We chat with author Sarah Langan about A Better World, which is a cunning, out-of-the-box satirical thriller about a family’s odyssey into an exclusive enclave for the wealthy that might not be as ideal as it seems.
Hi, Sarah! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
This question always stumps me! But I’ll try. 😊 I live in LA with my family. We’re originally from Brooklyn. Though my first love is prose, I also work in film and most recently adapted my novel Good Neighbors for television. I’m married to a gamewriter and filmmaker. We have two daughters. I focus intensely on things, to the point where I forget everything else. In other words, I’m extremely absent minded.
I’m allergic to dogs and cats, which is why I’ve always had house rabbits. Right now we’ve got Holly, a velveteen lop. We’re trying to bond her to an adorable Mini Holland Lop named Cosmos. But the thing about Holly is, she thinks she’s human. Other rabbits freak her out. Cosmos is her personal uncanny valley.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was four years old. I’m not sure it was the process that I loved, but the idea of it – of creating a discrete, inviolable world. I think that’s still what I love about being a writer—I can create this thing, and it’s utterly itself. It can’t be broken into parts. It can’t be changed by someone else. Whether it’s bad or good, or better yet, something that breaks outside notions of value, it is always itself.
I might still be discovering my love for stories. I recently wrote a short piece about artists at a colony in Northern California who spin pottery with their mouths. When I finished it, I thought: This is nuts. But I also thought: This is exactly how I feel about the state of art in America right now, told through weird metaphor. That I get to do something like that—express myself and have an audience—is awesome.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Dorrie and the Blue Witch, by Patricia Coombs
- The one that made you want to become an author: The Foundling and Other Tales of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
Your latest novel, A Better World, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Scathing. Thrilling. Funny. Scary. Poignant.
What can readers expect?
It’s a wild ride that follows likeable, realistic characters forced into difficult corners, who have to figure their way out to survive. Though it could definitely be categorized as dystopian, I worked really hard on the world-building, to make sure that learning the rules never feels like medicine. Mostly, it’s about human connection—the choices me make out of love, and for survival. It’s a gentler story than Good Neighbors. Though society is in greater trouble, the grown-ups (some of them, at least!) are less cynical. Where Good Neighbors focuses on internal wounds, the protagonists in this books are (mostly) mentally healthy. It’s the world that’s messed up.
Where did the inspiration for A Better World come from?
I work for so long on books that they tend to define themselves, like fully formed boats emerging from an ocean. But I was definitely thinking about walls, both the literal and the figurative. They grow from fear. But decisions made out of fear are never good in the long term.
I get the impetus to build walls. The summer before my family and I moved out of Crown Heights, there were two shootings on our block. I pointed the police line out to my six year old and said: “That means danger. Stay away.” The summer before that, a kid was killed by a stray bullet. Though violence wasn’t the sole reason we moved across the country to secluded Laurel Canyon, it was a contributing factor.
The thing is, when you live in a place behind high walls, a part of you isn’t fighting the fight anymore. You’ve got no skin in the game. So I had these themes swirling around when I started A Better World and I wondered: what if the cure – safety– was worse than the disease?
I imagined the conventions and rituals people who’ve been sheltered for too long might invent. How would they justify their privilege? Would they be terrified of the outside? To what lengths would they go, to keep what they had?
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
For me, it’s all about character. Writing Linda and her daughter was easy and fun, even the poignant parts. I was close with my mom and I like to think I’m close with my daughters. So I have a lot of experience, there. The relationship between Linda and her husband Russell changed a lot throughout. I learned about them. At first, I wrote Russell as dismissive of Linda’s suspicions; a little like Guy Woodhouse in Rosemary’s Baby. But the more I revised, the more I learned that his point of view made a lot of sense. Which sounds a lot like marriage (at least for stubborn people like me!) – you think they’re totally wrong, and then you think: Okay. I see their point. We have different ways of expressing very similar things.
This is your fifth published novel! What are some of the key lessons you’ve learned between your debut and this release?
Oh, boy! I’m very, very stubborn. I work on a thing regardless of the market’s demands. It’s not that I want to be contrary. It’s literally that I’m so singleminded that those demands are invisible to me. But this has hurt me. There were small changes I could have made to my work along the way, that would have made my own life a lot easier and sacrificed zero quality. So, the older I get, the more I take the note. I not only take the note, I try to listen for the note. But I just told you I wrote a story about people who make plates with their mouths, so…
What’s next for you?
I just finished a novella called PAM KOWOLSKI IS A MONSTER which I hope finds a home. I’m also working on my next novel, THE PARENT TRAP. “Squid Teeth,” is a short story coming out in 2025 from Reacter (formerly Tor.com), “The Upgrade” is coming out from Lighspeed later this year, and “I Miss You Too Much,” is coming out from an anthology called ELEMENTAL FORCES, ed. Mark Morris. If I can get my act together, I should have a story coming out in the THE STAND anthology in 20205.
Lastly, are there any book releases that you’re looking forward to picking up this year?
- I cannot wait to read Emil Ferris’ MY FAVORITE THING IS MONSTERS, part II. It’s going to be spectacular! I’m also excited for:
- Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay
- Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
- The Strange, Eventful History by Claire Messud
- The American Daughters by Maurice Carlos Ruffin
- HUM by Helen Phillips
