The Lure of the Anti-hero by Jason Hewitt

The Lure of the Anti-hero

I’ve never much wanted to be a hero. For me, Gatsby was always more interesting than Nick Carraway; in The Merchant of Venice it’s Shylock that steals all the best speeches; and who in their right mind would want to be the narrator, Jack, in Chuck Palaniuk’s Fight Club when you could be Tyler Durden? Even in my school playground days there was always a wrestle to be Han Solo. No one ever wanted to be Luke.

But why is this? For me the great anti-heroes are not only more fun, they are also more human. Intrinsically, the anti-hero is the hero ‘gone wrong’.  They might be a central character but they lack the heroic qualities you would expect: courage, altruism, and an all-round (and irritating) goodness. Instead their moral compass has gone awry. They are jealous, they lie, they spy, they are selfish and secretive, and say and think and do things they shouldn’t; and sometimes they are remorseful about this, and sometimes – well – they’re not. That’s because, like us all, they are complex. Their journey through life has rarely been easy. They have often struggled and fought and been hurt along the way and so they have evolved into survivors. When we look at characters like Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley we don’t approve of his murders, his cheating, lying and stealing, but Highsmith portrays him in such a rich way that we not only understand him, but even sympathise with him. He commits terrible crimes again and again, and yet we still root for him.

In The Dynamite Room almost all my characters are flawed and, those that aren’t, are only seen by the reader through the subjective memory of other characters. My two protagonists are both anti-heroes. Heiden, a German soldier who has taken eleven-year Lydia hostage, has committed almost every crime conceivable. He has killed not just out of the necessity of war but also in cold blood for nothing more than his own purpose. I deliberately wanted him to be morally ambiguous so that you don’t ever know what he might do to Lydia. And yet, by allowing the reader into his mind, we understand why he carries out the crimes he does. You might even sympathise with him. Similarly Lydia may come across as an innocent victim yet her actions are often far from heroic. Even when she realises the ramifications of some of the things she has done and begins to feel remorse, it is only out of a desperate attempt to save her own skin.

By taking the reader into their heads, we see the fears that they hide from each other, their insecurities and weaknesses. We understand why they act as they do, and hopefully we love them a little for that. Why? Perhaps it’s because we see a bit of ourselves in them as well. We may all want to be the hero, but – let’s be honest – in reality we are all far more human than that.

Jason Hewitt’s debut novel, The Dynamite Room, is available in Hardback and eBook, 27^th March. Find out more here.