Hello THL readers, friends, family,
We’re so excited about the release of Alex Higley’s TRUE FAILURE. We launched the novel (not into space, but close) at P&T Knitwear and had a great time.
Because of all the good buzz around the book, we wanted to keep the good times going and Alex generously agreed to a quick Q&A that we’re sharing with you all below.
An interview with Monika Woods and Alex Higley:
MW: I want to talk with you about balancing insight and craft. One of the things that makes your book so special is how you deftly handle both. I wanted to ask if one or the other is more important to you as a jumping off point... So maybe I should reword my question and ask you more about how you much you intentionally wanted your characters to be *insightful* and how you wanted to make each of them trigger different emotions in your readers?
AH: I have never thought with intentionality about how much I want my characters to be insightful, or how I wanted them to trigger anything in readers before. I tend to think of them as a closed circuit interacting with each other. I do think about counterbalancing one character with another, one voice with another, certainly. How that ultimately ends up hitting a reader, I don't spend much time thinking about. In the case of Ben and Tara in True Failure, I knew I didn't want to be focalized through Ben for the entire novel, and that being focalized through Tara would be important to give the novel a different tonality. All the other voices that come in hopefully end up allowing the novel to be working in different registers. Marcy is more manic, dramatic. Callie is more calm and calculated, and so on. So, I guess it would be accurate to say that I want to make sure I'm engaged throughout, that I don't feel the novel is one note, so that a reader has an opportunity to potentially feel similar.
MW: OK, I want to ask you then how secrets function more specifically in TRUE FAILURE, and specifically, your characters' intentionality around keeping them. They are all very secretive people, they seem to enjoy keeping secrets. Do they like keeping them for themselves, as a feat or test of their own will, or do they enjoy deception? A little bit of both? Are these secrets a function of the characters' insights about each other?
AH: I think for each of these characters secrets are about making space for themselves to be who it is that they actually are. I think that Marcy enjoys deception, and Callie too. As for Ben and Tara, I think the secret-keeping is more about making a space for themselves where they are totally alone and untouched by the opinions and direct influence of others. The secrets are certainly a function of the characters' insights about each other; fundamentally, the secrets exist as a result of the characters' relationships with each other.
And that’s that! TRUE FAILURE is out now and available here.
We’re ending March on a high note in L.A. for AWP! If you’re around, be sure to say hi to the THL representatives; Monika, Renée, and Emma.
Expect another dispatch from us *very* soon - one featuring our latest issue of Triangle House Review, rumor has it… any guesses on the theme? Drop them below 😈🔮
Xoxoxo
THL 🫡