Q&A with Laura Dave, Author of January Indie Next List Top Pick “The First Time I Saw Him”

Bookselling This Week: I’m thrilled to be able to talk to you again. Congratulations again.

The last time that we talked, you had explained that each of your books starts with a question that you want to explore.

What was the question that drove The First Time I Saw Him?

Laura Dave: The first question I was interested in was a question around redemption and what redemption looks like, what it means to forgive and what it means to have a second chance.

It was all centered around that central idea of: what is forgiveness, what is redemption, what is salvation? That all led me to the central thought of the book: What are we willing to do for a second chance?

BTW: This one is a little bit different from its predecessor — we get a few more perspectives, we jump around in time a little bit more. I’m curious how your experience writing these two stories compared.

If you already knew where the story was going, or because you already knew these characters, was it easier? Or was there more pressure because it was a sequel, and fans already knew these characters?

LD: I definitely felt pressure.

After The Last Thing He Told Me, I got so many incredible notes from readers, and the question that they asked more than any other was, “What happened next?”

“What happens next? I need to know. Do you have an idea?”

They were asking as if Hannah and Bailey and Owen were real people. And to me, at that point, they were. I spent so much time with them over this decade that I was working on the first book.

I was surprised that I had an answer, that I knew exactly where the story would pick up.

I knew exactly what happened after that moment in the design center and why Owen came back at that moment. In my initial imagination of the book, it was complete unto itself, so it was a surprise to feel like, “oh, I actually know where the book starts again and what happens next.”

Very quietly, I sat down and wrote the first 100 pages without talking to my editor or my agent or anyone. I needed to figure out if I was sure this was the story I wanted to tell, and that it would honor the first book.

And in that freedom, I realized that the first book was a primal story about someone becoming a parent. I love the idea of an ode to found family, and that we often parent people we didn’t give birth to — a friend or fur babies or a stepchild or anyone. There’s not any one way to parenthood. If that was the first book, then the second book was:  What are you willing to do for those people that you parent? What are you willing to do for your family?

And that involved, much to my surprise, a lot of perspectives that weren’t just Hannah’s, because it wasn’t just Hannah who was risking everything this time.

For the story to come to fruition, I had to move more deeply into what Owen had been doing so that you understood what those years looked like to him.

I love reading all kinds of thrillers, so many of them are unhinged and center on revenge and all these really wonderful, exciting elements, but for me, I was always interested in the gray. Instead of finding the villainhood, finding the humanity and letting the road toward that be very exciting. That demanded going really deep into Nicholas and Frank and these antagonists that I didn’t really know at all until started working on that second book.

BTW: I know that you traveled to France for some research for this one. You had just gotten back, I think, the last time we talked.

Do you want to tell me a little bit about your research trip or what you feel that change of scenery added to the story? Because we were mostly in California and Texas for all the story before this.

LD: Just like I thought that I knew exactly where the book picked up, I thought that the back third of it took place in Fisher Island, which is a little island off the coast of Miami. I was fairly sure of that.

In the book now, Fisher Island has like one scene. But in my initial imagination, everything that now happens in France originally took place on Fisher Island in Miami.

I had gone to Fisher Island decades before and had this really strong recollection of it. I did a ton of research, and after I sketched out the book, I dragged my family across the country to go there and make sure I understood everything.

And I stepped foot onto Fisher Island and I was like, “This is amazing for one scene. This is not where the book takes place.”

One of the things I was really compelled by there was that to even get there, you have to take a ferry and it’s an isolated island. But I realized it wasn’t like a complex enough and distant enough road for them to travel.

I was very inspired by the Odyssey — which is probably my favorite sequel of all time — and I wanted there to be a real voyage home to each other.

I started thinking, “I think it’s France…”

Now, before I got on a plane, I did research on a ton of towns in the south of France. I had remembered learning about this town called Èze, which is this medieval town, sort of in the middle of nowhere. It’s near Monaco, but it’s tiny.

I knew it was a cliffside town, but I couldn’t remember what I heard about it.

When I started doing the research, I found out that the town motto was “In death, I am reborn.” And I thought, “Oh my God, I need to get on a different plane.”

We got on the plane and my husband said, “At least you’re not picking places in Siberia.”

As soon as I stepped foot in Èze, I knew this was it. This is the world. This is where I need to place it.

I always say that when the writing’s going well the details line up, they reveal themselves. And one of the first things I saw when I walked into Èze, sitting in a coffee shop was a copy of the Odyssey, and it all felt like it had come full circle in this beautiful way.

I knew then, this is where a lot of it’s going to take place, and I spent a bunch of time there.

My very cooperative, sweet son was a great research partner. We really toured the South of France and Paris to get those places ingrained in a way.

BTW: That’s so cool. I love that you set foot there and you just knew.

LD: It was this really amazing experience of having to trust yourself.

What I always say — especially when I used to teach writing — is that it’s not writer’s block, it’s that you’re still looking for your detail. And when you find it, everything will open up.

It’s a more generous way of giving yourself the space and latitude to find your story.

BTW: That’s a wonderful way to think of it. That’s such a valuable way to reframe it.

LD: Sometimes when you’re writing something clicks in and you’re like, “Okay, this is the hook on which everything falls. This is the labor on which I’m going to hang this love,” and it’s such a magical moment. I think that’s why we keep doing what we do.

BTW: I’ve already talked to you a little bit about your love of indie bookstores and your experiences with them.

Do you have any favorite bookstore memories that you’d like to share?

LD: I know last time we talked a lot about DIESEL, A Bookstore, which still my home away from home.

And when we’re allowed to announce [that The First Time I Saw Him is the #1 pick for January], I’m actually going to run over there so that I can share that with them immediately.

For me, books are always like a coming home. I love them more than anything.

One of the reasons I loved graduate school so much is it was a group of people with which you could talk about books (and reading and writing and poetry and plays) and they all cared. They all wanted to talk about it.

And that’s what an indie bookstore feels like.

I go in and say to Lynn or Kelsey or Joey or any of the booksellers there, “What are you reading now? What can’t you put down? What did you put down?”

I’m so close with them that sometimes I’ll walk in and they’ll be like, “You’re not going to like that one, you’re going to put that one down.”

But I do have one memory from DIESEL that’s quite recent that I was really touched by, and it didn’t even involve me.

I saw an elderly man walk into the store, and one of the booksellers there had a stack of books there waiting for him based on his preferences, because that was his regular outing.

And I thought, “She’s giving him books, and she’s giving him conversation, and she’s giving him a place to go.”

I just love it. There’s nothing to me that’s like that.

Every town I go to, the indie bookstore is the first place I go.

BTW: That is so sweet. Is there anything that you wanted to mention that we didn’t talk about?

LD: One of the reasons I feel so incredibly grateful that bookseller chose this as the Indie Next Pick for January, is that when I was writing the book, I kept rereading the first book and then working on the second.

I felt like I had two responsibilities. One, that it would be a seamless experience if you read them back-to-back. Two, that you could pick up book number two and read that, having not read the first and still be totally engaged.

And one of my early memories, one of the first reviews that I read on Edelweiss was someone saying, “Oh my God, you can just read this by itself.”

It was almost like they were in my mind, like validating that it was all okay. Those early reads from booksellers just made me feel confident that whatever pressure I felt writing the sequel, it was okay.

It was okay that I did it.

And I’m so grateful. The fact that this was embraced is hugely inspirational and exciting for me.