Today we’re excited to welcome The Puzzle Box author Danielle Trussoni to the blog. Let’s begin with learning a bit about you. Where you’re from, where you live? Is writing your full-time job?
I was born in La Crosse, WI but have lived all over the world: Japan, England, France, Bulgaria, New York City (which seems like its own country!), and now Mexico.
Writing is my full-time job.
How long have you been writing?
I received my first book contract in 2003, but I’ve been writing since I was a teenager.
What does your typical writing day look like?
Wake up around 7:00, get my daughter off to school and begin writing or working on some aspect of writing (outlining, reading, revising, etc) around 8:30. I write until lunch, take a break, and then do administrative stuff—social media, email, bookkeeping, meetings, etc. until about 3PM.
Could you share one detail from your current release with readers that they might not find in the book?
The story has many inspirations, but the seed of the novel took root in my twenties, when I lived in Japan for two years as a high school English teacher in a village called Yoshii-machi in Fukuoka prefectures in Kyushu, on the southern-most island Japan. I applied for a job teaching English through the JET program, a program run by the Japanese government that placed native English speakers in Japanese schools so that students would have a chance to hear English on a regular basis. Teachers were placed everywhere in Japan, and I found myself in an extremely rural area. I was assigned ‘teachers housing,’ a small apartment in a building next to a rice paddy. My village had a grocery store, an onsen public bath (which I used all the time because my apartment had no hot running water), a small tea shop, a pachinko parlor, and a few small restaurants. It was 45 minutes by bus to the nearest medium-sized town.
I’d never been to Japan before, and I loved it the minute I arrived. I was twenty-four years old and struggling to transform notebooks filled with fragments of poetry and story ideas into a living breathing novel. My primary job was to interact with Japanese kids, and through them I learned an enormous amount about Japanese culture—the kind that you don’t see in movies or in guidebooks.
I taught classes every morning, which left my afternoons free. I would go up to the library and write longhand in notebooks. Over the course of my first year in Japan, I wrote what would become the pages of my first book Falling Through the Earth. One of the teachers heard that I was interested in learning a martial art, and soon I was studying wa-do, a Japanese martial art in the school dojo every afternoon after school. By the time I left, I’d earned a brown belt. I was learning Japanese calligraphy, Ikebana, Japanese language but more important, I was learning a way of seeing the world that revolved around community, routine, and education. These years were transformative not only because I developed a writing routine, and was adopted into a culture I loved, but because in my second year in Japan, my son Alexander was born. By the time I left Japan, I was a writer and a mother.
I’ve wanted to write about Japan for two decades but couldn’t quite find the right vehicle until The Puzzle Box. I felt that it was the perfect way to incorporate what I’d learned in Japan with a propulsive, panoramic story. It also allowed me to incorporate elements of Japanese culture and history that I’d discovered while living in Japan—Shinto religion, the Onna-Bugeisha female samurai, and the Imperial family’s drama of succession
Who has been the most difficult character for you to write? Why?
Sedge, who is the villain. I think writing a complex villain is really hard.
If you could be one of your characters for a day which character would it be?
Mike Brink, who is the puzzle genius hero of the book. I’m interested to understand exactly how he experiences his ‘gift.’
If you could spend the day with your character, what would you do? What would that day look like?
I’d go with Mike on a walk through central park with his dog Conundrum. Then, we’d go to a pi-counting contest and watch him recite pi places into the tens of thousands.
What’s your take on research and how do you do it?
I do a lot of ‘experiential’ research, meaning I actually go to the place I’m writing about. I spent two weeks in Japan for this novel, and went to every location in the book except for the final one, in Kyushu.
Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write?
I love books with startling language that have tight plotting. When I pick up a novel, I want to pause to admire the language, and then be pulled back in because of the story. Novelists who do that are rare! But to name a few: Patricia Highsmith, Wilkie Collins, Colette, to name a few dead writers. Contemporary novels I’m reading are: Teddy Wayne’s The Winner, Richard Price’s Lazarus Man, Catherine Steadman’s Look in the Mirror.
Do you have a secret talent readers would be surprised by?
I am a very good knitter! I make my own sweaters.
Your favorite go to drink or food when the world goes crazy!
My last meal would be: Krug champagne and a huge plate of French fries.
What is your writing kryptonite?
I need to be away from the news and social media while I work. I have an app on my computer that keeps me offline while writing.
I do love your cultural experience and how it impacts the book. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Readers, here’s a look at The Puzzle Box which releases today:
It is the Year of the Wood Dragon, and the ingenious Mike Brink has been invited to Tokyo, Japan, to open the legendary Dragon Box.
The box was constructed during one of Japan’s most tumultuous periods, when the samurai class was disbanded and the shogun lost power. In this moment of crisis, Emperor Meiji locked a priceless Imperial secret in the Dragon Box. Only two people knew how to open the box—Meiji and the box’s sadistic constructor—and both died without telling a soul what was inside or how to open it.
Every twelve years since then, in the Year of the Dragon, the Imperial family holds a clandestine contest to open the box. It is devilishly difficult, filled with tricks, booby traps, poisons, and mind-bending twists. Every puzzle master who has attempted to open it has died in the process.
But Brink is not just any puzzle master. He may be the only person alive who can crack it. His determination is matched only by that of two sisters, descendants of an illustrious samurai clan, who will stop at nothing to claim the treasure.
Brink’s quest launches him on a breakneck adventure across Japan, from the Imperial Palace in Tokyo to the pristine forests of Hakone to an ancient cave in Kyushu. In the process, he discovers the power of Meiji’s hidden treasure, and—more crucially—the true nature of his extraordinary talent.
