What Ifs: A Guest Post by Eliza Kennedy
Two married forty-somethings risk it all on one perfect night together — that comes crashing down around them in a blazing inferno. A story of marriage and midlife malaise, this is a heart-racing read. Author Eliza Kennedy has penned an exclusive essay for us on what sparked the idea for her new novel, Lucky Night, down below.
Hardcover
$25.00
$28.00
Lucky Night: A Novel
Lucky Night: A Novel
In Stock Online
Hardcover
$25.00
$28.00
Two people, one hotel room, and all the choices and complications that make up a life.
Two people, one hotel room, and all the choices and complications that make up a life.
The idea for Lucky Night came to me as I was lying on a bed in a fancy hotel room, next to a toddler who absolutely would not sleep.
We were jet-lagged and off schedule. I did the standard bedtime routine—the books, the songs. I feigned sleep. Bargained with God. Nothing worked.
I sprawled there, exhausted. The child jabbered. The smoke detector blinked down at us. Please don’t go off right now, I thought. Then I thought: what if it did? What if there was a fire? I’d read that you’re supposed to shelter in place in new buildings—you’re safer staying put than bolting out into possible danger. But wouldn’t the urge to flee be overwhelming? And what if the fire was cataclysmic—one that no amount of fireproofing could withstand?
These were fun thoughts to be having as I lay beside my little angel. Fine—if not self and child, who should be trapped in this hotel room?
The answer came instantly: a couple having an affair. Two people who shouldn’t be together, stuck in a place they couldn’t leave.
I loved the idea. It felt like the perfect set-up for a thrilling story about love and deception. A few months later, I had some free time. I turned to it . . .
And proceeded to do everything wrong.
For years.
Specifically, my two characters—Nick and Jenny—weren’t working. In early drafts, Nick was a complete jerk with no redeeming qualities. Jenny was sweet, but kind of dim. As cheaters, they already had a huge strike against them. Why would readers care what happened to these two creeps? Let ’em fry!
I was tempted to abandon the whole thing, but something kept pulling me back. I needed to find the right Nick and Jenny to place in that hotel room, people who were full, realistic, and if not lovable, at least understandable. So I started writing about everything that happened to them before they walked into the room. Who did they care about? How had they been disappointed in life? Why did they cheat? What did they sound like when they talk? How did they see the world?
I wrote and rewrote, revised, wrote more, threw it away, started over. Conversations, arguments, stories they tell each other. Very slowly, two flawed, complicated, whole characters emerged. Nick is still caustic and ironic, but he’s also the world’s most repressed romantic. Jenny is flighty and insecure, but she’s also much smarter and braver than she thinks she is.
Only once I knew who they were could I tell the story of how the fire transforms them, burning away their lies and teaching them how to tell the truth at last.
If I hadn’t found these two characters, then my what-if questions in that hotel room all those years ago would have remained an enticing premise, nothing more. So I’m glad I kept trying, and I’m grateful to Nick and Jenny for showing up at last.
Photo © Beowulf Sheehan