'Three campfire secrets. Two witnesses. One dead in the trees. And the woman, thirty years later, bent on making the guilty finally pay.
'1988. A group of outcasts gather at a small, prestigious arts camp nestled in the Maine woods. They're the painters: bright, hopeful, teeming with potential. But secrets and dark ambitions rise like smoke from a campfire, and the truths they tell will come back to haunt them in ways more deadly than they dreamed.
'2018. Esteemed art professor Max Durant arrives at his protégé's remote home to view her graduate thesis collection. He knows Audra is beautiful and brilliant. He knows being invited into her private world is a rare gift. But he doesn't know that Audra has engineered every aspect of their weekend together. Every detail, every conversation. Audra has woven the perfect web.
'Only Audra knows what happened that summer in 1988. Max's secret, and the dark things that followed. And even though it won't be easy, Audra knows someone must pay.'
Dark Things I Adore is not an easy book to summarise, there are multiple narrators, multiple time frames, and even multiple formats as we get extracts from documents and small, almost disjointed notes thrown into the book. Despite the complexity the book seems to have at first glance it's kind of simple in one regard; it's a story about obsession.
The story is split across two ties. In 1988 we learn about the Lupine Valley Arts Collective, a retreat for artists and creatives nestled deep in the woods of Maine. This part of the story is told from the point of view of Juniper, one the artists attending the retreat as a tutor for the season. Juniper, whose real name isn't revealed through these segments of the book, gets to know several other artists attending the retreat, and forms a small group of close friends; alongside two of the staff, Mantis, the chef, and Coral, the cleaner.
These friends, united by their love of art, brought together by the man who created Lupine Valley, who has given them all nature themed names, begin to form a strong bond over the summer. One of these bonds is between a young artist called Moss, who begins to form a relationship with Coral that could be seen as toxic. Taking the young artist under his wing, he seems to become obsessed with her, uses her depression and mood swings to help inspire his own art. Juniper is worried about what might be happening between the two of them, but this is just the start of the drama at Lupine Valley, a drama that will end in tragedy.
Thirty years later, in the summer of 2018, we follow Audra, a young artist working her way through art college, and her tutor, Max. Max has been a big name in the art world in the past, a respected man, but also one who has a reputation for broken relationships, and affairs with his students. Max has come up to Audra's home in Maine for the weekend to look over her thesis project, and possibly, he hopes, to make their relationship a sexual one.
Audra, on the other hand, has other plans for Max. Having spent years crafting things perfectly for him, having planned out every detail of their weekend, having decorated and filled the house with specific items in order to mess with his head. You see, Audra knows a dark secret from Ma's past; and she's determined to make him pay.
The two stories in Dark Things I Adore weave in and out of each other over the course of the narrative, though the sections pertaining to 1988 do take up more room in the book. The two stories play into each other well, and each slowly helps to add more context to the other. There are times where something happens in one time, and we get hints at an explanation in the other. I think Katie Lattari plays a very careful game across the book, and even though I began to predict where the story was going around half way through this wasn't because she gave too much away, and she was still able to create an engaging narrative despite the motivations of Audra being more apparent.
It became clear in a general sense why Audra was doing what she was doing, I understood that she had a dark design playing out in order to get even with Max, but this didn't make the story feel any less suspenseful or tense. If anything it heightened my desire to read more. I wanted to know the small details. I wanted to see every aspect of what happened in the past to play out, not just for the added context it would bring to things, but because I had come to care for these characters, because I wanted to see what happened to their relationships and how it all ended for them.
Lattari was able to create some wonderfully engaging characters, and the reason for this is because almost everyone in the book was flawed. I'd be hard pressed to say anyone in the story was a good person, everyone does something bad at one point or another, and even the 'good' characters have something that will weigh upon them once all is said and done. The book raises interesting ideas over right and wrong, and if certain actions can be absolved if you try to justify them enough.
But like I said earlier in the review, the one theme that really jumped out at me is obsession. In the 1988 timeline the people who come to Lupine Valley do so to pursue their art, their passion. But even in this environment there are those who's passions go too far ad become an obsession. Moss, who not only finds a woman who inspires him to create beautiful art, but becomes obsessed with her. He begins to whisper in her ear, he starts to influence her actions, shape her as a person, and drives her to incredibly destructive places because she ceases to be a person to him, instead becoming the focus of his obsession to create the perfect art.
Coral, despite being a victim to Moss' obsession is also dealing with it herself. She comes to Lupine Valley not as an artist, but as a member of staff. Yet she was drawn to the job not because of a need for money, but because she wishes to learn how to create art herself. Over the course of the book we see her neglect her duties, to the point where she's basically no longer doing her job, simply so that she can spend time with the artists, learning from them, listening to them, and trying to be one of them. Even her artwork becomes hyper focused in one area, as she draws birds over and over again. It's through her obsession, and Moss' obsession with her, that her undoing ultimately happens.
In the 2018 setting obsession if rife too, with Audra having spent years building herself up to taking down Max. She's gone to some extreme lengths to do it too; she's changed her name, she's applied to certain schools, she's designed the contents of her house, and the woods around her home to elicit certain responses in him. Her goal becomes her obsession, to the point where it's hard to know where she will go and who she will become once the book is over. She's so obsessed with making Max pay that it seems like she's put little thought into who she's going to be once she's achieved her goals.
As the title of the book suggests, Dark Things I Adore deals with some dark themes, and there are times where the story tackles some heavy subjects. But, it always seems to be done with care, and it doesn't condemn or vilify mental health issues, and it doesn't glorify abuse. Katie Lattari manages to take topics that sometimes feels off limits and crafts a layered and engaging story with them, one that is more complex then I was expecting; and one that I'm going to be recommending for a long time.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your book deals with some pretty dark themes, as the title suggests. Did you find it difficult to write the book and balance out the darkness the story has?
There were certainly moments in the book that were difficult to write; troubling, toxic, and violent things happen to people in Dark Things I Adore. But most of those dark moments weren’t pre-planned, they weren’t the goal. As the story developed and the arc of the book started to emerge, the dark elements that seemed to be required revealed themselves. And so the heavy stuff came about sort of organically and holistically. If that happens, then I think it would have to happen this way, etc. My hope is that the darkness feels “earned” – that the factors surrounding the difficult parts feel like they come out of real, human instincts and imperfections, and that this helps to balance out how we get to those moments.
Art is an important part of Dark Things I Adore, was it hard to translate the images you had in your head about what the pieces of art featured in the story into a purely written medium?
It was definitely an interesting challenge! But one I felt from the outset was worthwhile. I knew I couldn’t necessarily articulate the full, true experience of what it’s like to visually take in a painting, but I thought I might be able to approximate visual atmospheres, vibes, this sort of thing. So that’s what I aimed for. I also have a touch of synthesthesia, which is where sometimes one sensory channel gets mixed up with another sensory channel. To me some voices “sound” like lemon, or like smoked salami. The feeling of bitingly cold air conjures images of small, crystalline triangles jostling against my face with their little points. So, in some ways, I think that really helped me.
Are there any artists or work that inspired Audra’s paintings, or was it more dictated by what the story laid out?
Mostly Audra’s paintings were inspired, content-wise, by what the story had to tackle. But in my mind’s eye I sort of imagine Audra’s style as somewhere between Julie Beck and Nael Hanna.
With art featuring so prominently in the story did you have to do research into how the art world works, or do you have a history in art yourself?
I did some research into art MFA programs, contemporary artists, things like that, but honestly did not get too far into the weeds. The most important thing for me was what the paintings evoked and, at times, provoked, which had more to do with the writing of them. I don’t have much background in art – just an ardent admirer of painters and the magic they can create.
The book has multiple narrators, as well as featuring stories unfolding across more than one decade, as well as extracts from Audra’s thesis, and Coral’s disjointed, poetic notes. Was it hard to make these all work together, or did you find being able to switch to these different narratives made it easier to craft the story you wanted?
When I first started writing the book, Audra, Max, and Coral were my three main speaking voices, each, basically, getting full chapters to tell their side of the story. Coral’s notes didn’t exist as such, because she had her own chapters, just like Max and Audra do now. The Juniper character didn’t exist, and we spent all our time in 2018, none in 1988. As I worked with my editor, who is wonderful at spying potential in things that sort of get mentioned in passing within the narrative, we started to sort out things to pull back on, things to emphasize, and things to create from scratch to better serve the story. So, I wrote the entire Lupine Valley/Juniper/1988 thread, and condensed Coral down to snippets of notes and found objects, got rid of some characters, and added some others.
All of this was good and necessary work and made the book so much better, but it also greatly complicated the drafting and structure of the book – especially compared to what it had been in the beginning. To help myself along, I created a spreadsheet “database” of all the scenes, POVs, timelines, etc. in the book so I could keep track of it all. Ultimately, having all those different angles into the story is just what the book needed, even if it was quite the challenge to pull off.
Before even getting into the story the book makes readers aware that it’s going to be dealing with themes like abuse, mental illness, and suicide. Did you have to do a lot of research into these areas in order to present them in as caring a way as you did?
As I got into the story and saw what the mental health challenges would be for one character in particular, I did my best to research and write her in a humane, multidimensional way. Like most people out there, I have loved ones in my life who struggle with depression, or with suicidal ideation. A dear friend of mine died by suicide several years ago, and it impacted me deeply. I think about him a lot. And as I wrote the characters in the book, I kept my friend in mind – his vibrancy, his incredible intellect, his incandescent intensity at times. Treating the topic and the character in DTIA with respect was of the utmost importance to me both because it’s the right thing to do and because it’s personal to me.
I was also fortunate enough to work with a wonderful sensitivity reader named Jon. I think it’s a great thing that the publishing industry is making this more of a standard practice when topics of great nuance and import are handled in fiction.
One of the central characters in the book deals with some mental health issues; in the past a character with bouts of depression and suicidal thoughts would be treated very poorly, but you treated her with a lot of respect and kindness. Have you found that there has been a shift towards attitudes around mental health in publishing in recent years?
Thank you so much for saying so, I appreciate that. And yes, I do think there has been a shift – but not just in publishing. In recent years the stigmas surrounding mental health have been greatly reduced. They are not completely gone, of course, but so many more people feel empowered to take their mental health seriously than they used to, and to not feel like it’s taboo. The fact that we ever treated anxiety, depression, self-harm, eating disorders, etc., as taboo is truly wild. Every single person on this planet deals with mental health “issues.” It’s part of being human.
Therapy has gone mainstream. Talking about mental health medication openly as a key part of a person’s wellness plan is starting to take on the normalcy of blood pressure medication, which is a beautiful thing.
The one-dimensional idea of “crazy” is becoming passe, thank god. It’s so glib. It’s a term of dismissal, betraying laziness on the part of the person who uses it in any remotely serious way. The character who suffers in my book is not crazy. My friend who died by suicide was not crazy. The culture is starting to catch up to this self-evident nuance.
Revenge is a big theme of the book, and the story is a bit different because it doesn’t really show it to be self destructive, and if anything it seems kind of cathartic. Do you think that will hold true for the character after the end of the book, or do you think that revenge and hate is ultimately a destructive force?
Ah gosh, great question. I think I’m going to give a “have my cake and eat it, too” answer. Do I think that, generally speaking, in life, revenge is ultimately a destructive force? Yes, I think so. The Taken movies and the Death Wish movies feel good and cathartic to us to watch as fantasy, but the reality is too dark for it to be emotionally or psychically sustainable for the average person in real life.
But, in the world of DTIA ? I have sealed that world off hermetically in my mind, and yeah – I think that the particular character you’re referencing is going to sleep better for what they did, not worse. It will be cathartic for them, and there won’t be regrets.
The book’s set in the Maine woodland, and you craft some beautiful imagery of the nature there. What drew you to set the book there?
I moved to Maine from Brooklyn, NY when I was eight years old, and I have lived here, more or less, ever since. Maine is just kind of cinematic and majestic. The old girl’s easy to write about with that kind of aesthetic reverence – because she just is that way. And Maine is also mostly very rural. There are unorganized territories of unending timberlands here. And so Maine felt perfect for a story where feeling separated, cloistered, maybe trapped without nearby help was key.
What kind of books do you yourself enjoy reading, and do they influence your work in any ways?
I am a thriller junkie. Like everyone else in the world, I have devoured everything by Gillian Flynn. I’m also a huge Stephen King fan, and I love Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child’s Pendergast series. I’m currently reading Good Neighbors by Sarah Langan and Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby. One sort of off-theme book that floored me in the last few years was The Overstory by Richard Powers. Hoo boy, what a dazzler.
I think all reading influences in one way or another. I think I’m too close to my work to see overt tells there might be, but I think it all gets tossed around in the concrete mixer of the mind and manifests somehow.
What can people look forward to seeing from you in the future, do you have any other projects planned out yet?
I do have a full, completed next manuscript in hand that I’m very excited about. My agent has read it, and vibe-wise, we think there’s some The Paper Palace (Miranda Cowley Heller) and My Absolute Darling (Gabriel Tallent) and Idaho (Emily Ruskovich) in there. I can’t say much more, but I’m hopeful for news about it in the coming months.
Buy Amy A Coffee
Go to Amy's Blog
