The Ginger Nuts of Horror website, run by Jim Mcleod, recently did an interview with Sarah Lotz and Louis Greenberg, aka SL Grey, about their new novel, Under Ground.
The thriller will be released in August by Pan Macmillan, and tells the story of The Sanctum, a luxury self-sustaining underground survival facility where a group of people hide away when a global virus outbreak brings on the apocalypse.
In the interview, Lotz and Greenberg talk about their collaborative pen name and the meaning behind the surname “Grey”. They talk about the process of working together, and shares their views on the booming South African genre scene.
Turning the conversation to Under Ground, the authors discuss the racial tension and claustrophobic atmosphere prevalent throughout the book. “Claustrophobia was essential to this novel,” Greenberg says.
Read the article:
I particularly liked the scene where their hatred for another family is based the assumption that they come from China, which is the source of the deadly plague that is sweeping the world. Was this a move designed to highlight the ignorance displayed by people of hate?
L: I don’t think deliberately. It was just part of the set-up and a fairly believable reaction to that. Maybe we’re so surrounded by racism that racist characters’ views are pretty easy to channel.
S: That’s not to say we’re racist (!) just that hate-speech is becoming ubiquitous: an obvious example is that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to read anything on the internet without at least one arsehole weighing in with a racist or sexist comment intended to hurt or shut someone up.
Book details
- Under Ground by SL Grey
EAN: 9781447266495
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