In Her Last Affair (Custom House, Mar.), former Cosmopolitan books editor Searles explores the desire for connection.
What inspired Her Last Affair?
An arsonist burned down the apartment my husband and I share in New York City. We were bouncing from people’s houses to hotel rooms. Then, after we got our apartment rebuilt, my father died, and the pandemic hit. With so much unrest, many people were feeling nostalgic for the comfort of their past. So, I started writing these three characters, each grappling with some issue around love and their past. I used to drive past this abandoned drive-in movie theater. One day I started thinking, “Who owned that drive-in? What if a couple owned and ran it? What if the husband died in a freak accident, and the widow took in a mysterious tenant?” These what-if questions began expanding in my mind. I had written these character pieces, but I wasn’t sure how they connected. The drive-in was the element that pulled it all together.
Each chapter opens with a movie quote. Why?
I wanted it to feel like a puzzle—three separate story lines that ultimately come together. In the beginning, the reader doesn’t get a sense of how they connect, but I need the reader to trust it’s all part of one thing. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be fun if I did quotes from different movies that played at the theater, and the quotes were clues to the mystery, or to what was going to happen in the chapter ahead?” It creates cohesion, and allows readers to engage with the book.
After getting your creative writing degree, you spent years in the magazine industry. Why the detour?
I was waiting tables when I heard about a job at Redbook reading fiction submissions for 50 cents a story. It was closer to the industry I wanted to be in, so I went and did that for a year. Then I heard about a job upstairs at Cosmopolitan. My first job there was opening packages in the books department, and I learned so much about publishing. Graduate school focused on literary work, whereas every kind of writing came to Cosmo. When I sold my first book, people were like, “Aren’t you going to quit?” But I was having so much fun. So, I kept at it, writing books on the side. Because of my job at Cosmo, I also started doing segments on CBS This Morning and the Today show championing other authors’ books. When I was a kid, I was bullied and would hide in the library after school. That’s how I became a reader. Being able to champion books when I’ve always loved them so much meant a lot.
