Susan Walter is the author of the new novel Letters from Strangers. Her other novels include Lie by the Pool. She is also a screenwriter and director.
Q: What inspired you to write Letters from Strangers, and how did you create your characters Jane and Adam?
A: I did not plan to write this book! I usually spend my days dreaming up new and exciting ways to kill people as a mystery-thriller writer.
But when I found letters in my father’s desk in the weeks following his death, a real life mystery presented itself. It was shocking to find out my father had been receiving secret communications from a woman who wasn’t my mother, and the only way I knew how to process this discovery was to write about it.
The book is fiction, but the imagined situations and conversations are derived from the questions and feelings I was having as I came to see my own childhood in a new light.
The character of Jane embodies my emotional reality in many ways, but her life circumstances are largely imagined. As she searched for answers about who her father really was, I let her take me on a journey of self- discovery and forgiveness, and in doing so, experienced a healing journey of my own!
While the relationships in her life are drawn from mine, hers are engineered for maximum drama. Because isn’t that what we want when we read a book?
As for Adam, the child born in secret, I have no idea where he came from. Sometimes a character comes through fully formed, with a non-negotiable set of circumstances and point of view.
Writing a gay, adopted, teen boy was deeply rewarding, because it allowed me to step outside my own experience in a way I never have before.
Q: In the book’s Author’s Note, you describe your own experiences with an eating disorder. Why did you decide to include that as a theme in the novel?
A: I love this question, because I don’t think we talk enough about how deeply food is connected to our emotional lives. Growing up in the ‘80s, four out of five of my friends had some form of disordered eating.
In fact, I’m finding it’s rare to meet someone who has never had complicated feelings about food at some point in their life. So it felt incomplete to explore these characters’ struggles without including how food fit in.
Both Adam and Jane grapple with disordered eating. For Adam, it’s front and center, sabotaging his progress toward his goals of playing sports.
For Jane, issues with food are baked into her personal history, but do not drive her storyline. While this character trait is not as benign as curly hair or a nasty nail-biting habit, I wanted to lay in disordered eating as one of many layers of her complicated personality, as it is for so many.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: I never know how they’re going to end! My goal when I write a book is to create characters with deep emotional lives, put them in complicated situations, then rely on the character work I did in creating them to show me the way through.
I don’t try to push a character toward a specific end; rather, I ask “what would she do here? And how can that choice get her into even more trouble?”
I never outline, because I can’t make decisions about where the plot will go until those characters are talking to me. It can be scary to be 50,000 words into a book and not know how it’s going to end! But I guess I like being a little scared. I do write thrillers after all!
Q: The writer Paulette Kennedy called the book a “propulsive and poignant story about family, secret lives, and sacrifice...” What do you think of that description?
A: Paulette Kennedy is a brilliant writer, so if she said it, it must be true! There certainly are all those elements. The theme of sacrifice does not emerge until late in the book, but when you get there, you will know it. And you will get to decide for yourself if that character made the right choice. Not everyone will agree.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: My next book is coming out in February 2026. It’s a locked room action-thriller called Murder at 30,000 Feet. Can you guess what that locked room is?
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: My favorite part of being an author is connecting with readers. If something moves you, confounds you, or mirrors your experience in some way, will you please let me know? My Instagram DMs are always open (@susanwalterauthor), or send me a message on my contact page at www.susanwalterwriter.com. I always answer my mail!
It’s been a pleasure doing this interview. Thank you for inviting me to talk today!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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