Today we’re talking to Kerry Cullen, author of One Teen Story Issue #33, “Flight Feathers,” and the novel House of Beth (Simon & Schuster).

House of Beth, Kerry Cullen’s debut novel, is a love story haunted by a dead woman and the question of agency. Its protagonist, Cassie, leaves her girlfriend and publishing job in New York City to return to her New Jersey hometown and high school best friend, Eli. Early in the novel, they marry, and Cassie becomes a stepmother—a role complicated by her recurrent violent visions, a symptom of her harm OCD, and the lingering presence of Eli’s late wife, Beth. Seductive and surprising, House of Beth interrogates the parameters of self-control, daring to ask what we can truly choose for ourselves if we can’t control our thoughts.

—Theda Berry

Theda Berry: Where were you when you found out House of Beth was going to be published? How did you celebrate?

Kerry Cullen: Since we had an auction set, I kind of knew that the day would end in a book deal—at least, I desperately hoped it would. Though as my fellow anxious writers can probably understand, I still spent the day terrified that something would go horribly wrong. In the moment when my agent, Sarah Bowlin, and I accepted Simon & Schuster’s offer, I was walking in Central Park with my husband and my dog, enjoying some fittingly eerie evening fog. 

I knew I wanted to celebrate with friends that night. Working in publishing has taught me that it’s important for author morale to take time to appreciate the great moments—also, it’s fun—so I had a group text written and ready to send the second it was official. We went to the most haunted bar on the Upper East Side (Auction House on 89th) and a surprising number of people brought flowers—one chair was just heaped with them. It was one of the best nights of my life. 

TB: The cover of the book features unripe blackcurrants and their red juice, evoking classic horror imagery and echoing the bloody visions of its protagonist, Cassie. The berries also appear in the novel, when her stepson explains the plants in the woods behind their home, and I see parallels between the fruit—a fungus carrier, something dangerous disguised as harmless—and Cassie’s fears about herself. How were you thinking about blackcurrants as an image or metaphor? 

KC: I love this question. Blackcurrant was the working title of the novel. Cassie’s voice feels dark purple/lime green to me, and I’ve loved blackcurrants since I was a teen vegetarian, when my then-boyfriend used to visit family in England and bring back gelatin-free Starbursts, including the blackcurrant flavor, which is the best flavor. When I was title-hunting, I learned that we don’t have blackcurrant Starbursts in the US because blackcurrants are hosts to a fungus that is deadly to white pines, which are integral to our lumber industry, so they couldn’t legally be grown here until recently. House of Beth is interested in the idea of danger, and what conditions or relationships make a person more or less dangerous to others, so blackcurrants felt like a useful metaphor. 

Ultimately, we did have to change the title, and my editor, Olivia Taylor-Smith, came up with House of Beth, which is a perfect title, and even more metaphorically resonant. I was thrilled when the cover designer spotlighted currants on the cover—they still get to be part of the book, and they were always a better image than title.

TB: Our first introduction to Cassie is through her gory imagination, a product of her harm OCD. Is this where the novel started in your initial draft? From a process standpoint, was it challenging to balance these violent imaginings and Cassie’s other thoughts and actions in the book?

KC: The initial idea for the book was: “An irresponsible woman in her twenties becomes a stepmother to two kids, homeschooling them in the woods, and maybe there’s something else in the woods, like a monster or something.” At the time, I was on the precipice of the worst OCD spiral I’ve ever had—which was also the best one, only because it finally got me to therapy. This spiral was debilitating in part because the intrusive thoughts I was plagued with were so grotesque that I couldn’t bear to write about them. 

Eventually, I realized that some of the tropes I already wanted to play with in the book—the evil stepmother, the evil bisexual—could be undercut in an interesting way if I gave Cassie harm OCD. Writing Cassie’s thoughts was emotionally destabilizing, but my experience with OCD and my desire to represent it thoughtfully gave me some rules for writing her, which helped. There were certain choices that I knew she would never make. I wanted her to have tools—her diagnosis, her therapist—even if she didn’t use them. And I wanted the book to treat her with care, because by writing it, I knew I was exposing her brain to the world in a way that I would never expose my own. I figured I owed her a good story, and I hope she likes it. 

TB: In an interview with Patrick Ryan about “Flight Feathers,” One Teen Story Issue #33 in 2015, you spoke about the theme of transformation in your work and the narrator of the story “grappling for control over internal and external change.” In House of Beth, characters struggle with their choices amid circumstances that feel outside of their control, interrogating the lives and loves they have chosen and what it takes to be happy. How were you thinking about agency and control in the novel? 

KC: I’m always thinking about agency and control, and wondering how much we as individuals can be blamed or lauded for becoming the people we are. I grew up devoutly evangelical Christian, so I’m uncomfortably aware that if I hadn’t been introduced to new ways of thinking in my teen years, I could have become a completely different person. And the religious teachings I learned put a lot of emphasis on faith while also being pretty dodgy about free will—I was told that God was in control of my fate, but also that every thought I had either delighted or disappointed Him. A high percentage of people who are raised religiously develop OCD, which makes perfect sense to me; so much importance is given to our thoughts, and I think that teaching is a tool that some leaders use to keep people afraid of themselves. 

In House of Beth, I wanted to come at the question of self-control from a few different angles: How do our circumstances shape our personalities? How do our choices change our lives? And of course, how much control do we have over ourselves when we can’t control our thoughts?  

TB: In her blurb, Lynn Steger Strong describes House of Beth as “crackling with life (yes, even the ghost),” and I love the idea of a lively, energetic haunting. Cassie’s husband Eli’s late wife, Beth, has a growing presence throughout the novel. When you first began writing House of Beth, did you know she would have such an impact, or was that a surprise? Are there other elements that surprised you or came into the story late?

KC: Beth was a total shock to me! A really fun one. In the first draft of the novel, she didn’t factor into the story at all—aside from Cassie’s curiosity about her—until the very end, when she appeared and took me by surprise. In that first version, she was alive the whole time and had been leading a secret survivalist cult in the woods. That plot point felt silly immediately and I knew I would change it even while writing it, but I liked the woman who appeared on the page so much that I had to find another way to bring her into the story. The nature of her presence shifted with every draft until I landed on the iteration that lives in the book now. 

TB: Three book titles are named in the novel as another character’s favorites: Jane Eyre, Rebecca, and I Capture the Castle. There are some similarities between these novels and House of Beth—spooky homes, looming shadows of first wives, falling in love—and it feels like a continuation of this fiction lineage. Do you see these titles as precursors to your novel? Are there other works of art that were inspirational to you while writing House of Beth? 

KC: I do see some commonality with all of these titles, although funnily, I hadn’t read Rebecca until I met with my editor for the first time and she asked if House of Beth was a retelling. Once I’d read Rebecca, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t known about their commonalities, and I snuck the mention in during edits. I do love a story about a young, dreamy, lonely woman in a creepy house, and I also love dropping my favorite books into my writing. I wish I had included a clear homage to Shirley Jackson—in a few drafts, Cassie’s last name was Blackwood, from We Have Always Lived in the Castle, but I knew Cassie herself would be horrified to be named after Merricat (even though I love her) so I changed it. I also think there’s some shared DNA between House of Beth and The Haunting of Hill House, especially near the very end, although the tone is quite different. 

TB: Lastly, what are you most looking forward to at the One Story ball?

KC: So much! The Debutante Ball is my favorite literary event of every year. I’ve been attending since 2013, when I interned with One Story after taking a workshop with Hannah Tinti, and since being published in One Teen Story, I’ve dreamed of one day becoming a literary debutante. These days, I read submissions for One Story, and for the One Teen Story contest, and I feel so lucky to still be involved with this magazine and community. Earlier, I talked about how we become the people we are, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that I would be a different person without One Story. This community has taught me so much about how to be a better writer and a better literary citizen. 

More concretely, I’m excited to see Hannah’s decorations, to meet my fellow debs, and to dance!  

Theda Berry is a Brooklyn-based fiction writer and music journalist. She currently works at the Whitney Museum of American Art and is a reader for One Story.