Elizabeth Rose Quinn is the author of the new novel Payback. She also has written the novel Follow Me. She is also a screenwriter, and she lives in New Mexico.
Q: In Payback’s Author’s Note, you write, “This book exists at a knotty intersection of truth and fiction.” Can you say more about that, and about how you balanced the two?
A: That was one of the hardest parts of this book. The setting of Pay to Stay is 100 percent real. The special privileges afforded to those inmates are real. And the overarching observations about the carceral system are all real.
However, after that I took creative license in terms of the characters and the story itself. While I really wanted to bring aspects of the carceral system to the center of the conversation, I also wanted the book to be fun to read!
Q: The writer Kirsten King said of the book, “Quinn deftly explores power dynamics, class, and her characters' darkest impulses with unflinching honesty.” What do you think of that description?
A: Firstly, King is a gem and you all need to put her new book on your TBR immediately!
Secondly, she nailed exactly what I was trying to explore in this story. (Part of why I was so thrilled she blurbed my book!)
In many ways, how we deal with incarcerated people is a microcosm of our culture at large. We want to believe that the law is blind; Lady Justice wears a blindfold while holding the scales after all, but the law is not a neutral thing. It is a set of rules created by people, enforced by people, and enacted upon people. It has all the flaws, biases, strengths, and shortcomings of the people who are deciding each individual case.
Also I didn’t want this to be a book where we had one perfect person to root for - a Shawshank Andy Dufresne, so to speak. Everyone here is guilty, but we root for some of them anyway.
My hope is if readers find themselves siding with morally grey characters in this book, perhaps they could extend that to real people being impacted by the systems as they are.
Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: Nothing will compare to the initial shock of finding out about Pay-to-Stay prisons. What was compelling to me was that NO ONE else knew either. Every single person who has read this book has been astounded that these are not a work of fiction.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: Due to my many years working in TV sitcoms, I am a devoted outliner. So while I had some possible suspects when I began the outline, I definitely knew where I was going before the outline was finished, and definitely before I started writing. I need to know where I am going!
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am currently working on a short story for a TV pilot pitch, and I am also expanding a different short story for a novel that is more in the tradition of Never Let Me Go, or Children of Men.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I always want to say I am so grateful to everyone who takes the time to read my books. Payback is definitely a departure from my first book, Follow Me, and I am thrilled that so many readers are willing to come along for this new story.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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