HAPPENINGS
18
incorporated it because both Theo and Sydney are
characters who are looking for something but they
don’t know what they are looking for — and perhaps
clinging to things that are not particularly healthy.
Theo at the beginning of the book isn’t particularly
aware of the Black community around him even
though he has this photo album. He’s kind of projecting
his own thoughts onto the people in the photo
album and Sydney. I thought it would play into his
character and the way the neighborhood changes
and the past gets thrown out with the trash. I couldn’t
think of a better way of showing that.
Did you go on any neighborhood tours? Did you come to
Brooklyn to do research for the book?
I didn’t go on any tours; a lot of it was from when I
lived there. I did go back to Brooklyn to visit Weeksville
and see the houses and the center and how
things had changed in the time I had been gone.
Before I went to Brooklyn, I saw there was a tour by
Suzanne Spellen, who is a Black woman who does
walking tours, and is actually Brownstoner columnist
Montrose Morris, whose work was so important to me
as I was researching the book. So I was able to reach
out to her and talk to her. I said, “This may sound wild
but I’m writing a book about a Black woman who
gives tours in Brooklyn and I swear it’s not based
on you. Would you be interested in talking to me?”
She gave me some great insights. It was really great
talking to someone who knows Brooklyn so well.
I hear a rooster.
They start to make noise any time I get a phone call,
have a Zoom...
The book touches on a lot of experiences and issues that
have been in the news lately thanks to the George Floyd
protests. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
So this past summer 2020 has been really — I’ve
been telling people this has been the worst ad campaign
ever, literally seeing stuff in the news and that’s
like the thing that happened in chapter whatever. Amy
Cooper calling the cops on the Black birdwatcher,
the George Floyd stuff, the uprising, the Karen syndrome
that was sweeping the nation and captured
in so many videos. It was this weird thing. I didn’t
pull these things out of the ether, they existed and I
wanted to incorporate them into this book because
sometimes I feel — this was something I was aiming
for in the book — these are experiences that are fairly
common for Black people but so bizarre that they are
sort of like horror and gaslighting. If you tell people
who have never experienced something like that, it’s
difficult to believe on some level. Why would someone
call the police when you haven’t done anything, or
clutch their purse when you walk by — all these micro
aggressions and flat out aggressions that can become
normal and add to the stress of daily life. I wanted to
put these things in the book, and over the past summer
things just kind of exploded and they’re being shown
in the news more and being recorded more and showing
people these things happen all the time. And,
also seeing the behavior of police when they’re asked
the most basic thing, like “can you stop killing Black
people?” and their response is to start beating everyone
up. I wanted to talk about those things in the book,
and those things are moving to the forefront of reality
and people’s minds.
It’s horror, but it’s not fictional.
It’s true. One of the things I wondered when I wrote the
book is if people will say the ending is too out there.
It didn’t feel particularly out there to me. I know it
was obviously heightened. It didn’t feel so far outside
the realm of possibility, and then seeing all this stuff
going on in reality, it’s like yeah, OK, why wouldn’t this
happen?
How did you become a writer? Did you always know you
would write?
I always wanted to be a writer. I didn’t always know I
would become one. I was able to finish my first book,
“Eagle’s Heart” because of National Novel Writing
Month. It’s an event where people all over the world try
to write a full manuscript of 50,000 words in 30 days.
Obviously you have to go back and revise. It’s to get
the story out and show you can finish something.
You are known for writing romances. Why did you choose
to write a thriller?
I like trying different things. I grew up reading thrillers
and horror novels and felt like it would be a fun challenge
to tell the gentrification story through that lens
as opposed to romance. I still have to get my romantic
elements in there. I wanted to focus a bit more on the
horror instead of the happily ever after.
Far right, Alyssa
Cole. Images courtesy
William Morrow.