Kathleen Barber

Kathleen Barber is the author of Truth Be Told (2017, originally published as Are You Sleeping), which was adapted into a series on AppleTV+ by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine media company, and Follow Me (2020). A graduate of the University of Illinois and Northwestern University School of Law, she now lives in Washington, DC, with her husband and children.

Barber's new novel is Both Things Are True.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I usually really struggle with titles, but the title for Both Things Are True came to me not long after I started writing the book and just felt right. I don't want to share too much of the context because I don't want to give away any spoilers, but one of the characters says "both things are true" during a particularly emotionally charged moment in the book. It's a revelation for my protagonist, helping her realize that what she thought was black-and-white is actually more nuanced. It was important to me that the title reflected that growth (and the specific context in which it's said), although I don't expect readers to understand until they hit that portion of the novel. That said, I think the title both fits genre conventions and hints that there's a truth my protagonist has to learn, so I believe it gives readers an accurate representation of what's to come in the book.

What's in a name?

The protagonist of Both Things Are True is named Vanessa Summers. I chose Vanessa because she felt as though she should have a "V" first name (why? I'm not totally sure, she just felt like that to me), and I liked the different nicknames that Vanessa offered (Sam calls her "Ness," Jack calls her "V"). I chose Summers for her last name because it's bright and cheerful like her, and also because I wanted to remind myself to give her a bit of grit, à la Buffy Summers.

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

My teenage self would not be surprised at all. Both Things Are True is much closer to the stories I wrote as a teenager than my previous novels were. The stories I wrote then skewed romantic, and I'm almost certain that you could find a precursor to Vanessa and Sam in those old pages.

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

Endings are so, so hard! When you write the beginning of a book, what you're mainly doing is messing up the protagonist's life. That's fun and easy! Just throw a lot of obstacles at them! But when you write the ending, you have to not only solve all these problems you've created and tie up all the loose ends you've dropped, but you have to leave the characters in an authentic place. And that's the really tricky bit: you want to give your characters enough resolution so that the reader feels satisfied when they reach the end of the book, but also leave room for your characters to exist after the reader closes the book. If you've done it right and created lifelike characters, the reader shouldn't feel like the end of the book is The End for them.

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

There are aspects of me in all of my characters (even the worst ones, I'm sure) but that's largely not intentional. It's simply that I'm only human, and while I can do my best to imagine how a person different from me might react to or feel about any given situation, I'm necessarily filtering that through the lens of my own experience. Occasionally, though, I will give a character an experience I've had (for example, in Both Things Are True, Vanessa has been to yoga school in Rishikesh, and she and Sam visit Friar Tuck, a real bar in Chicago) but my goal is always to have my characters respond to those experiences in way that's true to them, rather than how I actually behaved.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I see inspiration everywhere! For Both Things Are True, in particular, I was partially inspired by my interest in influencer culture (particularly yoga influencer culture) and my own experiences living in Chicago in my twenties. I'm also often inspired by music, and I usually make a playlist for each of my projects. The Both Things Are True playlist includes songs like "Love Is a Laserquest" by Arctic Monkeys (the best song about longing ever), "Mr. Brightside" by the Killers (one of Vanessa's favorite karaoke songs), and "I Will Always Love You" by Dolly Parton (I guess you'll have to read the book for that one!).

Visit Kathleen Barber's website.

The Page 69 Test: Follow Me.

Writers Read: Kathleen Barber (March 2020).

12 Yoga Questions with Kathleen Barber.

The Page 69 Test: Both Things Are True.

My Book, The Movie: Both Things Are True.

--Marshal Zeringue