The Big Idea: Jayne Cowie

There is profit to be made off of violence. What if there was a way to profit off of preventing violence, as well? Author Jayne Cowie takes us into the world of her new novel, One of the Boys,  to show us how violence is a treatable, fixable thing there. Read on to see the details of predicting and preventing violence within her world.

JAYNE COWIE:

A couple of years ago, I wrote a book called Curfew, about a near future Britain in which all men are electronically tagged and not allowed out after 7 p.m. When I told people what I was working on, women laughed, and men went a bit pale and tended not to say anything at all. The difference in responses fascinated me. After all, we all agree that male violence is a problem. We pretty much all agree that women should be safe in public spaces, and in their own homes. What we can’t agree on is how to achieve it.

Trying to answer that question took me from a curfew to the idea behind my latest book, One of the Boys. Ever since Rosalind Franklin took her first X-Ray of DNA, we’ve been fascinated by the idea that what and who we are is all down to our genes. And thanks to the Human Genome project and sites like Ancestry.com, we’re linking genes to traits on what seems like an almost daily basis. We love the idea that we were born this way. No-one can criticize you for things that are beyond your control. It’s not your fault; it’s your genes…

One of the Boys: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Books-A-Million|Bookshop|Powell’s 

Author’s socials: Instagram