Sarah P. Blanchard, Grabtown - Author Interview

Thank you to Sarah P. Blanchard for the access to her new novel Grabtown, and also for taking the time to answer my questions!

Read my review of Grabtown.

1. How do you think a small town setting lends itself to a story such as this, as opposed to being set in NYC, for example?

   
   

   Small towns are supposed to be quiet and safe, a good place to raise kids—in contrast to a big, noisy, rough city like New York or Boston. I tried to create a shocking contrast between this perceived safety and the hidden darkness of horrific crimes. In a small town, everyone is supposed to know everyone, yet the geography isolates people. Throw in intensely personal motives rooted in old grudges and abuse, plus economic pressure, and you have something that feels more jarring and intimate than in a big city.

   
   

2. Do you have a process for writing about dark subjects? Can or do you detach yourself from it? Does writing about horrible acts impact your frame of mind?

   
   

   My process is to take a deep breath and dive in. For research, I read a lot of nonfiction (true crime as well as psychology texts) to try to get inside the mind of a sociopathic criminal. To write that well, I need to be deeply seated in that character’s mind. Yes, it’s unsettling. But I also write about courage, redemption, and some form of justice at the end. That’s what I hold onto: that satisfying ending.

   
   

3. Why do you think it’s important that Cassie and Ana’s mother told them her story posthumously?

   
   

   Cassie and Ana have lived for 40 years with their own understanding of who their mother was: a loving mother and a considerate, hard-working and well-respected member of her town. By extension, her daughters were also afforded the same security and respect within the community. In other words, she gave them the best possible childhood and upbringing she could. But she also believed they should know the other person she had been, when she found the courage to step outside the law in a quest to protect her family and community. Sharing AJ’s manuscript also brought together the sisters who had become so distant.

   
   

4. I’m often a fan of a dual timeline. Why did you decide on the 80s as one of your stages?

   
   

   You mean, why did I decide to update a novel I wrote back in the early ‘90s? The core of this story was a real trunk novel, a stand-alone murder mystery that I wrote in 1992 but never published. I stuck it in a box and forgot about it for 25 years. Two years ago, I found the manuscript, re-read it, and almost threw it out. Much of it was truly awful—but I decided the plot and several characters might be worthy of resurrecting. So I created a found-manuscript tale, folding the 1985 portion into a contemporary wrap-around. I asked, which characters from 1985 would be like to show up again in 2025? Using the unborn twins from 1985 as the protagonists in 2025 tale made perfect sense.

   
   

5. Do you have any tips for any aspiring mystery/thriller authors on writing a dual timeline?

   
   

   Write the old story first, then find a way to bring elements of that forward into the more recent timeline. What, or who, would still be around to influence the contemporary plot? As you write the more current story, figure out a way to manage transitions from one to the other—and be sure to know where the hell you are in the story as you’re writing and then editing. To keep track of where I was, I wrote using two different typefaces (Georgia for new, Courier for old). I also used two different voices for the PoVs: first person for AJ in 1985, third-person close for Cassie in the present, and indicated the PoV and year at the beginning of each chapter.

   
   

   

6. It seemed poignant that Cassie and Ana were in their childhood home whilst discovering various truths. Whilst it was the setting for many time jumps, it also created a sense of them being ghosts in the house, almost silent witnesses of the truth. Was it your intention to add a layer of vulnerability to the women as the story unfolded around them?

   
   

   Absolutely. I was delighted when the Publishers’ Weekly/BookLife critic noted that “Gothic motifs and haunting imagery lend [Grabtown] an atmosphere of constant unease,” because that’s what I was going for. Ideally, your childhood home is supposed to be a place of wistful nostalgia and good memories, right? But here are these two sisters, circling each other with old hurts and grudges, when they discover a manuscript that’s going to upend everything they thought they knew about their mother, their community, and perhaps themselves.

   
   

7. What was your reason for their mother specifically giving Cassie and Ana their own ‘sections’ of the story, particularly as Ana’s was much shorter and climactic?

   
   

   Marla was quite clever, wasn’t she? Over the years, Cassie’s distance from her family (literal and psychological, thanks to her husband’s controlling nature) created an estrangement that any caring mother might hope to repair. To learn their mother’s whole story, they must work together—which then equips them to fight the unexpected, and much more dangerous, present-day threat.

   
   

8. The prologue seems initially so detached from the plot that I entirely forgot about it until suddenly my memory was jogged on page 305 (no specific reason for this page; the pieces just suddenly fell into place). Is it your intention that readers keep it in mind and put 2 and 2 together, or did you purposefully keep it quite segregated from the rest of the narrative?

   
   

   I wanted the prologue to fade into the background, but still hover in your brain, until you reach an ‘ah-hah’ moment near the end. Some readers don’t get it until the last chapter, and others remain clueless until the epilogue. One insisted she found it Chapter Two.

   
   

9. Motherhood and even surrogate mothers are vital to the story. Was it important to you that of Cassie and Ana, one of them had children and one of them didn’t? If so, why?

   
   

   I like to write about the “takes a village” approach to raising children. Strong women come in many roles and guises, and we don’t always appreciate them when we’re young. I also wanted to touch on the regret that Cassie might carry for not being more present in her niece and nephew’s lives. Aunts, teachers, friends, neighbors…there are many forms of mothering, which is so different from fathering. (I’ve written a short story about that, also.)

   
   

10. How do you set the pace of the novel, the slower build and the sudden crescendo of action?

    
    

    In Grabtown, I wanted to establish the setting—the twins’ childhood home—first as a seemingly safe place to tackle what’s foremost in their minds: grief, memories, regrets, their personal conflicts. I aimed first for a slow smolder to build that foundation. But I also tried to slide in, from the beginning, a subtle sense of unease (the phone call with Marsh, the card with the black-eyed Susans, the notes in the phonebook). When the sisters begin reading the old manuscript, that “safe place” changes: terrible secrets resurface, new dangers appear, and suddenly the twins must deal with everything all at once. In real life, crises don’t take turns. In the climax, I wanted to push my characters right to the brink, where they’re first reeling from the discoveries about their mother and then must suddenly also fight for their lives. Readers tell me it’s a satisfying ending, so I think I’ve achieved that.