Megan Abbott

Megan Abbott's new novel is Give Me Your Hand.

From the transcript of her interview with NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro:

GARCIA-NAVARRO: .... You've set mysteries in gymnastics clubs and cheerleading teams and now the oh-so-brutally competitive science academic community. But your work focuses on this fine line between friendship and rivalry, and you do this so well. How do you explore what's almost a trope about women without making it a trope?

ABBOTT: Yeah. It is really tricky. I mean, there's that phrase that sort of gets bandied around - frenemy, you know? - for those women in our lives who we are very close to. But there is that competitive instinct. And I think part of it is that - is still, as a culture, women are not supposed to be ambitious or competitive in the same way. And when they are, it's frightening. So it gets sort of subverted or pushed down or suppressed. And then, when it does emerge, it can emerge in odd ways. And I'll confess while I was writing this that it was during the presidential campaign, so sort of the fear of female ambition was...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Megan Abbott's website.

--Marshal Zeringue