Phoenix-based author Allison Brennan is prolific. She writes three books a year, with 45 currently in print.
Brennan specializes in crime thrillers — earlier this year, she published “You’ll Never Find Me,” the first in what will become a series of novels about an estranged family of private investigators.
The book features a different approach than Brennan’s earlier works: each chapter is written from the point of view of a different character. Brennan spoke with The Show’s Sam Dingman about finding new ways to tell familiar stories.
Full conversation
ALLISON BRENNAN: It was actually a decision I made when I was halfway through the book, I was writing the first draft of this book. And all of a sudden I was writing Margo scenes in first person and I didn't realize it at the time because when I write my first draft, I write really fast and I'm just getting the story down. And all of a sudden, I'm like looking at it, I'm going, this is in first person and it was working so much better.
So I went back to the beginning and just took her scenes and wrote, rewrote them all in first person. And I said, OK, this is it? I, the rest of the book flowed so much smoother once I had that down.
SAM DINGMAN: I'm really digging that peek behind the curtain because I think what makes a family story relatable to a reader or a viewer is that you think, I am also a person in a family. And most of us think of ourselves as like, I am the main character in this family. So we need somebody in the story who is also experiencing the story in that way, in the vein of this choice to write chapters from the point of view of various different characters.
I was extremely interested in the choice that you have chapters written from Peter Carrillo's point of view, especially the scene with his mother because he is very much the villain in the story. Tell me about the choice to do that and what it was like to write from his point of view.
BRENNAN: I think as a writer, it's really important to get into the villain's point of view because the villain is the hero of his own journey. So he is a bad guy. There's not a lot of redeeming features about him. I do think he really does love his family, but it's in a warped way and therefore he can completely justify abusing his wife because he thinks he's doing it to keep his family together.
He thinks that she is there to serve him and she gave him two beautiful kids and he loves his kids and he loves his wife and he just wants her to understand how much he loves her. And that everything he is doing is for their own good. And so you take that to the extreme and he becomes an abusive spouse.
So the thing with his mom is every, I mean, I'm not gonna say that every single child that is abused is going to grow up to be an abuser. But there's multiple kinds of abuse, there's emotional abuse, there's physical abuse, there's indifference. And so I think knowing how he grew up helps to understand how he became who he is, doesn't justify it. It just helps explain it. And in my mind, if somebody is just a bad guy, then why can't the hero capture them? You know why if it's just somebody you know that is just doing bad, then our hero is stupid if they can't put that guy in prison.
DINGMAN: Yeah. You know, if I may, just now when you were kind of narrating Peter's inner monologue, you got very spirited and passionate in your, in your talking about it, which doesn't make me think that you are like him. I'm not saying that, but it, it is emotional evidence to me that you really made the effort to understand the run of thoughts that might go through the head of somebody like this. What is it like for you just as a person to spend time in that headspace?
BRENNAN: It's both creative and sometimes it can be a little unnerving. But I also, it's sort of like if you're a law enforcement officer, you compartmentalize or if you're a doctor and you're performing surgery, you kind of step aside, you can't have an emotional attachment. So I kind of, it's this kind of a weird thing.
I'm in his head or any of my bad guys' heads, but at the same time, I kind of am watching it from like a godlike perspective. And thinking what he thinks so, I don't know if that makes any sense.
DINGMAN: It does, it does. And there's an interesting meta layer here, too, which is that you're talking about how this ability to compartmentalize is core to the work of cops and PIs. And of course you're writing about cops and PIs so it's almost like your method writing.
BRENNAN: Maybe a little bit. I mean, I've done a lot of field trips. I've spoken to a lot of law enforcement. I've been on ride alongs. My oldest daughter is a Phoenix PD officer. When I lived in California, I did, what is it called? A roleplaying with FBI SWAT where I got to play a victim. I was a bad guy. I was a hostage. It was, I've, I've been to the morgue, I've watched an autopsy. I try to go on site and then I talk to the people because I want to know, how did you get into this line? Did you ever, did you plan on being a pathologist? You know, what do you like about your job? What do you not like about your job? I might not even have a book that I'm writing, but I'm, at least I'm trying to get into everybody's mindset to figure out why they do what they do.
DINGMAN: I think that's really interesting in the context of the section. We were just talking about where you are writing from Peter's point of view and he's on the phone with his mom who it seems like has been somewhat emotionally manipulative with him throughout his life. One of the things that feels to me like a concrete illustration of that godlike mode that you were describing that I think comes through in that section is that as we're reading, that Peter is not aware of the psychological impact that his mother has had on him. But by virtue of the fact that it's included, it's clear that the author of this story is aware and has put it here for a reason.
So there's this interesting double thing that happens where in a way we are being invited to empathize with Peter. But we are also aware that the author knows that there's more going on than just his version of the story.
BRENNAN: Yeah. No, definitely. I mean, I think it's, it was important from the perspective because he did. It was funny because in that scene as it's coming back to me, I remember his, his mom wanted to come in and fix everything and he did not want her there. And I don't know if he consciously knew that he didn't want her there because he was afraid, you know, of her kind of taking over his household or if it was just that he had his plan.
DINGMAN: So in the vein of all these things we've been talking about, about incorporating the points of view of multiple characters and being sort of in and out of their heads. At the same time, there was another line I wanted to ask you about and this one comes from Ava, who is the mom of the Angel Hearts, the family of private investigators.
She says: “No one is all good or all bad. It's sometimes difficult to reconcile people we know with things they do. It doesn't make you a bad person to fondly remember the good times with people who loved you.”
And when I read that line, which comes towards the end of the book, it struck me that in a way she was kind of articulating the theme of the whole story.
BRENNAN: She's very smart. She's a lot smarter than me.
DINGMAN: Did, was there any intention about her kind of commenting on the full narrative when you wrote that line?
BRENNAN: No, because I don't plot.
DINGMAN: OK.
BRENNAN: I mean, a cool plot is a cool plot, I mean, and I read a lot of thrillers and I said, oh, that's a really cool plot. But in the end it's all about the characters. I have to believe that if I met this person on the street they would be a real human being. Character is story.
