Guillermo Del Toro (director, The Shape of Water, Pan’s Labyrinth). His seminal zombie novel Autumn was made into an (admittedly terrible) movie starring Dexter Fletcher and David Carradine. Moody has a unhealthy fascination with the end of the world and likes to write books about ordinary folks going through absolute hell.Moody applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, One of Us Will Be Dead by Morning, and reported the following:
Page 69 of One of Us Will Be Dead by Morning is actually only half a page long. It’s the beginning of a new chapter, and it’s relatively action free. Interestingly, though, it does say a lot about the book. The novel takes place on a small, rocky island in the North Sea between the UK and Denmark. It’s a cold, inhospitable place, and it’s where a group of office workers are enduring a team-building weekend courtesy of Hazleton Adventure Experiences. The Hater novels (of which this is one) are about mankind’s inability to get along. The human race is split down the middle, and both sides must wipe out the other in order to survive. As well as the dynamic between the Haters and the Unchanged (as they’re called), in the new book there’s an immediate division between the office co-workers and the Hazleton Adventure Experience staff. On page 69 we see a character from either side finally beginning to interact and bridge the gap between the two factions. It’s a relatively lightweight conversation they share, but its implications for the rest of the story are vast. These people will need to work together in order to stay alive, and yet the people they need to work with are also their biggest threat. It’s an impossible paradox, and after a series of horrific events, page 69 represents the point where the smartest of the folks on the island realise what’s at stake and what they must do to survive.Visit David Moody's website.
My Book, The Movie: One of Us Will Be Dead by Morning.
Writers Read: David Moody.
--Marshal Zeringue
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