Don't Get Stung - Phil Viner interviews MARK EDWARDS, author of The Wasp Trap

Written by P. D. Viner

The Wasp Trap is a glorious mash-up of college/school reunion and home invasion… a literary TheBig Chill meets Straw Dogs. Did you watch any of those great films or TV shows to get in the mood to write. If not, then how do you prepare yourself?TS

I’ve never seen The Big Chill (I know, shocking!) but I did rewatch Straw Dogs before starting this book, although my home invasion is quite different. I’ve wanted to write something with a home invasion for years, mainly because I love films like Funny Games, but it was only when I came up with the ‘invasion during a dinner party’ pitch that I decided I had something original.

Have you kept in touch with people from school, university — were you on Friend’s Reunited back in the day, or do you now scour Facebook after a few drinks, looking for the kids that bullied you or the class heartthrob?

I still have a couple of friends from school and one from university but I’ve lost touch with most people from that era, sadly. Yes, I was on Friends Reunited and occasionally look up people from the past on Facebook. I actually think social media - despite all the bad press it gets - is overall a good thing, especially for helping us all stay in touch. Of course, there are often reasons not to stay in touch, especially when there are people out there who might know your dark secrets - or, more likely, your embarrassing ones.

Are any of the characters in Wasp Trap based on people you knew from back in the day?

The 1999 setting of this book is very much based on a real experience I had, although I’ve played with the date and setting. Back in 2000, I worked for a Dotcom start-up which was based in my boss’s country house in Sussex. We worked in the summer sitting room with dogs running around our feet, in the middle of the countryside. The big difference is that we didn’t live there, and it was an auction site. Sadly, our dreams of becoming Dotcom millionaires didn’t bear fruit.

Do you ever try to get your own back on people who you think treated you badly in the past, by painting them as weird or wicked in your books?

Some of the baddies in my books are definitely influence by real psychos I’ve met. Of course, I can never name them!

You write so well about unrequited love — fess up, is there a love that got away, or someone that consumed your life for one heart-breaking summer?

I’ve been happily married for a long time but I think we all experienced unrequited love, or at least crushes, when we were young. I spent most of my teenage years dreaming of having a girlfriend when I was too shy to talk to girls… I guess I tapped into that when I wrote this book. I was thinking of saying that for a long time publishing was my unrequited crush because it took them a long time to see my appeal but I think that metaphor could quickly become as tortured as my teenage love poetry.

The book has two time-lines, 1999 and now. Back then these University students are building a dating app. Have you been on dating apps or checked them out to test this book? Any dramatic dates? Did you use an up-to-date picture and tell the truth about yourself?

I haven’t been single since 1993 so I have never used a dating site or app. I feel very lucky to have avoided swipe-right culture. I would probably have to post a pic of myself with my cat and use her to lure potential dates… Wait, does ‘lure’ sound creepy? Maybe I mean insane… No, attract! Pique the interest of… I should stop now, shouldn’t I?

The book kicks off with the death of the students’ mentor, and that leads them to get together again. Have you experienced the loss of someone you revered?

I had a mentor called Sylvester Stein, who was a publishing and marketing genius and who worked well into his eighties. He taught me a lot, and died a few years ago. I dedicated one of my books to him posthumously, even though I’m sure it wouldn’t have been literary enough for his tastes.

Have you ever got together with people you were once close to, after a lot of years have gone by? Was it a success or like in this book, a disaster?

For my 40th birthday I had a goth party because I was a teenage goth, and a couple of old friends came along. It’s quite sad seeing how old we all look now! I used to have a lot of hair. We all did. I recently saw a former goth friend of mine from the late 80s walk past me in the street but the lack of hair made me wonder if it was really him and by the time I’d decided it definitely was, he was gone. So that was a could-have-been reunion that started with disaster and never actually got going.

The chief coder in this book develops the dating app, but also a test to spot a psychopath. Have you ever had a psychopath in your life? Have you ever worried that someone close to you was one?

I’m pretty sure my former neighbours were psychopaths, and they became the chief inspiration for my book The Magpies. I’ve definitely had one or two psycho bosses too. I find psychopaths fascinating. Most of them aren’t actually killers - they just don’t function like the rest of us. Of course, in my books they are all trying to destroy our lives because that’s more fun to write about.

One of the key scenes of the book is where one of the characters accidentally falls into a wasp nest and is stung many times – have you ever been stung? Where, when and how badly.

I used to work in a greengrocers so was stung there a few times, but most of my wasp stories come from my sister. She once drank from a can of drink that had a wasp in it and she had to be rushed to hospital. And when we were kids she stood on a wasps’ nest and was stung multiple times. I guess the young me must have stored that for future inspiration. Sorry, sis!

For a lot of the friends in this book, the events of 1999 screwed them up. How screwed up were you by your early twenties and have you sought professional help to get over it?

I enjoyed my early twenties! The music, the freedom, the energy… The worst thing about it was the lack of money and having to do a truly awful job, working in the call centre of the Child Support Agency. That traumatised me. I still twitch if anyone mentions the CSA. We used to get protestors marching around the office building holding coffins and chanting that we were scum. I worked for the complaints line of a rail company too, which was even worse!

With Wasp Trap about to hit the bookshops, what’s next?

I have a novella coming out in November called The Christmas Magpie, which was enormous fun to write. Plus I have lots of events coming up. I can’t wait for people to read The Wasp Trap after what feels like a very long wait.