When Ariel Courage was my writing student, I felt like she should be teaching me. Her writing was so self-assured, so darkly funny and piercing. I wasn’t surprised when she got an agent and a book deal not long after the class ended. The book I’d read portions of in 2022 went on to become Bad Nature—Ariel’s stunning debut about a terminally ill New Yorker on a cross-country quest to kill her abusive father.
When Hester is diagnosed with cancer on her 40th birthday, she knows exactly what she needs to do—quit her corporate law job, pack up a rental car, and head west. Along the way, she picks up John, a drifter and environmental activist documenting America’s most toxic Superfund sites. A relentless idealist, John throws Hester’s cynicism into sharp relief. As the odd couple drives through oil spills and ghost towns, Hester’s obsession with killing her father starts to shift. Is she on a revenge mission, or just looking for something to believe in before the end?
Describe your book in three words. Dark, singular, wry.
If Bad Nature were a song, what would it be? This one.
If your book is adapted, who needs to play Hester? I've thought about this and struggled. It needs to be someone who can do Hester's combination of serious malice and inadvertent funniness, while also being deeply ensouled. I often wind up just listing actresses with interesting frowns who happen to be roughly the right age. I'm also reluctant to name names because I'm superstitious and half-believe jinxing is real. All that said, I feel like Kate Mara has the right jaw tension for the role.
Favorite time and place to write? I wish I had a more impressive answer but honestly it's in bed, on my stomach, with my arms stretched forward to my laptop keyboard, at 2 a.m.
What were you watching/reading/listening to when you wrote this book? Watching Adam Curtis, reading Fanny Howe, listening to Andy Shauf.
Did you outline or wing it or somewhere in between? I hope no one can tell I winged it...!
Are there any books you feel Bad Nature is “in conversation with” as they say? I read Animal while I was revising Bad Nature and felt like my book was that book's weirdo little sister.
Best writing advice you’ve received? This wasn't given to me personally, but I think a lot about Annie Ernaux saying that she writes like she's going to die afterward. The principle works for all kinds of writing, not just autofiction—it's an urgency that makes the voice more electric, that drives you to completion, that's more honest because it has no concern for consequences.
I don't mean that you need to be inelegant like me and literally sentence your characters to death, but I do think it's wise to write with mortality in mind.
If you were a literary critic, what would you say about your own writing? It's illegal to tear apart your own work when you're also promoting it, but I'd probably tear it apart. "Uneven but interesting," if I was feeling generous.
Where’s your dream writing retreat? With friends in a big old house by some moody, hostile scenery, like a scorching desert or cold rocky beach—I can't be too tempted to spend hours wandering around instead of writing. Work all day alone, then come together in the evening.
What are your most overused words or phrases? I have more than I thought I did. Even during my final pass on Bad Nature I was control F'ing and catching sneaky repetition. For some reason I like describing objects, sensations—anything non-human—as "evil"? I've caught that in multiple stories of mine. I leave it in sometimes anyway, despite recognizing the overuse. I guess that's called style.
What part of Bad Nature was most fun to write? When Hester tries to kill her dad for the first time and gets lost in his suburban subdivision. I'm always imagining what I'm writing as little movie-scenes and that scene I could visualize best and enjoyed executing the most.
If you could get a drink with any fictional character, who would it be? Charles Marlow—he got around and could tell a mean yarn. Alternatively, Bonbon from The Sellout.
What’s a book that made you want to write? So many. It goes back to childhood. But the first thing I read that excited me that way was The Street of Crocodiles. I was very lucky to find that in my uncle's attic as a teenager.
Also, lots of middling contemporary literature motivates me to write and reminds me that all kinds of people—including me—can publish. So honorable mention to everything I've ever read and hated.
What’s your relationship to self-promotion? Bad.
What author’s (dead or alive) persona is aspirational? Joy Williams and her sunglasses and her spiritualism.
Favorite recent read? I'm finally getting around to Everything Must Go by Dorian Lynskey. It's the kind of book I wish I'd written, or knew how to write, because I'm obsessed with people who are obsessed with the end of the world. Also, I've been saying this to everyone, but I loved Elegy, Southwest by Madeleine Watts. We write about similar issues from different angles—hers from sorrow, mine from rage.
What’s one word to describe what you’re working on now. Fermented.
