Guest Blog - Caro Ramsay - The Suffering of Strangers

Caro Ramsay is a terrific writer with a new book, The Suffering of Strangers, just out from Black Thorn, and I'm delighted to feature a guest post from her on a subject relevant to the novel and one which fascinates me a good deal. Having just watched the riveting 63 Up directed by Michael Apted, the premise that our natures are fixed very, very early in life, perhaps right from the start, seems fairly compelling. Over to Caro:

"I once heard the witty and engaging crime writer Robert Thorogood (he of Death in Paradise fame) refer to the ‘deep rabbit hole of the internet’. Seemingly, many writers spend a lot of time in there messing around, surfing, looking at pictures of kittens playing with raccoons while ignoring emails from their agents asking them to kindly get the book finished.

For the book The Suffering Of Strangers, I was doing some research about genetics, chromosomes and DNA and came across the name Professor Robert Plomin.

And promptly forgot all about him.

Then about eighteen months later, I received an invite to chair an event at Aye Write (Glasgow’s literary festival) and at this event somebody called Mark Billingham was going to have his DNA examined live on stage by…. Professor Robert Plomin.

Prof Plomin, ‘Bob’ to his friends, is one of the most cited scientists of the 21st^th Century, and one of those experts with the rare ability to really engage the audience. We sat spellbound as he spoke in his delicate Vincent Price tones, telling us that Mark was 4% Neanderthal and that he had the ability to smell both coriander and asparagus. And that he carried the genetic marker for obesity. Mark himself was aware of that, due to his love of coriander flavoured Indian cuisine. Nobody mentioned the lager...

The professor, who was on the front of the New Scientist magazine last week, has researched twins, and hundreds of thousands of adopted children, especially where children of different families are adopted by the same parents, a situation which could be considered as the best test of ‘nature verses nurture’.

And nature wins every time. You are your DNA.  And that’s about it!

Nurture is important, very important, but nowhere near as influential as most people think.

Parenting matters. It’s important for children to have good, steady and loving backgrounds. But parenting  does not matter as much as the average parent would like to think. Adverse childhood events obviously affect the psychology of the child, but the degree of influence and damage will be genetic. Is it having parents who have chaotic, challenging lifestyles that make a child misbehave and become disruptive? Or is it the fact that the child has the same ‘chaotic DNA’ as their parents.

I was fascinated by this and told him that my adopted cousin ended up sitting next to his own birth brother at school. He played football with another two of his brothers. So I said, well that proves it!

‘Well, maybe,’ he said, ‘Did they live near each other?’

‘Yes.’

‘In the catchment area of that school?’

‘Err yes.’ I was guessing where this was going.

‘Was he very close in age to his birth brothers?’

‘Yes, that’s why he was put up for adoption.’

‘So they would be in the same year at school. And I bet most Scottish boys tend to play football. So that’s not a genetic thing, that’s just plan logic.’

Mmmmm. Thinking now, going over it. Nobody in his adopted family has ever joined the armed forces but my adopted cousin was always very keen. When he reunited with his birth brothers, they were all in the army, one having served in the same unit as my cousin.

So, I think the genes were at work there, in the background.

The genetics playing out in a family can be easy to see, no two siblings are alike. There’s one a bit more like Mum, the other a bit more like Dad. Every family has a ‘mad uncle Tommy,’ the one who is first on the dance floor at weddings. And there will be ‘a Tommy’ in every generation or so.

But what of an evil gene? Does that exist?

When a notorious serial killer appears on TV, what exactly are we looking at?  Are they inevitable, a mixture of two ‘bad’ genetic strains coming together?  Yes, they will tend to have suffered adverse childhood events, usually at the hands of their parents. And there is evidence of the violent ‘gene’ ready to be passed on to the next generation.

Can that dangerous genetic sequence ever be recognised?

If it does, could that ever be a defence in court?

The professor did allude to a ‘triple whammy’, my inverted commas. A piece of genetic coding that brings psychopathy, narcissism and very high intelligence together. These, he said gravely are very dangerous people. Genetics are not a disease that can be cured, genetics are the building blocks of ‘self’.

He also added that they are incredibly rare.

And we should be thankful for that."

More on Crimefest

I'm working away from home for a couple of days, so just a few more brief thoughts on Crimefest for the time being.

I enjoyed moderating two panels, the first being Forgotten Authors, with some great panellists - Adrian Magson, Peter Guttridge, Caroline Todd and Sarah Rayne. There was so much to say about our chosen authors of the past - the only problem was that we could have talked for hours! I've been asked by the organisers to moderate the same panel again next year.

I also moderated an interesting panel which featured the very witty Caro Ramsay, along with M.R. Hall, Yrsa Sigursdottir and John Lawton. A varied group and a discussion which I felt was full of thought-provoking contributions. I was glad to meet John and Yrsa for the first time.

Two of the people I enjoyed chatting with at different times during the weekend deserve particular congratulations. Len Tyler won the Last Laugh award, and Paul Johnston, despite much modest self deprecation, won Mastermind in the face of formidable competition. Both Len and Paul have new books out shortly and I look forward to reading both of them. A word of appreciation too for Maxim Jakubowski, an extremely able quizmaster and question setter.

Crimefest panels

I Fought the Law was the slightly mysterious title of my first Crimefest panel this year. I moderated an appealing group comprising Diane Janes, Frances Brody, Alison Bruce and Dan Waddell. The theme was crime fact and fiction. All four panellists have had their first crime novels published in recent years, but they were all very professional and this made for a lively discussion, even at 9 a.m., which is not my favourite time of the day. The audience was excellent, too

I hadn’t met Dan Waddell before, but found him a splendid panel colleague. He has written a couple of books which make use of his knowledge of genealogy, and oddly enough there was a time (probably about 15 years ago) when I did some research with a view to writing a genealogical mystery myself. But I gave up on the idea, and I have no doubt that Dan is much better suited to it than I would have been.

I was asked to reprise the Forgotten Authors panel, which was popular last year, although with a different group of authors. I’d been on panels previously with Caro Ramsay, Caroline Todd and Suzette Hill, but this was my first encounter with Stan Trollip, who is one half of the South African double act known as Michael Stanley.

We talked about a wide range of authors, ranging from John Buchan to James McClure. Caro amused me with her theory that Desmond Bagley and Duncan Kyle were one and the same person, and it has to be said that their photos do bear an uncanny resemblance to each other. A fun panel, and the only problem was that there was so much to say about the chosen authors that 50 minutes simply was not enough.

Crimefest

Today I set off for Bristol, and Crimefest. I’ve been looking forward to it, whilst worrying for some time that family health issues would prevent me from attending. Happily, this is not the case, and I am hoping that I’ll find the week-end as restorative as I have done on previous occasions.

I’m moderating a couple of panels. ‘I Fought the Law’ on Friday morning concerns writers who write fact and fiction, and those involved include Frances Brody, Alison Bruce, Dan Waddell and Diane Janes.

On Sunday morning, we will reprise the ‘Forgotten Authors’ panel that proved popular last year. Those involved include Caro Ramsay, Michael Stanley, Caroline Todd and Suzette Hill.

Shortly after that, I’ll be involved again with the Mastermind quiz. All in all, it should really be a fun week-end and I do hope to see some of you there

Edge of Doom

Last Sunday morning at Crimefest, I moderated a panel given the tag-line ‘Edge of Doom’ – in effect, about suspense and pushing characters as far as you dare. The four panellists were authors who have published with great success, but not for that many years, and (apart from a brief chat with Caro Ramsay a year back), I’d never met them before this week-end.

When you are moderating a panel discussion, you want to make sure that everyone gets their chance to speak, and also that the conversation is both informative and informal – so that the audience feels that they like, and are interested in, the people who are talking, and might therefore be inclined to like their books. Usually, I know at least one or two of the panellists when I’m moderating, but on this occasion I wasn’t at all sure in advance how things would go. One option would have been to draw up a fairly rigid framework, but that doesn’t seem appealing to me, and the panellists expressed a similar view when we exchanged emails in advance of the week-end.

As things turned out, I needn’t have worried. Caro, Brian McGilloway (like Len Tyler and Aliya Whiteley, a product of the excellent Macmillan New Writing project), M.R.Hall and Steven Hague interacted extremely well with each other and each of them had plenty of interest to say. They were a diverse group, and I felt this added to the pleasure of the morning. A special word for Steven, who has published just one novel so far, and who had never participated in a crime panel before that Sunday (when he did it twice!). He contributed with the assurance of a seasoned performer. I was impressed.