We chat with two-time Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author Carol Goodman about her latest release The Disinvited Guest, which follows a group of friends isolated on a remote island with a history of foul play.
Hi, Carol! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I’m the author of 24 novels and a writing teacher. I’ve been writing since I was nine (see below), although it took me until 40 to get my first book published. Since then I write full time and teach literature and writing part-time. When I’m not writing, I’m either reading or out walking with friends and family, talking about books and movies and television and art. I live in the Hudson Valley, which is fun to write about and a good place to do all that writing and walking.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
When I was nine years old, my fourth-grade teacher introduced us to creative writing and I happily wrote a 90-page, crayon-illustrated epic called “The Adventures of a Magical Herd.” I was having such a good time that my teacher had to call my mother in for a parent-teacher conference to get me to do my other work. I’ve been been writing ever since.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
I think it was actually an I Can Read book because I remember reading those words alone in my room and thinking, “Yes, that’s right, I can read!” Then I heard my parents and brothers calling my name and looking for me and I thought, “Ha, they don’t realize I’m in my room reading!” It felt like a superpower and a delicious secret. I can’t say I remember the book itself, though. The first book I really remember having a big impact was Jane Eyre which I read when I was thirteen. In between the I Can Read Book and Jane Eyre there were a lot of books about horses.
Your new novel, The Disinvited Guest, is out July 12th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Maine Island Refuge turns Deadly!
What can readers expect?
Beautiful Maine scenery, ominous atmosphere, crackling tensions between friends, haunting backstory, secrets old and new revealed. And there’s a map!
The Disinvited Guest has ties to the 2020 pandemic. At what point during the pandemic did this story bubble to the surface?
Pretty soon. I just checked my notebooks and see that I wrote down notes for the idea on March 20, 2020, just a week after the college where I teach had shut down and we were all settling in for the lockdown. In truth, I’d been playing around with an idea for a book set on an island off the coast of Maine since the summer of 2019 when I’d gone to a writers retreat on one, but I hadn’t found the right story for the setting yet. I’d stopped to work on an academic mystery, but when the pandemic hit I realized that it would be difficult to write a contemporary novel that didn’t deal with the reality of the pandemic. I felt like I needed to write something about what I was seeing around me and what my friends and family were experiencing. I was especially moved and concerned about young people—my students and my daughters and their friends—and how the lockdown would impact their lives. That made me think about setting the novel during a future pandemic where the characters are still living through the consequences of what happened in 2020.
Can you tell us a bit about the challenges you faced while writing and how you were able to overcome them?
I feel challenged during every book to sustain my faith and belief in the work. This book in particular was challenging because there was so much turmoil going on in the world that it was hard sometimes to stay focused on the writing. In addition to the usual doubts I contend with (Is it any good? Am I an imposter?), I was constantly reading articles that began along the lines: “Don’t write your pandemic novel now.” It felt a little audacious, then, to be writing not just a pandemic novel, but one set in the future! Luckily, I hate being told what to do so a lot of the negative advice I was hearing acted as a catalyst instead.
Were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
It was fun to imagine myself back on Norton Island during a time when I couldn’t leave my immediate surroundings. So each day that I would send Lucy out exploring on the island felt like an adventure. I drew a map (my daughter drew a better version for the book) and charted her journeys. I had brought back a few stones from the island and I would look at them and picture the many colored boulders that rimmed the ocean. I felt transported.
What helps to motivate you when it comes to writing?
Once I get hooked into a story I’m pretty obsessive about getting it written. It’s the pull of the story itself that keeps me going day after day. Sometimes, though, if that initial inspiration flags, it’s helpful to have feedback from family and friends. My husband reads my drafts chapter by chapter, so handing him the next chapter and getting to hear his reactions is rewarding. I have a couple of friends who I walk with who will listen patiently to my progress and ideas and that helps me work out the kinks as I go along. Sometimes, too, I like to imagine someone reading it and uttering outlandishly enthusiastic praise (Best novel ever!).
What’s next for you?
After I had finished The Disinvited Guest I picked up the academic mystery that I had put down at the beginning of the pandemic. As I went back to in-person teaching last fall, I felt ready to imagine a post-pandemic world for my characters and I felt reinvigorated by the campus setting. I’m working on the final edits of that book for release next summer.
Lastly, do you have any 2022 book recommendations for our readers?
Speaking of pandemic books, I really enjoyed Elly Griffiths’ The Locked Room. I love her Ruth Galloway series and it was interesting to read about those early months of the pandemic as they were experienced in the U.K. I also loved Sarah Stewart Taylor’s The Drowning Sea which is set on the coast of Ireland, another magical place to be transported. And then for something completely different, I blew through Sarah Gran’s The Book of the Most Precious Substance, a supernatural thriller about the quest for a magical book.
