Q&A with Revenge of the Radioactive Lady Author Elizabeth Stuckey-French

Stuckey-French's Influences

What writers influence your work? Do you feel a particular affinity with any?

I always loved Flannery O'Conner. I love Alice Munro -- she's a genius -- and Tobias Wolff. I like southern female writers, like Jill McCorkle and Lee Smith. They all write kind of dark comedies, but they're always sympathetic toward their characters. I don't like comedy that just makes fun of everyone. I like having sympathy for my characters even when they're not behaving in the best ways. They still seem human and vulnerable to me.

Can you tell us about the next book you're working on?

Well, I swore I was only going to write from one person's point of view, but it seems I've wound up doing multiple points of view again. I don't know why! It's going to be a novel set in the 1920s and '30s. I'm fascinated with the 1930s, especially. A tornado wipes out a little town in the Midwest and it exposes this predatory, convict-type guy who the townspeople didn't know had been living in their midst. He's really creepy -- I've been trying to make him sympathetic, but it hasn't been easy. I've only done a rough draft, so we'll see!