What comes first for you—the overall idea for the book or a character?

I ask what-if questions about myself and then seek to answer them. What if your husband had two other wives…? What if you were homeless…? What if you snapped and became a serial killer…? What if someone kidnapped you and locked you in a cabin? I’ve written all those stories because I wanted to read them. The characters show up at their leisure and I don’t always like them. But I always listen and tell their truth.

One of the great ironies of this story is that Winnie works in mental health but can’t see how deep her own brother’s struggles are, and Juno also worked in mental health but can’t see her own diagnosis. Was that irony deliberate, something you wove in from the beginning, or was it something that developed organically and perhaps even unconsciously as you wrote?

I think that it is a human issue. We see what we are comfortable seeing and shade our eyes to the rest. Winnie and Juno are both very selfish and self-involved individuals. They might work in an occupation that aids people, but they look to help themselves first. I think they’re both addicted to how doing good makes them feel, but in the end it’s still about their feelings.

A similar question: this book touches on a lot of important and deeply relevant social issues. Mental health, homelessness, incarceration—the book shows us how someone can be affected by any or all these things, and that people’s situations are rarely simple. Was it your intent to write about those things, or did the characters and the story reveal themselves to you as you went?

I worked in mental health and those experiences definitely shaped me as a writer. What I’ve found about people in general is that they rarely try to understand their personal antagonist. When you put a face and a past and a trauma on your enemy, you are given understanding which is a powerful avenue for growth. So I want to write about the complicated things that we do to each other and give insight into why we do them.

What other writers are you loving lately? Any thriller writers you’re into or any other genres?

I’ve been reading BIPOC authors this year. I was blown away by the compact art in My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite. I still think about that book every day. I could not accomplish what Oyinkan did in that book; she told a complex story with few words and it was powerful. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia was a favorite this year—let’s go, women who write horror! And I would highly, highly recommend The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré. I’m not sure there’s been another book in my lifetime that has made me feel so many things.