Laura Blackett and Eve Gleichman: On Side Hustles, Neuroses and Writing Their Novel, "The Very Nice Box," Together
Ava Simon designs storage boxes for STÄDA, a slick Brooklyn-based furniture company. She’s hard-working, obsessive, and heartbroken from a tragedy that killed her girlfriend and upended her life. It’s been years since she’s let anyone in. This offbeat, funny novel with a suspenseful twist discusses work culture, male entitlement, grief, and friendship. Written by two authors, Laura Blackett and Eve Gleichman, this is a debut unlike any other.
We spoke with both Laura and Eve about being flexible while writing, side hustles, and hustle culture, the main character Ava’s neuroses, and what it was like to write The Very Nice Box as a team.
What initially sparked the idea for The Very Nice Box?:
We started with Ava’s neuroses. She’s a highly regimented person. Her days are divided into 30-minute units; she has practically no friends or social life; to cope, she thinks about a screwdriver fitting perfectly into the head of a screw and turning. Her neuroses, behaviors, and cynicism made us really curious: who is this person? What happened to her that made her this way? And what kind of character would really get under her skin? Those questions led us to Ava’s backstory, to her workplace, and to Mat.
When we first meet Ava, her life is her work. In America, this is often seen as an admirable quality- to live in that hustle and grind culture. To spend your whole day working or to have side hustles to work on when your day job is over. What do you think of hustle culture? Do you feel that you are part of it?
EG: I do, and I think that it’s also part of living in New York. There are so many perks of living in the city, and I can’t picture living anywhere else, but it’s expensive. Writing the novel was itself a hustle--a joyful hustle. Sometimes I would get to my office a couple hours early to write, and then I’d do my job, and then I’d write after everyone else left the office. I wrote on the subway (typing on my phone), in elevators (again on my phone), on Amtrak, on weekends, during lunch breaks, you name it.
LB: Yes, I was thinking the same thing! Writing this book was definitely a side hustle-- one that required lots of hard work at odd hours. I feel proud of the project for many reasons: that I tried something new, finished what I started, and had big ambition. But I don’t really think about my productivity or the fact that it was a second job. You’re right-- Ava’s life is her work, and we wanted to show that kind of singular work focus as an isolating thing, not necessarily an admirable thing.
Do either of you share Ava’s need for order and rules?
EG: I’m ashamed to say that I love and abide by rules and order. It’s part of the reason I simply can’t write from home; I’m bound to find something out of place, and I can’t start working until everything within my control is in its place.
LB: I really do, yes! Order maybe more than rules. I often organize to de-stress, and there’s no better feeling than when things fit perfectly together. I think I also really relate to Ava when it comes to the desire for spatial efficiency.
Male entitlement plays a big role in this novel. Why was that something you both wanted to explore in this fiction space?
EG: It actually wasn’t something we set out to explore in the novel. The male entitlement stuff really blossomed out of Mat’s character. He’s the opposite of Ava in that he moves through life easily and without much regard for anyone else’s comfort besides his own. We thought, if this is true of Mat, what else might be true of him? That’s where Good Guys---a men’s self-improvement support group that counts Mat as a member--came into play.
LB: Right. We had so much fun thinking about Good Guys, and wondering what it would look like for a group of men to use a self-improvement framework to inadvertently make themselves worse people.
How did you know you wanted to tell this story together?
EG: We knew we wanted to tell a story together, but we were never sure what the story would be. In the beginning of our friendship we really connected over dissecting “small crimes,” which are moments when someone is so focused on their own self interest that they cross a lightly-drawn social boundary. For example, someone invites you to a barbeque and then asks you to bring the grill. It wasn’t so much that we were hating on these people, but mostly just really curious about how and why someone could behave in ways that we would never allow ourselves to behave. So once we had Ava in mind as a character, we used this curiosity about small crimes to build the story around her.
LB: We also share a tendency toward close observation and a sense of humor. I think the humor thing was key, and I felt like even if we didn’t succeed in writing the novel we’d at least have some fun together trying.
I’m so curious to know what it’s like working on a novel with another writer. Can you both take me through your writing process? How long did it take you to write this novel?
EG: It took us about 18 months to finish a draft. The experience was exhilarating, and full of surprises. We’d plan ahead a few chapters at a time, and then we’d alternate chapters.
LB: Right. We passed the novel back and forth in Google Docs and took turns writing and revising. Then we did the major revisions together, and at this point the book has undergone so much surgery that the chapter alternation doesn’t hold up anymore. It’s funny-- people will sometimes point out a line they like and want to know who wrote it, and for a lot of them we just can’t remember. One fun fact is that we broke Google Docs. Apparently there’s a comment limit and once you surpass it you get locked out of the document.
Do you have any advice for writers- perhaps something you held on to while writing this novel?
LB: My advice centers on collaboration, but might apply to writing solo. I think it’s important to be flexible-- both with yourself and your outline. Don’t be afraid to end up somewhere totally unexpected.
EG: I really agree with that advice. It’s important to relax your grip on your characters and what they get up to. If you let your ego and original conceits have too much control over the novel, you’ll never be surprised or delighted or even disappointed by your characters. And a novel without surprises has a very fenced-off feeling.
What was the last book you read that you would recommend?
EG: This is such a fun and difficult question. We share a pub-date with a debut novel I was lucky to read as a galley, called Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, about a gay woman struggling with mental ilness who accidentally accepts a job as the receptionist at a Catholic church. So smart and funny. I’d also highly recommend Girlhood by Melissa Febos for anyone able to call out of work the next day to process it.
LB: And Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters! It’s so good. It’s about three women, trans and cis, who come together around an unexpected pregnancy and try to start a family together.
LAURA BLACKETT is a woodworker and writer based in Brooklyn.
EVE GLEICHMAN’s short stories have appeared in the Kenyon Review, the Harvard Review, BOMB Daily, and elsewhere. Eve is a graduate of Brooklyn College’s MFA fiction program and lives in Brooklyn.
