Sydney Graves: I Was Surprised by How Dark It Got at the End
Sydney Graves is a pseudonym for Kate Christensen, an Arizona native and the author of eight novels, most recently Welcome Home, Stranger. Her fourth novel, The Great Man, won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. She has also published two food-centric memoirs, Blue Plate Special and How to Cook a Moose, which won the 2016 Maine Literary Award for Memoir. Her essays, reviews, and short pieces have appeared in a wide variety of publications and anthologies. She lives with her husband and their two dogs in Taos, New Mexico. For more, visit KateChristensen.net, and follow her on X (Twitter) and Instagram.
Sydney Graves
Photo by Cheryl Nichols
In this interview, Sydney discusses how in order to take a break between drafts of a different novel she wrote her new mystery novel, The Arizona Triangle, her hope for readers, and more.
Name: Sydney Graves (pseudonym for Kate Christensen)
Literary agent: Richard Abate
Book title: The Arizona Triangle
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Release date: October 22, 2024
Genre/category: Mystery
Elevator pitch: A hardboiled female private eye, Jo Bailen, is hired to locate her long-estranged childhood best friend, Rose. Back in her old hometown an hour north of Tucson, Jo is pulled into a dangerous web woven by a psychopath who lures her to uncover Rose’s old traumas.
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What prompted you to write this book?
During the pandemic, I was in lockdown in a remote New England farmhouse with my husband and dogs, beating my head against a literary novel that wasn’t working (Welcome Home, Stranger was published last December by HarperCollins). Between the third and fourth drafts, I took a break and wrote The Arizona Triangle purely for fun, as a palate cleanser. I’d always wanted to write mysteries—this was the culmination of a lifetime’s ambition.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
It was a very smooth path. The published version is exactly the book I set out to write, and I was fortunate that my editor, Sara Nelson, liked it and bought it.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
I learned that there’s such a thing as too hardboiled for a detective. The revision process was mostly giving my detective, Jo Bailen, a softer underbelly, more vulnerability, making her more relatable instead of invincible.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
I was surprised by how dark it got at the end—I had to honor what I’d set up in establishing the murders, and that led Jo into a very black place. As the author, I could go with her and keep an eye out for her, but I couldn’t protect her from it.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
Primarily, atmosphere, entertainment, and the sense of a satisfyingly resolved mystery. I have always read detective novels myself for those things—along with a vicarious sense of danger and an identification with the detective. I am hoping I created these things for my own readers.
Did you have anything else you wanted to share with readers?
Write every day. There are no shortcuts—I’ve published eight literary novels and two memoirs (as Kate Christensen), and now a detective novel (as Sydney Graves); I have a co-written YA novel coming out next fall with Hyperion, the first of a projected trilogy, and I just finished the third draft of my ninth literary novel. Discipline and commitment are the only way I know to go deep, to stay connected to a piece of work, and get through the gnarly struggles of successive drafts. Write every day, and never give up.
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