Maxine Kaplan

Maxine Kaplan is the author of The Accidental Bad Girl.

From her Q&A with Katya de Becerra:

You are a Brooklyn local and THE ACCIDENTAL BAD GIRL is set in a Brooklyn school. What was it like to write your hometown setting into a fictional reality of your book?

Honestly, at least at the beginning, that was purely for logistical purposes. I wanted to use layouts that I was familiar with. And I’ve never been a teenager in a small town or suburb, and don’t know firsthand how a girl like my MC would move in that environment, or really any environment other than a city with a highly developed public transit system. But I’m very happy with the decision for dramatic reasons, too, since it allowed me to touch on issues of privilege in ways that resonate with my own lived experiences. I don’t know if I always want to write about Brooklyn, but it was good to have the details of it readily accessible in my brain for my first book.

I love books with complex, compelling protagonists who have to navigate their way out of difficult circumstances. Kendall, the protagonist of THE ACCIDENTAL BAD GIRL, sounds like exactly my kind of protagonist – how did Kendall come to be the leading girl of your debut?

Thank you! I love Kendall. Kendall is the reason I wanted to write this book. I’m a big fan of noir and all things noir-adjacent, including James Bond and Hitchcock. But the characters that always struck my imagination the most were the femme fatales—and I never got enough information about them to satisfy me. I wanted to depict these dangerous women/girls as real people. Basically, Kendall is...[read on]

Visit Maxine Kaplan's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Accidental Bad Girl.

--Marshal Zeringue