Author R&R with Lauren Johnson

Lauren Johnson is an American author who believes that life begins at menopause — not conception. Setting out to create a narrative to help women stop judging and start loving themselves, Lauren is releasing the first cozy mystery in The Lizi Cleverly Midlife Badass Detective Series this week. A debut as light and delicious as soufflé, The Soufflé Also Rises follows Lizi Cleverly, an American divorcée d’un certain âge, on her quest to find her inner midlife badass in Paris, amid jewel heists, mob bosses, and lots of pastry. Lauren lives in Oak Park, Illinois with her three kitties: Bob Dylan, Jimmy Page, and Johnny Winter. The Soufflé Also Rises is her first novel.

It’s 2008 and Lizi Cleverly just can’t catch a break. On the heels of a nasty divorce and a paltry settlement agreement—barely enough to reload her Starbucks card—Lizi is laid off from her job during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Flat broke, Lizi takes a job at Whole Foods where she meets Frankie, a twenty-seven-year-old artist half her age whose overly simplistic worldview is exactly what Lizi needs to get on with her life. 

But after an unfortunate incident involving her ex-husband, his pregnant girlfriend, and a carton of cage-free eggs, Lizi finds herself, once again, out of a job. So what does a fifty-four-year-old woman with no money, no job, and no prospects do? She sells all her possessions and goes to Paris in search of her long-lost dream: to write her first novel. But when the airline loses her luggage and offers her a meal voucher for the famed Hotel Jolie, Lizi pounces on the opportunity while unwittingly setting off a chain of events which land her at the center of the notorious Harry Winston jewel heist. And when her young partner-in-crime joins her in Paris, the two must outrun the Serbian mafia while trying not to trip over the dead bodies left in their wake.

Lauren Johnson stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about researching and writing the book:

Writing What You Know

When I began writing The Soufflé Also Rises, the first of my Lizi Cleverly Midlife Badass Detective Series, I assumed research would be the easiest part. It was lighthearted fiction, after all, written in first-person present, and Lizi and Frankie were inspired by my twenty-seven and fifty-four-year-old selves—hardly two women requiring extensive exploration. Lizi’s just trying to muddle her way through her second act—while Frankie’s still trying to figure out her first.

So, aside from the expected factual research, what more did I need to know? After all, I’d dated assholes like Lizi’s ex, been betrayed by a best friend, been fired, divorced, and generally screwed over. I had a lot of material to work with.

Easy peasy, right?

Emotional Research

But here’s the kicker: I believed I was writing what I knew. Turns out, however, I didn’t know what I thought I knew nearly as well as I thought I did. Yes, I knew my stories. I’ve told them a thousand times. But there’s a difference between remembering and reliving.

I expected the factual research. Every good novelist understands that. What surprised me, though, was how much I had to research myself.

Take Frankie, for example. Now I’m the first to admit that I still have a lot of Frankie left in me, so some of the things that come flying out of her mouth wouldn’t be unusual coming from my own mouth today. Still, I’m not twenty-seven anymore. And that’s where the research comes in. Emotional research.

In order to get myself into Frankie’s head, I had to remember what it was like being twenty-seven, not what it was like to be twenty-seven. I didn’t need to remember the facts. I needed to remember the feeling.

So, I journaled through the eyes of my younger self. Not to recount the stories of my youth, but to remember what was behind them. I started by asking myself: What kinds of things were going on in my life at twenty-seven? Who were my friends? What were my hangups? How did I view the world? By asking myself these questions and taking the time to look beyond the facts, I was able to summon feelings I’d long since forgotten—which ultimately served as the foundation for Frankie’s character.

And while I didn’t have to reach quite so far into the past for Lizi as I did Frankie, I still had to ask questions in order to better understand who Lizi is. Just because we’re both muddling through menopause doesn’t mean I can write about her experiences with emotional authority. For example, if I wanted to turn “Lauren’s hot flash story” into “Lizi’s hot flash story”, I could simply tell the same story I’ve told for years, only from Lizi’s perspective: One sub-zero winter day, after hours of drenching hot flashes, I threw on my winter coat and headed to Walgreens in search of relief: Black Cohosh. I wasn’t in the store more than two minutes before another hot flash nearly took me down. I quickly peeled off my heavy wool coat and, much to my mortification, looked down to find my white tank top plastered to my breasts, summoning long-forgotten memories of spring break in Fort Lauderdale.

While “Lauren’s hot flash story” has always been a reliable party story, simply recounting it from Lizi’s perspective wouldn’t have been enough. I had to understand what was happening beneath the mortification. It wasn’t just about the absurdly cinematic and inconvenient hot flash. It was also about vulnerability, embarrassment, and the powerlessness I felt over my own body. Those are the feelings I want my readers to recognize in themselves.

Mark Twain was right when he said to write what you know. What I didn’t realize was that knowing my own stories wasn’t enough. I had to understand the emotions beneath them. That turned out to be the hardest research of all.

You can learn more about Lauren Johnson via her publisher site. The Soufflé Also Rises is now available via Rising Action Publishing and all major booksellers.