"The Terror of Living" by Urban Waite

Jeff Glor talks to Urban Waite about "The Terror of Living."

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?

Urban Waite: For a while I felt I was just keeping my head above water, in my writing, in my work, and in my life, and I started to wonder about characters that had it worse than me, who needed help. That was the original idea at least. What I came up with and what turned into "The Terror of Living" was simply the opening scene of the book, two horsemen weaving up a pass in the North Cascades, hoping to make a little extra money and maybe a better life. Both not truly understanding what they would face on the other side.

JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?

UW: How much fun I was having. I'd never written a novel length work before and I didn't have much of a plan for how things would turn out. But in the end, after the first draft was finished, I realized this was the right way to go. I never knew what would happen to my characters, from one day to the next as I sat writing at my desk. I just knew that something would happen and the fun of it all was trying to figure that out and not knowing what would come next.

JG: What would you be doing if you weren't a writer?

UW: I was working in restaurants before all this book stuff, just publishing stories in magazines, and I think I'd go back to that. You make a good living in restaurants, or at least, a living good enough for me. I also like talking to people and it's a wonderful environment for that, for jokes, and meeting people, and telling stories.

JG: What else are you reading right now?

UW: "The Evening Hour" by Carter Sickels

"Fires of our Choosing" by Eugene Cross

"Train Dreams" by Denis Johnson

JG: What's next for you?

UW: I'm happy to say my next novel, "Dead if I Don't," will be released a year from now in the U.S. and U.K. The novel follows around a hitman who is working for one of the larger New Mexican drug families as the cartel begins to come across the border in the early nineties. Like "The Terror of Living," it's not really a story about drugs, it's more a story about this hitman, Ray Lamar, trying to fight against the current, moving upstream as he tries to reconnect with the family he left behind in a border town ten years before.

For more on "The Terror of Living," visit the Hachette Book Group website.