Power Q & A with Michelle Berry

Michelle Berry is an acclaimed author of literary thrillers. Her newest novel, Satellite Image (Wolsak & Wynn, 2024) follows the story of Ginny and Matt, a young married couple from the city who decide to buy a house in a small town and move after Ginny is assaulted.

On the night before the move, however, Ginny and Matt, while looking at a satellite image of their new home, see what is undeniably a body in their backyard. Thus the stage is set for this eerie story.

We noticed a different feel to Michelle’s novel compared to many other thrillers. While the story delivered on the chills and suspense, there was also a sophisticated rendering of character and events, where the reader was left to fill in what is not explicitly stated. There was also an upending of certain genre-based narrative conventions that offer a subtle commentary on real life and real people. We wondered: is this a signature of the literary thriller genre? What is a literary thriller, exactly? Or even just generally?

Welcome Michelle Berry to our series to help answer our questions.

Bring home Satellite Image by Michelle Berry (Wolsak & Wynn, October 15, 2024).

Q: Would you use your book, Satellite Image, to highlight some differences between a literary thriller and a thriller?

A: I’m not sure if this is correct, but this is how I see the differences between a traditional thriller and a literary thriller. I imagine a tightrope. Let’s call it a  Literary Thriller Tightrope. I’m walking along it. One foot falls off occasionally but I remain pretty steady to the end. Now I imagine another Tightrope.  Let’s call this one a Thriller Tightrope. Again, I’m walking along and suddenly I really fall off. Both are tight ropes, but on one my foot just dips into the unknown, on the other I fall completely in.

I see a literary thriller, like Satellite Image, tipping back and forth between the frightening situation and the reality of the situation (in it I’m losing my balance, a foot falls off, but I don’t fall). This book focuses more on the psychological effects of the fear, on misperceptions and misunderstandings – what is real? What is not real? Ginny and Matt – are they really seeing/hearing/feeling something in their house or is their previous anxiety (seeing the satellite image of the body in their yard, Ginny’s attack in the city) playing havoc on their minds? On the other hand, a traditional thriller to me would look at things that are actually happening which are frightening and the reader would fall completely into those things. A threatening figure would be a threatening figure. But in Satellite Image the fear is more about perception—is the threatening figure real or is this just my imagination?

I also think that traditional thrillers generally give you more detail—things are explained and portrayed in ways that  don’t demand you use too much of your own imagination and instead just fall into the writer’s thoughts. In a literary work the author may leave the reader with a lot to be figured out—do we know exactly what the characters are wearing or what they look like? Do we know what their house looks like? etc… I sometimes think thrillers are more entertaining in that they let you sink into what the author directs, whereas literary thrillers are maybe asking the reader to do a little more work in some way.

I’m probably completely wrong about the differences (and there are, of course, many books that are exceptions to the rule), but that’s kind of how I see Satellite Image. Ginny and Matt’s odd house, the things that make them nervous, their year of fear and what really happened is left up in the air – is anything real? Is anything easily explained? Or is it all psychological? Is it all a misunderstanding?

More about Satellite Image:

Reminiscent of the works of Barbara Gowdy and Joy Williams, Berry’s Satellite Image fully embraces the uncanny as it straddles the line between reality and unreality. When newly married couple, Ginny and Matt, move from the bustling, expensive rat race of the city to a sleepy, innocent, affordable small town two hours away, they assume life will be easier. Little do they know that they have bought a house with a baffling history. Life in this town is not all it’s meant to be. Odd neighbourhood dinner parties, and a creepy ravine just out their back door have Ginny and Matt quickly questioning their move.

Read an excerpt of Satellite Image here.

Michelle Berry. Photo credit: Fred Thornhill.

More about Michelle Berry:

Michelle Berry is the author of seven novels and three books of short stories. Her books have been shortlisted, long listed and have won multiple awards. Much of Berry’s writing has been optioned for film several times, with The Prisoner and the Chaplain currently in the works. Berry was a reviewer for the Globe and Mail for many years and currently teaches at the University of Toronto in the Continuing Education department. She has served on the board of PEN Canada, the Writer’s Union and on the Author’s committee of the Writer’s Trust. For five years, Berry owned and operated her own independent bookstore in Peterborough, Ontario, called Hunter Street Books.