Finch by Jeff VanderMeer (50 page)

n addition to Finch, two of Jeff VanderMeer's other novels are set
in the Ambergris universe: City of Saints & Madmen, and Shriek:
An Afterword. Although each of the Ambergris novels stands alone,
together they form the complete "Ambergris Cycle," a vast 1,700-page
story involving many of the same characters and themes, with Finch
answering questions first posed in City of Saints & Madmen about the
gray caps and about the nature of the city itself.

"I woke up one night from a vivid dream and the city was there in
my head," Jeff VanderMeer says. "I immediately ran to the computer
and typed the first several pages of the first story set in Ambergris.
From there, I soon had this entire fantastical city opening up in my
mind. It took fifteen years to finish all three novels. I never realized
that that one moment of inspiration would lead to becoming a fulltime fiction writer, or that it would consume so much of my life."

While remaining true to an overarching narrative about the history
of Ambergris, each book has used the approach and style best suited
to its characters and stories. The first Ambergris novel, City of Saints
& Madmen, was a mosaic novel composed of multiple narratives that
played with postmodern techniques, mixing formal experimentation
with the tropes of weird, uncanny fiction. That first book used a
stylized, baroque approach to language and was dedicated to the idea
of book-as-artifact.

The second novel, Shriek: An Afterword, presented a sixty-year
family chronicle through the eyes of a dysfunctional brother and
sister, whose dueling voices formed the heart of the book. Although steeped in war, intrigue, and bizarre events, Shriek lay more in the
realm of works by Vladimir Nabokov and Marcel Proust-dreamlike
yet precise, chronicling the unhappy, the strange, the quirky.

Finch, by contrast, combines elements of noir, the thriller, spy stories,
and fantasy, and in so doing gets to the true nitty-gritty of Ambergris.
It's the first time readers have had a chance to explore the city-albeit
during a time of occupation, crisis, and change-almost as if seeing
what the main character sees by way of handheld camera.

Ambergris has become an iconic fantasy setting, with City of Saints
& Madmen and Shriek: An Afterword translated into fifteen languages,
making dozens of year's-best lists, and winning various awards,
including the World Fantasy Award (for a novella from City of Saints)
and awards in Finland and France. The books have resulted in musical
and film collaborations with, among others, The Church and Murder
by Death. Along with novels like Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves
and China Mieville's Perdido Street Station, VanderMeer's Ambergris
Cycle has redefined the possibilities of fantastical literature.

In a unique cross-pollination of media, the band Murder by Death has
recorded a CD of music inspired by the novel Finch. This CD, which
takes several scenes from Finch as the spark for extended songs, can
be purchased via the band's website at www.murderbydeath.com and
is also available with Underland's limited edition of the novel.
VanderMeer listened to the entire Murder by Death back catalog
while writing Finch, and it was a substantial influence on the novel's
mood and tone.