34 I BOROMAG.COM I SEPTEMBER 2016 ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT While Glo is running in Astoria Park, she thinks for a split second that she sees Cyn. “She goes running in Astoria Park in the morning and it’s very moody and cloudy and ominous, and it’s supposed to mirror her mental state, her anxiety about this ghost from the past who seems to be returning and she doesn’t know why,” Lee said. “The park is such a majestic place, but you also get the sense of Manhattan in the distance. In my book it’s a distant threat; whatever is stalking Glo is over there in the city, and where she is, she still feels separate from that. The park there is very iconic with the bridge rising in the distance, and Manhattan doesn’t exist if it’s foggy.” “Love Her Madly” has drawn comparisons to not only Paula Hawkins’ “The Girl on the Train” but also other popular thrillers like Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl,” Kimberly McCreight’s “Reconstructing Amelia” and Mary Kubica’s “The Good Girl.” “The thing that I think is different about ‘Love Her Madly’ than a lot of thrillers that are out there is that a lot of thrillers have a tone that’s more consistently dark, while ‘Love Her Madly,’ until things begin to go wrong, has a comedic edge to it,” Lee said. “It doesn’t take itself super seriously, so when things do go down, it’s like, 'Whoa — what just happened?’ I tried to make it so it’s a ride. I don’t like to feel like I’m being dragged through one desperately dismal situation to another, so I wanted to have moments that people could relate to in real life, because nothing is all sadness or all comedy. It’s all mixed together.” “Love Her Madly” had its launch party at the Astoria Bookshop on Aug. 16. “I hope that people in Queens get a kick out of the novel because the characters live in Astoria and they go and do Astoria things,” Lee said. Lee said that it “just felt right” to set the last part of the story in western Queens because “it’s who the characters were. They’re kind of chill. My characters are a little more laid-back and they’re not very status-conscious; they’re just trying to live a happy life and do the things that they love, and I think Astoria’s a very nurturing place for that. It’s also a place full of strivers and dreamers. It’s a place where you can relax and live your life and go about what you want to do without feeling judged or watched.” Lee herself could be described as a dreamer; she moved to New York to be an actress right after graduating from college in Florida. It was a wonderful experience, she said, but “it became a little discouraging because I kept getting the same girlfriend roles.” After five years of auditioning and acting, she took the initiative to start writing her own short scripts and produce them with different directors. “It was so exciting and so much fun that I began to write full-length screenplays,” she said. “Each time we did it, it got better; it got more fun. It was so much fun to create something with women in powerful roles, in interesting roles, as full-on people, actual people.” Then, Lee and her husband took a year M. Elizabeth Lee at the book launch for "Love Her Madly" at Astoria Bookshop
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