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On Grief and Healing: A Q&A with Nikki Erlick

By Isabelle McConville, Nikki Erlick / June 27, 2025 at 12:01 am

For fans of The Midnight Library and The Immortalists, Nikki Erlick’s latest is a sweeping story of grief and life, old wounds and new beginnings. Travel to the Poppy Fields and be forever changed by this smart, empathetic book. Read on for an exclusive Q&A with author Nikki Erlick on writing The Poppy Fields.

Hardcover $29.00 ~~$32.00~~

The Poppy Fields (Deluxe Limited Edition): A Novel (B&N Exclusive Edition)

By Nikki Erlick

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Hardcover $29.00 ~~$32.00~~

From the New York Times bestselling author of the smash-hit The Measure—a runaway bestseller and a Read with Jenna TODAY Show pick—comes a stunning speculative story of healing, self-discovery, forgiveness, and found friendship that will appeal to readers of Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.

IM: Can you please set up the story of your new novel for us?

NE: My new novel is called The Poppy Fields; it’s about an experimental and controversial treatment center in the California desert that claims to cure grief and heartbreak. It centers around the people who work at this facility and those who seek out this cure for grief for all sorts of reasons.

IM: Your debut, The Measure, was a huge success for you, and we’re such big fans of it here at Barnes and Noble. How did you know you were ready to write another book? Did you learn anything from your experience writing The Measure?

“I wanted to wait until I had another idea that felt equally exciting and thought provoking for me”

NE: It took longer than anticipated for me to dive into writing this second book, perhaps longer than my agent and editor would have preferred. The Measure was centered around this big ‘what-if’ question that really excited me and it sparked a lot of potential characters and storylines as I thought about it. I wanted to wait until I had another idea that felt equally exciting and thought provoking for me, and the spark for The Poppy Fields came very randomly. I had this thought, and it was another big ‘what-if’ question. As I was thinking more and more about it, I realized it had some similarities with The Measure; it uses a speculative lens to explore very human experiences and emotions. I realized while writing The Measure that I enjoy writing ensemble stories, writing from multiple perspectives and different characters all approaching the same issue, question or challenge from their own angles. I knew I wanted to do the same thing with The Poppy Fields, so I approached it from the same way with that multi-POV.

IM: Yes, it seems like you do tend to pose big existential questions for your readers. In The Measure, it was whether or not we’d be willing to know the length of our own lives, and in The Poppy Fields, it’s about what we’re willing to risk to cure a broken heart. Are you always hoping to start off with a question and build the story from there?

NE: I didn’t set out to write a story based on a question that readers would ask themselves, but once I had this idea for The Poppy Fields, I realized pretty quickly that it would also be fodder for reflection and discussion among readers. I do like writing about topics that every reader can relate to and can come to in their own way.

IM: Can you remember what the random spark of inspiration was for The Poppy Fields?

“What if there was a place called the poppy fields . . . where people could choose to do what I wanted to do . . . fast forward through the worst of it and wake up on the other side?”

NE: It was born during a time of grief and loss in my own life. At that time, I was very overcome by the desire to sleep. Going to sleep was my main escape from the pain. I wanted to just sleep through the worst of it and wake up on the other side. While I was feeling that I happened to look up on my bedroom wall where I had a poster from the movie The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy is asleep in the field of poppies. In that moment the idea just came to me. What if there was a place called the poppy fields, a mysterious place where people could choose to do what I wanted to do — which was sleep through the pain — fast forward through the worst of it and wake up on the other side? The setting as the idea of the poppy fields is what came first. As I was building out the story, I leaned a bit on that initial The Wizard of Oz inspiration to build out the story as this journey narrative where strangers come together to get to the fields. It was funny that the Wicked movie came out and The Wizard of Oz had this big cultural resurgence at the same time I was writing this book. It’s not an official retelling of The Wizard of Oz, but it has these illusions that you can pick up on if you’re a fan.

IM: I think it adds so much to the world you built, and it’s a fun thing for readers to discover. It’s so interesting to me how it happened just from you looking at that poster. It makes me think about how art inspires art.

NE: Completely. I think you’re the first person to point out that this is a piece of art inspired by another piece of art. It was very serendipitous. That’s why I love art, it’s why I love stories. They’re fruit from our imaginations.

IM: I’d love to dig into the characters at the heart of this book — as much as we can without spoiling anything. We have Ava, Sasha, Ray, Sky, Ellis, and little PJ. How did you approach crafting their characters and figuring out their individual back stories?

“There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to grief.”

NE: I knew early on that I wanted to write an ensemble and I wanted to show, because this is a book about grief, that there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to grief. Each character has had some experience with loss, but they’re all processing it and coping with it differently, and they’re heading to the poppy fields for different reasons. I wanted to use the different characters to show the different shades of the experience of loss and healing. Ellis is our scientist who created this cure, and she is the person they’re all seeking out. She’s a bit like our mysterious wizard. I love stories about strangers coming together and creating found families.

IM: Did you intend to write a road trip novel from the start?

NE: The road trip novel found me. I didn’t set out to write it that way, but because of the initial inspiration from The Wizard of Oz, I knew I wanted it to feel like a journey and the road trip is a staple of American literature — it’s a classic for a reason. The road trip in this book also functions as a metaphor for the journey of loss and healing, and how it’s so unpredictable. There are detours, there are setbacks, everyone drives at their own pace, and everyone heals at their own pace. I felt like it was the right way to tell the story from a symbolic perspective.

IM: We meet Ava first in this book, and we get a glimpse into her daily routines and anxieties. How did you know you wanted to start the book that way?

“Loss will come for all of us and it’s completely out of our control. This treatment . . . is a way of asking, maybe in the future, do we have a way of having some power over this?”

NE: In the first draft of the book, Ava was still the first character we met, but I also initially introduced Ray and Sasha. We met all of them in the moment of waking up from sleep. My editor thought it was too repetitive and we shouldn’t do it three times in a row, so I cut it down to just Ava’s morning. While Ray and Sasha are more immediately in the throes of grief and loss in their lives, Ava is more removed from the losses of her past. I wanted to open with her, perhaps on a gentler note, but she does struggle with anxiety. I’ve struggled with anxiety all my life, so I was able to —for the first time — really write a character who I gave that part of my life experience to. So much of her anxiety is rooted in just wanting to feel control in a world that is ultimately uncontrollable. That is also part of the theme of this book — creating this cure for grief is a way of exerting control over something in the human experience that is uncontrollable. The fact is, loss will come for all of us and it’s completely out of our control. This treatment at the poppy fields is a way of asking, maybe in the future, do we have a way of having some power over this?

IM: There’s also a moment in the book where Ray is thinking back on a conversation he had with his brother, and Ray tells him that sleeping at the fields “isn’t for people like them.” He even says it seems like a weak thing to do. Can you tell me what it was like to write that scene and what you wanted to explore in Ray?

NE: Ray is a classic stoic and masculine character; he’s a firefighter, he’s part of a community that really prioritizes traditional values of strength and stoicism. I think that conversation between Ray and his brother about wanting to sleep is from the perspective of somebody who doesn’t understand the decision to sleep. To me, it was one of the strongest moments in the book where we’re capturing that fight over why this is a controversial treatment. It’s a question that readers could ask themselves: is this something you could do? How would you react if your family members wanted to do it? How are the communities that we’re a part of shaping our perspectives on grief and healing? How does your religion inform the way you view grief and healing? How does your profession inform on those decisions? For Ray, his profession, his family and his upbringing weigh heavily on his perspective of this treatment, so I wanted to use their dynamic to show that there are really a myriad ways of approaching this question of would I sleep or not. Ray and his brother are very close, very loyal brothers up until this moment of deciding to seek treatment at the fields. I’m someone in a very close-knit sibling relationship, so it was it was interesting to get into the way siblings can fight with you in a way that nobody else can. I love sibling stories.

IM: This book made me think a lot about other media that poses similar questions to enduring grief and how we experience it or try to avoid it. I thought about the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the TV show Severance. Why do you think we’re so interested in this idea of how to “do” grief? Why do you think we use these speculative genres to explore it?

“We’re in a cultural moment of confronting grief more head on . . . I think it’s something we want to talk about, but don’t know how to talk about.”

NE: I think we’re in a cultural moment of confronting grief more head on. They’re not in the speculative genre, but shows like Shrinking or The Bear are confronting grief head on and I think it’s something we want to talk about, but don’t know how to talk about. I did an interview with a grief counselor while I was researching the book, and she said that the vast majority of people who are surveyed about this topic feel ill equipped to talk about grief and help someone in their life who is going through the grieving process. I think that using fictional stories is a way to bring up these topics and get people talking about them in a more accessible way than just saying Let’s all talk about the most traumatic moments of our lives! We can talk about it through the lens of the characters instead. Doing that in a speculative way feels even more removed from our current lives, so it can still be entertaining and a safe way to explore those questions. I hope that this book inspires people to talk about things that might otherwise be taboo for them. I thought the science of sleep seemed really ripe for speculation because there’s still so much we don’t know about why we sleep and what happens while we’re asleep. We do know that it’s healing in some way, so my thought was to make it healing in an even more powerful way.

IM: I also noticed in this book and in The Measure that you use the natural world in a really beautiful way. There’s gorgeous descriptions of nature all throughout, like when you write about the red clay of Sedona, and a scene with a vivid sunset that I’ll be thinking about for a very long time. How would you say the natural world inspires you in your creative process?

NE: A lot of the descriptions of nature in this book came from my own road trip that I did as research for the story. I drove the same route that the characters drive and I did that on purpose because I wanted the settings to feel very vivid and very real. Nature plays an important role in the book symbolically as well, because there’s this question of, is this treatment at the poppy fields natural? What is natural or not natural when it comes to healing? Are we trying to manipulate human nature by creating this type of treatment? There’s this interplay of natural and unnatural as part of the story. I think nature is just so inspiring. The number one thing I do when I’m feeling writers block is to go for a walk to feel the sun and feel the breeze. I’m not the most adventurous or outdoorsy person, so going on this road trip, going up in the hot air balloon, doing the hikes in Sedona, was me getting out of my comfort zone. It turned out to be super inspiring. It was particularly inspiring when I then got to visit the same settings through the characters perspectives; I went back up in the hot air balloon as Sky, I went back on the hike in Sedona as Sasha, I got to relive those experiences through the characters. I’d never seen most of those landscapes in the country before, so it was my first time experiencing it all and I tried to take notes. I also tried to take photos but it’s so hard to capture.

IM: When people go on this journey with these characters and come out on the other side of it after experiencing the nuances of grief and hope and heartbreak, what do you hope your readers will really think about and reflect on when they’re done with this book? Is there an answer to the question at the heart of the book that you hope they come to?

“The great power of books is that they open our minds to other people and perspectives, and they teach us to be a little more empathetic and compassionate.”

NE: I think with this book, just like with The Measure, there are no right or wrong answers. I tried to approach this treatment and the people who choose to do this treatment with empathy, open-mindedness and a real lack of judgment, because that’s how I hope readers approach the people in their lives who are grieving. I hope it’s how they approach themselves, too, with empathy, with patience, with compassion and with a lack of judgment because even though this experience is universal, everyone’s going to go through it in their own way. I think the great power of books is that they open our minds to other people and perspectives, and they teach us to be a little more empathetic and compassionate.

IM: Who are you reading now?

NE: I am currently in the middle of My Friends by Fredrik Backman — also a book about grief. I made the mistake of starting it on an airplane and the poor people next to me were probably like “what is this person going through right now?” Anyway, I think it’s incredible so far.

IM: Thank you so much for being here today.

NE: Thank you.