Clea Simon

Before turning to a life of crime (fiction), Boston Globe-bestselling author Clea Simon was a journalist. A native of New York, she came to Massachusetts to attend Harvard University and never left. The author of three nonfiction books and 32 mysteries, most recently the psychological suspense The Butterfly Trap, her books alternate between cozies (usually featuring cats) and darker psychological suspense, like the Massachusetts Center for the Book “must reads” Hold Me Down and World Enough. She lives with her husband, the writer Jon S. Garelick (another Boston Globe alum), and their cat Thisbe in Somerville, Massachusetts.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

That’s a two-part question for me, in part because my title has two parts. Originally, and for most of its existence, this book was called The Blue Butterfly, which I thought was both descriptive of the way my male protagonist sees my female protagonist and also refers to a mounted butterfly, a Morpho menelaus, that comes into play. But my publisher changed it to The Butterfly Trap, which has less direct relevance to the plot but does evoke suspense more.

What's in a name?

For me, the names Greg and Anya set up the characters. Greg is such a basic, grounded name, isn’t it? Greg is someone you could get a beer with. Anya, though, that’s a little fanciful. Was Anya’s very pragmatic mother reading a Russian novel when she was pregnant? Did she want to set her daughter apart from all the “Annes” and “Angelas” of the world? We may never know.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

Very! I held onto a very romantic view of relationships for years. I’m still a romantic, but The Butterfly Trap deals with the realities that underly any relationship – the inequalities and give-and-take. The daily betrayals, big and small. The love behind the lies.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Beginnings tend to come to me: I envision a scenario and I think “I have to write this.” But I am often surprised by my endings. I always start off knowing how I want my book to end, but then my characters insist on something else. Does that make them harder to writer? Well, it makes them harder to prepare for.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I have certainly been on both sides of this relationship: the infatuated suitor and the ambivalent recipient, whose life is just kind of too complicated at this point for a real relationship. More to the point, I’ve spent most of my adult life living with and working with writers and artists, so the social network – the friends and the jealousies – is very real to me.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

In another life (when I was in my 20s), I was a music critic. I covered everything from crooners like Wayne Newton to zydeco (Queen Ida’s first national tour!), but my heart was in the Boston punk rock scene. That was my world – my community. We wouldn’t just gather at night at the clubs, we’d go to after parties at bands’ lofts and stay over at each other’s apartments, share dim sum the next day before heading out to see the groundbreaking art, film, and photography our colleagues were doing (there was a lot of crossover between the music and the visual arts) and more. I formed some solid friendships in that scene that last today, and that world informs The Butterfly Trap.

Visit Clea Simon's website.

The Page 69 Test: To Conjure a Killer.

The Page 69 Test: Bad Boy Beat.

Writers Read: Clea Simon (May 2024).

--Marshal Zeringue