When I started my debut novel Lucky Girl, I named the Microsoft Word document “Fame.” Essentially, all I knew was that I wanted to write a novel inspired by the journey of several tween Dance Moms stars, and I knew I wanted to interrogate fame—namely, childhood fame. I began writing with a loose message that children should not be famous. And yet. I started writing a book against fame, secretly hoping this would be my stellar, famous debut—best-seller, known throughout the seven kingdoms, celebrated, external validation all around. While drafting Lucky Girl, I wrote into that tension: Can a good artist also be ambitious?
By the novel’s end, I had concluded that while art is great and important, the people around you matter more. I spent a good bit of the novel trying to get Lucy home to her family. Serendipitously, the same month Lucky Girl departs into the wider world is the same month I’m due to have my first child. As I approach this debut, I find myself continuing to navigate how to both care and fret about the “success” of my art, while also trying to focus on how I can be a good Mom. Can good Moms also worry about their art?
In that spirit, I offer a list of novels that deepen my exploration. These books interrogate how fame shapes our relationships to other people. And beyond that, how fame corrades how we approach our art. Some novels conjure characters that are burned out from chasing their dreams. Others examine how public expectation reforms identity on a cellular level. All these characters—obsessive, hardworking, vulnerable—helped me render Lucy.
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