Remembering celebrated Canadian thriller author Andrew Pyper

Andrew Pyper, a Toronto-based writer who earned critical acclaim for his literary thriller novels, has died.

Over the past 25 years, Pyper became one of the most renowned writers working in Canada and a giant of the horror genre. His bestselling novels include Lost Girls and The Killing Circle.

Since the news of his passing, Canadian authors and readers alike have shared stories of all the different ways Pyper touched their lives, whether through his work or through his palpable commitment to the literary community.

Today on Commotion, author Craig Davidson joins host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to share such stories, and pay tribute to his late friend.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: What's really struck me about the outpouring of love has been the vantage point of stories…. It just seemed like he was really beautifully enmeshed with a lot of people.

You got to know Andrew Pyper personally. Before that, you were an admirer of his work. What do you think made him a unique figure in Canadian literature?

Craig: Andrew's work is really difficult to pigeonhole. [It's] ostensibly horror, but his first book, Lost Girls, there's a gothic feel to it. There's elements of a ghost story. One of Andrew's, I think, favourite books is Ghost Story by Peter Straub, and there's a crime element, there's a legal element, a Dickensian element. And he went on to write books in the horror sphere, but then he'd stop and write a book like The Trade Mission, which is a standalone thriller. And then in the middle part of his career, The Demonologist, I think, was writing things that I would consider to be dark thrillers, you know what I mean? Big ideas, big hooks, propulsive stories.

And then the last part of his career, where he was writing under a pen name — some of the books still to come — they were dark techno-thrillers. But the throughline was always the literary-ness of his work. I think because of its dark themes and tones, Andrew's work … was probably seen as horror. But it was so well-written and literary, and its literary merit so obvious that critics, even if they want to malign that kind of genre — which sometimes they do — it was impossible to do with Andrew's work. You had to accept that it was just beautifully written, dark work.

Elamin: I was going through some of those reviews yesterday, and the reviews would sort of go out of their way to not talk about the horror elements of the work, and really just overstress that idea of its beautiful literary work. In a way, it kind of feels like if you even thought it was possible to put down this genre, Andrew is sort of like a challenge to that idea, right?

Craig: Exactly, and we all admired him immensely for that through his work. He was always a tireless supporter of the genre itself. He never saw any kind of distinction between literary work and genre work. I think he always thought of good work as good work.

Elamin: I want to talk about this really moving tribute that you wrote for The Globe and Mail. You unpack your history together, and it's a relatively recent history, right? You met just over 10 years ago on a joint book tour, and then you kind of write about how uncommon it is for adult men in middle age to forge these new friendships….

The headline of your Globe piece says Andrew Pyper was a "universal donor." I like that image a lot. Do you want to explain a little bit about what that means?

Craig: I've got to attribute my friend Neil on that, because he introduced me to the phrase, actually, in relation to Andrew…. I think what Neil meant, or at least as I took it, is that Andrew is the sort of guy who you could introduce to anyone or into any setting, and he'd fit right in. He would stand out in a way with his charm and his conviviality, but he wouldn't dominate the room. He wouldn't want to. So I always thought that if anyone ever had a problem with Andrew Pyper — and I mean sincerely, I've never known a single person to have an issue with Andrew — but if they did, in that unlikely instance, it would be a them problem, not an Andrew problem.

Elamin: When you see the outpouring from all authors of all ages and all genres … that's exactly the sort of impression that you get. 

When you think about the loss of a friend, you think about the loss of Andrew here, what's the key lesson from your time together that you want to hold onto and carry forward in your life?

Craig: You know, this isn't probably the exact answer to the question, but since the piece came out yesterday, I guess as the kids say, my email inbox blew up…. It's total strangers who found my email address and reached out, and they all start with, "You don't know me, but I knew Andrew," you know, like an old neighbour from Stratford, someone who was his roommate in the '90s, someone who worked with him for a summer, you know? And all these people shocked to hear of his passing, and wanting to tell someone, anybody, I suppose. And I'm the depositor of this, just how saddened they are to have lost that spot of brightness in their lives. So I guess if anything, I carry the notion of a life being lived so well and so fully that it would leave that kind of a legacy, even if it was as tragically brief as it was.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Craig Davidson produced by Stuart Berman.