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01/16/2019 11:01 PMThe next novel of psychological suspense and obsession from the authors of the blockbuster bestseller The Wife Between Us will be featured at a talk at R.J. Julia Booksellers, Thursday, Jan. 25 at 7 p.m.
An Anonymous Girl by Greer Henricks and Sarah Pekkanen is the story of Jessica Farris, who signs up for a psychology study thinking all she will have to do is answer a few questions, collect her money, and leave. Instead she finds, as her participation in the study deepens, she can no longer trust what is real and what is an experiment. Caught in a web of deceit and jealousy, Jess quickly learns that some obsessions can be deadly.
Hendricks and Pekkanen are the coauthors of the New York Times bestseller The Wife Between Us.
Hendricks, prior to becoming a novelist, spent two decades as an editor at Simon & Schuster. She obtained her master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Allure, and Publishers Weekly. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children.
Pekkanen is the bestselling author of eight previous solo novels. A former investigative journalist and award-winning feature writer, she has published work in The Washington Post, USA Today, and many others. She is the mother of three sons and lives just outside Washington, D.C.
Here is a Q & A with the authors about their work:
Could you tell us a little bit about your backgrounds and why you decided to work together on a novel?
Pekkanen: After working together on seven novels as an author-editor team, Greer and I knew we had a unique relationship. Not only do we share strikingly similar narrative instincts and approaches to storytelling, but we have developed a strong friendship through the years.
Hendricks: When I left Simon & Schuster, I had some editorial and consulting projects lined up, but I also knew, in the back of my mind, that I wanted to write fiction. I didn’t reveal this secret to many people, but I did tell Sarah. When she approached me about writing together, I initially worried it would be copping out to work with someone else, that it would be less of an accomplishment. Then I realized it would be crazy to turn down this opportunity. While I had published a few personal essays and edited hundreds of books, I knew I had a lot to learn about writing an actual novel. Plus, I adored Sarah and the collaboration sounded a lot more fun than working alone.
Pekkanen: I’ve written everything from investigative newspaper series to magazine features to short stories to seven solo novels. Challenging myself and growing creatively has always been vitally important to me. But it was a purely instinctual decision to ask Greer if she wanted to write together; some inner voice told me that as a team we could craft something special. That gut feeling sprang not just from intuition, but from the foundation we’d built over the years. When we discovered we were both itching to write a psychological page-turner - one as twisty, complex, and fresh as possible - almost seemed predestined.
Do you have any writing tips that you’ve found helpful, particularly for collaborating on a book? How did you navigate your individual opinions or writing styles?
Hendricks: Unlike most writing duos, who take on alternating chapters or different characters, we craft every line together. The third partner in our collaboration is Google Docs and Hangout. These tools let us write our manuscripts together in real time online while we simultaneously talk.
Pekkanen: We also visit each other’s cities to plot every month or so. We camp out in a hotel room for a 36-hour stretch and Homeland the walls with giant Post-It notes (I like the walls to be as messy as possible; Greer prefers them to be neatly organized).
Hendricks: Because we don’t write separately, every idea grew and developed from our shared consciousness - we speak for hours prior to each writing session, creating and rejecting and fine-tuning ideas. At this point, we often joke that we have one mind. It’s not unusual for us to come up with an identical thought or word choice at the exact same time.
What inspired you to write a dark, twisty thriller like An Anonymous Girl?
Hendricks: It’s tricky for us to answer exactly what inspired us because our ideas percolate over a long period of time. Every day, when we are brainstorming our plot, we throw out about a hundred suggestions…and the next day, we reject 99 of them. However, we recently realized we have four main goals for our books. We want them to be entertaining, strike an emotional chord, tell a story in a unique way, and generate discussions.
Pekkanen: In particular there are a few key elements we can point to that inspired part of the foundation of An Anonymous Girl. We wanted to explore the therapist/client relationship. And we wanted to create a sense of intimacy for the reader, so, in addition to having Dr. Shields’s voice be in the second person, we structured the ethics and morality quiz that Jessica took in a way that allows readers to consider how they would answer the same questions. This interactive element was really appealing to us, and we’ve heard from a lot of early readers that they loved answering the ethics questions and learning how their friends or book group participants would respond.
What is the best part of working together? Any bad parts?
Hendricks: The best part is each other.
Pekkanen: The worst part is technology glitches.
What’s next for you? And are you currently working on another book together? If so, can you share any details of what it’s about?
Hendricks: We’re thrilled to share that eONE, which developed Sharp Objects for HBO, optioned An Anonymous Girl for television. We’re attached as executive producers, which means we get to be involved in key creative decisions. They’ve already hired a fantastic writing team to craft the pilot (we chatted with them about their ideas for the storyline) and we hope to reveal more good news about the book to TV adaption soon!
Pekkanen: As for book three, we’re hard at work on it: another psychological thriller featuring strong, relatable female characters.