Author Q&A with Danielle Ramsay

The Crime Warp welcomes another Northern lass today. Please meet the lovely Danielle Ramsay whose latest book, The Last Cut, recently hit our shelves.  The Last Cut is all about empowerment and I defy any of you, after reading this Q&A, not to go out and buy it.  This is a stunning and honest interview and I am honoured that Danielle agreed to be Warped with us today. 

Liz:  It's lovely to have you here Danielle, to kick off tell us a bit about The Last Cut

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Danielle: The Last Cut is the first book in a new series and features DS Harri Jacobs – the victim of a horrific attack, she transfers to Newcastle from the Met in the hope of leaving her past behind. Her assailant left her alive, with the promise that one day he would be back. And she ran. But a year later, with a serial killer stalking the streets of Newcastle, horrifically altering his victims, she soon realises that he has followed her. But the hunter soon becomes the hunted as DS Harri Jacobs refuses to become his victim for a second and final time.  

Liz:  High octane stuff, Danielle.  Where did the inspiration for The Last Cut come from?

Danielle:  The inspiration for The Last
Cut was borne out of both personal experience and the legacy of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852. According to legend, Abraham Lincoln credited Harriet Beecher Stowe when he met her in 1862 as being  “the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war (the civil war 1861-1865).” 

Whether true or not, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel was hugely influential in the fight against slavery and it was her brave portrayal of the horrific ills of slavery, including sexual abuse that shocked a nation.

The Last Cut deals with female victims, but instead of having them as part of a body count, I

wanted them to be survivors; to transcend victimhood and metamorphose into warriors who ultimately save themselves. The abolitionist, Harriet Beecher Stowe used her novel to fight against slavery for the victims who endured its ills, and so, as a feminist and a Patron of the charity SomeOne Cares (Click here ) which counsels victims of rape, child abuse and domestic violence, I wanted my victims to fight back. To resist. To refuse. And if at all possible, to save themselves.

Liz: I love the sense of empowerment that you embedded in Harri's character, Danielle.  Are any of your characters based on real life people?

Danielle: DS Harri Jacobs’ name is actually based on Harriet Ann Jacobs who was an

African American slave who escaped by hiding in a crawl space above a storeroom in her grandmother’s house in the summer of 1835. She remained in that “little dismal hole” for the next seven years. She went on to become an abolitionist and publicly spoke against the ills of slavery, racial and gender inequality. She then wrote an autobiographical novel, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl which was published in 1861 and exposed the horrific insidious sexual abuse inflicted upon women and girls within the confines of slavery.

DS Harri Jacobs is clearly not an escaped slave, nor an African American novelist, but she is a survivor of sexual abuse and oppression who through her job fights for the freedom of other female victims. There are parallels that link my fictitious character to her namesake, such as the fact that Harriet Ann Jacobs hid in a crawl space for seven years watching and waiting before seizing her liberation. DS Harri Jacobs effectively locks herself

up in a glass prison – a fifth floor warehouse apartment – where she watches and waits for her attacker to return, as promised. But both women break free from their confines, one from slavery and the other as a rape and potential murder victim – both ultimately living with the threat of being hunted down; Harriet Ann Jacobs as a fugitive slave and DS Harri Jacobs as a victim whose assailant was never caught. Both have the threat of men claiming and destroying them and yet both women are ultimately victorious warriors who chose not to live in fear.

Liz: Your passion for writing shines through like a beacon, so, what tips do you have for would-be writers seeking publication?

Danielle: My tip would be to never give up; regardless of how many rejections you may receive, if you truly believe in your writing then keep going. You can only succeed if you keep trying - you fail as soon as you stop.

Randy Pausch at the age of forty-seven gave his last lecture in 2007 at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh; a month earlier he had been diagnosed with terminal prostate

cancer. The book The Last Lecture, based on the speech he gave to his fellow colleagues and students, was published posthumously and one of his quotes resonated with me when I was trying to get published (and still does):

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”

Liz: Brilliant quote and very inspirational.  Is there a particular book you wish you’d written and why?

Danielle: Beloved by Toni Morrison. It was published in 1987 and it is a book that I wish I

had written because of its exploration of American slavery, family, trauma, repressed memories and ultimately, the resilience of the human psyche to fight oppression – regardless of the personal consequences. The racial themes of black/white relations founded in such an inequitable past as slavery, struck a personal chord with me as my Algerian grandfather was raised in Dundee by a white family in the early 1900s and suffered unspeakable racism throughout his life. At the age of thirty-seven he was deployed at the outbreak of the Second World War to France. Physically, as a 6’1’ black man he was a conspicuous figure; finally captured, he proceeded to escape three times during his five year imprisonment. He even survived a “death march” into Germany at the close of the war by feigning death and then made his own way home through Europe, arriving months after the end of the war. My grandfather ironically died shortly after being reunited with my grandmother from an intracranial brain tumour, believed to have been the result of trauma to the head after being beaten repeatedly by a German soldier’s rifle. My mother grew up fatherless with no reference to her racial heritage; one which had caused her to suffer being called the “N” word (amongst other racial insults) – a slur I had heard as a child growing up in reference to her.

Morrison dedicates Beloved to the “Six Million and more” Africans and their descendants who died during the transatlantic slave trade - a novel that speaks of human survival and resilience against adversity which is why it speaks to me of my maternal family and in particular my grandfather and as such, is a book that I wish I had written.

Liz:  I can understand that.   Can you tell us two things about yourself that your readership may be unaware of?

Danielle: At fourteen, a short story I had written was entered into a national writing competition by my school, which isn’t that unusual, but the subject matter was at odds with the fact that I was a Scottish teenage girl. It was about a Vietnam Veteran returning home to be met with such open hostility that his sense of abject alienation drove him to suicide. I had

grown up rejecting my gender (at least the constraints my gender offered me), choosing Action Man over Barbie. I never wore dresses or skirts and instead would only wear jeans and T-shirts as my childhood was spent roaming around the Angus countryside, climbing trees and swinging from ropes that dangled over rivers.

By the age of fourteen I had also shot a .44 Magnum (I was

an avid fan of Clint Eastwood and the Dirty Harry films) and a 35 Colt. My father owned 44 guns; a combination of handguns, pistols, shot guns and rifles. I grew up learning how to handle guns, clean them, take them apart and make bullets. My father was a hunter, and so, I was effectively taught how to use a firearm and survive with a hunting knife – not your everyday childhood.

Liz:  Amazing experiences.  Who are your writing heroes and why?

Danielle: My writing heroes are DS Harri Jacobs’ namesakes who were originally the basis of my PhD which was entitled: ‘The Signifying Sisters: The Three Harriets’. These three 19^th

century women used their work to battle against racial and gender oppression. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), Harriet E. Wilson, Our Nig or sketches from the Life of a Free Black (1859) and finally, Harriet Ann Jacobs autobiographical novel, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). 

All three used their writing to fight against racial, sexual and class inequality and all three are my ultimate heroines.

Liz:  What is it about Crime fiction as a genre that turns you on?

Danielle: For me, there are two quotes, one by Banville and the other by Auden which succinctly sum up my fascination with this genre:

“Crime fiction is a good way of addressing the question of evil.” John Banville.

“Evil is always unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.” W.H. Auden

Liz:  Both of these quotes perfectly sum up my own fascination with the genre.  it is the normality of evil that is so frightening. Could you describe the book you are working on at the moment using only 5 words?

Danielle: The working title is: ‘Doll Skins’

Chilling, sinister, violent, dark, disturbing.

Liz:  Do you have competing ideas for future projects and have you ever worked on more than one at the same time?

Danielle: I have two competing ideas for the future. As of yet, I have not worked on more than one book at a time. However, I will be working on two projects simultaneously; the DS Harri Jacobs (Doll Skins) which I am currently writing and either one of two standalone projects. The first one is a psychological thriller set in New England which encompasses racial, sexual and religious politics. It was my debut novel which I wrote with the support of a New York literary agency and was called ‘The Coming’. However, it was never published

(despite a UK and American literary agency both being interested in it at the time) simply because it was too complicated to be commercially viable and I was unable to simplify it. So, I shelved it and began writing the Brady series. The other project is a zeitgeist novel that was shortlisted for the Debut Dagger in 2010 called ‘Lock Down’. It is a dark, satirical crime novel with a profoundly disturbing twist and as such, is a novel that I would really like to complete.

Liz:  Danielle, it has been an absolute pleasure to have you on the blog. Having devoured The Last Cut,  I am looking forward to your next Harri Jacobs novel.