We are very excited to sit and down and talk with Robert White. Robert has been published in several of our issues of Thriller Magazine, and his newest novel, Jersey Girl, was just published! We had a chance to review the novel recently, and we absolutely loved it!
Thriller Magazine: Raina Burke is a complex antiheroine — ruthless, resourceful, and unapologetically self-serving. What drew you to create a protagonist who operates so far outside traditional moral boundaries?
A few reasons, one minor: my last female protagonist was moral. I wanted to reverse course. I’d created a tough female in Jade Hui (Perfect Killer, 2018) and enjoyed having her take on bad guys and male colleagues. With Burke, I wanted a woman with her mettle and intelligence—yet be ruthless and morally corrupt—without descending into caricature of the “bad girls” of fiction.
A subconscious reason: I’m an unabashed fan of Hannibal Lecter. It’s clichéd to say his characterization broke the mold. Degenerate sociopaths were and are (to add another cliché) a dime a dozen. Cartoon villains. I wanted Raina to be distinguishable from the pack, so she would seem like any other pretty woman on the street. But like a species of Hourglass spider that catches your eye, resembling an ancient coin on the ground, you don’t want to pick it up. I wanted Raina to appear normal, possess a murderous instinct, and have a mystique evolving from her obsession with the Yoruban river goddesses.
TM: The novel vividly depicts the psychological toll of moderating horrific online content in a remote Nigerian data farm. How did you research and approach writing about such a grim but little-discussed industry?
A single book review on Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI by Madhumita Murgia sent me by a friend. The writer featured a data farm in Kenya and the mental horrors inflicted on villagers paid to monitor the rubbish and degenerate videos and vile texts uploading of the world’s scum. He and others, paid little, suffered from PTSD from sitting in front of monitors all day. While I already had Raina clearly in mind, I had nothing else for plot; this article inspired me to zero in on setting. I approached the whole AI/tech aspect with abject humility. My eight-year-old granddaughter knows more about my cell phone than I do.
TM: Your story moves from Nigeria to Canada to the American Midwest, each with its own distinct atmosphere and tensions. How did you decide on these specific settings, and what role do they play in shaping the characters?
My Nigerian setting doesn’t stray from a light sketching of a physical data farm, the bush country, and current politics, such as the Boko Haram incursions. I skipped through Lagos scenes. So crayon strokes, no fine brush. I didn’t feel that I needed more than superficial outlining because my three African characters (albeit a Spaniard, a Mexican-American, and a Caucasian female from Newark) interact constantly. Second, Pelee Island, the southernmost inhabited Canadian territory, is just a nine-mile dot in western Lake Erie but has an interesting history vis-à-vis the pre-American Revolutionary War. I gave Rowena, Raina’s sane and moral antithesis, a speck of my family history—namely, a Canadian lumberjack who immigrated, possibly illegally, to this country. Finally, the American Midwest. I plead guilty. Born and raised in Northern Ohio, living a few houses from where I grew up.
TM: O’Brien and Beyersdorf are as dangerous to Raina as they are loyal—two volatile men whose presence keeps the reader uneasy. How did you craft the dynamic between Raina and her mercenaries to sustain that constant edge?
The mayhem I envisioned for Raina required help, literally speaking. I wanted both a sexual tension between her and O’Brien and a deeper tension between her and Beyersdorf, who seems placid beside the amiable thug O’Brien. Beyersdorf is the more dangerous companion. For his characterization, I hoped to create someone like the description of a lifer in a state penitentiary I read about years ago. The author was toughening himself up to go to prison for his white-collar crime. He described this convict as ordinary-looking, a jailhouse lawyer domesticated with a cellie “wife.” Not one of those buffed imbeciles in the yard slinging iron all day in prison movies, but an individual who could cut out the eyeball of another con who refused to pay the $10 fee for legal advice in a chat on the tier. The author implied this guy “could kill you between drinks” and not notice or feel a thing.
TM: Jersey Girl weaves in political corruption, corporate malfeasance, and cultural friction with striking realism. Was there a particular real-world event or set of experiences that inspired this blend of noir and global commentary?
I normally avoid being “preachy” about political corruption or corporate malfeasance in my writing. That’s the kiss of death. But aspects of these themes came without bidding or my needing to press anything into place. The discrepancies between the wealthy and the poor, for example. Tech companies haven’t behaved with much integrity (Elon’s X excepted). Corporate greed upends the quality of life and politics everywhere. Companies pollute, poison food, and pollute water. Digressing to Raina’s supervisor in Silicon Valley, he’s the corporate villain, a rogue fixer, but he had to be painted in; she had to have an immediate target for her wrath at being betrayed. Rowena, the nice Midwest housewife, however, is what she needs. (I’m quoting Harris’ Agent Graham in Red Dragon for the psychological need Francis Dolorhyde has for his victims.)
TM: The novel often blurs the line between survival and exploitation, both on a personal and systemic level. What do you hope readers take away about the cost of survival in the environments you portray?
I’m grateful for this question, especially, because it would sound pretentious coming from me. Here’s another borrowing: the undervalued novelist William Styron maintained that life is war. I believe that. My own hold on middle-class stability and security teeters on the edge of events and things I can’t control because no one can. A cynically wise history professor once told my class: “The forces of darkness are still pitching a shutout.”