Crystal Kaswell is the author of the new novel The Neighbor Wager, an update of the classic movie Sabrina. Her other novels include The Best Friend Bargain. She lives in the Pacific Northwest.
Q: Why did you decide to write a modern version of the
classic film Sabrina?
A: I've always loved the film Sabrina! There's something so fun about the love triangle, the upstairs/downstairs elements of the story, and the fantasy of the girl next door coming back from Paris as a babe.
When the publisher suggested gender swapping the story, I was initially apprehensive--who wants to see a guy get a makeover--but I realized it would be so fun and subversive to reimagine these archetypes.
Q: How did you create your characters River, Lexi, and Deanna?
A: I tend to look at characters two ways: internally and relationally. I think of my POV characters by getting in their heads. How do they look at the world, think, feel, act on their feelings, etc.? And how do they act with others? Who are they in their relationships?
I really need to understand the relationship dynamics of all the important relationships in my stories to understand where they're going.
Q: What did you see as the right balance between the original Sabrina and your own take on the story?
A: I didn't want to copy Sabrina or follow the movie beat by beat. I wanted to take the archetypes--the grumpy older brother, the playboy younger brother, the innocent girl next door--and spin them my way.
I never thought oh, what would Humphrey Bogart's character have done? I thought about what Deanna would do. She was her own character. Just in a similar role.
Q: The novel is set in California--how important is setting to you in your writing?
A: Setting is one of those things I often take for granted, as a reader and a writer. But setting is an important basis for a story. It needs to be there and it needs to be strong.
I need to be able to envision the place I'm writing. I need to understand it. The way it looks, the way people act there, who moves there, who moves away, why.
That's why I tend to set books to places I've lived, and I tend to write them as if they're still the way they were when I lived there, even if that's not totally true.
I try to stay true to the essence of the place rather than the details. I know the essence of Orange County. I grew up there!
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I'm working on my second Entangled book, a really fun fake relationship romcom. The MCs are an escort and a sex therapist, so they've both got these very detached, professional approaches to sex. It's an interesting dynamic.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: It is really unrealistic to take a bus from Los Angeles to Seattle. (To charter a bus to save money, no less). That would take more than 20 hours! I read this in a book more than a year ago and it is still bothering me. East Coast authors, please do some research! The West Coast is very spread out.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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