who is the writer of bird box

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1. Your novel, Bird Box, is widely considered one of the best books of the last decade. What inspired you to write that novel and why do you think the concept worked?

Well, I didn’t think of it in terms of “working” or not. It’s hard to explain why an idea rises to the top, why you decide, “this one”, I’m gonna write this one next. But I’d gone to Chicago for something with the band and we got trashed as we usually do and I was laying down in the back of a car on the drive back to Detroit, two friends upfront, one obviously driving. And in the fog of the night before still there, I sat up and told my friends I had a good idea: a woman and two children blindfolded in a rowboat. Unable to see the river they were navigating. Then I kinda fell back asleep and that was that. I’m not sure why the stuck or why I thought it should be the next book I write, but it did and it was.

I started it on October 5th of 2006 and finished her on Halloween of the same month. The rough draft was one of those dream experiences, those times we’re all gunning for when we sit down to write, where the ideas consistently come, you’re working steady, no days off, and the whole thing was done in 26 days. We threw a party that night in the house I lived in. A Halloween party. Friends and family came over. A funny friend got up and congratulated me on finishing a book that day and everybody, in costume, cheered. It was a magical month, completely unexpected, completely unplanned. A perfect moment in time.

Having said that, I completely redrew the book when it was picked up six years later, at which point I had written fourteen novels. Thus, you could say that I didn’t write the Bird Box until 2012. But it was all there in the rough draft. Malorie, Boy, Girl, Tom, Gary. The blindfolds, the river. The creatures, ever off-page. The alternating timelines, all of it. For me, that rough draft will always rank among my top ten creative experiences. But there are others. We’ll have to get together and discuss the others at some point. We can exchange our greatest spiritual moments and enjoy a bottle together. Get so excited we cry.

2. What intrigues you most about the dark fantasy genre?

I think it’s the arrested development. The fact that I’m still able to put myself in a place where I believe all of this stuff is possible. I can still get scared, deeply, to the point where it hurts. To the point where I ask Allison to walk to the bathroom with me at 3AM after we watched a possession movie earlier in the night. To the point where I hurry up the basement stairs. I don’t ever wanna lose that childish belief in monsters.

3. Why did you feel it was necessary to write a story that explores the horrors hidden beneath the surface of reality?

Well, again, I didn’t set out to do so. You know that penning a treatise on “sight in horror” was not the plan. It was my mother who first made that observation to me. Way back when. She called me after reading the rough draft at a dog trial in Indiana (she and her husband had bird dogs at the time). She said, “You turned horror upside down.” You’re terrified of what you don’t see rather than what you can’t see. That, I believe, was the first time that it had been said that way.

4. What components, in your opinion, are present in the ideal horror story?

You know how everyone says that our greatest fear is the unknown? Well, let’s take it a step further and say that our greatest fear is not knowing precisely who is narrating the story to you. To not knowing the style. Because those of us raised on American horror films in the 1980s weren’t as familiar with scare tactics used in other nations, this is one reason foreign horror is so potent. So, the scares came from surprising places.

The beats were different. All of it… unknown. There’s a handful of movies I’ve seen where I’m more afraid of the filmmaker than the movie. That sense of… who made this? The Texas Chainsaw Massacre did that to me, first time I saw it. Who the f*ck made this? That unknown artist is as powerful as any unknown you’ll find in the story itself.

5. What scares you?

I think “snapping” is the scariest thing. “Oh, she was so normal, an amazing friend, funny, warm, until… one day… she just… snapped.” Which is to say, losing one’s mind. And I think it’s scariest if you get it back. Because then you have to live, cogently, with whatever happened for the duration of when you lost it.

6. Is it true that you wrote the Bird Box sequel, Malorie, after watching the film? If yes, what sparked your inspiration, and what was the experience like seeing your creation come to life on the big screen?

Three things sparked the book Malorie: 1) there was a thread I’d removed from the rough draft of Bird Box, a whole thread that I thought maybe muddied things up a little, made it less of a one-note mood, which I wanted to maintain, the one-note mood. It worked, but I didn’t wanna take any attention away from Malorie’s trip down the river. So, I had that on me for years. What to do with it? I didn’t know. 2) seeing Sandra Bullock as Malorie on the screen. Moving, speaking, rowing. 3) the success of the film. Those three factors came together and said to me, If you’re gonna do something with that thread, why not now?

7. You stated that you were unable to complete any stories you began between the ages of 19 and 29. What helped you overcome this obstacle in your writing career?.

I tried my hand at 4 novels in that period of time. Made it 300 pages into one. 100 into another. I just didn’t know how to end one. I realize now how insane that is. I could’ve ended it anywhere. Might’ve been bad endings but they would’ve been endings, still. You know? I wonder if it had more to do with not being prepared to say this is my book. My first. The more I think about it, the more I believe I didn’t finish those books because I wasn’t prepared to call myself a novelist or some sh*t like that. Then, Wendy, the breakthrough, and oh what an experience. 33 books later, I can’t wait to write the next one.

8. Once you joined ‘The High Strung’, what was your initial reaction when you heard them singing your poems as songs? How did this influence your musical passions/interest?

It was unreal. proved to me right away that anyone can achieve anything they set their mind to. Sometimes we imagine the great artists descended Mt. Everest, but what can’t happen if my friend Mark is singing something I wrote and the boys are playing along? Olympus with Book, with Song. But naw… they’re people. You’re people. Therefore, you can be great, too.

9. What influence did touring around the nation have on your writing while you performed with ‘The High Strung’?

Man. Just traveling the whole nation as though it were our home Wide open to every experience that came our way. Meeting new people all the time, having conversations about books and music, writing songs and novels while driving, drinking with strangers, and spending the night on their floors are all examples of living among strangers. It was incredible.

All of America. Some 25 times. Circling the country like joyful madmen, sometimes playing to a few people, sometimes more, and who cares? Electrifying. Hours a day on the road, the road. Always with a sense of progress, momentum, go. We were going then and we’re going now. This endless hum behind us, all around us, in us.

10. What kind of influence do you hope your books will have?

Well… hmmm. A young writer reading any of them, perhaps after reading an interview like this one, might think, “Hey, shoot, maybe I can do that too.” And all I mean by “do that” is write. to not believe that other people do what you want to do, or that writers and artists are a different breed Giving up the notion that you’re not successful and that others are, or that you weren’t meant for this life, is a big step, isn’t it? But once you do, glory awaits you!

Something that took root early for me was: all the guys and girls I’m interested in, the writers, they’re all so different from one another that there isn’t a singular type of writer, voice, or book that is successful for me. See? So… if you think you’re different… well, that’s good. That means the book world needs you. And will welcome you in full. And I’d hope that, between my books and interviews, a younger (or older) writer will think, Yeah, me too. I’m gonna do this, too.

Plot edit

Malorie Hayes tells two small children that they will travel down a river in a rowboat in a post-apocalyptic world. She gives them a severe warning not to take off their blindfolds or else they will perish.

Jessica, Malorie’s sister, pays her a visit five years prior when she is expecting. Unknown mass suicides are reportedly occurring throughout Europe and Asia, according to news reports. Following a maternity examination, Malorie sees a woman repeatedly slamming her head through the hospital window. Others start acting suicidal as well, causing panic and chaos. Afterward, Malorie hurries to leave the scene with Jessica. Driving away from the hospital, Jessica notices something strange that makes her go crazy, so she purposefully causes her car to crash. She is then killed when she crosses in front of a speeding truck.

A woman offers to let Malorie stay in her home as she runs away on foot. After seeing the entity, the woman enters a trance and sits inside a burning car. Malorie is picked up by Tom, a bystander, from the street and brought inside the home where she is joined by Douglas, Greg, Cheryl, Felix, Charlie, and Lucy. Charlie claims that the appearance of demonic entities is a sign of the end times and that humanity has been judged. He adds that those spirits go by different names in different cultures, including Surgat, Aka Manah, Huli Jing, and Púca. Every time someone leaves the house, they blindfold themselves and cover all the windows. Greg kills himself as Olympia, a new survivor who is pregnant, arrives. Greg volunteered to see if it is safe to watch them through security camera footage in an indirect manner.

To replenish their running low on food, half of the group heads to the grocery store where Charlie used to work. They utilize a GPS navigation system while driving there in a car with covered windows. Malorie gets three pet birds along with their supplies. She notices the entities presence agitates the birds. Subsequently, Charlie’s colleague assaults the group, trying to make them stare at the creatures. However, Charlie sacrifices himself to save the others. They make it back to the house. Felix and Lucy eventually steal the vehicle and take off.

Against Douglass’s wishes, Olympia lets a stranger named Gary into the house. Gary tells how he got away from a bunch of survivors who weren’t blindfolded and went insane after witnessing the entities. They were trying to make other people look at them too. Douglas attempts to eject Gary, but Cheryl knocks him unconscious, and the others imprison him in the garage. While Malorie and Olympia go into labor at the same time, Gary draws the entities, indicating he has also seen them and has become insane. He renders Tom unconscious and lets Douglas see the entities by opening the garage door. Gary goes upstairs and rips all the windows blinds. Olympia doesn’t turn away, and upon seeing the creature, she jumps out of the window and ends her own life. While Gary coerces Cheryl to look at the entities and ultimately causes her to stab herself in the neck with a pair of scissors, Malorie hides with both of the newborn babies under a cover. Douglas breaks out of the garage, recklessly aiming a shotgun at Gary, wounding him, but Gary kills him with the scissors. Soon after, Tom starts to heal and battles Gary for the gun. Malorie hears several gunshots, but Tom reassures her that nothing is wrong.

Five years later, Tom and Malorie share a home with “Boy” and “Girl,” the children. They hear from survivors that there is a safe community tucked away in the forest that can only be reached by boat down the river. A group of survivors who have not been blindfolded attacks them as they leave their home. Malorie and the kids are able to escape when Tom diverts the attackers. He opens his eyes and sees the entities, but before taking his own life, he defeats all of the assailants.

Carrying the birds to alert the kids to the entities, Malorie and the kids ride a boat down the river while wearing blindfolds. River rapids and an unblindfolded survivor are two of the challenges they face. The three soon arrive at the coast, but before long, Malorie slides off a hill, separating them. The children are almost deceived by the entities into removing their blindfolds. When Malorie awakens, she tells the kids where to find her and that she loves them. Eventually, they arrive at the community, which was formerly a blind school. After releasing the birds, Malorie reveals her identity as their mother by giving the kids names Tom and Olympia. She is also happy when she sees her obstetrician, Dr. Lapham, is one of the survivors.

Audience viewership edit

In the first seven days of its US release, Nielsen reports that nearly 26 million people watched Bird Box. It additionally disclosed that a noteworthy portion of its viewership consisted of young people, aged between 2018 and 2034 (36%), women (57%), and either African Americans (24%) or Latinos (22%). [38] In addition, Netflix disclosed its own viewing data, which in just seven days attracted over 45 million viewers globally. The company defined views as those who watched the movie for more than 70% of its duration on the streaming platform. The number of viewers was reportedly the highest for a Netflix production ever. Some analysts expressed skepticism about the audience figure released by Netflix, citing the absence of independent verification of the view count. [39][40] [41][42] In July 2020, Netflix disclosed that during the first four weeks of its release, the movie had been viewed by 89 million households, which was the second-highest number of times for one of their original productions. [43] A Barclays analysis calculated that the movie would have made roughly $98 million worldwide if it had been released in theaters. Within 28 days of its release, Bird Box surpassed all other Netflix films in terms of views, with 282 02 million hours being viewed. It held this position until 2021, when Red Notice overtook it. [45][46].

FAQ

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