Alison Gaylin

Alison Gaylin is the award-winning author of Hide Your Eyes and its sequel, You Kill Me; the standalones Trashed and Heartless; and the Brenna Spector series: And She Was, Into the Dark, and Stay with Me. Her newest novel is What Remains of Me.

From Gaylin's Q & A with Laura Lippman:

Laura Lippman (LL): You grew up in Southern California and you've covered the territory before, in the delicious Trashed. And your YA novel, Reality Ends Here, was interested in how young people deal with their yearning for fame and validation. But What Remains of Me signaled, at least to me, that you have so much you want to say about notoriety and media—and California. Am I right?

Alison Gaylin (AG): Yes! Even though I haven't lived there for more than twenty years, I do keep coming back to Southern California in my books. I think I'll always be fascinated by it, particularly Hollywood—the mystique of it and the larger-than-life capacity for both glamour and evil. And the role the press plays in perpetuating that. Whether you're a movie star or a murderer, the media will cast you in a role and that role becomes reality. As one of the characters in the book says, "It's not what you've done that matters, it's what people think you've done."

LL: It's a twisty book, with surprise after surprise, a book in which the tiniest details matter. Did you ever get confused while writing it? I think of one small thing in particular—no spoilers—that looms large in the book, but only the most attentive readers are going to sense its significance.

AG: It was a tricky book to write. I found myself...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Alison Gaylin's website.

The Page 69 Test: Into the Dark.

The Page 69 Test: What Remains of Me.

--Marshal Zeringue