Bad Girls?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  It's one of the buzziest  topics in publishing--do readers need to LIKE a main character? I vote a big no. I think they simply have to be interested in them, and compelled to find out what happens to them. For better or for worse.

There are endless readers who disagree."I just didn't fall in love with her/him," they'll say about someone's book. Or "I had no one to root for." And yes, I so agree, that's fun! And a joy to be on the book-train with a character you adore.

But the brilliantly talented (and dear friend of the Reds) Hilary Davidson has been thinking about "bad" girls. And their allure, and their compelling stories, and the need to write about them. And she's written a very special one in her brand new and "such a satisfying page turner" (says Kirkus!) DON'T LOOK DOWN.

 BAD GIRLS

BY HILARY DAVIDSON

When I sat down to write my latest book, I could tell you an awful lot about Jo Greaver, the suspect at the center of the case. She was being blackmailed by someone she didn’t know. She’d grown up poor, and she’d fled Kentucky after her mother died, arriving in New York at fourteen. She’d been trafficked by someone she trusted, and the photographic and video evidence of that terrible time was bubbling up years later, threatening the good life Jo had managed to build for herself.

What I didn’t realize—until after I’d finished writing the first draft of Don’t Look Down—was that I’d written an unlikeable female character. I didn’t see it for myself, either; someone else pointed it out to me. “She’s pretty bad,” an early reader said of Jo.

            “You think she’s badass?” I asked, mistaking the comment for a compliment.

“More like evil. I can’t believe she shot that guy.”

This isn’t a spoiler: chapter one begins with Jo lugging a bag of money to a face-to-face meeting with her blackmailer. She has a plan, which is to pay off the person once and for all. But she’s also carrying a gun, because she’s afraid for her own safety. The thing is, she’s not wrong to be afraid. The chapter ends with Jo and her blackmailer shooting at each other.

Writing the book, I tended to admire Jo for her toughness and her resilience. I don’t necessarily agree with certain choices she makes (such as lying to the people she’s closest to), but I understand the fear that drives her to make those choices. She’s a survivor who’s never really processed her traumatic adolescence, and that trauma seeps out in different ways—Jo’s headaches, claustrophobia, and tendency to drink too much are all related to it. 

But for all of her suffering, she’s also a person who knows how to take care of herself. She can be violent if her life is threatened. At the same time, she’s a young entrepreneur who’s devoted to doing good in the world; ever since she started her business, it’s been donating to an organization that helps girls who’ve been trafficked.

            At first, I thought of the criticism of Jo in personal terms; she’s my brainchild, after all, so I’m going to view her in a gentler light than anyone who’s meeting her for the first time would.

 But because the book deals with sex trafficking, I started looking at real-life cases.

 What I found disturbed me: girls and women who are trafficked and commit acts of violence to protect themselves are punished with unusual harshness in the criminal justice system. At first, I thought this might be because of a twisted sort of morality (basically, a desire to punish prostitutes), but the more research I did, the more disturbing statistics turned up.

 Overall, girls are punished more harshly than boys for misdemeanors, and they are far more likely to end up in front of a judge for probation violations such as running away or breaking curfew. The expectation for girls’ behavior is much higher than it is for boys, and the consequences for anything perceived as bad behavior is more severe.

The research did have one major effect on my writing: it made me give up on the idea of making Jo likeable. She’s sharp and loyal and occasionally brutal, and I decided that would have to do. When I think of novels I’ve read and loved lately (Jennifer Hillier’s Jar of Hearts, Megan Abbott’s Give Me Your Hand, and Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister the Serial Killer all come to mind) their central characters fascinate me. Whether I like them or not seems beside the point. Quite simply, I don’t want to take my eyes off them. For any character in this day and age, that seems like enough to ask.

           

PS Thanks for having me visit again, Hank and the rest of the Reds. It’s always an honor to stop by!

HANK: And we love having you here, dear Hilary! Congratulations on this wonderful new book--and rejoice, Reds and readers, generous Hilary is giving away a copy to one lucky commenter! (US only, we fear, because the postage is almost more that the price of the book!)

So tell us: what do you think about bad girls? Who's your favorite "bad girl" in books or movies or TV?  

Hilary Davidson has won two Anthony Awards as well as the Derringer, Spinetingler, and Crimespree awards. She is the author of the Lily Moore series—which includes The Damage Done, The Next One to Fall, and Evil in All Its Disguises—the standalone thriller Blood Always Tells, and a short-story collection called The Black Widow Club. Her new series began with 2019’s One Small Sacrifice, and continues with Don’t Look Down, which was just released by Thomas & Mercer. Here’s what Kirkus had to say about it: “A blackmail plot produces complications upon complications in a story of sex trafficking, class wars, and stolen identities... such a satisfying page-turner.” Visit Hilary online at https://www.hilarydavidson.com