Author Interview: Beth Morgan (A Touch of Jen)

The Book

A young couple’s toxic Instagram crush spins out of control and unleashes a sinister creature in this twisted, viciously funny, “bananas good” debut. (Carmen Maria Machado)

“Um, holy shit…This novel will be the most fun you’ll have this summer.” —Emily Temple, Literary Hub

Remy and Alicia, a couple of insecure  service workers, are not particularly happy together. But they are bound by a shared obsession with Jen, a beautiful former co-worker of Remy’s who now seems to be following her bliss as a globe-trotting jewelry designer. In and outside the bedroom, Remy and Alicia’s entire relationship revolves around fantasies of Jen, whose every Instagram caption, outfit, and new age mantra they know by heart.

Imagine their confused excitement when they run into Jen, in the flesh, and she invites them on a surfing trip to the Hamptons with her wealthy boyfriend and their group. Once there, Remy and Alicia try (a little too hard) to fit into Jen’s exalted social circle, but violent desire and class resentment bubble beneath the surface of this beachside paradise, threatening to erupt. As small disturbances escalate into outright horror, we find ourselves tumbling with Remy and Alicia into an uncanny alternate reality, one shaped by their most unspeakable, deviant, and intoxicating fantasies.  Is this what “self-actualization” looks like?

Part millennial social comedy, part psychedelic horror, and all wildly entertaining, A Touch of Jen is a sly, unflinching examination of the hidden drives that lurk just outside the frame of our carefully curated selves.

The Author

Beth Morgan grew up outside Sherman, Texas and studied writing as an undergraduate at Sarah Lawrence College. She is currently completing an MFA at Brooklyn College. Her work has been published in The Iowa Review and The Kenyon Review Online.

The Interview

What was the most difficult part of writing A Touch of Jen?

Writing the ending was definitely challenging. The last scene was in place fairly early on, but the big challenge was figuring out how to arrive at that point in a way that felt intuitive even as the story entered this fantastical register. I had to make sure all of the cosmological and logistical elements were hanging together, but more importantly I also had to make sure that these elements were serving the story’s emotional core. David Lynch’s movies were definitely a big inspiration for me here–even when they break with the rules of reality as we know it, the emotional arc is 100% convincing. 

Your characters are pretty flawed and insincere, but who do you love to hate the most? 

I think that as an author my job is to love all of my characters because that’s what makes them feel convincing to readers. Remy, for example, is someone who I might find myself irritated by in real life but I wanted to portray him in a way that made readers feel close to him and even empathize with him. I think the discomfort that a lot of readers feel with this book comes from the fact that they see some of these unlikable characters in themselves. And my hope is that in processing that discomfort, in recognizing the ways that we can all be shallow or insincere or malicious, we can locate compassion for ourselves and for others as we’re trying to become better, kinder people. 

What inspired the creation of the strange dark creature from your book?

I think the creature ultimately came from the way I was thinking about how to represent violence. We have this impulse to process violence by categorizing it–by determining when it’s justified or not justified, when it’s supposed to be read as fun or exciting or heroic and when it’s supposed to be read as horrifying. In introducing this camp or supernatural element in what is otherwise a fairly realistic narrative I was hoping to complicate some of these distinctions and get at the way in which the fantastical way that violence appears to the perpetrator and the real way that violence is acted out on the victim are too sides of the same coin.

Have you ever been very envious of someone on social media to the point of behaving irrationally at times with regards to them?

I hope not! I think the experience of envy is pretty universal and social media does create this sense of intimacy with people we’re not interacting with in real life. And there are plenty of moments in my life that I feel shame or embarrassment about. So the book does correspond to some extent with my experiences. But this particular scenario and the social media aspect of it grew more out of the characters Jen and Remy and the kind of relationship I wanted to create between them. I wanted to create this simultaneous closeness and distance between them and the simultaneous closeness and distance of watching someone on social media felt like a perfect way to realize that relationship. 

What is the main message you would like your readers to take from your story, if there is one?

I don’t think the book has a main message. I was thinking about a lot of things as I wrote it–for example, the hero’s journey and the American appropriation of Eastern spirituality. But the book is also interested in violence and gender and class as well. As a fiction writer, I don’t want my books to be arguments for a thesis, though I hope that my treatment of these topics feels textured enough that it helps readers to think more deeply about them. 

Is Remy and Alicia’s relationship toxic or do they basically deserve one another?

It’s a very close, intense relationship. So I think it’s hard not to feel like it has some intrinsic value even if it’s unhealthy in many ways. Definitely these characters could have better lives in a whole variety of ways including in their relationship. And perhaps that would be better for them and make them happier and kinder people. But I don’t want to put myself in the position of judging them or deciding what they deserve or don’t deserve. 

Are you working on anything new?

I’m working on a book called The Shit Your Pants Button. Like A Touch of Jen, it has an absurd premise (the main character has a button on her thigh that she can push to make people shit their pants), but it’s also engaging with some of the subtle forms of violence in white Middle American culture.

***Spoiler question***

Did any of the characters not deserve their fate in your opinion? 

I don’t think any of them deserved their fate! There are very few people who I think deserve a violent or gruesome death and I don’t think any of the characters in A Touch of Jen fall into that category.

Thank you, Beth!

Lilla the Accidental Witch – Eleanor Crewes

It should not be legal for a graphic novel to be so dull. It should not be legal for them to take me such a long time to get through… and eventually discard them. It’s insane how this book has everything I love in fantasy stories: magical coming-of-ages, witches, family secrets, town mysteries and familiars.

And yet, and yet. Somehow, I don’t have the patience for more than 25 pages in one sitting and, somehow, I don’t have the energy it seems to require to finish it. I can probably count on my hand the amount of graphic novels I have DNF’d in all my life—that’s how rarely that happens—so I’m as shocked as you are with the outcome.

It’s possible part of it is me; part of it is probably always us, because I feel very indifferent about the illustrations. They don’t need to WOW me to make them worth looking at, but Eleanor Crewes’ very cartoonish style with soft shadows and lines and bright, unrealistic colours does not appeal to me. I’m not so superficial that the visuals alone could undo a whole entire book for me, but this ‘‘is’’ a graphic novel after all.

And the story is not original enough to add enough ‘‘personality’’ to this work to make it work despite its visual shortcomings. It’s the very usual tale of a young teen who discovers she has powers and tries to learn about them and right some wrongs at the same time. Maybe if it had been Halloween, the atmosphere of the day would have made reading this book more enjoyable, but it’s not and I’m writing this not only because it was sent to me for review, but also because I want to move on from it to another more interesting and engrossing work. Goodbye!

Thank you Hachette Book Group Canada for the copy in exchange for a review.

We Are Watching Eliza Bright – A. E. Osworth

This is 400 pages of bewilderment.

400 pages of suspense. Of sexism and feminism. Of continuity and contradictions. Of life and death and loss and gain. Of fiction and reality. Of Us.

Eliza Bright is minding her own smart business at work when some of her co-workers decide to play a bad joke that turns into harassment and verbal abuse and a huge load of sexism thrown her way. She doesn’t feel so safe anymore. The person who could change things—her boss—and stop this nonsense doesn’t think it’s a ‘‘big deal.’’ So she betrays her company’s loyalty (not like they haven’t betrayed her first) and speaks about what she is going through to the media. She’s fired and the consequences of her actions—her defending herself—put her safety even more at risk. She is threatened and watched and stalked and she’s about to lose it. Will she make it out alive?

If this seems quite dramatic to you, well keep in mind that I have barely even mentioned 25% of what happens. There is much, much more, but the most unique element included in this story is definitely its narration style. It’s in the 1^st person plural—the famous We—and the ‘‘we’’ represents various people. It’s as intriguing as it is confusing. It’s for you to figure out who the author meant to watch Eliza Bright, as referred in the title. Men? Women? Non-gender conforming groups of people? People like me, you or us? It’s strange, unusual, and mysterious even, but it works. It adds to the overall surreal atmosphere of the story. While harassment and sexism are not rare occurrences, in this book they are the cataclysm that sets everything else into motion and nothing to be made light of.

In the end, it’s a powerful story. You can feel from the start that the impact this book will have on you will be great. It’s also an enjoyable reading experience, at times more serious and at other times lighter. The phone and G-chat conversations sure do help the reader advance through this story quicker, and serve as a temporary break from an otherwise more conventional type of storytelling, narration style excluded. If I had to change something about this overall written work it would certainly be the uncertainty created by the ‘‘we’’ pronoun. Because the we does not represent any of the main characters, the we does not know everything and there is one particular chapter that is repeated three or four times with slight alterations, seeing as the narrators couldn’t be sure of how the event unfolded. I could have done without the repetition. Otherwise, chapeau!

Thank you Hachette Book Group Canada for the copy in exchange for a review.

The Groom Will Keep His Name – Matt Ortile

I think Matt Ortile should meet Nicolas DiDomizio, author of Burn It All Down, or at least read his blog, and this interview I did with him. I’m saying this because I have a feeling he could learn from monsieur DiDomizio, especially in the relationships department, which is something this memoir does focus on, among other things.

Though I, of course, know little about being a Filipino gay adult male, I do know something about dating the wrong people and almost being attracted, at times, to things that wouldn’t work out or don’t seem to work or couldn’t work out. I also know what it’s like to get attached to someone who knows a lot about you, has listened to you open up about yourself—parts of yourself you’ve never shared with anyone before—and does not reject you for all that you are insecure about. It’s hard not to wish for a future with a person like that and it’s hard to let them go. Whatever your age, you can’t help but wonder, ‘‘Is anyone else going to ever care to know as much about me and accept me for who I am, good and bad?’’ I get you, Ortile.

It would be frivolous, and almost insulting, to not discuss the more political and cultural aspects of this book. Matt Ortile writes about struggling with some of his own Filipino customs, growing up among other Filipinos who bullied him for being different, and then coming to America and almost reinventing himself by trying to be the perfect immigrant student and simply not create tension of any kind. He pauses upon his university experience for quite a bit, as it has marked him profoundly and has made him realize some of his shortcomings, especially with regards to speaking out about what matters to him, regardless of whether he makes people uncomfortable or not.

Probably the best aspect of this book is its tone, which screams, ‘‘Here I am, this is who I am, I am imperfect and make mistakes, but I know that I must do better—choose better for myself and others—and while I am not there yet, I am on my way and this memoir is a testament of my promise to grow into the man that I know I can be and wish to be.’’ I think the journey will be long for Matt Ortile, but I don’t doubt that he’ll exact change within himself even further and perhaps beyond himself.

Thank you Hachette Book Group Canada for the copy in exchange for a review.

The Particulars of Peter – Kelly Conaboy

Everyone thinks their own pet is amazing, or at least cute and worth cuddling with for hours. If you don’t, frankly you should spend more time with your pet and learn what makes them so worth keeping and caring for. So in that regard, Kelly Conaboy is not special. She is just another pet owner who loves her dog dearly and thinks very highly of him (way too highly, if you ask my opinion). She goes to the point of putting him on a pedestal. We shouldn’t put humans pedestals, let alone little creatures who are not beyond doing no wrong and disappointing us.

I don’t have a problem with pet memoirs, though I admit I prefer human memoirs, which are a hundred times more relatable and can teach you far beyond ‘‘how to play the right game with your pet’’ or ‘‘how to make your pet feel like the queen or king that they are.’’ Kelly Conaboy herself mentions at the beginning of this dogoir (dog memoir) that she was paid to write this book and so spend time with her pet to learn his quirks and thus have better content. It does not, in fact, feel like it evolved naturally. If Kelly hadn’t been paid to produce this work, would she have done some of the activities she mentions, would she have bought some of the dog produces she discusses? Maybe not.

In the end, this book’s birth story is not the problem, as I could have stopped reading after the prologue if that had caused too much of a problem for my established literally morals. It doesn’t, even if I prefer when people write books more out of a sense that their written words must be put into the world than in an Eat, Pray, Love sponsorship fashion. In the end, what I disliked the most, was Kelly’s disillusioned love for her dog, which to me had little foundation and came off so exaggerated at times that, combined with her usual sarcasm and arrogant tone, was a little doubtful some of the times. Does she actually believe the high praise she showers her dog with? Her ‘‘love’’ took so much space that, in the end, I felt like it was more about her than her dog.

Thank you Hachette Book Group Canada for the copy in exchange for a review.

The Liar – Ayelet Gundar-Goshen

I hate lying, and I hate people lying to me, but there’s something about seeing other people lie and mess up that feels very cathartic for me. It’s also a way to live vicariously through people who are rebellious, disobedient and have little to no moral compass to know what that’s like and to, for a few hours, be more than the (mostly) well-behaved Young Adult that I am, though perhaps not so well behaved since I refuse to get vaccinated and that sure is causing the upheaval.

All that to say that I was fascinated by Nofar’s behavior and especially her reasons for lying. I don’t have a younger, prettier sister who gets all the attention and can basically do no wrong, so I don’t know what it’s like firsthand to be Nofar, and I’ve never cared too much that my brother was more social than I was, but I’m not the prettiest, sweetest, smartest, anything-est girl on the block, so being pretty average is something I can certainly relate to.

I guess the difference between me and Nofar is that she doesn’t like being that way and one of the reasons she lied about being sexually assaulted by a celebrity is because of all the attention she was suddenly receiving. While I’m used to being an introverted girl with few friends and risks taken, I’m okay the way I am, and if I’m going to change and be more social, more daring, more out there, it’s going to come from within and it’s going to happen when it will feel like the right moment to spread my wings like a butterfly. Sudden change, though it changes Nofar’s life and shakes her a little, does appeal to her, so much so that whenever her moral compass does come to the surface, she buries it again, and again, and again.

It’s a slow-burn type of story—my favourite kind!—that takes time to develop, and whose characters you slowly get to know, but by the end you will truly feel like you’ve known everyone for years, and though you might feel confused or happy or nervous about the outcome, the thinker-philosopher in you will be rewarded with content.

Thank you Hachette Book Group Canada for the copy in exchange for a review.