Using Fiction to Interrogate Celebrity, Politics, and Mental Health – A Talk with Elissa R. Sloan

Elissa R. Sloan and I both grew up as half-Asians in Houston in the 1980s and 90s. We never went to the same school, but we had lots of friends in common, which eventually led to us connecting through social media and bonding over books, music, and other pop culture. Turns out, we had another big thing in common too: the dream of writing and publishing.

Now, Elissa’s third novel Double Exposure is coming out on Sep 10, 2024! I recently had the privilege of reading an early copy, and I’m excited to be in conversation with Elissa about her new book today.

Double Exposure is “a sweeping drama about two A-list stars as they cross each other’s paths over and over again through the years, in a story that examines the work we have to do in order to grow into the people we want to become.”

KH: Wow, I love that pitch. And it does a great job showing that Double Exposure goes deeper than the “gossip and gloss” of celebrity coverage on the internet or in magazines. There is a lot of social and political commentary embedded in the story of Maiko and Adrian’s lives. What compelled you to write about all this?

ERS: I started writing DOUBLE EXPOSURE in June 2022, right after the Dobbs decision. I knew I wanted a character to have an abortion in the first line, because I was angry, and when I’m feeling an intense emotion I tend to write. That first line has remained through all the revisions and rewrites. (For all three of my published novels, this pattern holds: the first line I wrote in the document ends up staying the first line throughout.)

I also knew I wanted an Asian-American lead, because my first two novels were predominantly about white women, and I was tired of that.

As for the story… I love second-chance romances. I had been working on a Persuasion retelling for a couple of years that was going nowhere, so I thought it would be interesting to write a whole new story about two people fated to be together, but the first time around, they couldn’t get over their individual obstacles to make the relationship work. The idea of two people growing, learning, becoming better versions of themselves and finding each other again really appealed to me.

And of course it had to be a Hollywood story, because I find the whole Hollywood culture so absorbing.

KH: Ah yes! Both of your earlier novels, The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes and Hayley Aldridge Is Still Here, also play in this unique realm of “pop culture meets historical-ish fiction.” Cassidy draws on the girl group phenomenon of the 1990s and 2000s, while Hayley speaks to the child star experience. Now with Double Exposure, you’re looking at a super-couple, a la Brangelina, Bennifer, or Tom Brady and Giselle Bündchen. What pulls you to these stories, and how do you find the balance between building your own world and drawing from the real one?

ERS: I love the aughts. It was such a huge, seminal era for me, and I look back on it with a mixture of horror and fascination. Were we really that misogynistic? (Yes.) Were we really that fatphobic? (Yes.) Did that influence the lens through which I (and others) see the world? Unfortunately, yes.

I try to walk a fine line between what has happened in the real world vs. what happens in the world I’m creating. No character is a placeholder for a real person; every character is an amalgamation of many pop culture icons who might have experienced what I write. But every scenario is influenced by something that I’ve observed in my 20+ years of reading celebrity gossip: adults grooming teenagers, stage parents driven by their performing child’s paycheck, rampant eating disorders brushed off as solid nutrition plans… We’re now actually talking about this stuff, and unpacking all of it. With therapy. Lots and lots of therapy.

KH: I started therapy last year, and it’s the best. I feel like Maiko and Adrian could both have benefitted from therapy too. I’m especially thinking of the times when they (separately) struggled through the deaths of loved ones. The way you wrote about loss and its aftermath felt very authentic.

ERS: My friend Alexandra, to whom my second novel HAYLEY ALDRIDGE IS STILL HERE was dedicated, passed from cancer the month after I started writing DOUBLE EXPOSURE. I am still navigating that grief, but working through it via writing might have helped. I don’t know for sure.

KH: Oh, I’m so sorry. But what a beautiful expression of your love, for her to be woven into your work that way.

I wasn’t aware of that particular personal connection when I was reading Double Exposure, but I definitely could see other parts of you in the story. For example, Maiko being half-Japanese. How was it, writing from your own heritage?

Elissa: Fun? In a way. I liked making her mother Japanese and her father Caucasian, like my parents. I had to reassure my folks that these were make-believe people and that their relationships to Maiko were not about our own relationships, ha!

I grew up in Houston, as you know, and that is a very diverse city, so I didn’t get too much racism thrown at me as a kid, but when I went to Japan to visit relatives, the kids there were ruthless. They called me a foreigner and very much made me feel like an “other.” That is what I drew from when Maiko is told she’s a diversity hire. Even the description of Maiko is a little “other”ing: she’s compared to other alien-looking models and has “cattish” shaped eyes. She’s also tall for an Asian woman, and that serves to make her otherworldly as well.

KH: Mmm, I can definitely relate to being exoticized. Even when there are no ill intentions, it can take a toll over time. Speaking of which… It’s clear from your body of work that mental health is an important issue for you.

ERS: As explored in THE UNRAVELING OF CASSIDY HOLMES, I have clinical depression. And even after publishing that book with all of its feelings that haunt me, and getting a therapist, and going on medication, I am still very much depressed, so much so that the future is still very murky. I feel like a nesting doll, with all of my passions (photography, writing, now sewing) layered inside of my core. I am constantly trying to find something new that will quiet the loud voices inside of me that tell me that I’m not worth anything. It’s hard.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you into my therapist, but this is the most honest answer I can give.

KH: No worries! I appreciate your vulnerability, and the thoughtful but straightforward way with which you address all these issues. That sensitivity comes through in your novels as well.

So, okay, getting published doesn’t cure depression, unfortunately. But being several years into your writing career at this point, I imagine that some other things have changed?

ERS: When I started writing CASSIDY, I was a photographer and I had no agent, book deal, or anything that looked like either of those things on the horizon. I wrote in drabs and dribbles, mostly at night after my partner went to bed, taking five years to write.

That all changed when I got my agent and my book deal. My next two books were bought on proposal, which is a very different way to work. You have a contract; you have a deadline. What was once a hobby is now an actual job. And that brings on pressure.

My next book is going very slowly, almost glacially, because I don’t want to be tied down with a contract just yet. I need to breathe. I need to think. I need to live new experiences. I’ve written three books in five years. That’s small pennies next to some of the more prolific writers I know, but it’s a lot for me.

KH: Sounds like a lot to me too! Haha. What are you working on now?

ERS: I have two pieces I’m pausing on right now. One is a YA that I’ve been working on that will never be perfect and thus, will be a miracle if it ever sees the light of a pub day. The other is an adult book, book number four, which has promise but is still in the very early drafting stage. I wonder if it has teeth or if it will be a washed-up topic by the time I have it in a state where someone in publishing might want to read it. I guess that’s the risk you take with publishing. You never know…

KH: Indeed. What is your writing process like?

ERS: I mean, it’s chaos. Haha. I read once that John Irving writes backwards, which is amazing. I’m not that cool. I think my process differs from book to book as well. I don’t have a solid “process” yet.

But so far, this is what unites all of my drafting: I think of a concept, then brainstorm where I want the story to start. I need to have a first line to springboard from. It has to be perfect. The rest of the first draft can be trash, but the first line is sacred. (Side note: I know that one day I will revise a first line and that will be the end of that streak, but I still want to start off on the right foot.) I outline meticulously, then promptly zigzag all over the place while I ignore it as I draft. I use the outline as a touchstone, but it’s editable. And then I rewrite like a mad woman. With both CASSIDY and DOUBLE EXPOSURE I deleted about half the novel and did a rewrite.

KH: As my 7-year-old daughter would say: “Oh dang.” Well, knowing that a lot of footage didn’t make it past the cutting room floor, I’m curious, what is your favorite scene in Double Exposure and why?

ERS: I loved writing the Valentina Posh runway show and Madrian’s [that’s Maiko and Adrian, haha] first night together. It was such a hard scene to write because I didn’t know what angle to go for, and when it finally clicked in a rewrite, I was like, YES!

KH: Who is your favorite character in Double Exposure and why?

ERS: It might come as a surprise, but Jess. I put her through the wringer. The more that life throws at her, the harder she gets. I think Maiko and Adrian are the opposite; they get softer, more malleable. Not to say that they don’t grow their own spines, because they do, but there’s something interesting about a woman who puts up armor when life deals her a bad hand, instead of collapsing.

KH: I love that. Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me, Elissa, and congrats again on the publication of your third book! Readers can find you on Instagram, where you share gorgeous pictures of your home library (complete with rolling ladder!), latest reads, pet cats, sewing projects, photography, and more. They can also order Double Exposure from their favorite retailers, including but not limited to:

• BookPeople
• Barnes & Noble
• Audiobook on Libro.fm
• Amazon