"What a vile time to be a young woman in the public eye. "
Author Sarah Harman on finding an author community, turning "justified female rage" into fodder, and her stylish new thriller, ALL THE OTHER MOTHERS HATE ME
Check out the collection of past Words With (Author) Friends, wherein I g-chat with an author and you get to read over my shoulder, and order Sarah’s razor-sharp debut, available now.
Me: Sarah, hi!
Sarah: Hi Andi:)
How's it going? How are you feeling post-launch??
So far so good! My book came out in the US first and I live in the UK, so it guess it feels a bit... theoretical? But a bunch of friends sent me photos whenever they spotted the book in bookshops. They were really excited for me. So that was very cool.
ah interesting!!
Mostly I feel relieved. I put a lot of pressure on myself in the run-up to the launch to try to come up with, like personal essays I could pitch to help promote the book. And now I'm like-- maybe ill never have to write another personal essay again, hahah
hahaha, I have bad news for you re: when that next book comes out...
but that's a problem for Future Sarah!
hahah yes let's not tell her!
Well, huge congrats on ALL THE OTHER MOTHERS HATE ME, which is very real stateside! Can you share what it's about?
Sure! I'm calling it a 'satirical thriller.' It's about a washed up girl band singer, Florence. When we meet her, she's 31 years old, slumming around London, spending her dwindling royalty checks on elaborate nail art and making extra cash by selling balloon arches to the rich mums of Holland Park. Not exactly living her best life.
And then one day a boy at her ten-year-old son's posh private school mysteriously vanishes on a class trip, and Florence decides to investigate. Not because she particularly cares what happened to the missing boy ( she doesn't) but because her own son ( an awkward, misunderstood loner) is rapidly becoming the main suspect.
What a hilarious concept. Where'd the idea come from?
I was really intrigued by what the afterlife looks like for someone in one of those manufactured girl bands. Like if you weren't a spice girl, say, but were in one of the many knock-off bands, what does the rest of your life look like after that ends?
I also thought it was funny to think about a mystery where the detective doesn't want to be there, but HAS to.
and because it's her kid involved, she can't just be like, 'whelp, guess I'll leave it alone now.' so it felt like it had baked-in stakes. I think that's always important to a story.
Yes, such a fun thing to play with: the inadvertent, begrudging detective! Was there anything in particular that caught your imagination when it comes to post-pop-fame?
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