You First: A Guest Post by Caroline Kepnes

Before he became the deeply flawed, charismatic villain of You, Joe Goldberg was just a teenager searching for his one and only. Chilling and darkly funny, this story of his early days traces his love’s evolution into obsession and violence. Read on for an exclusive essay from author Caroline Kepnes on writing You First. 

Back in high school I got a scholarship for a summer psychology course at Yale University. I devoured case studies about psychopaths and sociopaths. And then I got my report card:

“Caroline’s greatest strength in her written work was her ability to dissect an argument and clearly and convincingly present both sides of it.”

That was a license for this impressionable teenager to write from the POV of creeps. When you’re a kid from a small town and someone in authority tells you who you are, it hits. Especially when they put it in writing. I thought about that report card when I started You First. Who got in young Joe Goldberg’s head? And because my fourth You novel was the first one that doesn’t end with Joe alone, it felt like time to hit pause on the vivisection of his mind and go back to the edge of seventeen. It’s the title of Joyce Carol Oate’s story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” For You and Only You ends in a whiteout blizzard, and Joe’s coming of rage story emerged from that storm.

Even in the first draft, I was astounded that he is so naïve, so desperate, and profoundly insecure. I write because I am interested in how we talk to ourselves. Internal dialogue is ground zero where desire and (to quote The Big Chill) “juicy rationalizations” collide and lead to action with real world consequences. The first time that you put yourself out there and learn that the world can still say no is a doozy. What you do next matters. I wanted to capture the laugh-out-loud-in-retrospect horror of young, naive love. This process required me to go back to own journals and oh boy, some of that made it in here. Gulp.

Also, who doesn’t want a time machine to play with dumb phones, AOL IM and disposable cameras? The symbolism there is so good to me when photographs are now more akin to tattoos. We live in a time machine, in some ways. People still inhale top tier rom coms like Serendipity and obsess over Sex & The City. If you’ve never seen Magnolia…do it. When Joe notes that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan never have sex in You’ve Got Mail…Yes, this book was a fun one. Writing You First was nostalgic pop culture bliss.

And I needed some bliss. I dreamt up Joe Goldberg a few months after my father passed away. When my mom started to fade, I felt the impulse to create a new version of him. Books cannot keep the people we love on the planet, but they do help us hold onto hope. I

hope this young man’s diary inspires you to reflect on your first times. You (probably) didn’t do Joe Goldberg level things that led to your being profiled in a Mindhunter style textbook, but maybe your friends will surprise you at your next book club.