8. Max behaves strangely throughout the story. Describe his erratic behavior. Why does he act this way?
9. It’s clear that Cora is capable of incredible cruelty and violence. Why do you think she killed Caleb?
10. This story explores how far parents will go to protect their children, even if it means doing something morally wrong. To what extent is a crime justifiable if done to protect a loved one?
11. What do you think happens to Rose and Max after the story ends? Do they get away?
A Conversation with the Author
What was your inspiration for writing The Dead Husband?
Unlike most of my books where I conjure an opening scene and see where it leads, all I knew about The Dead Husband was I wanted to write a story about two sisters. I can’t tell you where that came from; it was just something that nibbled at my brain. And as I thought about the idea of two sisters, I decided it would be interesting if they were estranged and were forced into a situation where they had to reunite. That led to the idea of one of them returning to her hometown, and then I immediately visualized Rose standing at the massive front door of her childhood home. I saw Logan Yates opening the door, saw every tiny feature of his face and the tight squint he wore, and then everything took off from there.
Like you, Rose is an author. As you wrote this book, did you find yourself drawing any other parallels between the two of you?
Sure, it’s hard not to draw some parallels when you create a character who’s also a novelist, but I will say Rose has more discipline than I have. She writes gritty procedurals, a kind of thing that requires massive amounts of research (and Rose loves research!). Me? That’s a lot of work, and I’m not a huge fan of spending days on end researching police procedure. I will say, however, this is my first book to feature a point of view from a detective, so perhaps I was indeed a little inspired by Rose.
The Yates house is larger than life. It’s almost a character unto itself. What made you decide to ground the narrative in this setting?
There’s a bit of a “haunted house” element to the story that I wanted to explore. I liked the idea that the Yates family had dark secrets, and those secrets involved an event that happened in the house itself. In a way, that makes the house a co-conspirator. Once I started thinking along those lines, I knew the house had to be large and looming, gorgeous but chilling, with an unmistakably malevolent energy.
This story forces readers to confront some difficult questions about what people will do to protect their own. How did you approach these moral quandaries?
Nearly all my characters have moral boundaries they’re willing to trespass given the right circumstances, and I find that compelling to write because it’s so human. But those boundaries are different for each person, and Cora’s line is set very far apart from Rose’s. I try to take each character and set a breaking point for them, then start throwing adversity at them to see how they react. Sometimes I’m surprised by the result, and Logan Yates is a good example of this. Although no one would call him moral in a traditional sense, some of the most terrible things he’s done in his life was out of love for his children (twisted as that love may be).
What books are on your bedside table right now?
Stephen King’s If It Bleeds and Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. Rather disparate reads, I’d wager.
We don’t know if Rose and Max get away at the end of the book. Do you know what happens to them, or did you purposely choose to leave their story open-ended, even to yourself?
Yes, I have a pretty good idea what happens to them, which may very well be the foundation for a future story. I did want to leave it a bit fuzzy at the end, which I know can frustrate some readers, but I’m a big fan of ambiguity. I’m the person who liked the endings of The Sopranos and Inception.
Acknowledgments
So here I am, writing these acknowledgments in June 2020, and the world is blowing up. This book won’t come out until 2021, and God only knows what the cultural and physical landscapes will look like then. All I know is what’s happening now, and I’d like to thank all the nurses, doctors, and everyone else putting themselves at risk to help those who are sick and suffering. Also to the peaceful protesters out there who are making themselves heard, and to those who are listening, perhaps for the first time.
Also, a shout-out to my local liquor-delivery guy: you make quarantine bearable.
This book is dedicated to Drew Mosher, who, in addition to being one of my closest friends since middle school, is a former detective and was my go-to source when I was writing the character of Detective Colin Pearson. Mind you, I still took many liberties with the reality of police procedure for the purposes of the story, so that’s on me, not Drew. I’m sure he rolled his eyes at a scene or two in here.
To Pam Ahearn, my agent extraordinaire, a thousand thanks for guiding me again through another book. Much gratitude to my editor, Anna Michels, and all the staff at Sourcebooks who are working from home and still feeding the world their books. You folks are impressive.
To my beautiful partner, Jessica, and Ili, Sawyer, and Henry: I couldn’t think of better people with whom to spend a pandemic. Oh, the Netflix we consumed. Sole and Craig, I’m grateful for the extended family. We are all very lucky.
My critique group took a few months off, but they saw enough of this manuscript to offer excellent feedback as always. Dirk, Linda, Sean, Abe, Sam,
