Listen to Robert discuss how Strike’s personality has developed through the lens of grief, wisdom, and ageing.
Transcript
Strike has obviously experienced quite a lot of loss in his life. The death of his mother is obviously huge, and more recently, he has experienced the loss of his surrogate mother, Joan. And his uncle is failing in this book. So, these things do come to you as you age, the loss of these people close to you. And I think, my editor said to me after reading this book, I really feel him getting older. And I want to depict someone who is ageing.
We’re very youth-obsessed; we’re very obsessed with ageing in a negative sense. But I see it differently. He’s gaining wisdom, he’s gaining perspective. And as painful as loss is, if you do learn from it, and I speak very personally here, and if it does give you a heightened sense of life is to be lived. Do the thing now, say the thing now. Share with people that you love, that you love them now. That’s a positive. You know, these things come to all of us. So I see Strike as becoming, inch by inch, a little more emotionally intelligent in this book. You know he’s often compartmentalised his emotions as a coping mechanism and he has had a lot of loss.
But he is becoming that little bit more self-aware in this book and I think that’s probably overdue.
