Just Watch Me is a sharp, snarky novel about Dell, a college dropout who gets fired and decides to raise money for herself and her comatose sister by livestreaming herself eating increasingly hot peppers. Over the course of one week, Dell gets to know a cast of Internet characters, some helpful, some foreboding, grappling with her grief for her sister and eventually taking part in a world record Carolina Reaper eating competition. This story turns its fierce, confident gaze on relationships, both parasocial and not, and on the blurry lines between performance and life, showcasing a daring narrator with a bold sense of humor, a resourceful and canny spirit, and an unexpectedly tender heart.

—Kerry Cullen

Kerry Cullen: Where were you when you found out Just Watch Me was going to be published? How did you celebrate?

Lior Torenberg: I was mid-flight from London to New York City when I found out that Just Watch Me was going to be published. I never buy Wi-Fi on planes as a matter of principle, but I did this time because I was anticipating big news from my agent.

The plane’s lights were off and everyone around me was asleep when I finally got the message: I have news! We just closed with Lauren [Wein at Avid Reader Press]. She’s thrilled! I’m thrilled! Will fill you in on the bells and whistles when we speak

Surrounded by hundreds of people, 40,000 feet in the air, I had that moment all to myself, and it’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that I have been celebrating ever since. Lauren and her team at Avid Reader Press are exceptional. In fact, everyone I have worked with over the last few years has been exceptional.

KC: The people need to know: How many hot peppers did you personally ingest during the making of this book? Any particularly notable experiences?

LT: During the making of this book? Not many. During the promotion of this book? Quite a few.

In my day to day, I’m more of a hot sauce hobbyist than someone who eats raw peppers for fun, but I have eaten a raw pepper here and there, and I cook with them often. My personal max for raw pepper ingestion would be a habanero—after that, you can pretty much call it a day.

As far as notable experiences go, the climax of my book takes place at the Carolina Reaper world record competition at the annual NYC Hot Sauce Expo. The event is in April and it’s truly one of the best days out you can have in the city. Come join me!

KC: There are many ways to write about the Internet in the 2020s. What drew you to this particular corner of the Internet, and did you know it well already when you began writing, or did you explore it as you went?

LT: I became aware of Twitch during the pandemic because my roommate was watching livestreams of people playing The Sims. I LOVE The Sims. After exploring the platform, I became fascinated by streams where people were just going about their lives—folding their laundry, going to the gym, making lunch.

I wrote this book both to understand the people who watched these types of streams for hours a day, and the people on the other side of the camera who had chosen to document their lives in this very particular and unguarded way.

I’m still by no means a livestream expert, but I view the platform as full of potential. It’s low frequency, raw, candid. As the content economy drifts towards more and more idealized and algorithm-optimized depictions of life, and AI airbrushes everything in between, I think these unfiltered and unedited corners of the Internet will continue to flourish.

KC: A true villain is a rare archetype in literary fiction, but you’ve written a breathtakingly creepy one here. Did you set out to write a villain? How did excelsior404 come to be?

LT: I don’t think I could’ve written an Internet novel without putting in a troll or two. It’s interesting that you call excelsior404 a villain. In fact, his aim for most of the book is to tell the truth and protect others. But his motives for doing so are not entirely noble.

Excelsior404 is your classic self-proclaimed Internet vigilante. He wants more and more access to Dell, and when he can’t have it, he starts to dig. He finds out more than Dell wants him to and holds it over her head, threatening to dox her.

We have what amounts to a civilian police force on the Internet, where any individual person can act as judge, jury, and executioner. That’s how excelsior404 sees himself, and it’s quite the power trip for him, and, I imagine, many others.

KC: An element that stood out to me immediately while reading Just Watch Me is the narrative voice: sharp, blunt, wry, and in some moments, devastatingly tender. How do you define and cultivate voice in your writing? Who are the voice-driven writers you most admire?

LT: Thank you for your kind words. When it came to Just Watch Me, Dell was so loud and insistent, I just knew at every turn what she was going to say—or rather: scream, bark, hiss.

That ease came from the fact that I started this novel with her voice in my head. I asked myself: What kind of person has the disposition to livestream their life for twenty-four hours a day? And the answer was: someone brash who doesn’t give a damn what other people think of them. That was Dell.

With the manuscript I’m working on now, I didn’t start with voice, I started with plot. Working backwards from plot to character and voice has been a process of character discovery and weaving. Putting in nearly too much voice, and then cutting it back, and so on, until what’s left on the page rings true and alive.

My favorite voice-driven writers are Lorrie Moore, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Melissa Broder, and I’m always discovering new favorites.

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

LT: Pulling out an old prom dress, of course!

No—as ever, I’m most looking forward to talking to readers. It is such a joy when someone has visited your world and enjoyed their time there.

I’m also looking forward to celebrating this moment with you, Kerry, and the rest of the One Story team and debutantes. Stephen Fishbach and I did our MFA together at NYU and it has been a gorgeous full circle moment to go through this process together. I’m so happy for him and all the other debutants. It’s going to be a tremendous night.

Kerry Cullen’s debut novel, House of Beth, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and an Aardvark Book Club selection. Her short fiction has been published in The Indiana Review, Prairie Schooner, One Teen Story, and more. She earned her MFA at Columbia University, and she lives in New York.