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Interview: Charlaine Harris - Page 2 of 2 - SciFiNow

Interview: Charlaine Harris

“Let’s get this straight right now, I am not in the business of writing what people ask me to write…”

trueblood_posterDead In The Family is out soon, could you talk us through what happens?

Well, of course it’s all about family, no surprise there. It’s about unconventional families, like Sookie’s and its strange extensions, Bill’s family, Eric’s family. It’s about how they can make us both miserable and happy. Your family can kill you and make things better.

We actually spoke last year in an email interview. Then, you said that there were going to be four or five more books in the series. Is that still the plan?

I’m signed up through book 13, [Dead In The Family] is book ten, so I have to decide within the next book or two. If I’m still energised at writing them I’ll continue, if I feel that I’m getting bored or stale, I’ll stop.

Do you ever envisage a return to crime and mystery? Your Harper Connelly series, for instance…

Yeah, it’s a lot more crime orientated. I think I’ve also said everything about Harper that I want to say, and I can’t keep that going if I want to be true to her. But I have a couple of ideas for other things I want to write.

So have you seen the True Blood series?

Oh yeah! Yes I have.

Is it how you imagined it would be?

I’ve lived with those characters for years, so I have another specific picture in my head about them and of course no actor could ever match that. But it’s been very interesting to watch the casting. I’ve been so happy with the result – I love Alan [Ball], and watching Anna Paquin, who’s just an amazing actress, taking that part and making it her own…

And she won the Golden Globe for it.

And she won the Golden Globe, which of course she should get every year. And Steven [Moyer] has done such a great job as Bill, they all do – Nelsan Ellis is just brilliant as Lafayette.

Of course, that was a character that didn’t survive in your books.

That’s right! But he saved his own neck by being such a brilliant actor! Alan didn’t want to lose him, because he’s done such amazing things with the role.

Do they ever consult you on how that role would have evolved, or is it very much their own creation?

It’s their own thing. He’s got a wonderful group of writers who do a great job, they’ve got the books, they don’t need any input from me and in return they don’t tell me how to write the books. We work great together because we don’t talk to each other!

It must be nice actually – today on the Tube for instance, we couldn’t go from Embankment to Leicester Square without seeing a True Blood poster in every station and train. Does it give you a thrill, seeing that?

It’s wonderful to be associated with such a quality product, and such an in-your-face sort of show. It’s startled me several times. But you know, that’s part of being with Alan Ball and HBO, that’s going to happen.

That’s the way they seem to do things.

That’s the way they do things and that’s why I wanted to go with him, because otherwise I thought that Sookie’s story might get so watered down, and weakened, that it wouldn’t be the fun thing that it is. But then you have to be aware that you’re going to see things that are really going to startle you on screen.

Dead In The Family is released on 14 May, through Gollancz.