This 45 by the Ian Svenonius-fronted D.C. hardcore band Cupid Car Club was one of the first albums I bought when I moved to New York in 1996. It features the song "Grape Juice Plus," a wild, frightening, euphoric celebration of death cults whose lyrics scream for the arrival of the Four Horsemen. I thought of it often while writing about the end-of-the-world cult that haunts the book. 

Patmos is probably most famous for being the place where John wrote the Book of Revelation in A.D. 95. While I didn’t want to write a Dan Brown–type story where all the answers to the mystery can be found in a sacred text if only someone looked, I did rely on Revelation for context, texture, and just plain over-the-top inventions like the Whore of Babylon, the Beast with Seven Heads, the Four Horsemen, and 666.


THE FOUR HORSEMAN OF THE APOCALYPSE, OTTO SCHUBERT (1892-1972); OIL ON CANVAS; COURTESY OF INTERFOTO/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO. 

The Cave of the Apocalypse—the small, dim cavern where John purportedly wrote the Book of Revelation—has to be one of the strangest tourist attractions on the planet. It’s a holy site, overseen by the Greek Orthodox monks who inhabit the Byzantine monastery just up the hillside, and, unlike its name, it’s a strangely peaceful, reflective place.

It’s hard to write about careless, rich Americans in the Mediterranean without facing the specter of Patricia Highsmith’s stunning 1955 thriller, The Talented Mr. Ripley. Thankfully, I was writing about Greece and not Italy, and thus avoided following Highsmith’s very deep and very bloody footprints along the beach.

Set amid the sultry backdrop of the Aegean Sea, Christopher Bollen's new novel, The Destroyers, out tomorrow, weaves together sexual intrigue, a puzzling disappearance, and the Syrian refugee crisis. Here, he shares a few of the places and things that brought the apocalyptic thriller to life:

I always start with place when I write fiction. To me, the Greek island of Patmos is really the main character of The Destroyers, and I spent several subsequent summers using my vacations as extended research trips to capture the island as justly as I could. I can’t say enough about how magical Patmos is—it really does vibrate. (I make fun of people who say that in the book, but it’s absolutely true.)

Without giving too much away, the ancient-to-modern history of shipping and trade on the Aegean Sea becomes a central plot point in the novel. I consulted so many maps of the island and of the Aegean while writing this book that I was in danger of becoming an amateur cartographer.


CHART OF THE CENTRAL MEDITERRANEAN, FROM MAPS OF THE LIBER SECRETORUM FIDELIUM CRUCIS, PIETRO VESCONTE, CIRCA  1320-25; COURTESY OF THE BRITISH LIBRARY/ROBANA/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK.