Mindy McGinnis’s new book Be Not Far From Me is almost here, and she was kind enough to answer some of our most pressing questions about her suspenseful tale of survival. In it, teen cross-country champ Ashley becomes lost in the woods, and has to survive with only the clothes on her back and the fury in her heart to keep her going. I loved this fierce, relentless story, and I couldn’t wait to hear more about the making of.
Where did the idea for Be Not Far From Me come from?
I am an avid hiker, and often take vacations in places where I can get some hiking in. One such vacation was near a particularly dense Pennsylvania forest. The person I was with thought we could get a spur of the trail in before darkness fell. I didn’t think we could, and said so, but curiosity outweighed caution and we tried it. Hours later, with no overnight packs and failing phone batteries, we were in pitch black with a trail as wide as my hand, mostly searching for faded blazes on trees to mark our way. It was simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying. We did break out onto the trailhead around 11 PM. And no, I didn’t rub it in that I had been right about that spur. I was too grateful that we’d made it back to our car… and that a novel had been born while we wandered. But me being right about the spur totally came up the next day.
Do you have survival experience? How did you go about doing the research for what you didn’t know?
I grew up in the woods and have some basic experience. I can build a shelter, and know what to eat (or not eat) if a desperate situation arrives. I can start a fire, but it’s much harder than you think, and almost impossible in wet conditions. Most of Ashley’s survival tactics are things I already knew, but I don’t know that I could survive for any lengthy period of time out there. The research I did mostly consisted of reading hiking manuals for longer trails.
The drug world is a peripheral part of this book, but the central plot of your previous book, Heroine (which floored me, and which I loved). Was there any convergence between the two in conceptualization or writing?
It’s an interesting question. Be Not Far From Me was actually supposed to release in the Fall of 2018. It was written (and edited!) when I pitched my idea for HEROINE to my editor. The publisher felt that Be Not Far From Me was an evergreen story, whereas HEROINE was more topical in the moment. Therefore, Heroine skipped ahead of Be Not Far From Me on the publishing schedule. I wrote, edited and polished Heroine after having already finished (and polished) Be Not Far From Me. So, there was a convergence, it was just backwards from their publishing dates!
You write from such a raw place. Is it hard to stay in the emotions of the book when they’re so difficult and/or vulnerable?
Not really. This book especially has so much of my real self in it, that I don’t find it difficult or uncomfortable to spend time with those thoughts, or scenes. I’ve always been more attracted to honest writing, and truthful assessments. It comes out in my own work, and who I am as a person.
One of the things I love about your books is the way you portray anger. Your female characters openly feel, express, and are sometimes overwhelmed by anger. Is this something you do consciously? How has anger shaped your writing?
Oh, great question! I freely admit to having an absolutely terrible Irish temper. Maturity has taught me how to control it, but as a child I would often get so angry that my mother worried I was going to have an aneurysm. I don’t know if that’s an actual possibility, I just know that it was a concern for her. As I got older, I learned how to express the anger in more healthy ways – and writing is one of them. I pour a lot of bile into my books, and very often that’s what my female audience is connecting to. We’re not supposed to be angry. We’re not allowed to be angry. But guess what? We’re totally fucking angry. (feel free to edit for language).
The title of Be Not Far From Me is taken from Psalm 22, but Ashley is decidedly ambivalent on religion. Did you mean to imply any kind of spiritual forces at work in Ashley’s journey (especially her encounters with Davey Beet’s trail), or were you trying to evoke the importance of human connections?
Good job researching! I like to leave it to the reader to decide if there is a guiding hand in Ashley’s journey.
There are a couple of scenes I know I’ll be thinking about for a long, long time: the foot scene and the opossum scene. Both were brutal, but you never flinched (and neither did Ashley). Why was it important to you to show these particular aspects of Ashley’s journey?
Without any spoilers – it takes an extreme amount of determination to do some of the things that Ashley does in the book. It comes down to will to live. Ashley wants to live, period. If she has to do some horrific things to make that happen (and she does), then she will. The human instinct to survive is strong… but stronger in some than others.
This book seems like the YA expression of a lot of the wilderness books I remember reading as a child, especially My Side of the Mountain and Hatchet. But both of those (a) featured boys and (b) made wilderness survival and self-reliance seem kind of fun. Meanwhile, Ashley has her period and has to squat to pee (not fun, I agree), and her survival is a terrible ordeal. Did you intentionally set out to critique those books?
It’s definitely not a critique. Both of the books you mentioned were pivotal for me as a child, as were any number of other survival books. But even as a child I would read them and think, “Yeah, but…” The really gruesome aspects of what it would take to make it weren’t included. Those books were written for a different audience, at a different time. This is a no-holds-barred version.
I’m glad you asked about menstruation. It’s something that simply never comes up in most tv-shows, movies or books, unless it’s an embarrassing situation. I remember on LOST when they were scavenging the remnants of the plane for food and medicine, I really wanted one of the female characters to say, “And tampons. We’re going to need those.”
Shame and pride are both huge motivating factors for Ashley, and also huge roadblocks. How did you navigate writing a characters whose strengths and weaknesses were only slight shades of each other?
Ashley is not easy to like. She’s tough, and she doesn’t bite her tongue often. She grew up hardscrabble, and it shows. This means she isn’t always the nicest person in the world. It also means that she’s exactly the kind of person who has the ability to survive in the wilderness. Strengths and weaknesses can switch places quickly with your situation. I think that’s an interesting element of life to dig into.
So, what’s your next project?
I’m very excited for my 2021 release, The Initial Insult, which blends retellings of Edgar Allan Poe stories in a contemporary Appalachian Ohio setting.
Mindy McGinnis is an Edgar Award-winning novelist who writes across multiple genres, including post-apocalyptic, historical, thriller, contemporary, mystery, and fantasy. While her settings may change, you can always count on Mindy’s books to deliver grit, truth, and an unflinching look at humanity and the world around us. Mindy can be found on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, along with at her website.
