narrative history. In what ways has your character been defined by the times and places you’ve lived? The statistics and facts that have touched your life seemingly from afar? It is in those same ways we should hope to help best imbue our characters.
To read more about Geoffrey and the novels, and for ordering information, check out his website. You can also follow him on Twitter (@Geoffrey_Girard) and Facebook.
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