EP21: Re-Introducing Apartment - TRANSCRIPT

Hi! You're listening to Hyba is Writing, and I am your host, Hyba. Recently, I wrote a blog post about how I've continued work on Apartment, and how I'm aiming to launch it in 2021. Now, it's been a while since I put the project on hold. In fact, I shelved it before I started this podcast, so listeners who have been following along with the podcast probably won't know it, and even some of my followers from social media might have forgotten about it by now! That's why I want to re-introduce it today.

Apartment is an eerie suspense novella that follows three people who live in the same apartment building. It's a story rife with suspense and tension, and all of the characters are, in one way or another, very, very suspicious. When I first started it, I had this weird idea about the setting, about what kind of people would live in that setting, and what kind of people would be attracted to that setting. I played with their mindsets a lot, leaning towards some very dark and twisted realities, and really pushed it as far as I could in terms of their psychologies and the actions they take throughout the book.

Now, if anyone listening out there does happen to remember Apartment from before I put the whole project on hold, they might remember that the original blurb for this book talks about how these three neighbours, who are all very suspect, have to work together to survive when their apartment building comes under siege. The apartment building still comes under attack, but as I was writing the story, I realized that there wasn't much working together, so really it's more of an every-man-for-himself situation. Apart from that, everything is pretty much the same, so I'm going to read out the edited and revised blurb right now:

James is a self-exiled artist and recluse who rarely leaves his apartment building. 

Angela is a lonely, bored accountant who feels her life has stagnated.

Alex is on the run from a past that won't let go, eager for freedom and a normal, peaceful existence.

Three people living in the same apartment building become increasingly suspicious of one another, but things escalate quickly when their building comes under attack, catapulting them into an absurd reality that forces them to face their wrongs and their pasts. 

So, essentially the story started out as pure suspense. That's all I wanted with this book - a deep, suffocating, lingering feeling of suspense that never quite gets satisfied. As I worked on it more and more, I realized that I could do much more with a book like this, and I took a very literary route. I added layers upon layers to this book, with message after message and theme after theme, and sprinkled it with symbolism galore. There's a lot of peel back with this book, and if you read the book at face-value without really taking the time to mull it over and dig a little deeper, you might find it a completely absurd read - which, to be fair, it is!

The story's main genres are suspense, magical realism, and psychological drama. There's some surrealism in there, but I place that in magical realism. If you don't know what magical realism is, you might be interested in checking out the works of Gabrial Garcia Marquez - I strongly recommend Chronicle of a Death Foretold, which does lend some inspiration to some parts of this book - and to those of Haruki Murakami - especially his book, After Dark, which also inspired me greatly as I wrote this book. Magical realism, to put it briefly, is when magical or extraordinary things happen in books but they're treated as normal happenings. For example, a painting could start talking to a character, and the book would never mention how strange that was, or treat it as anything out of the ordinary at all! It's a really interesting story mechanic, and I had a lot of fun working with it in Apartment. 

The book also pays homage to a lot of other works - including Chronicle of a Death Foretold and After Dark. For example, it gives a nod to The Exterminating Angel, a film by Luis Bunuel that makes use of a particularly surrealist form of huis clos. 

As for psychological drama, this is where the book can get a bit suffocating. It throws you right into the deep end with its narration, telling the story from the perspectives of each of the three main characters - and their minds are not always the best places to be! It also takes the perspectives of a few other characters throughout the story, and in some places takes on a mysterious perspective that seems to be that of the narrator, or perhaps the apartment building itself. Sometimes, the narration and internal thought processes of the characters almost bleed together, making it difficult to identify what is being shared by who, exactly.

If any of this sounds interesting to you, or if you're just a fan of suspense and like the sound of the blurb, please do give it a read once it comes out! I'm planning to have it released in 2021, and I'd like to release it alongside its literary companion to give readers the chance to understand its layers as I meant to write them, but I will happily encourage readers to provide their own interpretations and theories and tell me what they think some of the book represents!

Alright, that's it for today's episode! I hope you enjoyed this introduction to Apartment, my eerie suspense novella, and I hope that you look forward to its release as much as I look forward to sharing it! If you're interested in learning more or asking some questions, or just leaving me some comments or your thoughts, drop by my blog, or contact me at my website or social media. All the links are in the episode description.

Thanks for tuning in today!

Until next time.