A Q&A with Tanya Mardirossian on her novel, ‘Mystic Place’
Tanya Mardirossian channels gothic elements to write a modern suspense story with sarcastic social commentary
by Matt Fernandez
Matt Fernandez: Give us the rundown of your novel, Mystic Place.
Tanya Mardirossian: Freddie, the main character, moves to Malibu, California after exiting detective work. He’s lost his family and takes this risk on his own to start fresh and detox from trauma. He lives in a great house on the beach, but ends up feeling bored and uses some old work habits to feed his boredom. It ends up becoming an obsessive hobby, especially when he starts spying on his neighbor. So, all alone and developing these bad habits, he needs to figure out what he wants out of life: Will he go back to detective work or will he let it all go? Does he want a simpler life, or is he making himself go mad?
MF: Why Malibu?
TM: It’s my happy place. It’s a place I go to get away, relax, or regroup. So I think despite all the things going on at Mystic Place, it serves as an escape for the characters. And from the perspective of it being a book, the book serves as an escape for readers…I hope. I don’t think anyone I know is in Freddie’s kind of predicament. To me, working on this book was, in a way, paying homage to Los Angeles County, which I feel is a part of my identity. Freddie is an outsider coming to California, so I wanted to capture some of those West Coast, California, L.A. vibes in his perspective, and the narrator’s.
MF: I’m going to quote your main character Freddie here and ask you, why is it called ‘Mystic’ Place?
TM: I think it has a nice sound to it. I was afraid at first that it would be interpreted as superstitious or spiritual, but I suppose that’s a little bit of me in the title. I did research some streets with the name and thought it was perfect, especially the way Mystic Place is described in the book— it’s eerie and allows the reader to think anything can happen there, whether that be finding happiness and serenity, or, you know…murder.
MF: What did you find challenging about writing a piece of noir fiction?
TM: I knew right away that crime — murder was going to happen and had already happened. The challenge and the fun were figuring out how my characters were going to navigate through everything before and after. I am pleased that these characters developed step by step the more they interacted with one another. I say ‘one another’ because everything is so centered around Freddie and his choices.
…my characters should open up the conversation for men to be better advocates and gentlemen, and for women not to allow anyone else tell them what their limits are.
MF: Did you know what was going to happen with the plot or how it was going to end? Is there a certain way you went about writing it?
TM: The characters developed organically as I wrote. The story went through a lot of rewrites. Mystic Place started as a short story. The very first part I wrote was I think what is now part of chapters two and eight. First, it was about an unnamed female florist who’s out to dinner with friends and one of them notices blood splatter on her shirt. Why was it there? What was she doing? Was she innocent or was she the suspect? Then it was about Freddie, the former detective who went snooping around his neighbor’s backyard. I went forward with these two characters’ development and ended up with a novel about a traumatized murder detective going down a psychological rabbit hole and a dark romance plotline that makes you wonder, what is it to know yourself or someone else? There came a certain point after writing all the characters that I knew exactly how the story was going to end. It’s a situation that is both terrible and poetic. I tried all the different avenues and this one felt right.
MF: You mentioned dark romance and you have been very open about loving gothic works. Is Mystic Place a gothic work?
TM: It’s not a gothic work, in the sense that I didn’t write a novel set in the Victorian era, but it is noir. As a piece of noir fiction, it has those gothic tones to it: suspense, mystery, romance, drama, dark themes of internal horror. The story is very character-driven and follows Freddie psychologically.
MF: You have a male character who is a former homicide detective. How do you begin to write this story?
TM: There’s something very liberating about writing a character who’s the opposite sex. In a way, it made me less defensive about my work in the creative process, and it allowed me to just write and see what would happen. I told myself some aspects might be cheesy, as any gothic romance could seem to be these days, but it would include some real, timely social points and would be somewhat humorous. I think everything naturally came together, epsecially with Freddie’s arc. It was fun to write a hero and anti-hero in one man. He’s very flawed, which makes him relatable, whether you agree with him or not.
MF: Did the current climate surrounding law enforcement affect you writing Freddie?
TM: I wrote Freddie a while back. I think he tries to be a good guy, but he has his issues. Readers will pick up on some toxic masculinity within Freddie. But he has two strong women in his life who do their best to keep him in check.
MF: You include some subtle and not-so-subtle social commentary in the text. What’s the message you want readers to take away, especially for those who might say it’s another story from a male perspective?
TM: It’s a story for anyone and has something in it for everyone. Underneath the police drama and romance is a human story of vice vs. virtue. Mystic Place is a suspense story with hints of gothic romance and horror, written by an Armenian-American woman. As author and as someone who created complex, flawed characters, I would want readers to know that my characters should open up the conversation for men to be better advocates and gentlemen, and for women not to allow anyone else tell them what their limits are.
Tanya Mardirossian’s novel, Mystic Place, is available on Amazon.
Matt Fernandez is a journalist, entertainment writer, and podcaster.
