Amy Gentry: On Dysfunctional Families, the Price of Success, and the Darker Side of Academia
Bad Habits by Amy Gentry led me down a road that I never expected. The twists and turns and overall evolution of the characters kept me on the edge. When I finished the book my normally collected thoughts were trains running on multiple tracks and I was trying to catch at least one. That’s how a good suspense novel should leave the reader. Mentally breathless with all the questions answered and unanswered at once. Which is why I was thrilled I got the opportunity to interview Amy Gentry.
Below you will find our conversation about dysfunctional families, the price of success, the darker side of academia, and her new novel, Bad Habits.
To say that there is a lot to unpack with Claire/Mac is an understatement. Fatherless, with a dysfunctional mother (that’s putting it nicely) and younger sister with special needs. It seems like her life is about people depending on her. When she meets Gwen by random circumstance for the first in her life she’s given a glimpse of what it is to be carefree if only vicariously through her newfound friend. For Claire/Mac is Gwen that motivation she needed to do something else, to find in herself that she was capable of more and desired more out of life?
I think for Mac, Gwen represents something Mac had already discovered when they met, but hadn't really put a name to: beauty. Mac has her first vision of beauty in high school, while watching a movie stoned out of her mind in the basement of a drug dealer who owns a video store. In a literal sense it's the nadir of Mac's journey--she never gets lower. She's only sixteen and she's already given up on life. And then she watches this movie, and it opens up a door inside her, shows her a beauty unrelated (or so she imagines) to the material needs that rule her own life, and she's just grateful she gets to experience it. Those movies give her a way to cope, and who knows what her path would have looked like if she had just kept watching them by herself, or with Trace or someone else besides Gwen.
But then Gwen moves to town, at just at the right--or wrong--moment, when Mac has fallen in love with that world of art and beauty but doesn't yet know exactly how to relate to it, and Gwen is the walking embodiment of that ideal. So Mac takes this new longing that's awakened within her, and puts it all onto Gwen. She's convinced that Gwen has everything, that Gwen is everything Mac wants out of life. And if she can just follow precisely in Gwen's footsteps, she'll get it all, too. It's instrumentalizing, it's a misrecognition of the other person, and it's a recipe for resentment. But at the same time, you can't help but be happy for Mac in the moment. It motivates her self-transformation, pulls up her grades, and gives her something concrete to strive for--as well as real companionship, which she desperately needs. It's the right thing for the moment, but when it outlives its usefulness, she doesn't know how to let it go and move on to find a more mature way of self-actualizing. That's her tragedy.
Upon entering the elite graduate program, with Gwen’s encouragement, Claire/Mac is thrown into a world she never dreamed she’d be apart of. It becomes increasingly clear to her that this is not so much a place to learn as it is a place to climb the ladder to success. It’s a shark tank and almost everyone is out for blood students and professors alike. She tries her best to navigate this world in a clear and honest way, but one slip and we find Claire/Mac failing. This comes in the form of Bethany a cutthroat renowned professor known for picking the winning Joyner student which is coveted among the entire school. What in its rawest form that attracts Claire/Mac to the likes of Bethany and vice versa?
I think at first Mac just sees Bethany as the next step in her quest to become Gwen. Gwen says Bethany is important; therefore Mac must get Bethany for her advisor. When she can't take Bethany's class because of a conflict, she cuts her losses--but that winds up making her look more attractive to Bethany, who's most intrigued by the students who don't need her. Being pursued by Bethany throws Mac for a loop. But Mac really falls hard for Bethany when Bethany offers to take care of her. That hits directly at the heart of what Mac has never gotten from her mom, and desperately needs. Of course, this quasi-maternal relationship is messed up from the start, because it's transactional and based on exploiting Mac, not protecting her.
The real question is what does Bethany see in Mac. I think she's strongly attracted to students who seem to have something she feels she lacks--self-confidence, beauty, strength--but we also know that she uses them up, gets disappointed by them, and ultimately feels the need to punish them for not being whatever fantasy version of themselves she needs them to be. It's ironic that she calls Mac "Beauty Queen," because Mac herself has an insatiable longing for beauty that can never be filled. I think maybe Mac is the first student she's seen who really, truly reminds her of herself. That's why she bends the rules of her marriage for Mac, why she maybe even falls in love with Mac, a little. But it's also why Mac becomes her nemesis. Gwen's moral rectitude (such as it is) doesn't make a dent on Bethany. But Mac's bottomless pit of need--that's something Bethany thinks she understands in Mac, but in fact she winds up underestimating it.
Gwen comes from everything that Claire/Mac didn’t. She’s never really had any worries or serious life problems to deal with. We see Claire/Mac often comparing herself and trying her best to find a way to match Gwen. Whether in academics or socially. Not so much competitive at first more so because it seems like she wants to be Gwen’s equal. Claire/Mac would you say has an overwhelming need to prove to herself she is worthy of being Gwen’s friend?
I think Mac just wants to be Gwen, and if she can't be Gwen, she wants Gwen's approval. Even as an adult, Mac carries around this insecurity that whatever Gwen is doing, must be the best thing. The fact that Gwen left the Program really eats away at her.
I watched the movie Beaches about a hundred times as a kid, and there's a scene in it I have always loved, which I stole from in writing Mac and Gwen's latter-day friendship. It's the scene in the department store, where Bette Midler's character and Barbara Hershey's character get in a fight. Bette Midler says, "You can't stand that I'm finally happy. I'm famous, I'm rich, I have everything I ever wanted, I'm even married to [the man they both dated]." And Barbara Hershey, who was always the posh one, but who has her own problems, says, "It must drive you crazy that I don't want any of that." When Mac and Gwen finally have it out, that's scene plays out, nearly verbatim. There's something so sad about this exchange to me, because the thing Mac (and Bette Midler's character) will never get about the Gwens of the world is that it's the striving they're jealous of, not the achievements.
I confess that I relate to this aspect of Mac really strongly. I remember once in high school, a close friend of mine (also a writer) said, "I'd never want to be famous." And I said, "Of course you want to be famous, everybody wants to be famous." It had literally never occurred to me that we didn't all want the same things out of life, or that there could be any downside to fame--clearly, I hadn't seen many music documentaries! But what an uncomfortably revealing difference it was. It said so much about our friendship, about who I was and who she was. That's the dynamic I was looking for in Mac and Gwen.
It becomes increasingly obvious that Claire/Mac’s mother uses her sister Lily as bait to keep her from doing anything that might take her away. From ruining the chance to go with Gwen and her parents to Paris to trying desperately to get her to come home from college. There’s no clear reason why her mother does this if it’s jealousy at Claire/Mac getting ahead in life or fear of being left alone by the only other person who may understand how hard life can be. What do you feel drives her mother to be so malicious and manipulative?
I think Mac's mother is one of the most interesting peripheral characters in the novel, because I think she's actually quite sympathetic. Since we only get the story filtered through Mac's point of view, we always think the worst of Kathleen. She does manipulate Mac, though probably unconsciously. But think about it. She was left to care for two young children, one with special needs, with no income. She got a job and went to night school for her nursing degree so she could get an even better one. That is no easy feat--in fact, Mac probably inherited a lot of her drive, her will to survive, from her mom. But all the stress and hard work caught up to Kathleen, and she developed an addiction due to chronic pain. And now she's fighting that, too, and most days she wins. But the grind never stops, and of course she never gets credit for winning, only for her failures and slips. Her life's a lot harder than Mac's, and she has no hope of being whisked off to a life of privilege or self-actualization. So, of course the fact that Mac can't wait to get away from the house rankles. When Mac's around, Kathleen can take a breath and rest. She may not like Mac much, but she trusts Mac with Lily, which is saying a lot. (And Mac trusts her mom to take care of Lily, too--most of the time.) It's not fair or just that she forces Mac into the role of caregiver; but it's also not fair or just that Mac's dad picks up and leaves, or that we handle addiction treatment and health care so badly in America.
This is not to say that Kathleen isn't absolutely the worst--she is! Especially if you're Mac, and all you really want is to go to a fancy school and talk about ideas with your fancy friends over cocktails and not feel guilty about leaving home. But it's a prime example of how a story's perspective shapes the reader's experience of every detail. Everyone is the hero of their own story, including Kathleen. And the story would look very different from her point of view.
As the story progresses we see Claire/Mac and Gwen entwined in a power struggle between a much older Bethany and Rocky. Bethany wants to continue her winning streak and Rocky wants to prove himself. It seems though that Bethany has the most to lose, a reputation and respect. Would you say Bethany’s entire person is built around being on top, on being loved and hated by students and professors alike?
I think Bethany needs other people's belief in her, because at her core, even more than Mac, she believes she is worthless. Like a lot of narcissists, she has built a nearly impregnable defense around her vulnerabilities. She has some terrible things in her background, as we find out eventually, and has come to this place and reinvented herself partly to hide from her own past. Also, she is extremely smart. Unlike Mac, she does really know that about herself; it's the one thing she really believes, and maybe her superpower. But there are other holes she's never going to fill, and she's developed the habit, over the years, of letting other people's awe of her make her into a monster. Interestingly (and I don't think this is a spoiler, exactly), she's one of the few characters at the end of the book who hasn't really broken any laws. She's bent every rule and been wildly inappropriate and unethical, threatened and exploited people and arguably destroyed some lives. But her brilliance is that she knows just how far she can push it. That's part of why she's able to stay on top for so long, as you say, despite being "loved and hated by students and professors alike." She's a survivor too, like Mac.
The events that transpired that drove Claire/Mac and Gwen apart are brought out years later in a hotel before big moments in both of their lives. It seems Claire/Mac is polished on the surface but a mess underneath. Gwen is wanting to leave any remnants of the world they both knew behind. Claire/Mac wants to drag Gwen back into everything that happened, why do you think she feels the need to do all of this when it’s clear both have their own lives and have moved on?
I'm not sure it's as one-sided as all that. Gwen, after all, is the one who coaxes Mac into having a drink with her, when Mac knows (and says) she should really go straight up to her room. I think they both know there's not really anything to say; their friendship is in the past. But they both still feel that pull toward each other. One thing that's not fully explored in the book, because again, this is all from Mac's point of view and she doesn't think much about it--what does Gwen see in Mac? Why does she choose Mac in the first place? Once, for fun, I wrote a passage from Gwen's point of view, just to understand better for myself why Gwen needs Mac so much. And I found that Gwen, though well-adjusted, is lonely and uncertain--in some ways, far more so than Mac, even if she doesn't have the external pressures that Mac does. She's an only child, and the focus of all her parents' attentions and ambitions, and she has a hard time sorting out what she wants from what other people want of her. At least Mac always knows exactly what she wants; all Gwen wants for herself is to be a good person, and she's aware that her wealth makes that sort of too easy to be meaningful. I think Gwen really loves and admires Mac, and in a way, sees her much more clearly than Mac sees Gwen.
After their initial drink in the bar, Mac just wants to find out if Gwen has anything on her--or at least that's what she tells herself. I think, in some way, Mac is pursuing knowledge of herself through Gwen. Gwen has always shown her the best version of herself, and Mac misses that and wants it back in her life. She wants Gwen to play that role for her again that she once played in high school, but of course that's not an option for either of them now.
Tragedy strikes during Claire/Mac’s time in the Program, students drop out some forced or broken down. It becomes clear that only the strong and ruthless survive. What do you feel was her pivotal moment the one that decided if Claire/Mac was going to stick it out or crumble?
That's hard to say without spoilers. But I think the death that occurs in the second half of the book changes Mac profoundly. It's what makes her see for the first time what the Program really is, what it does to people, and what she'll have to do to avoid a similar fate. At first she thinks, this is it, I can't do this anymore, and she heads home. But a part of her must know she's not going to stay there--certainly the reader knows it. She just needs a moment to rest, think, and gather her resources for the final battle.
Everything explodes quickly and when it does a lot of people are taken down. The Program is shattered and their reputation all but ruined. Gwen disappears, Connor leaves and mostly everyone scatters to the wind. Yet there is Claire/Mac, in the end, living up to what Connor called her “ruthless”. She has blood on her hands figuratively and literally, I guess in a way you do have to admire her survival skills. As cutthroat as she is, would you say she is also relatable?
I certainly relate to Mac, but then I relate to almost everyone in my books. I think if you can't imagine wanting something enough to get into murky moral territory, you've led a sheltered life. Mac makes terrible choices, but one of the aims of the book is to show what made her vulnerable to those choices, and why they felt like the only ones at the time. Crime is always contextual; even murder is legal, if it's done in self-defense, or on behalf of one's country. We are fools if we think we'd never cross a line, steal or lie or even hurt someone, under the right circumstances, if our survival, or what we perceive as our survival, were at stake. So to me, it's as easy to relate to criminals as it is to victims. That doesn't mean I admire or approve of their choices. But, after all, victims and criminals are often the same people, just in different contexts.
More specifically, though, I can relate to Mac because I was in a very similar program, without the murder, of course. I got my PhD, while a lot of my friends--many of whom were much smarter than me and deserved it more--didn't. I didn't murder anybody, but there's definitely some survivor's guilt there.
I could easily go on for pages asking questions I have so many but can’t give too much away about the story. So can I say...Oh my God, this book was enthralling it had me several times staring mouth agape. I was on the edge of my seat. When writing a suspense novel as complex as this what is your advice to keep it all straight?
I am so delighted that you liked it! Thank you for these wonderful questions. I have no advice for writing a complicated suspense plot because I don't usually start with one. I start with a few characters in a situation and a few striking images in my head, and I build the story around them, to drive the characters where they need to go to create those scenes in my head. This one took a long time, and the story developed several layers, as I got more and more interested in my character's life. I'd like to write about Mac again, and with that in mind, I actually laid the groundwork in BAD HABITS for several more Mac stories. So it did get complicated.
I find plot-oriented craft books like Save the Cat!, The Nutshell Technique, and Story Genius very helpful for mapping out the major beats, and I do make lots of diagrams in my notebook (though they usually wind up confusing me even more). But at the end of the day, I rely on detail-oriented copy editors to help me sort out lingering timeline issues. That's a wonderful part of the publishing process that writers should talk more about. Copy editors are the unsung heroes of fiction! People only notice them when a typo gets through, but they don't see the zillion tiny mistakes a copy editor saves you from. As an author, you can make the sunset during the climactic scene, but the copy editor is the one who goes back and makes sure the sun would actually be setting at the right time, in that city, during that season, for the scene to make sense. Invaluable.
Amy Gentry is the author of Good as Gone, a New York Times Notable Book, and Last Woman Standing. She is also a book reviewer and essayist whose work has appeared in numerous outlets, including the Chicago Tribune, Salon, the Paris Review, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the Austin Chronicle. She holds a PhD in English from the University of Chicago and lives in Austin, Texas.
About the Interviewer
Nena Orcutt is an aspiring author, who thinks too much, Listens to a lot of music. Needs coffee to function. Who thinks Bukowski was a wise man and Hemingway was a genius. And feels romance isn’t dead. She is working on her debut novel “The Crow and The Butterfly” Making her home in Music City she’s ready to conquer the writing world and leave her mark.
