‘HER LAST AFFAIR’
MONROE’S BESTSELLING AUTHOR JOHN SEARLES CHATS ABOUT HIS NEW THRILLER
New York Times bestselling author John Searles doesn’t think of himself as a thriller writer, although his books often get categorized as such.
“They usually start out very character driven but lead to these plots that just end up where the tension is ratcheting up,” he said of his books, which include “Boy Still Missing,” “Strange but True” (adapted for film in 2019), and “Help for the Haunted.” In the case of his newest book, “Her Last Affair,” which hits bookstores March 22, love can drive one to one to crazy actions.
Growing up in Monroe, Searles always knew he wanted to be a writer. He once took his mother’s book of wallpaper swatches, ripped out fabric, added paper and glued them together as homemade books he wrote in and attempted to sell to his family for a quarter. He’s come a long way since then but is still old school. He writes his books longhand on yellow legal pads he stashes all around his house before transferring his writing to the computer.
Inspiration this time came to Searles, as it often does to writers, with a series of “what if” questions. Riding
out the pandemic at his Sag Harbor summer home, Searles would pass an abandoned drive-in theater en route to the Port Jeff Ferry when coming back to Monroe to visit family.
What if a couple had owned that theater for 50 years and a few nights before their 50th anniversary, the husband died in a freak accident? And what if after he died, his widow reconnected with a person from
his past?
In his newest book, “Her Last Affair,” readers are introduced to Skyla, an elderly widow in New England who takes in a mysterious tenant: Linelle, a middle-aged woman in Florida stuck in a boring marriage, and Jeremy, a failed and bitter writer in New York City.
“’Her Last Affair’ is a genre-bending novel that I wanted to feel like a puzzle the reader is trying to solve.
The book starts out as three seemingly separate storylines, almost like individual character studies. Ultimately the stories collide and the book twists into an intricately plotted thriller,” he said. “It’s very noir-ish, which fits the abandoned drive-in setting. Also, I hope it offers readers a meditation on the power of love to impact us for good and bad ... and makes them think about the notion of inner vs outer beauty and what attracts us to another person.”
The drive-in also adds a cohesive element. Searles began each chapter with a quote from a movie that might have played there. The quotes give hints as to what is to come and create the sense that these characters are connected.
“I have a soft spot for all of them because they are all troubled in their own way,” he said, noting that Skyla was his favorite character. “She is tough as nails and kind of hard to love at first, but I hope by the end when we see what has happened to Skyla, what her history is, that the reader develops a soft spot for her.”
Searles likes to try something new with each book and here, he goes meta by inserting himself into the story subtly. Skyla talks about her nephew, John, and in the end, it’s he who she tells her story to and who writes it for her.
He is already working on his next book while doing publicity for this one, including a livestream event March 22 at Symphony Space in New York City, sitting down for a talk with actress Amy Ryan, who starred in “Strange But True.” Several Connecticut bookstores are participating, including House of Books in Kent, Turning the Page Books in
Monroe, Fairfield University Bookstore and RJ Julia Booksellers in Madison and Middletown. Readers get an entry code to join the event if they pre-order the book from one of these shops.
Waiting tables, working his way through a graduate school writing program and writing for magazines, Searles couldn’t have predicted being a bestselling author or seeing one of his books made into a movie.
“It was such an honor to have a book turned into a film. So many books get published a year … get optioned for film and so few end up actually getting made,” he said. “The cast was phenomenal and it was just incredible to go to the set. I have a cameo in the film so if you blink, you’ll miss me. I play an author being introduced at a library event.”
“All of this is something that when I was growing up and going trucking with my father and just riding my bicycle around the neighborhood, doing my paper route, I would have never dreamed of or I could have only dreamed of.”