Now, some of you may recall (given that it was only a couple of days ago) that I wrote a review for V. A. Rudys’s debut novel, My Wife Jodie. Well, I loved the book and I am delighted to say that I got a chance to interview the author himself today.

Enjoy.

Tell us a little bit about your debut novel. What is it about? Who are your main characters? What drew you to this story?

The story is about Ethan whose life is what most would be jealous of. However, when he discovers that the reason behind his perfectly seemingly life is his wife Jodie – story becomes eerie. However, story is not about how Jodie engineered Ethan’s life, the story is about honesty between lovers. How far can someone can go to protect their loved one and where the line blurs between helping and controlling.

Are you a big reader?

When I was a younger I could never get into the books. My head would hurt after 15 minutes of reading and I would struggle remembering the plot. Little did I know, that I have astigmatism (eye condition making double vision) which was causing my headaches. Also, later I found out my visual dyslexia which caused me to read words incorrectly was making it hard to follow plot line. I had an eye laser surgery to cure my astigmatism and I started to listen to audio books, still holding an actual book following lines with my finger as the narrator would tell me the story. That was it, that was my solution to be able to read books which now I do and love.

What’s the most unusual subject you’ve researched for your writing?

Hard to detect human poisons in toxicology assessment.

Do you base any of your characters on real people?

Yes almost everyone. Now the strange part is the most of them are based on versions of me (someone I used to be, someone I want to be, part of me friends like me, part of me I dislike about myself) I extract a quality and build a person from there.

What do you think is the most difficult part of the writing process?

Plot Holes. I’m obsessed about not having any plot holes. If you read my book you will know what I choose a difficult subject which many movies and books have covered before. Ultimately many of them also carry huge amounts of plot holes. In the end I left 1 plot hole in my book. You can try and find it (Hint: The Shard)

Who are your favourite authors? Do you feel they’ve had an influence on your writing?

Funnily enough I don’t have favourite authors, I read anything. I would go from reading ‘One Day’ to ‘The Road’ to ‘Stasiland.’ But I read all Gillian Flynn books 

What is your next project? Is it something you can talk about?

I’m tearing myself between the sequel for ‘My Wife Jodie’ which would follow Amar (person Ethan was allocated to defend in court). Or write stand-alone book.

Tell us five of your favourite films.

I know my favourite three. 1st ‘Run Lola Run’ or ‘Lolla rent’ German movie. I liked it because it makes a movie with a very simple premise and a simple but cool idea.
2nd ‘Amelie’ French movie. Just a such a beautifully told story with a such a interesting main character and beautiful sound track. 3rd ‘500 days of summer’ I know that for a lot of people it was just a simple romantic comedy, but it is much more as from a first glance you feel bad for the guy Summer dumps, but looking more closely you see that Summer hasn’t done anything wrong. I like these types of stories when story teller do not point at characters with their finger and tell them, ‘you are good or you are bad.’

Are you an early bird or a night owl?

Early Bird

Where do you find inspiration?

In music.

It’s your ideal dinner party. Who are your guests? (They can be literary, fictional, real, living or dead, so go crazy)

My sister who passed away when she was 17. Meryl Streep and probably Jodie from my book because literally I got very obsessed as I wrote her. Every time she cried I cried with her.

Which literary character is most like you?

Princess Caroline from BoJack Horseman

Where can we find you on social media?

Instagram: V.A. Rudys and Facebook: Vytautas Aleksandras Rudys (yes this is my full name) 

What is the greatest ambition you have for your writing?

I would like to make my sister proud of me.

What advice would you give to potential authors?

Are you ready to hear from people that your book is as good to light a fire? I wasn’t, and it makes me sad to know I can cause someone to be angry with me just by trying to do the best I can with my limited ability to write.

You can find V. A. Rudys’s exceptional debut novel, My Wife Jodie on Amazon, here https://amzn.to/3l4BjDH and my review of it, here – petrinabinney.com/2021/07/28/book-review-my-wife-jodie-by-v-a-rudys/