Murder Bites, Mimi Montgomery’s debut novel, is a satire of reality TV, millennial dog culture, and 2020s politics, yet what is surprising is its earnestness. Underneath the surface is a novel about people’s capacity to change and a story relatable to anyone who ever felt like they didn’t belong. In this conversation, Mimi and I talked about character arcs, Carl Hiaasen, and, of course, DMX.
Luke Sullivan: I thought maybe a good place to start would be with your background as a writer, because you have worked in different mediums and genres before. How did you end up writing this book?
Mimi Montgomery: Murder Bites was my first time seriously writing fiction. I had done it in high school for the literary mag, and when I went to college at UVA I took like one creative writing class there. I’ve been a journalist for over a decade and I’ve always loved writing and had this dream of eventually writing a novel of my own. I thought that I knew how to write but I very quickly learned that fiction and craft is extremely different from writing journalism. This was a real awakening and crash course, and I had to work really hard at it. It’s such a privilege and a joy to immerse yourself in something that’s deeply hard and new to you, but also very rewarding.
LS: That’s really interesting. What do you think is the biggest difference that you found in writing for journalism vs. writing a piece of fiction?
MM: Well, when you are a journalist, you have facts and a timeline, and you know what you need to report on. Fiction you can literally just do whatever you want, which is both freeing and terrifying. I actually found myself fact-checking like a journalist fictional events that I was writing in this book. I would go down crazy rabbit holes of tangents, but then I realized I could just make stuff up, not everything had to be a deep dive research project. That was freeing but also terrifying. The craft was really important: diving deep into character arc, understanding emotional development, you need backstory all of it. I had to learn, I had seen it before because I’m a big reader, but I had to learn the mechanics of it. Now that I’m aware of it I see it all the time and it has opened up an entire world of noticing things that are happening deep down, duck legs paddling below the surface of a book.
LS: Yes that is a great metaphor. So you knew you wanted to write a novel, how did you end up with the idea for Murder Bites specifically?
MM: I grew up in a smallish town outside of Charlotte called Gastonia, and I knew I wanted to write something that was based in a small town in the South. So that’s what I started with. I was also really interested in this tension of having left a place, having lived in DC for so long, and then coming back and feeling like, “oh, I have this new urban perspective,” and the tension that comes with that. I knew I wanted a typical urbanite character in an environment like that and have her need to reckon with her own stereotypes of what these small-town people might like.
So I had that in one hand. But then on the other hand, the dog of it all came to me. My husband and I were classic dual dinks, and we got this ridiculous, I love him, purebred French bulldog. I really leaned into this persona. We had this bougie dog bar in our neighborhood where you could pay to order a barkuterie board for $25 and the dogs had arts and crafts hour. I realized this was so ripe for satire, how we fetishize having animals these days.
LS: That’s such a good way to think about it because insider/outsider group is so important for Margot’s character. So once you had the idea how long did it take you to draft everything?
MM: It has changed so much since I first started writing it. It was about four years total. I wrote it for one year, got an agent, we worked on it together and then sent it out on submission. I sold it like a year later, worked with my editor for a year, and then spent another year after editing before it came out. When I first started, it was so bad; it was horrible. I look back on it, and I have no idea how I got an agent. It was operating purely on vibes, but my agent really, to her credit, believed in me. She said she believed in the line level writing, but together we could work on the structure.
I really had to work, especially because she is such a prickly character, to make sure the reader can root for Margot, and I didn’t want the book to be too one-dimensional or campy. I really had to go back in and work on these emotional layers of making sure Margot and Sally Claire and Anne were all really multifaceted people who had dimension to them and unexpected layers to keep it from being too flat. I really had to dive into the emotional element beyond just the plot and mystery.
LS: How did you learn how to do that?
MM: I started paying attention way more as I read until I became hyper aware of what other authors are doing, like suddenly realizing that when an author is giving backstory. And realizing that a backstory is the emotional reason for why your character is the way they are and helps the reader have empathy for them.
Also, there were just some fun tricks of the trade. I had one of my author friends read an early draft and she recommended giving Margot a dog so that she can have something to be gentle and tender with to make her more multifaceted, or have her do nice things for her husband to make her seem more human, or on Anne’s side show some of her vulnerabilities when it comes to dating. So I learned these little things really add up to create a round 3d person.
LS: That makes sense because I did find Margot to be a little bit prickly at first, but once you expose the depths of her that complexity really comes through. I wanted to ask you a little bit about books. What are some of your favorites and what are some of those that helped you the most with this book?
MM: I read Carl Hiaasen for the first time like a couple years ago, I read Squeeze Me first. It’s the one where the python is on the loose in Palm Beach and starts eating people, and I thought, wow this is bonkers and wild. I was so tickled by the way he had complete license to wild out but it was also so smart and satirical and clearly informed by a lot of the headlines and things people were thinking about today. I started doing some research on him and realized that he was actually like a journalist who had been at the Miami Herald for years, and he started writing fiction that was inspired by all the kooky stories he was covering in Florida. And I thought this was so interesting and wanted to write something in this same vein so he was a really big inspiration for something a bit kooky and campy but a bit topical as well.
I love upmarket fiction where you have the line level, but then also a great plot. Anything that’s a little weird, I love seeing someone let their freak flag fly and decide to go for it on the page. I love Kevin Wilson.
LS: I love Kevin Wilson too!
MM: Everything he does is fabulous and weird and funny, but also empathetic. I really loved The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett, and she was kind enough to blurb my book. She’s a fabulous writer, really weird, but with so much heart. I keep coming back to that. Kate Myers is like that too. She writes fun, kooky mysteries that are really well-written but with so much heart.
LS: I love that. I can totally see Carl Hiaasen and Kevin Wilson in Murder Bites. I wanted to ask you about humor, there’s so many funny moments in not only the dialogue but also character moments, and humor with the voice. How did you think about it, when did you know when to pump the brakes, when to hit the gas, and how did you think of it as a broader element in the book?
MM: I think that humor is definitely my personality, to the people who know me really well, who’ve read the book, they’re just like, wow I just listened to you. It sounded like listening to you talk for better or worse. Poor them. But yeah I can be kind of loud and a little crass. That’s just who I am, and I have always been a voice writer. In my journalism when I’ve written longer form that’s just how I write. It comes naturally to me, but to a fault. Because one of the issues with the early drafts was that there was too much humor and too biting at points and working with my editor I realized we really need to lean into the emotion so the audience can sympathize with the character. For me that was hard not to feel almost like a hallmark moment when writing it, it would sometimes feel too trite and embarrassing to be writing about this. It comes across differently, I hope to the reader, because I love reading stuff with heart but it can feel kind of cringe and silly when you’re sitting alone in your room writing a tender moment. Without it, the story lacks depth and balance because if it were up to me I would just sit in my room and write my little fart jokes all day, but that’s not what everyone wants to read. Maybe someday.
LS: Do you have a favorite joke in the book?
MM: Oh my gosh, I really had a lot of fun writing everything with the Lord Farquaad wigs and thinking about the women sitting outside of a house launching Lord Farquaad wigs at this horrific person. And the DMX stuff that really tickled me. Actually, this was my hill I was willing to die on, because of copyright issues, we had to take a lot of the DMX lyrics out because otherwise we would have to pay the DMX estate $4,000. At one point, I was like, is it worth it to take $4,000 out of my savings so we could have more lyrics in the book?
LS: That’s really funny, I like the boundary pushing that you do with humor. I think it works really well. How about the “fuck” on the first page, was that ever something you and your editor talked about?
MM: My editor, to her credit, and this is actually a really striking difference between journalism and fiction is she voiced all of her edits to me as suggestions, not mandates, which is wonderful to have that kind of trust from someone. In journalism your editors can change your work and there is no if, ands, or buts. I was really surprised she let me choose. She never actually said anything about the first graph but I did think about it myself. I thought, should I soften this a little bit to ease people in, or trick people so they don’t know this is going to be crass, and someone won’t know until they are 50 pages in? But I thought, this is who I am.I hate using this word because it sounds so pretentious but my art isn’t going to be for everyone and that’s completely fine.
LS: I love that decision and courage to just be who you are on the page. Just backing up for a second, when you were talking about Carl Hiaasen while you were a journalist, were you every earmarking stuff you were reporting on to put in the book?
MM: I didn’t necessarily do research, but anytime I would find something that was funny or strange to me I would write it down. I remember we were at my grandfather’s funeral, he got buried in Arlington Cemetery and we were driving out and there was a man standing in Arlington Cemetery with a Chihuahua on his chest and a pink Baby Björn, and I was like, “pump the brakes on the hearse. I have to look at this.” So I didn’t have to do any crazy research on the dog stuff but just noticing. Also listening to people talk, funny observations or the way they structure their sentences. Journalism was helpful, it’s such a cliché, but the truth is stranger than fiction. People do nuts things and we live in a wild society no matter what your political leanings are, I think we can objectively say things are well. . . We just sent Katy Perry to space. Things are wild. That gave me the freedom to think really zany and big because the baseline is already so fucking nuts, right?
LS: The world is wild, I agree. So we talked a little bit about character arcs and the emotional center of the book. One thing I was really interested in as a writer is the procedural elements of the mystery. How did you put those together?
MM: That’s something I worked really hard on with my editor, she works for Bantam which is a mystery imprint so she’s worked on these before and knows a lot of the mechanics. For better or for worse I don’t read a ton of mysteries, I like them, but they’re not my bread and butter, so I think that was beneficial because I felt like I could do my own thing. I did really need to study the clues and the plot points and that’s something we worked on a lot. By no means was that something that exploded fully formed out of my head, it took a lot of revision, making sure that you are putting in the clues that will lead where you want to go, the things the reader thinks is just 1% but realizes that everything adds up. That’s something I do really like in books and that I tried to do myself. I don’t know if I pulled it off, but when you realize that there are all these little things, that callback to the beginning from the end or reemerge and you want the reader to be like, “oh, of course this is who it was all along.”
LS: I think you were definitely successful in making that happen. And I obviously don’t want to give anything away, but one of the things I loved in the plot were these big set pieces. What was your favorite of the props you used?
MM: I like the Home Depot skeleton, that one is a classic. Drinking the Pumpkin Spice Lattes. I’m trying to find someone corporate at Home Depot and pitch them on having their own book club so that they can read my book, although I think they might not like the vibe that our products can kill someone. I like the fall of it all, that we’ve gone full-bore capitalism on the fall so it was fun to lean into that.
LS: I wanted to ask you about Anne and Sally Claire because they were two of my favorites. As characters they both start out in one direction and change so dramatically. How did you think about that? How did they evolve as the book evolved?
MM: Yes! Admittedly, Anne was my favorite character to write. I think she is so funny and interesting and her voice came very naturally to me. I imagined her as a hybrid of Emily Gilmore, Lucille Bluth, and Deborah Vance from Hacks. I grew up in the south with a lot of darkly funny southern women who just give no shits. I turned up the dial to 11. I feel like I could just write Anne into funny scenarios all day, like Anne in an escape room, she would be appalled, Anne scanning a QR code, she would be appalled.
I feel like the book itself is really about how we make assumptions about people but it turns out they’re more multifaceted than we give them credit for. Sally Claire is a perfect example of that, right? Margot just thinks she this sort of suburban mommy but it turns out she’s actually a real freak who has weird great art ideas. It was important that they all have this evolution, Sally Claire’s is only possible because she became friends with Margot right? Margot has this zero fucks energy she gives to Sally Claire. Together they learn the importance of looking beyond your stereotypes.
LS: Ok, my last question is what has it been like to see the book out in the world?
MM: It has been exciting and surreal. For so long it has just been a Google Doc that I have been working on in my guest bedroom, and now it’s an actual book. It doesn’t exactly feel real honestly. With journalism I’ve been doing it so long that I can remove myself from it, I can put something out without thinking about it, and it’s something that actually happened. It’s not of me. This book feels more personal and vulnerable. That can trip me out if I think too much about it. Like I woke up last night at three in the morning and I was panicked that everyone was going to read this and think I am an absolute freak. It’s much more vulnerable.
LS: Anything else you want to say to your readers?
MM: Just that I really love the cover art. Nada Hayek did a fabulous job. I think it’s really fun and captures the weirdo nature of the book. You can see more of her work here.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mimi Montgomery is a reporter at Axios. She’s written for The Washington Post, Washingtonian, Garden & Gun, and Outside Magazine, and her reporting has been featured on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Inside Edition, and CNN, among others. Mimi attended the University of Virginia and has a master’s from Georgetown University. Originally from North Carolina, she lives in D.C. with her husband, son, and several furry dependents
ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER: Luke Sullivan is a New York City-based writer and teacher. He is an mfa student in creative non-fiction at City College of New York, and a third-grade and creative writing teacher in the city. You can find him on Substack.