This book was the biggest, strangest, most uneasy merging of truth and my subconscious-more so than anything I’ve written. ĭid any real-life events inform the story? This time, it was less about metaphors and meaning and more about adding unease and questions, mostly the biggest question: What happened that night?ĪLSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our starred review of Girl, Unframed. With Girl, Unframed, I was maybe three or so chapters in when I decided to add the evidence. I love the interplay between the “real” world and what’s happening in the book-the way the bits of information add layers of meaning, as well as suspense and humor. I’ve used chapter headings in other books-facts about the heart in A Heart in a Body in the World, quotes from a fictional research book in The Nature of Jade, true stories about seeds in The Last Forever.

Was that element always a part of the book?

I loved the pieces of evidence included at the beginning of each chapter. Keeping each line as conversational as possible meant reading a lot of it aloud as I went along. The first person limits you to what a character has observed or overheard, but that sense of being a witness felt right. I thought her story would be most powerfully told using her own voice, confessional and intimate. The format of the book is, very literally, Sydney speaking to someone else. Each chapter of Girl, Unframed opens with an excerpt from an evidence list, suggesting criminal stakes to the story, but Caletti keeps tensions high and readers guessing as to the crime, the victim and the perpetrator until the very end.Ĭan you talk about the unique structure of Girl, Unframed? Sydney Reilly, nearly 16, is reluctantly spending the summer in a San Francisco beach-side mansion with her mother, Lila, a once famous actress whose star has dimmed, and Lila’s latest boyfriend, Jake, a realtor-turned-art dealer who is both charismatic and controlling.

The Story of Us by Deb Caletti