During an interview with Lit Hub‘s So Many Damn Books podcast, Gus Moreno talks about how he faced his fears while writing his recent novel, The Thing Between Us.
“I knew the book was going to be a harrowing read. And for as much as I had invested into it, I knew I also needed to push myself into a place I was going to be uncomfortable in,” Moreno says. “I think because it was also going into places that I did not want to go to. I had just lost someone, and then [protagonist] Tiago loses someone. And I have two dogs, so obviously a dog is going to be in this book. With Brimley, the dog, I knew his story was going to go into places that I did not want to go. But it just felt like that’s that’s what the book was requiring so my fear was like this North Star. It was like, okay, if I can keep scaring myself while I’m in the midst of grief, that lets me know 1) ‘Hey, you’re feeling something’ and 2) ‘You’re on the right track.’ So that was really the guiding principle behind it.”
