Photo by Zyaire Porter
Kristen L. Berry is the author of the new novel We Don't Talk About Carol. Also a communications executive, she is based in Los Angeles.
Q: What inspired you to write We Don’t Talk About Carol, and how did you create your character Sydney?
A: It was on a socially-distanced pandemic walk while listening to true crime podcasts that I learned of the troubling disparities in the treatment of missing people of color.
For example, Black Americans are going missing at a disproportionately high rate, yet our cases are less likely to be covered in the media, and are also less likely to be solved.
By humanizing this very real problem through an emotionally charged and suspenseful story, I hoped to shed more light on this issue, and maybe open a few hearts along the way.
Early on, I imagined a character who discovers that her aunt was one of six Black girls who vanished from the same Raleigh neighborhood in the 1960s. That’s how Sydney was born.
While she’s 100 percent fictional, I wanted her to have several grounding details that would make her feel as true-to-life as possible. I didn’t want her to be the sort of character who could suddenly drop everything in order to play detective; I wanted the tension of whether she would be able to hold everything together to contribute to the suspense of the story.
So I found myself reaching for a few details from my own life—we were both in our late 30s when I started writing this novel, we both live in L.A. with our husbands, we both have demanding PR jobs and backgrounds in journalism, we both have extended family living in North Carolina.
And we both grew up with the family motto, “What happens in this house stays in this house.”
Q: How did you research the novel, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: My research process closely mirrored Sydney’s search for her aunt and the missing girls. Since much of the mystery takes place in Raleigh, and Sydney and I are based in L.A., we both spent countless hours at our computers digging through digitized newspaper archives, 1960s yearbooks, and zooming in on key locations with Google Street View.
I also watched several documentaries, including the excellent HBO docuseries Black and Missing, about the foundation of the same name that’s dedicated to raising awareness and providing support to the families of missing people of color.
Additionally, I was fortunate to be able to interview my mother about growing up in Raleigh around the time the fictional girls went missing. And my uncle and late aunt even took me on a driving tour of Raleigh when I visited for a research trip while revising my manuscript.
As someone born in the 1980s, I was surprised to learn how recently the concept of “stranger danger” entered mainstream American consciousness.
In the 1960s, when the fictional girls in my story vanished, missing teenagers were often dismissed as runaways—especially those from marginalized backgrounds. And unfortunately, teens of color are still disproportionately dismissed this way today.
Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: We Don’t Talk About Carol was the working title from day one! In fact, it comes directly from dialogue from Sydney’s grandmother in the prologue. When my editor at Bantam/Penguin Random House agreed to keep it, I was thrilled.
I love that it’s both intriguing—readers instantly wonder, who is Carol, and why don’t we talk about her? — and revealing. It signals the secrecy in Sydney’s family and their instinct to bury painful topics.
Q: The writer Stacy Willingham said of the book, “So much more than your typical missing person story, We Don’t Talk About Carol is a twisting mystery spanning six decades, as well as a stark reminder of the disproportionate treatment given to missing Black girls by the media.” What do you think of that description?
A: I was so honored by Stacy’s description because she captured exactly what I hoped readers would take away from the book.
On one level, We Don’t Talk About Carol is a page-turning mystery that spans generations of one family. But at its core, it’s also about the disparities in how missing people of color are treated in America, both by the media and the justice system.
My hope was to tell a story that delivers suspense and emotional depth while also sparking empathy for an issue that’s all too real.
Additionally, We Don’t Talk About Carol is a novel about what families keep hidden, and how those secrets reverberate across generations. In Sydney’s case, that silence shapes her marriage, her relationships with her sister and mother, and her uncertainty about motherhood.
So yes, it’s a twisting mystery, but it’s equally about cycles of silence and the courage it takes to break them.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I was fortunate to sign a two-book deal with Bantam/Penguin Random House, and I’m currently awaiting editorial feedback on the first draft of my next novel.
Like We Don’t Talk About Carol, it’s a standalone suspense story, but while Carol centered on family, this one explores friendship. I’ve always believed that close adult friendships can be just as deep and life-defining as romantic relationships, yet they rarely receive the same weight or complexity in storytelling and pop culture.
With this book, I want to capture the fear and heartache of standing on the brink of losing someone you thought would always be by your side—and how devastatingly destabilizing that can be.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: The best part of publishing a book has been connecting with readers and fellow authors! If you’d like to keep in touch, I’m most active on Instagram, and I also share updates on TikTok. If you’d like a deeper dive into my life as a debut author, my Substack offers a behind-the-scenes look at the ups, downs, and everything in between.
Wherever you like to connect, you can find me under my name, Kristen L. Berry.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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