Bad Americans: Part II continues the saga of twelve strangers staying in a Hampton mansion who, during the day, meet, compete, date, dine, flirt, and fight, while each night, one must tell the group a story. What does storytelling allow your characters to say that direct conversation cannot?

Storytelling allows the characters to bring in context for one thing, and to cloak their true message in a larger form. Because conversation can only communicate so much, and maybe doesn’t reveal enough–most of the characters in the frame narrative speak mainy to respond to other characters. And while the stories are often responses too, they can give you a whole world, whereas even a long monologue usually cannot.

How does confinement shape the way characters reveal themselves?

Strangely enough, I think that in Bad Americans: Part I, since they don’t know each other as well and are kind of seeing each other in stereotypical ways, the characters might be more likely to be more open. But in Bad Americans: Part II, once they do know each other better, especially in this confined environment, they might be more careful to reveal themselves more cryptically through the stories versus in person. Like see how Cathy and Taylor’s stories are more direct responses to each other than Hayley and Pritesh’s stories. Or at least that’s how I kind of look at it, certainly another reader might see it differently.

The novel thrives on disagreement. Why was it important to let characters clash rather than resolve tensions neatly?

I think that’s just where we are as a country now, even outside of social media. I didn’t do that on purpose per se, I mean I didn’t make them fight just because I wanted more drama, like on some typical Reality TV show, where the staff is constantly trying to create crises for ratings. I just wrote the characters how I thought they would genuinely act. In this case, because of the pandemic and where we are as a society, those were the natural interactions.

This was a uniquely charged moment culturally and politically. What challenges came with writing in that space?

It provided immediate and inherent conflict, that’s for sure. What was challenging was getting all the details right–even though it’s fiction I wanted it to feel real, like even if you were reading it 30-40 years from now, you would still feel like you were in that time. So even though I created the characters innately, a lot of the details came through from the research and the beta readers who commented on the drafts.

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