Full Faith and Confidence: A Conversation with Denise Mina

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According to Scottish crime fiction author Denise Mina, Glasgow— her hometown where she lives and works and gets around as a pedestrian and a bicyclist—is a city of brutal frankness where a thick skin is a necessity of life and it’s very hard to feel special. “Glasgow,” Denise says, “is a place where people come up and talk to you, … my whole career has been people walking up to me in the street and saying, ‘I read your last book. And I thought it was shit. And this is what you did wrong.’” And, at least according to Denise, that’s okay because “everyone is a central character in Glasgow.”

A perfect example of this Glaswegian-as-central-character occurred during a recent photo shoot. There was Denise posed for the camera on Sauchiehall Street—a pedestrianized street in Glasgow’s city center—wearing a magnificent green feathered stole as two young men photobombed the shot directly behind her. The result was in turn photographed and tweeted. Denise was delighted right down to the ground. “That’s such a great picture!” she said. So great, in fact, she tracked down the photographer, “The guy printed a copy, and I met him in the street and bought it. He’s a student, but what a fantastic photograph, his focus was so great. And he said, it was the first print he’s ever sold. But those wee guys [who photobombed the pic], I mean, honestly, and they’re perfectly aligned. They’re like backup singers!” 

Considering Denise is on the cusp of the publication of her seventeenth novel—not to mention graphic novels, plays, short stories, film, TV and radio programs—that’s a lot of sidewalk conversations over her twenty-five-year-long career as a writer. 

With Confidence, the accidental podcasting team of Anna McDonald and Finn Cohen, who readers met in Conviction, are back. Once again, the pair are drawn into the case at hand by a connection to one of the principals—albeit a slim one—and a video that’s been seen by millions of people by the time they get involved. Once again, armed with digital recorders and cell phones, the action takes Anna and Finn far afield from Scotland on trains, planes and automobiles. And once again, we are reading the story as an after-the-fact documentation in book form written by Anna of what she and Finn did. Only this time the story centers around the potential discovery of a religious relic that could be the long-lost proof of god on earth. And that’s where we begin our conversation with Denise Mina:

Nancie Clare: Confidence is described for the Edinburgh International Book Festival as a “another meta-story starring citizen detective Anna McDonald – this time, on the case of a failed YouTuber who may have bitten off more than she can chew.” So, “meta” in that it’s a story within a story from Anna’s perspective? 

Denise Mina: They’re saying “meta” but actually it’s one step further. What I was trying to represent was the fractured way that we receive stories. The experience of reading your phone while you’re watching a series, while you’re also scrolling through social media. You know, the girl who went missing from her van life and all the people found her, it was that kind of thing that I am trying to represent. [Confidence] starts off with an urban girl exploring a chateau in France and she basically finds evidence—proof—of one of the great world religions. And then she disappears. People are looking for her. And most people are looking for her because they want the incredibly valuable thing that she’s found. 

But Anna and Finn are looking for her because they kind of know who she is. [Anna, Finn and the missing girl] are part of that small community of makers creating stories in new ways and putting them on the internet, not necessarily making a living but finding their way through new media. The story is quite fractured; almost all crime stories have two stories that run parallel to each other. What I was trying to do is take those stories apart and make them more distinct. And I think that’s why people are reading it as a meta story. 

Nancie Clare: Our world of content is multiplatform in ways that would’ve been unimaginable even 20 years ago. Both Conviction and Confidence, are layered stories taking place on multiple platforms. Both novels are launched by a video, then are told through real-time podcasting and summarized by a book. I find that fascinating.

Denise Mina: Yeah. I mean, I think the thing about the videos are, they are so engaging and it is such a lovely thing to describe a video to somebody to try and make it come alive. It’s a writing challenge! But when I pitched Conviction in 2017—it was published in 2019— podcasts were not a big thing; they were not very familiar. And a lot of people said to me, um, “how can you be sure that podcasts will still exist in five years’ time?” And that’s not long ago! Nancie, you never said that because we were both very into podcasts already, but quite a few of the interviews—one of them was a guy who reviewed podcasts for a living!—did. Actually [Conviction] was met with a bit of bafflement because it was like, “what are podcasts?” And then the next year four different crime novels came out about people doing podcasts. The rate of change is so fast, it’s lovely to represent something early. Everyone will be talking more about representations of multiplatform storytelling forums and how they feed into each other. And actually, that is amazing. We never talk about the positives of social media. What is amazing about social media is your brain can take that. You can watch Stranger Things and live tweet about Stranger Things. And it’s really enjoyable.

Nancie Clare: What is it about podcasting that draws crime fiction writers in general and you in particular? Has the podcaster become the investigative journalist of the twenty-first century? Or is podcasting just so cuckoo for Coco Puffs, you have to do it?

Denise Mina: I think it’s partly the second one, because it was totally unregulated and [podcasters] were doing lots of things journalists cannot do. Journalists used to be real Wild West-y, they would break into your house to get evidence and things like that. Podcasters were naming people that they suspected of the actual crime, a journalist would never do that, because they have big corporations behind them. 

It was about it being at the start of rock and roll. [Podcasters] were breaking all sorts of ethical rules. They were doing mad things because they just wanted to find out. And, in 10 years, time, it’ll be regulated. You won’t be able to do that; you will be held to high account. [Podcasters] will be going on ethics courses. I remember true crime-obsessed podcasters used to slag off other podcasts saying, ‘oh, it’s shit. I can’t believe that that her voice is so annoying…’ And then they went to a convention for true crime podcasts, and they come back and they say ‘we had lunch with them. And they’re actually really nice!’ They’re all gonna be watching what they say, because they don’t want to offend people on the same level; they’re gonna be promoting each other! Whereas at that point, when I wrote Conviction, [podcasting] was just, ‘I am convinced that person did it. So, I’m gonna name them. And if an army of people turn up on [the named person’s] door and pound them to death, I don’t really give two fucks. Cause I don’t think I’m responsible.” <laugh> So I think that’s what it is. [A podcaster] is like a PI, but you don’t need a license. 

Nancie Clare: Faith, specifically Catholicism, which hangs on many of your characters like a crucifix—as well as the absence of faith—figure strongly in Confidence. Catholicism seems to one of the prisms through which the characters see and react to the events of Confidence. 

Denise Mina: I wanted to write about feeling jealous of people with faith—I wanted to write about someone alienated from their background. ’Cause my family are very, very religious and I’m not. It’s a source of real sadness to me. I do not have faith and how can I coexist with people [who do]? I believe differently than people I really love, how can I coexist with that?

I believe that it’s always oppositional. But actually when you witness real faith and the comfort and joy it brings people, it’s very humbling. Bram (one of the characters in Confidence with whom Anna and Finn strike an uneasy alliance) does feel really jealous [of those who have faith] and he feels very honored to be in that milieu. And he’s not sure that this is right and that he should be able to just buy [what might be an important relic] in the [open] market. 

Nancie Clare: You’re a Glasgow-based writer who has breached the space-time continuum. You’ve been inspired by historical events in 16th century Scotland in Rizzio; and in the mid-20th century in The Long Drop. Do historical events call to you and say, “Please write about me?”

Denise Mina: Lots of people say to me: will you write more Scottish history? But Rizzio was part of a series of books about Scottish history by different writers. And I was the first one. I couldn’t just start writing my own series!

I’ve just written a five-part series about Savonarola that’s gonna be on BBC Radio 4 and then it’s coming out as a book in about six months. Savonarola basically took over Florence in the 1490s. He built the [original] Bonfire of the Vanities. (Where the Florentines burned all their secular possessions.) 

At one point [a rival] order of monks challenged Savonarola to a trial by fire, which is a tunnel of fire, where one participant walks in one end, the other walks in the other end and whoever survives is telling the truth. Someone stood up in the council in Florence and said, ‘people are laughing at us, there hadn’t been a Trial by Fire for 300 years’: But they did it anyway; they held the trial by fire to prove that Savonarola was telling the truth. (It was a fiasco and ended up turning public opinion against Savonarola). [During that time, because he was a follower of Savonarola] Botticelli stopped painting; Michelangelo took off because he was quite wise. Savonarola’s story is always told in the context of the Medici, but in and of himself, it’s just an amazing story. I’ve been obsessively researching. 

I just love the story so much. Savonarola promised people that they would be closer to God as long as they outlawed sodomy and gave the death penalty for sodomy. He hated women and he hated Jews, but he wanted an egalitarian society and he wanted to extend the franchise. And one of the factions against him was called The Proud Boys, The Ugly Companions or The Bad Boys. I mean, it’s just so timely. 

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