By Hannah Montgomery, Graduate Writer and Social Media Manager
Upon the release of his newest book, Recursion (Penguin Random House, 2019), The News & Observer featured UNC Alumnus (Class of 2000), Blake Crouch.
Crouch was inspired by a 2013 experiment at MIT in which researchers successfully implanted artificial memories into lab mice. This major development in the study of False Memory Syndrome and its sci-fi implications became the basis for Recursion. “My last few books, I’ve been trying to find these pieces of new science and marry them to my own story ideas and characters” Crouch told The New & Observer.
Crouch began storytelling young, “I used to tell my little brother scary bedtime stories,” he told The News & Observer. “The stories eventually became serialized and got more complex as they went. That was my first go at storytelling, I suppose.” These early skills were developed at UNC and encouraged by the professors in creative writing in the English & Comparative Literature department, particularly Dr. Bland Simpson and Dr. Marianne Gingher.
“I wrote my first novel [“Desert Places”] when I was at UNC, and I got to work with Bland Simpson,” Crouch told News & Observer. “I did an independent study. He helped me edit and eventually sell that novel. Bland and Marianne Gingher, she was incredibly supportive. They gave me a real boost when I needed it most.”
Crouch appreciates the support UNC professors gave him to write the kind of stories he wanted to write, saying that many university creative writing programs are dismissive of sci-fi, fantasy and other kinds of genre fiction, but not at UNC.
Best-selling author, Crouch, has written 28 books since his debut novel in 2004. His books have been a source for TV and film. Fox produced a series based on his “Wayward Pines” trilogy in 2015 and TNT adapted his book “Good Behavior” in 2016. Crouch’s 2016 “Dark Matter” is in development with Sony for a possible feature film adaptation. Netflix bought the rights to Recursion before the book was released and has plans for both a TV series and a film produced by Shonda Rhimes and Matt Reeves, announcing the project in October 2018.
Praised as “A masterful mind-bender of a novel” and “An action-packed, brilliantly unique ride,” Recursion is available now.
