Linda M. Castellitto

Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

In Julie Clark’s new thriller, a sly con artist tricks everyone—except for the reader

Interview by Linda M. Castellitto

Meg Williams, the magnetic central character of Julie Clark’s new novel, The Lies I Tell, is a highly intelligent woman with a gift for transforming social graces into social engineering. She’s always learning, adept at innovating on the fly. But unlike other “disruptors,” such as the tech bro founders of hot new startups, Meg is a con artist with 10 years of experience (and counting).

Despite that decidedly dodgy resume, Meg makes for a compelling protagonist as she attempts to right both personal and systemic wrongs, one awful man at a time. Her methods are strategic and well tested: She trawls social media to ascertain things like a target’s wealth, trusted friends or favorite coffee shop. Then she insinuates herself into their life in a way that seems casual but is absolutely calculated, playing whatever role is required to breach their boundaries and defenses.

As The Lies I Tell begins, Meg is back in California after many years away, and she has set her sights on Los Angeles politician Ron Ashton, who tricked Meg’s mother out of their family home some 15 years ago, a life-altering injustice Meg has long wanted to rectify.

In a call to her home in Santa Monica, California, Clark says her deep dive into the world of chicanery and subterfuge involved research on everything from business development to the California real estate market to the typical mindset of the successful grifter. “I learned about the psychology of it, the different types of cons and con artists throughout history,” she says.

Clark is familiar with con women prominent in the current zeitgeist, too, from the likes of disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes to the imprisoned faux socialite Anna Delvey. But Clark says that The Lies I Tell‘s Meg is a very different type of person. “I didn’t want her to be working with a team of people; she needed to be isolated and on her own,” she says. “But I also wanted her to be likable. And I wanted her to not leave destruction and despair in her wake.”

“I love it when you can root for somebody who’s doing something wrong and still want them to succeed.”

Whether she’s writing about two women who make a spur-of-the-moment decision to swap identities in a busy airport (the plot of her 2020 New York Times bestseller, The Last Flight) or pitting Meg against her dauntless rival, journalist Kat Roberts, Clark nimbly avoids misogynistic stereotypes. “That’s just not what I do as a writer,” she says. “The women that I write, they’re strong, they’re savvy, they’re quick on their feet.”

Kat is convinced that Meg is the reason her life went terribly awry ten years ago, when Kat’s investigation into a predatory high school principal resulted in a deeply traumatic experience. Meg is the person who started Kat down that path, and once Kat realizes the con artist is back in California, she decides it’s time for a reckoning. She figures she’ll take a page from Meg’s playbook and gain her trust before making her pay for what she’s done.

Readers who admired the alternating points of view in The Last Flight will be happy to know that Clark returns to that structure in The Lies I Tell. Details of the pain and injustice that drive both women toward retribution—their origin stories, if you will—unspool across the pages, and both characters struggle to maintain their relentless sense of self-righteousness, even as they deceive others with relative ease. 

The Lies I Tell by Julie Clark jacket

The process of gradually realizing, scam by scam, layer by layer, what compels Meg to lie, cheat and steal is as captivating as the beguiling con artist herself, and Kat comes to a similar realization as she spends time in close proximity to the woman she thinks is the locus of all her miseries. “I want to climb inside Meg’s mind, inside her life, and piece it all together, dot by dot,” Kat muses. “Take something from her, the way she took everything from me.” But what Kat doesn’t anticipate is that they will end up becoming friends of a sort, establishing an easy (albeit lie-saturated) camaraderie. There is a delicious tension as they circle each other, probing for the truths that lie beneath each other’s facades, determined to get what they want before they’re found out or somebody skips town.

“At the beginning of the book,” Clark says, “Kat thinks she knows what she wants, which is to expose Meg, get her career back on track, be the writer she wanted to be when everything was pulled out from under her. But by the end of the book, she realizes she needs something different.”

It’s a theme the author often returns to in her work. “I talk a lot about an emotional third rail,” she says, “the way the characters grow and change as a result of trying to get what they want and what they need. And what they want and what they need are often not the same thing. I think that is the heart of every book I’ve written so far and probably will continue to be part of every book that I write.”

Clark gets a lot of practice identifying and exploring characters’ evolutions in her other job as a fifth grade teacher. “At the end of every book we read, my students have to answer the question, what is this book really about? What is it that the author wants you thinking about when you’re done?” she says. “I have to answer that same question with every book that I write. . . . With The Last Flight, it was about female empowerment, it was about trauma, it was about reclaiming your voice, it was about getting a second chance. And then with The Lies I Tell, it’s about justice, it’s about taking back what you think belongs to you.”

As Meg says in the book, “The difference between justice and revenge comes down to who’s telling the story,” and it’s important to Clark that readers feel some empathy for and identify with her central con woman. “That doesn’t mean there aren’t moments where you won’t trust what she’s saying or wonder what her motivation is—but at the same time, you’re still rooting for her,” she explains. “That’s what I wanted more than anything. I love it when you can root for somebody who’s doing something wrong and still want them to succeed.”

Read our review of ‘The Lies I Tell’ by Julie Clark.

It’s particularly easy to root for Meg when she encounters sexism everywhere and doesn’t let her justifiable anger keep her from adroitly turning it to her advantage. Smugness and condescension from men, she realizes, can have its benefits. “She realizes that it’s actually really easy for her to [con people] because she’s a woman, because people don’t take women seriously,” Clark says.

While other characters may not take the novel’s leading ladies at their word, it’s important to Clark that readers do. “When I sat down to write [these] female characters . . . it just didn’t feel right to me to portray them as unreliable. I love the unreliable narrator as a reader! It’s super fun to figure out! But I’m not really inclined to perpetuate that stereotype for women, being a woman myself.”

Fortunately, Clark says, “people have been really receptive. I haven’t had a single reader say, ‘I wish you would’ve made them more unreliable.’ In fact, I get the opposite.” She adds, “I think people are hungry for that. I think they like to see characters they can count on. A character doesn’t always have to be 100% honest with the reader’we’re not 100% honest with people in our lives or even with ourselves’but the intention has to be good.”

Clark says that she feels an obligation to herself, her sons and her readers to portray women in an empowering and positive way. “We’re hardworking, sane, determined people who are not going to back down from a challenge. Those are the women that I know,” she says. “So that’s who you’re going to get when you pick up a book from me.”

Photo of Julie Clark © Eric A. Reid Photography

The author of 2020's blockbuster thriller The Last Flight doesn't need unreliable narrators to keep fans frantically turning the pages of her follow-up novel.
NonfictionMemoirArts & Culture

The three best celebrity memoirs of the summer

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

All three of these gorgeous and talented authors have played pivotal roles in movies that are meaningful to fans worldwide. Their Tinseltown lives are glamorous, to be sure, but their heartfelt life stories reveal a darker side to fame, where inspirational journeys and cautionary tales collide.

★ Out of the Corner

Jacket for Out of the Corner by Jennifer Grey

Jennifer Grey knows that her life has been charmed from the beginning. As a child, her famous parents took her to holiday parties with the likes of Stephen Sondheim, Patti LuPone and Leonard Bernstein. But although she breathed in rarefied air, Grey felt lonely and lacking. The rising star of her father, Joel Grey, meant the family moved numerous times, and so many instances of starting over, with her parents largely absent, took a heavy toll.

In Out of the Corner: A Memoir, Grey writes, “I’d been so consumed by feeling abandoned that I hadn’t seen the ways I had abandoned myself.” In the decades before she reached that perspective, the actress searched—for affection, connection, approval—even as she achieved great fame.

Grey became America’s sweetheart in 1987, thanks to her indelible work as Baby Houseman in Dirty Dancing, but as she reveals with raw and moving candor, her sunny smile at the premiere belied her physical and emotional suffering. Just before the film’s debut, she and then-boyfriend Matthew Broderick were in a head-on car crash in which two people died. Even before that, her relationship with Broderick had turned toxic, and she’d had other unhealthy relationships earlier in her life. “My first drug of choice was romantic fantasy,” she writes. Other drugs followed, amplifying behavioral patterns from which she’s worked to recover—efforts she recounts with empathy for her former self and encouragement for those with similar struggles.

Grey also addresses what she calls “Schnozageddon”—when a revision rhinoplasty famously and irrevocably altered her face and professional identity—with bravery and clarity. And when she writes about dance, her prose sings with gratitude for the lifelong pursuit that’s taken her marvelous places, from Dirty Dancing to “Dancing With the Stars.” Time and again, Grey reveals herself to be tenacious and dedicated to the show going on—a fitting metaphor for a singular life, which she shares with wit, warmth and wisdom.

★ We Were Dreamers

Jacket for We Were Dreamers by Simu Liu

Simu Liu’s fans are enchanted by his previous work as a stock photo model. They loved him in the Canadian sitcom “Kim’s Convenience.” And they rejoiced when he landed the lead in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. He shares these stories and more in his engaging, uplifting memoir, We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story.

Liu has had an incredible journey so far, but as with any origin story, it hasn’t been without painful obstacles. We Were Dreamers begins with his 1989 birth in Harbin, China, where he lived with his loving grandparents for four years. Then his parents, engineers who had moved abroad after he was born, brought Liu to Canada to join them. After so many years of pursuing a better life, they were not interested in Liu’s dreams for his own life, and they emotionally and physically abused him when he couldn’t achieve their definition of perfection.

As a young adult, getting laid off from an accounting job for which he was spectacularly ill suited brought shame but also opportunity, as Liu finally felt free to try out performing gigs, from acting to stunts to playing Spider-Man at kids’ parties. He recounts his step-by-step approach, providing a helpful blueprint for other aspiring artists who lack a supportive family or industry connections. For him, this plan worked marvelously: He obtained life-changing work as an actor in the U.S. and became an advocate for Asian representation in media in the process.

As an adult, Liu forged a truce with his parents, and he writes that “families today could learn from us and steer themselves from the same mistakes.” A compelling case for pursuing an authentic life, We Were Dreamers provides fascinating insight into a newly minted Marvel superhero who wants readers to take to the skies along with him.

Read our review of the audiobook edition, narrated by Simu Liu.

★ Mean Baby

Jacket for Mean Baby by Selma Blair

Since birth, Selma Blair has struggled to unstick the labels others applied to her. As an infant, she had a sneer on her tiny face that caused neighbors and family to call her a “mean baby.” As she grew older, her mother said she wasn’t enough—pretty enough, thin enough, good enough, talented enough . . . the list goes on. And yet, as Blair writes in her painfully lovely Mean Baby: A Memoir of Growing Up, “I lived for her approval.”

Although that approval was ever elusive, Blair loved her mother. However, she had learned from her mother that if she showed she was in pain, it would only be met with laughter. So even as Blair began to experience strange sensations in her limbs, facial pain and other ailments that lasted for decades, she told herself she was fine. Fans already know where this is going: In 2018, Blair was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. As she writes with a poignant mixture of grief and relief, “There is great power in words. In an answer. In a diagnosis. To make sense of a plot you could hardly keep up with any longer.”

Blair writes about what fans may not know, too, such as her alcohol addiction that began at age 7 and surged and receded over the years. Blair also shares many thrilling Hollywood encounters, vividly conveying the profound feeling of disorientation that was her constant companion even as she starred in movies like Cruel Intentions, Legally Blonde and Hellboy; modeled for high-end fashion magazines; and developed friendships with the likes of Sarah Michelle Gellar, Karl Lagerfeld and Carrie Fisher.

Blair drew from her journals, her favorite books and her love of writing to craft this memoir, which is an elegiac contemplation of her life through the lens of a chronic illness that only recently made her past clear. For those seeking a similar sense of enlightenment, reading Mean Baby is a worthy and affecting undertaking.

Memoirs by Jennifer Grey, Simu Liu and Selma Blair reveal that even out-of-this-world stars have down-to-earth problems.
NonfictionMemoirArts & Culture

Tabitha Carvan takes the guilt out of guilty pleasures

Interview by Linda M. Castellitto

Tabitha Carvan’s This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch: The Joy of Loving Something—Anything—Like Your Life Depends on It is very funny. She introduces herself by telling readers, “I am writing this from inside Benedict Cumberbatch.” (But don’t worry; she means a sweatshirt with his face on it, not a skin suit.) When describing the book, she quips, “What’s something that this book has that Benedict Cumberbatch does not? That’s right! An appendix.” From start to finish, the author is impressively informed and hilariously enthusiastic about the English movie and TV star.

But as she shares in a delightful phone call to her home in Canberra, Australia, Carvan wasn’t always so upfront about her infatuation with the man whose fans call themselves “Cumberbitches.” (See also: Cumbercookies, Cumbercommunity and Benaddicts.) Rather, she viewed her sudden surge of interest in him as an alarming signal that something was wrong with her.

Carvan, a mom of two, says her fascination with the actor sparked several years ago, at a time when she was “completely strung out by motherhood—that sense of having just nothing left in me.” She’d recently moved from Vietnam, where she had a flourishing career, back to Australia with her husband. “Here I was, alone at home in a new small town with no job,” she says. “The extent of the feelings I had at that time were tiredness and busyness. I think there was just a part of my soul that needed to be filled up with something that allowed me to feel alive—allowed me to feel anything.”

Read our starred review of ‘This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch’ by Tabitha Carvan.

When a newspaper ad for the BBC television show “Sherlock” caught her eye, Carvan experienced an unexpected yearning. She began to watch that show, and then other shows and movies and interviews featuring Cumberbatch, until she was fully hooked. But it wasn’t just his “eyes that are too far apart . . . and yet somehow also perfect,” as she puts it in her book, or even his “Cumberbottom” that enchanted her; it was the giddiness she felt when she watched him, the smile that spread across her face when she thought about him.

Jacket of This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch by Tabitha Carvan

Carvan says that, as her desire revved up, so did her curiosity. After all, it’s one thing to appreciate an actor’s art and skill and another thing for that appreciation to kick off—for millions of people—what she viewed as a swoony regression. So the science writer put her investigatory chops to work, determined to figure out, “Why was this happening to us? Why Benedict Cumberbatch? Why did it happen at that particular time?”

The author dove into books like Brigid Schulte’s Overwhelmed, about the components of modern life that eat away at our leisure time, and Ethel S. Person’s By Force of Fantasy, about the value of having fantasies. She also interviewed numerous fellow Cumberbatch fans, who spoke openly about the whats and whys of their devotion. For example, there’s Kyndall, a high-powered executive who makes digital paintings of Cumberbatch’s Sherlock in lingerie; a professor named Emma who writes copious fan fiction; and Lea, a nail salon owner in Ohio who adorns the shop’s walls with photos of the actor and chats about her Cumberlove with clients.

“When something brings people so much joy, why can’t we just let it?”

Carvan says their conversations “were affecting me hugely in the way I saw myself.” And over time, she says, “I began to realize that [the fandom] was not the most interesting thing that was happening to us. The most interesting thing was that we were all so happy.”

But that happiness was clouded by self-consciousness. “So many of them would be like, ‘Don’t tell anyone about it, don’t share it, I don’t want anyone to know,’” Carvan says. “And so that became the real question of the book: When something brings people so much joy, why can’t we just let it? Why can’t we just be open to feeling that?”

The author, who is the youngest of four children, says some of her own hesitancy began in childhood. “I think my parents and siblings contributed to my idea of ‘smart people,’” she says—including the idea that smart people “don’t care about trivial feelings. . . . We focus on the things that really matter, which is being clever and being academically good.”

Then there are the societal norms around infatuation. If a man blankets his home in sports or Star Wars memorabilia, for example, it’s acceptable, even cool. But if a woman does something similar, it’s odd or inappropriate, especially if she’s a mother. As Carvan writes in her book, “Women mature out of their pleasures. Men, on the other hand, get to hang on to theirs, turning them into a lifelong passion, or even better, a career.”

“If it was in you once, the ability to lose yourself in something purely fun, I assure you the ability is still in there somewhere.”

Living in a culture that worships the hustle can make people “feel like our free time has to be used to do everything, to make us fitter, look better, tick boxes for being good citizens,” Carvan says. Through writing her book, however, she’s learned that finding “a way to have completely pointless fun in your life seems to be quite a transformative step—a way to open up your emotional memory of what makes you feel good and what you actually want to do.”

This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch audiobook
Read our starred review of the audiobook, narrated by Tanya Schneider.

Carvan says she hopes This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch helps readers realize that “if it was in you once, the ability to lose yourself in something purely fun, I assure you the ability is still in there somewhere, and you shouldn’t feel guilty.” Happily, she adds, “I do not feel guilty at all anymore.”

And what of Carvan + Cumberbatch: Are they still a thing? She says with a laugh, “It’s been six years, so our relationship is now just a fond, everlasting love, not a fiery passion. We’re lifelong companions; he just doesn’t know about it.”

Author photo of Tabitha Carvan by Jimmy Walsh Photography.

The debut author of This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch describes her plunge into obsession, followed by her ascent into unabashed superfan joy.
NonfictionMemoirArts & Culture

This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

When do pleasures become guilty, transforming from sources of pure fun into fodder for defensiveness? And why is it so difficult for so many adults, especially women, to enjoy their interests regardless of what other people think?

Australian science writer Tabitha Carvan found herself asking these questions when, much to her surprise, she suddenly became a devoted fan of English actor Benedict Cumberbatch at age 36. As an overwhelmed and exhausted mother of two young children, she was “stuck in an interminable holding pattern, circling the airport and dumping fuel. . . . I was praying for something to hit me, just to break up the monotony.”

Author Tabitha Carvan extols the importance of completely pointless fun.

Turns out, watching Cumberbatch in the BBC series “Sherlock” was just the thing. But the intensity of her interest confounded Carvan, not least of all because of its similarity to her teenage obsessions with U2 and INXS. She thought she’d left those sorts of fanatic feelings behind, she explains in her clever and charming debut, This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch: The Joy of Loving Something—Anything—Like Your Life Depends On It. And she had no idea why they were surging back in response to this man, at this time.

She dove into Cumberbatch’s repertoire in search of answers, following a “viewing schedule [that] was being determined by Benedict Cumberbatch’s IMDb page like it was the actual TV guide.” Along the way, Carvan found that she felt the need to hide her infatuation, even as it was reviving her sense of self. So she investigated her new dedication to fandom: She read books on identity and fantasy, pondered friends’ comparatively dull obsessions (“that bird was very boring and Benedict Cumberbatch is very interesting”), and interviewed numerous fellow Cumberbatch fans.

Carvan’s candid revelations about the ways in which passion, bias, identity and motherhood intersect are hard-won and insightful, not to mention humorous. As she shares them in This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch, she makes an excellent case for taking time to figure out what you like and embracing the delight it brings—no shame allowed. Plus, a witty, well-researched appendix offers copious information for the Cumber-curious; “Top ten Benedict Cumberbatch characters, hairwise, according to me” is particularly enlightening.

In her funny, thought-provoking memoir, Tabitha Carvan makes an excellent case for figuring out what you like and embracing the delight it brings—no shame allowed.
Children's & YAChapter Book

Family matters in two engaging illustrated chapter books

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

Anna Hibiscus

Atinuke (Too Small Tola, Catch That Chicken!), the acclaimed Nigerian-born author of Anna Hibiscus, is an accomplished traditional oral storyteller. In this illustrated chapter book, it’s easy to see why: Using straightforward yet elegant prose, she creates a sweetly moving and eminently memorable young protagonist.

Anna is a bright, active girl who lives with her grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings and parents in a sprawling compound in a big, bustling city in Nigeria. The compound is a wondrous place with unusual architecture, lush gardens, fragrant mango trees and goats and chickens. There is always someone to play with, talk to or even—when the cheerful noise and spirited bickering of such a busy home becomes overwhelming—hide from for a little while. 

Each of Anna Hibiscus’ four self-contained chapters begin the same way: “Anna Hibiscus lives in Africa. Amazing Africa. In a country called Nigeria.” This refrain highlights Anna’s pride in her identity and her homeland. In Atinuke’s quartet of tales, readers are drawn into Anna’s “amazing” world, where they join her on a trip to the beach, meet her supercool auntie who lives across the Atlantic Ocean and learn what it’s like to sell oranges on the street. Anna is smart and engaged in her family’s life, and each story showcases different ways to express love and understand new perspectives. 

Although Lauren Tobia’s illustrations are done in pen and ink with a gray wash, the people and events she depicts always have a feeling of cheerful vibrancy. Mischievous children tumble across the pages, and framed snapshots (complete with little pieces of scrapbook tape) capture scenes of Mother’s life growing up in Canada, where she met and married Father as he visited one summer.

Whether they share Atinuke’s stories aloud with a grown-up or pore over them quietly by themselves, emerging readers will find much to enjoy and discover as Anna and her family impart wisdom and wit, blend the contemporary with the traditional and revel in having fun together.

The Puffin Keeper

Sometimes we’re lucky to have a special person enter our lives and become an emotional touchstone, a beacon of light during dark times. In The Puffin Keeper , lighthouse keeper and artist Benjamin Postlethwaite becomes such a figure for young Allen Williams.

At first, it’s because Ben rescues 5-year-old Allen, his recently widowed mother and 28 other passengers from a shipwreck near Ben’s lighthouse on the Scilly Isles, then gives Allen a painting to keep. Later, it’s because memories of Ben’s heroism and kindness resonate through Allen’s life, especially when the boy longs to escape his difficult circumstances. At his strict grandfather’s house, Allen lives in terror of being rapped on the hands with his cruel governess’ ruler, and at boarding school, he is forced to run cross-country as punishment for repeated attempts to run away. 

Allen discovers that he loves running and, inspired by Ben’s painting, also develops his own artistic talents. He even paints the envelope of a letter he sends to Ben, but Ben doesn’t reply. Finally, teenage Allen decides to make a “journey of exploration” to the lighthouse. He reunites with Ben, who never forgot him, and the arrival of an injured puffin at the lighthouse augurs new beginnings for humans and birds alike. When Allen must eventually make a far more perilous journey, thoughts of Ben and the puffin help him once more. 

The Puffin Keeper is an emotional tale of people and creatures who forge joyful bonds, endure storms and carry on. As Michael Morpurgo’s  affecting story makes clear, Allen is a touchstone for Ben as well, in a sweet reminder that we may affect others more than we ever realize. 

The emotional impact and classical feel of illustrator Benji Davies’ artwork are just right for this book. Many illustrations’ sepia tones hint at days gone by, while roiling seas rise up in ominous hues of gray and blue. Davies’ depictions of human characters are nicely expressive, and the puffins are both accurate and adorable. 

Morpurgo is no stranger to crafting appealing and meaningful tales. The award-winning British author has written more than 100 children’s books, with War Horse being perhaps the best known among them. In an afterword, Morpurgo reveals a personal connection to the real-life figure who served as inspiration for the character of Allen, a historical tidbit that sheds warm light on an already luminous story.

Families come in all shapes and sizes. These lovely books for emerging readers explore how our families enrich and bring joy to our lives.
Mystery & SuspenseThriller

Her sister’s keeper

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

The pull of shared history is incredibly strong, as demonstrated in this trio of new sister-centric thrillers. There’s strangeness and estrangement, intertwining and unraveling, joy and terror as these sets of siblings revisit the past in hopes of forging a better, less frightening future. 

Blood Will Tell

In Blood Will Tell, a tense new thriller by Heather Chavez (No Bad Deed), a quick trip to the gas station kicks off a chain of increasingly frightening events that thoroughly upend Frankie Barrera’s life.

The single mom and middle school math teacher has no idea why other customers are glaring at her as she pays for her gas. She figures it’s due to mistaken identity or perhaps just a case of the grumpies. Then a text alert brings everything into sharp, shocking focus: Her pickup truck was included in an Amber Alert. Her first reaction? Utter confusion. Her second? Curiosity about whether Izzy, her impulsive and unpredictable younger sister, had anything to do with it. 

Frankie soon realizes Izzy was indeed involved, but figuring out how and why will require upsetting trips back into long-suppressed memories of a chaotic night five years earlier when a scared, drunk Izzy had called Frankie for help because she had been in a terrible car crash and wasn’t sure what had happened. Chavez does an excellent job of conveying both the disorienting haziness of a painful past and the push-pull of the sisters’ desire, and reluctance, to face the truth. 

Criminals circle and legal issues loom as the sins of the past collide with those of the present. Time is running out, and Frankie and Izzy must decide: Can they end their codependence while solving the mysteries of that fateful night once and for all? Through its unflinching focus on the unhealthiness of entrenched familial roles, Blood Will Tell shines a light on the ways loyalty can become more damaging than nurturing, more misguided than wise.

I’ll Be You

If you had to guess which identical twin and former child TV star would be the one to disappear at the beginning of bestselling author Janelle Brown’s I’ll Be You, you probably wouldn’t pick Elli.

She and her twin, Sam, have had a painfully tumultuous relationship for many years. Sam’s struggles with addiction made it impossible for them to maintain the closeness they reveled in as children, and their former-manager mother’s insistence on reminding them of their so-called good twin/bad twin personalities (that would be Elli and Sam, respectively) has never been helpful either. 

But even when things were at their worst, Elli was always there, ready to help or listen. She wouldn’t just check herself into a spa for an indefinite amount of time, leaving everyone, including her recently adopted toddler daughter, behind . . . right? Despite her mother’s refusal to acknowledge that harm might’ve come to Elli, Sam decides to follow her instincts and investigate her estranged sister’s life in hopes of bringing her back home. 

After all, Sam thinks, “Who else had ever studied her as closely as I had? Who had ever seen me the way that she did?” But as Sam pores over Elli’s files and tries to talk to her prickly new friends, a distressing pattern emerges, and she realizes the Ojai spa Elli is visiting might not be a place for relaxation but something more sinister, even cult-like. Even worse, the Elli with whom she had swapped places many times has now become an enigma. Elli might not even want to be found.

Readers will enjoy the on-tenterhooks feeling of I’ll Be You as Sam tries to simultaneously maintain her sobriety, fend off her mother’s barbs and track down the elusive Elli. Brown’s depiction of addiction and the toll it takes on Sam, Elli and their family is empathetic and affecting, as are the sisters’ attempts to establish individual identities while keeping a close connection—an eternal struggle for all of us, certainly, but especially challenging when the singular intimacy of twinhood is involved. 

The Children on the Hill

What if intimacy that once was a balm for trauma transformed into something twisted, perhaps even deadly? Jennifer McMahon explores this painful possibility in The Children on the Hill, her follow-up to 2021’s bestselling The Drowning Kind. Deliciously gothic details and eerie vibes set the stage for a supremely creepy, often incredibly sad tale inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

In 1978, Violet “Vi” Hildreth and her brother, Eric, enjoy an idyllic childhood on the grounds of Vermont’s Hillside Inn, a psychiatric hospital presided over by their beloved Gran, the renowned psychiatrist Dr. Helen Hildreth. The kids have created a monster club, even collaborating on The Book of Monsters, which is all about the beings they believe are lurking in the darkness. 

When Gran brings an orphaned patient named Iris to stay with them, Iris and Vi form an intense bond. Vi resolves to help the traumatized Iris figure out where she came from, even if (especially if) subterfuge and sneaking around are involved.

In a parallel storyline set in 2019, returning to Vermont is the last thing Lizzy Shelley wants to do. She’s a popular author and podcast host who travels the country in pursuit of scary creatures. She believes that monsters are real, and that her long-lost sister is one. 

McMahon’s teasingly gradual reveal of the event Lizzy is referring to provides copious thrills as bizarre goings-on unspool, bit by bit. (And yes, a secret basement laboratory is involved.) The alternating timelines converge in shudder-inducing ways that invite readers to ponder these questions from The Book of Monsters: “Don’t we all have a little monster hiding inside us? A little darkness we don’t want people to see?” 

Through its innovative take on Shelley’s tragic and memorable classic, The Children on the Hill offers an absorbing contemplation of a sisterhood forged in shared pain, in longing to feel less alone even under the most monstrous of circumstances.

Family secrets and sins cast a long shadow in these thrillers, which center on the relationship between sisters.
Children's & YAYA FictionYA

A Scrabble tournament takes a deadly turn in ‘Queen of the Tiles’

Interview by Linda M. Castellitto

Malaysian author Hanna Alkaf’s Queen of the Tiles combines two irresistible elements: wordplay and murder. It’s the story of Najwa, a Scrabble whiz whose best friend, Trina, collapsed mid-game during the Word Warrior Weekend tournament a year ago. As Najwa continues to deal with her grief, she competes in her first tournament since Trina’s death, where she discovers that her friend may have been murdered—and the killer could be sitting on the other side of the Scrabble board. 

What initially sparked your interest in writing about Scrabble and the competitive Scrabble community?

I love Scrabble. Malaysia has a thriving, active Scrabble community, and as a teen, my older brother had been part of it. I remember many weekends spent ferrying him back and forth from our house to the Parkroyal Hotel in downtown Kuala Lumpur, where meets were usually held. Naturally, I ended up representing my school at a few competitions when I was in my teens as well. The strategies employed by top Scrabble players have always fascinated me, and when you combine that with my love of wordplay, Agatha Christie mysteries and teen angst, well, that’s how Queen of the Tiles was born.

The Scrabble competition in Queen of the Tiles is suspenseful and incredibly detailed. How did you research that aspect of the book? What did you learn that surprised you?

I watched many hours of Scrabble competitions, documentaries and interviews, read as much and as widely as I could on strategy and gameplay, and mapped out moves on a Scrabble board that I kept by my desk throughout the entire process. 

I am now a repository of absolutely fascinating and utterly useless Scrabble trivia. For instance, the highest scoring Scrabble word ever was played by Karl Khoshnaw in 1982: caziques, for 392 points. But Dan Stock from Ohio worked out that, in theory, the highest scoring Scrabble word possible is oxyphenbutazone, which, if the stars somehow align and all conditions on the board are just as they need to be, can get you a ridiculous 1,778 points. Yes, I am very fun at parties.

“Mysteries work best when readers can play along.”

At the beginning of each chapter, you feature a word with its definition and Scrabble point value. Did you already have words in mind for this when you began writing?

I kept a Google Doc called WORD LIST, and every time I came across a word and definition that I thought I could work into the plot—whether for the words at the beginning of each chapter, tournament scenes or Najwa’s own internal monologues—I’d note it down. 

Sometimes I needed something specific, like, “Oh, for this chapter, I need an obscure word that means ‘enemy.’” I’d open Thesaurus.com, plug the word in and find the most obscure but still relevant synonym. Then I’d cross-check it with an online Scrabble word checker to make sure it was valid and read what the official definition and point value would be. 

Najwa’s internal dialogue was harder to work through. She floats from word to word depending on the definition or how that word is tied to her memories or her analysis of other people. It’s a tricky thing to pull off, and every time I did it felt like a tiny miracle.

One of my favorite such moments happens early on in the book. Najwa’s thought process takes her from the word arenite (a sedimentary clastic rock) to clastic (composed of fragments) to fragment (to break into pieces), and that’s how she feels right in that moment: like she’s falling apart. 

The tournament aspect of the novel is thrilling on its own, but Queen of the Tiles also contains a murder mystery! Do you enjoy reading mysteries? What was challenging about plotting one yourself?

I grew up raiding my older sister’s collection of Agatha Christie novels and still go back to them as comfort reads—particularly the Poirot books. Yes, you read that right: I read murder mysteries for comfort. 

The most challenging part of it all was laying down the breadcrumbs. It’s easy to say this big reveal needs to happen in this chapter, or this plot twist goes here, but if you don’t show a logical path to get there, then you’re not really earning it. Mysteries work best when readers can play along; they’re most fun when you can go back and realize the clues were there waiting for you, and you just didn’t realize at the time that they were clues at all. 

“If [Najwa] feels real to readers, then I’m grateful, because the emotions were all too real to me.”

Najwa has developed an obsession with Trina’s Instagram account, and social media plays a vital role in the story. Why was it important to you to include this in the book? 

Trina was a social media star; she had a large following and we catch glimpses of how obsessed she was with maintaining a certain image for her public. But the more we get to know Trina, the more we see how much more depth and darkness lie behind the facade. 

And it isn’t just Trina. In all instances where we see social media use in Queen of the Tiles—and we see it a lot—there’s always the underlying question of what we present to the world versus who we really are. How much is being shown, and how much is being hidden? How do you evaluate what is real when you don’t know how much is being shared and how much has been withheld?

In her grief after Trina’s death, Najwa experiences memory issues, intrusive thoughts and more. Your portrait of Najwa is so real and raw. What was it like for you to craft this moving depiction of loss and healing?

I did some research on therapy and coping mechanisms for loss, grief and PTSD, but to be honest, writing Najwa was difficult not because I couldn’t understand what she was feeling, but because I understood it too well. I mined my own memories and emotions and buried shards of my own remembered grief in Najwa; if she feels real to readers, then I’m grateful, because the emotions were all too real to me.

I loved how often Najwa refers to her therapist when she talks about what she’s been going through. Why was it important to you to include therapy as part of Najwa’s experiences and to depict her openly relying on its lessons?

In Malaysia, we’re still working on destigmatizing mental illness and therapy. I really wanted to show a Malay Muslim teen struggling with her mental health and the ways in which she reaches out, gets help, develops coping mechanisms and puts those tools in practice—all things that I think we need to work on normalizing.

Read our starred review of Hanna Alkaf’s ’Queen of the Tiles.’

You recently tweeted, “I cannot tell you what it means to me to see a hijabi on the cover of a book that has absolutely nothing to do with Muslim pain or oppression. A book where she just gets to play Scrabble and solve a mystery and be a teenage girl.” That’s such a powerful statement. What do you hope Najwa and her story might mean for teen readers?

All too often, Muslims and hijabis have to perform our pain in order for our stories to be taken seriously. And those stories are important and necessary. But they’re not all we are. The Muslim experience is varied and colorful; we contain multitudes. We should have stories that showcase all of that! Our pain and our joy and our fears and our loves and our friendships—the sum of our lives and not just one aspect of it.

What do you think draws us to word games like Scrabble, crossword puzzles or, recently, Wordle and makes us want to play them time and again?

I can only really speak for myself, but in my case, I am endlessly fascinated by language and the way that the smallest changes in letters, word choice, tone, inflection or emphasis can entirely change the message we’re trying to get across. My dedication in this book reads simply, “This one’s for the word nerds.” I might as well have said, “This one is for me.”

Author photo of Hanna Alkaf courtesy of Azalia Suhaimi.

Hanna Alkaf’s new YA novel is a murder mystery set in the cutthroat world of competitive Scrabble.
Children's & YAYA FictionYA

Queen of the Tiles

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

Malaysian author Hanna Alkaf’s Queen of the Tiles is a raw, moving exploration of complicated grief, a celebration of teenage determination and a nail-biting murder mystery set at a cutthroat Scrabble tournament in Kuala Lumpur.

At last year’s Word Warrior Weekend competition, Trina Low, the titular Queen of the Tiles, made it all the way to the final round before she slumped over her board—dead. Najwa Bakri, Trina’s best friend, has been experiencing traumatic flashbacks, depression and memory loss ever since. “It’s as if Trina’s death cracked me open, and now pieces of me keep escaping, scattering themselves everywhere,” she explains.

Seeing a therapist has been helpful for Najwa, as will be attending this year’s Word Warrior Weekend. Along with ensuring that no one will tarnish Trina’s legacy, Najwa is also intent on proving that she is still an accomplished Scrabble player in her own right. This year, it’s Najwa who will become Queen of the Tiles. 

Of course, other competitors have the same idea, setting the stage for round after round of precisely crafted, often mesmerizing gameplay. Queen of the Tiles brims with the skills a player must possess to become a Scrabble champion: sharp focus, quick thinking and a prodigious vocabulary. Every chapter opens with an esoteric word (plus its definition and Scrabble point value, natch). Alkaf builds an immersive, complex world but doesn’t stop there, layering in a compelling locked-room whodunit, too.  

Indeed, the Word Warrior Weekend is upended when Najwa begins to receive anagrams via direct message from Trina’s long-inactive Instagram account. You wouldn’t think a word puzzle could seem threatening, but in Alkaf’s clever hands, the brainteasers foment unease and hint at a truly horrifying possibility: Could Trina have been murdered?

Scrabble frenemies become amateur sleuths, and everyone’s a suspect. During high-level Scrabble battles, shocking secrets are revealed and edgy suspense builds as the tiles click and slide. Readers will be guessing until the very end of this ensorcelling (15 points), sesquipedalian (26 points) mystery. 

Hanna Alkaf reveals the surprising item she kept on her desk as she wrote ‘Queen of the Tiles.’

A Scrabble tournament takes a deadly turn in Hanna Alkaf’s ensorcelling (15 points), sesquipedalian (26 points) murder mystery, Queen of the Tiles.
NonfictionHumorEssays

Start Without Me

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

If Gary Janetti’s keenly observed memoir of his formative years, Start Without Me: (I’ll Be There in a Minute), is any indication, he’s always had a sharp eye and a sharper tongue.

That sarcastic sensibility has earned him fame and acclaim as a writer and producer for “Will & Grace” and “Family Guy,” creator of the British sitcom “Vicious” and star of the HBO Max animated show “The Prince.” Now, in this follow-up to 2019’s Do You Mind If I Cancel?, which focused on his career beginnings, the raconteur extraordinaire journeys back to his precocious childhood in 1970s and ’80s Queens, New York.

Those years had many glorious moments for Janetti, and readers will gleefully snort at his hilariously spot-on recollections. In grammar school, “The Carol Burnett Show” provided life-affirming joy. In freshman gym class, he discovered a prodigious talent for and love of square dancing. During his sophomore year, horrified by the prospect of football, he cleverly manipulated the system by spending gym periods with a guidance counselor (and drawing from soap operas to keep her hooked on his imaginary troubles). Always, movies and TV were a balm for his inability to connect with other kids and his fear of people finding out who he really was. “The things I liked, I liked too much. The things I didn’t, all other boys did,” he writes.

Some essays give insight into how things got better for the grown-up Janetti, providing moments of loveliness among the operatic complaining. For example, after a lengthy critique of destination weddings, Janetti reveals with a wink that he married TV personality Brad Goreski on a Caribbean cruise.

Start Without Me is equal parts acid and heart. It’s a collection of sardonically funny stories about a firecracker of a kid who hadn’t yet found his kindred spirits. It’s a series of entertaining tirades about life’s indignities. And it’s an engaging look at the origin story of a man who, despite years of self-doubt, has finally embraced his particular superpowers.

Gary Janetti’s keenly observed, hilarious memoir of his formative years in 1970s and ’80s Queens is equal parts acid and heart.
Mystery & SuspenseThriller

What to read if you loved ‘The White Lotus’

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

Super-close friends, a begrudgingly blended family and a passel of A-listers all contend with the scary side of wealth.

Cherish Farrah 

It’s not unusual for teen friendships to be intense, even all-consuming, but Bethany C. Morrow’s compelling and disturbing Cherish Farrah takes things to a whole new level. 

As the only Black girls in their affluent school and community, Farrah Turner and Cherish Whitman have been drawn to each other since meeting in the third grade. Although Farrah’s family lives just blocks away from Cherish’s, their lives have always been very different. Cherish’s extravagantly adoring adoptive parents are white, and they have the kind of wealth that buys them an opulent home with a triple-tiered backyard—and Cherish a privileged life that Farrah characterizes as WGS, or “white girl spoiled.” 

When readers first meet the young women, Cherish is sighing about her parents throwing a fancy party for her 17th birthday, while Farrah struggles with the foreclosure of her family’s home. The Whitmans have invited Farrah to stay with them for a bit, which is a no-brainer for Farrah. Although her internal monologues are riddled with scorn for Cherish, she considers Cherish “sometimes obtuse, often insufferably spoiled, but always mine.” 

That sense of superiority is central to Farrah’s increasingly tortured thought processes. She’s long felt unseen and frequently refers to the “meticulously crafted mask” she maintains as a form of control—a word so often used it becomes a twisted mantra central to Farrah’s existence. She wants to control and manipulate her relationships and feel as special as the undeserving Cherish does every day.

But Farrah’s been slipping a bit lately. Cherish resists her guidance when she never did before. Farrah’s parents aren’t as enthused about her staying with the Whitmans as they once were. And Farrah’s been feeling ill, too, suffering nausea and dizziness as well as ominous dreams. Is she still the danger—or is she in danger? 

Morrow’s tale tips from slow-building suspense into horror as the story progresses, and she does an excellent job of illustrating the ways in which envy and power can corrode relationships and reality even as she carefully, mercilessly immerses readers in Farrah’s singularly unsettling worldview.

The Younger Wife 

Sally Hepworth’s The Younger Wife kicks off with narration by an uninvited—and unidentified—wedding guest who witnesses a distressing turn of events. Has someone been hurt on this hitherto lovely day? Why? At whose hand? 

It’s a deliciously intriguing beginning to this entertaining tale set in Melbourne, Australia. The rest of the book is mainly told from the perspectives of three 30-something women: sisters Tully and Rachel, daughters of wealthy cardiac surgeon Stephen Aston, and Heather, Stephen’s wife-to-be. 

The sisters are shocked when 69-year-old Stephen announces his impending nuptials. After all, his wife and their mother, Pamela, is still alive; Stephen recently moved her to a nursing home for dementia treatment and never mentioned any plans for a divorce until now. It’s also discomfiting that Heather is their age, and they don’t love that the couple met when Stephen hired Heather as an interior designer for the home he and Pamela shared—the home Heather will soon move into.

Plus, Pamela’s been making comments indicating that Stephen may have been abusive. In what way and to what extent, Rachel isn’t sure, and she knows it won’t help to talk to Tully, who’s even more anxious and snide than usual. Unbeknownst to Rachel, there’s more to Tully’s behavior than her disapproval of Heather: Her family is in financial trouble, but she’s too ashamed to talk about it. For her part, Rachel is also struggling with repressed trauma that has begun to resurface.

The secrets pile up and up (Heather’s got some doozies, too) as Hepworth skillfully plumbs the characters’ pasts and builds pressure in the present. She seeds their musings with tidbits that will tantalize readers as they try to discern whether people are sinister or misunderstood; what happened at the wedding; and why the heck Pamela had thousands of dollars squirreled away in a hot-water bottle. Beneath all the suspense, Hepworth’s exploration of trauma and its aftermath is sensitively and compellingly done, as is her subtle examination of the ways in which wealth—having it, wanting it, losing it—can color relationships, perspectives and self-worth. 

The Club

Wealth is practically a main character in The Club by Ellery Lloyd, aka the married British co-authors Collette Lyons and Paul Vlitos. Wealth is the arbiter of who belongs and who doesn’t, who matters and who is of no import in the world of The Home Group, a collection of exclusive membership clubs that cater to the exceedingly rich and fabulously famous. 

The newest club, Island Home—an opulent private island outside London dotted with cabins, restaurants, spas and more—is opening with a huge three-day celebration, invitations for which are highly coveted. Ned Groom, the bombastic and temperamental CEO of Home Group, hands them out with calculated glee.

The prologue reveals that a body will be found on the island after the big bash; as one of the faux Vanity Fair articles sprinkled throughout the book notes, “the party of the year turned into the murder mystery of the decade.” It’s initially unclear who’s been killed or why, but as Lloyd counts down the days leading up to the murder, it becomes evident that Ned’s an excellent candidate, although plenty of the guests are odious, too—some laughably (and murder-ably?) so. 

Working behind the scenes to wrangle the guests is an art in and of itself, one that grows more frustrating as opening day approaches. Colorful dispatches from a rotating cast of staff offer juicy behind-the-scenes details while hinting at dangerous secrets galore. There’s Jess, head of housekeeping; Annie, fixer extraordinaire; Nikki, Ned’s assistant; and Adam, Ned’s almost-as-obnoxious brother. They all have their own ulterior motives and unmet desires, a difficult state of affairs when surrounded by people who have so much yet are so ungrateful. 

Like Lloyd’s debut, People Like Her, The Club is a clever murder mystery that provides thrills and gasps galore, as well as a pointed and clear-eyed cautionary tale about the downsides of money and fame. Is all the jockeying for power and catering to terrible people (while, one assumes, trying not to get murdered) worth it? Membership in The Club has its perils right alongside its privileges.

While money may not necessarily be the root of all evil, privilege certainly leads to peril in three exciting thrillers from Bethany C. Morrow, Sally Hepworth and Ellery Lloyd.
NonfictionTechnologyHumor

How to Take Over the World

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

Most people couldn’t proclaim that they’ve concocted “nine of the biggest, boldest, and most world-changing supervillainous schemes” that are “both scientifically accurate and achievable” without inspiring great skepticism. But if anyone’s going to be a reliable source for dastardly plots bolstered by plausible project plans, it’s Ryan North, the bestselling author of How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler.

As a longtime writer for Marvel and DC comics, the Eisner Award-winner gets paid to come up with heinous and destructive crimes for fictional heroes to foil. In How to Take Over the World: Practical Schemes and Scientific Solutions for the Aspiring Supervillain, North harnesses his expertise as a “trained scientist and professional-villainous-scheme-creator” to craft highly detailed plans for achieving world domination. In “Every Supervillain Needs a Secret Base,” for example, he patiently yet firmly explains why the best place for a base is not inside a volcano. Perhaps the aspiring villain should build a floating lair in the ocean, or venture into the sky? North has analyzed every option, and he’s got recommendations—not to mention budgets, timelines and risk analyses for scenarios ranging from starting your own country to cloning dinosaurs to destroying the internet. The results are archly funny and always thought-provoking.

Clever illustrations by Carly Monardo up the fun factor, and sidebars take deep dives into carbon-capture technology, airspace ownership laws and more. How to Take Over the World is a wild journey that’s sure to leave readers pondering North’s assertion that “once [the world is] understood, it can be directed, it can be controlled, and it can be improved.” Whether they use his advice to achieve supervillainy or to flip the script and save the world is up to them.

If anyone is going to concoct highly detailed, scientifically accurate plans to achieve world domination, it’s Ryan North.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

The Appeal

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

British author Janice Hallett’s The Appeal is a cleverly constructed, meticulously detailed, often hilarious epistolary novel that kicks off with an intriguing premise. Senior law partner Roderick Tanner gives young lawyers Charlotte and Femi an important new project. In just a few days, they must work their way through a mountain of correspondence (texts, emails, instant messages) and other materials (newspaper clippings, flyers, receipts) crucial to the appeal he’ll soon be filing. But he doesn’t tell them who’s done what; he wants them to immerse themselves, to come to their own conclusions about the people in question. And quickly!

Hallett deputizes the reader right along with the lawyers with this approach, which gradually engenders an understanding of—and fascination with—a family-led amateur theater group. The close-knit Fairway Players, who are based in a small town outside London, are led by director Martin Hayward and his wife (and leading lady), Helen. They’re one big happy theatrical family, ready to mount a production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, until tragedy strikes. Martin and Helen’s granddaughter, Poppy, is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, and enormously pricey experimental treatments are the only possible cure. Fundraising appeals begin in earnest alongside preparations for the play, and the stress soon begins to show in snippy text threads, contentious group chats and lots and lots of duplicitous emails. 

Janice Hallett’s own theatrical experiences helped her construct ‘The Appeal.’

It’s mightily impressive how skillfully Hallett shades in her characters’ personalities and ulterior motives, especially since so many of them are actors and thus adept at emotional manipulation. The layers of revelation are plentiful and pleasing—as is the feeling that, as the pages turn, the culprits and their intentions are becoming increasingly clear. Or are they? A long list of suspects (15 by this reviewer’s count!) and an endlessly shifting mass of clues add up to twists and misdirects that will keep readers a captive audience until the very end of this thought-provoking and deliciously dramatic debut.

Janice Hallett’s The Appeal is a cleverly constructed, meticulously detailed, often hilarious epistolary novel of suspense.
NonfictionDesignArts & Culture

Debbie Millman has no time for small talk

Interview by Linda M. Castellitto

Debbie Millman couldn’t have predicted that when she debuted her “Design Matters” podcast in 2005, it would so deeply satisfy her soul. Podcasts were brand-new in the early 2000s, so the show was a let’s-try-this-and-see endeavor, a creative experiment that she felt primed to conduct. “I had achieved a great deal,” she writes in the introduction to Why Design Matters: Conversations With the World’s Most Creative People, “but there was an echoing vacuum of meaning and purpose in my life.”

Certainly, Millman has an impressive resume as a design leader, serving clients like 7UP, Burger King and Star Wars during her 20 years at the helm of Sterling Brands; co-founding the graduate program in branding at the School of Visual Arts in New York City; writing six previous books; placing her art in museums as well as in the New York Times and Fast Company; and much more.

In its early years, the podcast was “very much a show about graphic design, graphic designers talking to graphic designers, very inside baseball,” Millman says during a phone call to the Manhattan brownstone she shares with her wife, author Roxane Gay. But as Millman shifted her focus from looking at human behavior through the lens of branding to instead connecting with individuals, people responded. They wanted in, both as listeners and interviewees, and her interviews quickly became a central element of her life and a pursuit that has been endlessly fascinating and rewarding.

“The show evolved in two ways,” she reflects. “First, my courage in reaching out to people increased. And then I also started getting publicists reaching out to me about their clients being on the show, or fans I didn’t know were fans wanting to be on the show.”

These interviewee-fans, more than 450 of them (and counting) over the course of 16 years (and counting), run the creative gamut. They’re standouts in the fields of design, writing, fine art, street art, acting, music, marketing, cooking—and the list goes on. Each guest is smart, thoughtful and, most importantly, game to join Millman on a conversational journey from childhood to adulthood, from past to present. They’re open to plumbing the sometimes painful events, decisions and emotions that have shaped what they do and who they’ve become.

“They’ve lived their lives so differently, and the ways they’ve coped with obstacles have been so varied.”

For Why Design Matters, characterized in its introduction as “a love letter to creativity, a testament to the power of curiosity,” Millman distills that library of interviews into 50-plus Q&A conversations in five categories: Legends, Truth Tellers, Culture Makers, Trendsetters and Visionaries. 

Choosing 50 interviews from more than 450 was a challenge for Millman. “I ended up going through all of them in one way or another, whether it be listening or transcribing and reading,” she says. “I wanted there to be a timelessness to what they were talking about . . . [and] an evergreen quality to the interviews, so they could be relevant whenever they were being read and experienced.”

The book’s veritable parade of fascinating, accomplished people begins with late design legend Milton Glaser (best known for his “I Heart NY” logo) and ends with Eve Ensler (who now goes by “V”) of The Vagina Monologues fame, with the likes of Alison Bechdel, Chanel Miller, Malcolm Gladwell, Amanda Palmer, Saeed Jones, Marina Abramović and David Byrne occupying the pages in between. Millman points to how each interviewee has shaped their career, life and body of work with fierce individuality. “They’ve lived their lives so differently,” she says, “and the ways they’ve coped with obstacles have been so varied.”

Why Design Matters

For example, James Beard Award-winning chef and author Gabrielle Hamilton (Blood, Bones & Butter) reveals that in opening her restaurant, Prune, she set aside her long-held dream of writing fiction. Shepard Fairey, known for his OBEY street art, talks politics and explains why he won’t call himself an artist. And in discussing her short stories, Carmen Maria Machado quips that “a novel is like being beat up over the course of a day, and a short story is like one punch to the nose.” 

There are full-page portraits and illustrations, playful type treatments and blocks of text that don’t always go in a straight line, just like in any good conversation. Millman has previously compared a successful interview to a game of pool, but through the design of this book, a new metaphor comes forward: the scribble. Striking hand-drawn scribbles scrawled by Millman herself appear on the cover and throughout the book, hinting toward the notion of interplay, of thoughts and conversational paths that ricochet off and tumble toward one another. “For me, [the scribble] really portrays conceptually the arc of a conversation,” she says. “You know it could go anywhere; it could be an infinite loop. It is an infinite loop!” 

Another infinite pursuit, of course, is creativity itself. But where does creative success come from? What pushes a person into the stratosphere of, per the book’s subtitle, the “World’s Most Creative People”? Millman believes it’s “faith in their own work, self-awareness of what they’re capable of and a relentless sort of restlessness, a real restlessness about constantly evolving and growing and uncovering new ground.” 

That restlessness is something Millman also possesses, whether she’s learning from her compassionate exploration of the human condition in her “Design Matters” interviews, working with students at the School of Visual Arts or pursuing her ever-percolating new projects.

“There are so many things I want to do,” Millman says, “including two more books I have in mind. Stirrings of a lot of different new things I want to try.” But she demurs at the thought of including herself on a “Most Creative” list: “I think I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to earn that title.”

Photo of Debbie Millman by John Madere

In Why Design Matters, Debbie Millman dives deep into revelatory conversations from her groundbreaking podcast.

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