We chat with author Rebecca Hanover about The Last Applicant, which is an emotional thrill ride about two women whose lives take a dangerous turn in the high-stakes arena of private school admissions.
Hi Rebecca! To get started, can you tell your readers a little bit about you?
Sure! I’m from Memphis, Tennessee, originally, but I haven’t lived there in many years. I spent my twenties in Manhattan, where I pretended I was Carrie Bradshaw but sadly had none of the fancy shoes. New York is where I deeply fostered my love of telling stories and wrote for GUIDING LIGHT, the daytime soap. Then I moved to San Francisco and became a Californian. Though not the sun-loving kind; the fog-loving variety! Which is a thing, if you’ve ever been to SF. It’s a constant 60 degrees here (except during heat waves!), and I love it. I’ll never be found without several layers—and a sun hat. Both co-existing.
What else? I have three kids, and the oldest just turned twelve, which amazes me. That saying about the days being long and the years short is one hundred percent accurate. My youngest is still four, though, so she keeps me extremely busy and up-to-date on happenings like the new PAW PATROL movie that just came out.
What was the first book you read that made you realize you wanted to be an author?
Am I allowed to say TWILIGHT? (Insert laughing-crying emoji here). The truth is that many of the classics I read growing up, which surprised me by being so twisty, and so suspenseful, were the original inspirations for me. JANE EYRE. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. WUTHERING HEIGHTS. These are the OG domestic suspense novels! I mean, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT is actually about a killer! He’s the original Joe Goldberg.
But then books like TWILIGHT, DIVERGENT, and HUNGER GAMES came along. And those felt accessible to me in a way that the classics had not, in that I suddenly had this idea that maybe, someday, I could write one myself. I stayed up all night bingeing those series, and the genius storytelling stayed with me for years after, until I finally began writing my own young adult novel. I still re-read HUNGER GAMES any time I need inspiration.
Do you have any writing rituals?
I only need a few simple things in order to write. An idea that I can’t stop thinking about (most important, of course). A quiet house (let’s face it, it doesn’t even need to be quiet, I just need to be able to shut the door and not have any of my rowdy family of five bother me!). A matcha latte or two. My laptop.
I try to check my email before I begin, and then let it fester while I’m in the zone doing the “deep work.” If I have any pressing chores to take care of, I try to knock them out first so that they aren’t on my mind while I’m trying to be creative. That’s difficult because I always have outstanding chores to take care of. But some can wait, and others can’t. It’s a constant balancing act!
Your upcoming novel The Last Applicant is out right before Halloween. Do you enjoy watching scary movies during spooky season?
I had nightmares for years about going to see GREMLINS in the movie theater when I was only five, so I can’t say I’m the most adventurous when it comes to scary movies. But I do love moderately scary films, and I am obsessed with psychological suspense—one of the reasons I wanted to try my hand at writing that genre! (Funnily enough, my eight-year-old just went to a special showing of GREMLINS and came back to report that it was “not scary and so fake.” Ha!) I’m also a huge STRANGER THINGS fan, and I’ll be first in the (virtual) queue for SQUID GAME Season 2.
The Last Applicant is your adult thriller debut. What made you decide to start writing in that space?
First, my love of reading thrillers. I started gobbling them up around the time that GONE GIRL came out (and I know I’m not alone in this!). Second, the idea for THE LAST APPLICANT. Once it struck, I knew I had to try to write it. The question was, could I translate the story and vision I had in my head onto paper?
If you only had five words to describe The Last Applicant, what words would you choose?
Unexpected. Haunting. Dark. Provocative. Slow-burning…
Where did inspiration for The Last Applicant come from?
Coffee with a friend! We were sitting at Starbucks, and she was asking my advice on the preschool application process. My kids are a bit older than hers, so I was relatively experienced in that I had a fair amount of familiarity with the preschool “scene.” (I know, I know. Absurd, on every level). As we were talking, an idea began to take shape, of a parent so desperate and determined to get her kid into kindergarten that she would stalk the admissions director… it all just flowed from there.
What are you most excited for for your readers when they dive into the story?
For them to experience a roller coaster of a ride that they were not at all expecting. My hope is that the twists and turns the novel takes, both from a storytelling perspective and emotionally, for the characters, are not at all what readers are banking on when they pick up the book. For me, the best thrillers take a premise that seems reasonably predictable, at first but goes to places beyond the most obvious ones. In this story, that means turning this dark academia, admissions-stalking concept on its head.
What’s next for you?
Another domestic suspense, in a completely different world, with different characters.
