Debut novelist Amy Gentry spent years as a book reviewer for the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Book Review, Texas Observer, among other outlets. But now the tables are turned and she has “gone” from reviewer to reviewee with her new novel Good As Gone (out this week from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), a psychological thriller that has been compared to bestsellers such as Gone Girl: The Girl on the Train. We caught up with her via email during the book’s launch week amid a dozen appearances and interviews. She graciously answered our email interview questions within hours of our hitting Send.
LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: Amy, I understand you grew up in Houston, and your novel is set in the city. What was the Houston of your youth like, and how did it inform your writing?
AMY GENTRY: I grew up in West Houston for the most part, around what’s now called the Energy Corridor, and that’s where most of the book takes place. Like Jane in the book, I escaped to Montrose and Rice Village in high school to feel more cool and less suburban. But of course, we could do that because we all had access to cars, and what’s more suburban than that? When I think of Houston, I think of this flattened-out, cluttered urban landscape with all these dingy strip malls and gleaming skyscrapers just thrown together because of the minimal zoning laws, and the huge, arching highways providing the only relief from the flatness. I think it’s the most beautiful ugly city in the world. A perfect place to get lost in, or lose your identity.
Upon graduating high school in Houston, you went to college at the University of Texas in Austin. What was that like?
I loved Austin immediately because I’ve been a secret hippie since childhood. I don’t know how that happened, genetically, but it did. UT took some getting used to at first, since I'd had my heart set on a perfect little New England campus with falling leaves in the autumn. But I made a lot of friends through drama and Plan II, which was my major, and then I wound up in the co-ops, naturally. I took five years to graduate and wrote a novel for my undergraduate thesis that will never see the light of day.
When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I had a very inspiring fourth-grade teacher who had us writing free-verse poetry the first week of class — shout-out to Mr. Wainwright! — and that’s when I knew. I stayed pretty consistent about it until after college, when, after a year of working on a novel and supporting myself waiting tables, I just sort of lost my way. I think I got tired, and suddenly it didn't seem like a very grown-up dream to have.
After graduating from UT, you made your way to Portland around 2001 with the goal of being a writer, and eventually earned your PhD from the University of Chicago. But, along the way, you became a well-regarded book reviewer for the Chicago Tribune and the Texas Observer, and other publications. How did you get into book reviewing?
When I was fresh out of college, I used to read the New York Times Book Review every Sunday and then go to the library and put in requests for the stuff that looked interesting. I would read halfway through a book and throw it across the room. It made me so mad when (in my very informed opinion!) the book reviewer got it wrong.
When I graduated with a PhD in 2011, I knew I didn’t want to pursue an academic career, so I did a bunch of part-time jobs to make money. My now-husband kept saying, “You should write things,” and eventually I wound up doing books coverage for a local website, then for the Austin Chronicle. And then a critic I knew from grad school passed my name to his editor at the Chicago Tribune, and it got more serious. I do not usually throw books now, but I understand if someone wants to throw mine.
My understanding is that you had the idea for Good As Gone more than a decade ago. What was the genesis of that idea?
The idea began with the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping case, which was in the news in 2003. It was such an unusual case, both in the way [Smart] was taken and the way she was recovered. I started thinking about a girl who shows up years and years after a high-profile kidnapping, claiming to be the kidnapped girl, but her mother has these awful doubts that she has to keep to herself. By coincidence, around the time I finally started writing the book, the documentary Imposter had just come out about the real-life French con man who impersonated a kidnapped child in Texas. I didn’t consciously draw any details from that case, but it helped me feel more confident that the idea could work.
How did your big break with Good As Gone come about?
Last summer I was finishing up the novel, but hadn’t really started thinking about querying agents yet. Then I woke up one day and #Pitmad, a Twitter event in which agents look for promising 140-character novel synopses, was underway. On a lark, I put a few tweets out there, and a handful of agents requested my work, including my now-agent, Sharon Pelletier. So, like many happy couples, we met on the Internet. That was, unbelievably, less than a year ago.
Good As Gone has been compared to one of the best-selling novels in recent memory. Gone Girl almost created a category of its own—a psychological thriller with unreliable narrators that keep you guessing to the very end. How would you describe Good As Gone in your own words?
I have described it as a mother-daughter horror story set in a city with a perpetual identity crisis. I didn’t know it would be a thriller when I started writing it, and I've never really thought of Julie as an unreliable narrator — she’s not, really. She’s just a plain old liar. It’s only the structure of the book that makes her seem unreliable. But I’m happy to be part of any category that attracts such thoughtful and intelligent readers, and I’m flattered by comparisons to Gone Girl and other top-notch psychological thrillers focused on the female experience.
I’ve read that you’re at work on your next novel. What’s your creative process like?
When I’m being productive, I try to write 1,000–3,000 words, usually in the morning. Then I have lunch and write nonfiction or read for reviews in the afternoon. That’s my ideal schedule, though the book release doesn’t really allow it.
What authors do you now enjoy reading? What Texas authors?
I love Tessa Hadley’s novels and Kelly Link’s short stories to distraction. As for Texas authors, Patricia Highsmith was born in Fort Worth, and her psychological crime novels are among my favorites.
As a first-time book author, what advice do you have for aspiring writers?
Get to know other writers, because it makes writing seem like a much more reasonable thing to do. Keep working until you finish something. Finishing builds chops. If you don’t finish it, you can’t make it good.
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Praise for Amy Gentry’s GOOD AS GONE
“[One] of the most anticipated summer thrillers....Gentry's novel isn't primarily about the version of the self that comes from a name and a family of origin; instead, it draws our attention to the self that's forged from sheer survival, and from the clarifying call to vengeance.” —New York Times Book Review
“A mother, a daughter, a zealot, an investigator, a family, a stripper, and more than a few survivors lay the riveting groundwork, but it’s Amy Gentry’s realistic portrayals of victims and their families that set Good As Gone apart from other page-turning crime dramas....The end result is a true ‘novel of suspense’: a book that's hard to put down not only because of our investment in the plot, but also because of our investment in the lives of the complicated characters.” —Austin Chronicle
“Compelling and emotionally nuanced.” —Seattle Times
“Both a mother-daughter and a family-under-fire story, Good As Gone is laden with confused identities and a thrumming plot. Amy Gentry’s debut also holds a mirror up to the myriad ways rape culture is perpetuated.” —Bustle
“Good As Gone…confirms the entrance of a powerful new voice in the world of crime fiction—Gentry knows crime fiction as a critic and as a writer, and brings her experiences with her for a novel that is as playful and self-aware in its structure as it is responsible in its themes.”
—MysteryPeople
“Debut novelist Gentry delivers on genre expectations with crisp, unobtrusive writing and well-executed plot twists.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Clever perspective changes give Gentry's debut building suspense....Fans of Paula Hawkin’s The Girl on the Train will enjoy the shifting points of view and the complex female characters, and those who liked Samantha Hunt’s Mr. Splitfoot will appreciate the seedy characters and haunting theme of childhood vulnerability....Gentry’s depiction of a family working through immense suffering will connect with many readers.”
—Booklist
