Q&A with Lily King, Author of October Indie Next List Top Pick “Heart the Lover”

Bookselling This Week: I would love to hear more about the decision not to give this character a name. We do eventually find out the character’s name, but that’s left until later on. So, we have our unnamed narrator and we have other characters giving them names along the way.

Lily King: It’s funny. There are so many things that always seem like decisions, but they actually just kind of happened.

I just didn’t have a name for her in my head. Literally, I did not know who she was.

I didn’t even think about a name when I started that scene at the very beginning, that happens in the college classroom. And then, like two scenes later, she gets named Jordan by them ­— that also just happened.

This is so hard to talk about without any spoilers. Her identity is revealed on the last page, but I figured that out 15–30 pages in.

I actually realized who she was married to first. I was writing about her future in a note, and I wrote her husband’s name, and I was like, “oh my God, I don’t know.”

And for the whole novel, I did not know if that’s what I wanted to do or not. Then I wasn’t sure how my editor would feel about it, but she read the first draft and she loved it. So we just went with it.

BTW: That’s amazing. I love when things are accidental or a placeholder, and it just works out so beautifully.

LK: It’s funny how little you know and how you have to trust the process of not knowing.

BTW: It feels like a lot of the book is about decisions that we made in our youth and how that changes who we are as a person and impacts us throughout our whole lives. And from what I’ve seen, that’s resonating really well with all of your readers. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that or what sort of thought went into that?

LK: I’m so interested in time. As I get older, there’s more of it to process. And I do have this sense now, of how much loops back and goes in cycles. There are certain times in the present that really reverberate with another time in your life, and that time can come back to you. I’m so interested in exploring that and capturing that.

And what is so beautiful about being young and being in college, is that you don’t know! You don’t know what is going to stick, what you’re not going to remember, and what is going to have an impact — and it would surprise you if you did. The beauty of that time in your life is that you’re not self-conscious about it.

You don’t have the experience yet to understand that this will stay with you and shape you in ways that you haven’t been able to see.

When I started this, I knew that we would make big leaps in time. In fact, what I really wanted to do was start on part three, which happens almost 30 years after part one.

I wanted to start there, but it didn’t have the power. It didn’t have the impact. I knew that I had to make the case for it and create the personalities and the interactions and the history. That was the only way to do it.

I thought I could whip through it quickly, but it didn’t really happen like that. I had to invest and stay with it. And I really had fun with that. I loved writing those parts.

I thought that what I really wanted to write was part three, but in fact, I had the most fun with parts one and two. Then, of course, three is harder emotionally, and it was a harder section to write.

BTW: So, what was the most challenging aspect of writing a book like this?

LK: Really the most challenging aspect was not knowing how I was going to do it.

I had this concept in my head — I had these characters, I had this situation, I knew what the future was going to hold — but really telling it was the hardest part.

Particularly part three, I wrote that section many times. I kept ratcheting up the tension, and it still just wasn’t working. Really, right before the final draft was due, I sort of unlocked something that needed to be there that I just didn’t know.

I was really in the forest for a long time with part three, and I finally feel like I figured it out. But that was an act of faith. I always say that writing a novel is an act of faith, but that hanging on, that was an act of faith, because it wasn’t going well for a long time.

BTW: We’re glad you stuck with it! You’ve made it on the Indie Next List before, but this may be the first time some of our readers pick up one of your books. If they wanted more of this, which of your works would you point them to next?

LK: If Heart the Lover is their first book, then definitely Writers & Lovers.

Then probably Euphoria, which is an entirely different kind of book. I think that’s important; you don’t always want to be telling the same story.

Writers & Lovers and Heart the Lover are in a certain mode, but I try to vary my work so that when readers pick up a book of mine, they don’t feel like they’ve already read it.

I’d recommend Euphoria for what we’d call a historical novel, even though I wasn’t trying to stay true to history. I played with history in a very big way to tell the story of a Margaret Mead-like character who deals with a failing marriage, a new love affair, and big literary breakthroughs with these two other scientists that she’s with in Papua New Guinea.

Then I would go to Father of the Rain, which is a family story about a daughter, a father, and a very, very, very complicated relationship that spans over 30 years.

BTW: I love that. It keeps your life interesting. And you keep challenging yourself, right? Do you know what you’re going to try next?

LK: I think so. I always think I know. Then I start writing it, and maybe I stick with it or maybe I go in another direction.

But I always feel like every book is a reaction to the last book. In fact, this book was never supposed to be written.

I was writing a murder mystery set during COVID before. I got 90 pages in and I was like, “No, I’m going in this direction.”

BTW: Well, we’ll look forward to whatever it is that’s next.

Would you tell us a little bit about the role of books and indie bookstores in your life? Do you have a favorite memory from an indie bookstore?

LK: I owe my entire career to indie booksellers. Word of mouth has just been what has helped me to keep publishing, so they are just so crucial to my life.

I also worked in three independent bookstores when I was younger, and loved each one of them.

The bookstores in my town — and in every city I go to — are so important to me.

I am just so indebted and so grateful. And now more than ever, independent bookstores are so crucial to our future, to our population, to facts and information, and to education. They’re a pillar that is holding up our country.

BTW: Is there anything else that you really want to mention or talk about or anything you want to tell or booksellers?

LK: I just want to say thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.

This really means so much to me, and it was so surprising. I just feel so lucky at this stage of my career, to be experiencing this kind of connection with readers.