LibraryThing is pleased to present our interview with novelist and screenwriter Emily Layden, who made her book debut in 2021 with her novel All Girls, a critically acclaimed coming-of-age story set at a New England prep school which was described by reviewers as “assured and tender” (New York Times Book Review), and “incisive, astute” (Publishers Weekly). A former high school English teacher, Layden has had pieces published in the New York Times, Marie Claire, Runner’s World, and Town & Country. Her second novel, Once More from the Top, is due out from Mariner Books in September, and tells the story of a mega pop-star who is drawn back to her small hometown by the secrets of her past. Layden sat down recently with Abigail to answer some questions about her new book.
Once More from the Top follows the story of a global celebrity, a character who has been described as akin to Taylor Swift in some reviews. How did the idea for the story first come to you? Was there a real-world celebrity (or celebrities) who served as an inspiration for Dylan Read?
I wonder a lot about contemporary fame—particularly the experiences of famous women, and the expectation that they somehow be both aspirational and relatable. It seems to me like an incredibly difficult high wire act—especially, I think, if the famous person in question is a perfectionist, or a people-pleaser, or a chronic “good girl.” I wanted to write about the gymnastics required in navigating a shifting public opinion, and the tension between meeting those changeable demands while also being true to oneself and one’s art.
The theme of fame is obviously very important to your story, but so too is the pull of the past and of the secrets people keep. Tell us a little bit about the tension between Dylan’s public-facing role and her private world back home. What commentary, if any, is your story offering on celebrity culture, and on the conflict between the public and private self?
Whether you’re Taylor Swift or, well, a sophomore novelist, any artist working today is going to find themselves confronted with a distinctly modern and social media-bred set of expectations around access: There is an assumption that the artist will share not just their art but also themselves. Dylan Read is a master at this: a prodigiously talented singer-songwriter, she’s defined by both her confessional lyricism and her best-friend energy; it’s a combination that’s kept her fans close, the label happy, and the media fed. But Dylan has a secret—one thing she’s never explicitly written about before—and a question that runs through the novel is to whom she owes that truth. It’s really an attempt to take those ideas about intimacy and—although the term is overused—parasocial feelings and put them under the most extreme microscope I could imagine.
The adolescent experience of a group of young girls was central to your first novel, All Girls, and plays an important role here, too. What role does your experience as a high school teacher play in how you understand and depict young people?
The truth is that teenage girls drive our discourse and shape our culture—they tell us what’s cool, what to wear, what music to listen to (just look at the Eras tour!)—but are rarely given credit for their full personhood. Teaching helped me to see that young women deserve to be seen and taken more seriously; teenage girls are emphatic, wise, and so, so smart—and while I never set out to prove something in my writing, I would be happy if that’s something readers take away from my novels.
Music is another key component of your story. If you had to create a playlist for Once More from the Top, what would be on it? Who are some of your favorite contemporary musicians?
I’m so glad you asked! You can check out the Once More from the Top playlist here:
This playlist is one-part thematic tour through the novel, another part fictional context: If Dylan Read were making music today, these are some of the artists I imagine she’d find herself in conversation with, from millennial icons like Beyoncé and Lana to next-gen breakouts like Olivia and Gracie. I listened to so much music while I was writing Once More from the Top, from Joni and Dolly’s back catalogues to Gen Z bedroom pop, and so this playlist is by no means meant to be comprehensive; the hardest part about it was limiting it to just 17 tracks!
Tell us a little bit about your writing process. How do you begin—with a character, a scene, a story idea?—and how do you carry on? Were there challenges specific to writing your second novel, or things you particularly enjoyed about it?
I try not to hold any process too tightly, but I think two things tend to be true about my writing: First, I’m a big believer in the vomit draft—I get the whole thing down, start to finish, only ever moving forward. To paraphrase Joan Didion, I write to figure out what I’m thinking—and a messy draft helps me figure out what novel I’m really trying to write.
And second: I am an athlete, and I write the way I train, which is to say that I try to do it every day, and I have a daily word or page count much the same way I track miles or minutes. It helps me feel productive in a process that can (for me) feel aimless and meandering, and feeling productive—like I am working toward something in a measurable way—helps me feel like I have a real job, despite the fact that I am often doing it from my couch in sweatpants.
Tell us about your library. What’s on your own shelves?
In my head, my library is, of course, the library in Beauty and the Beast. In reality, my books are mostly in boxes, as of this interview we’ve just moved! But I made sure to quickly find the one book I need to have on my desk at all times: The Complete Emily Dickinson.
Emily’s poems are like little puzzles to me: full of surprises and in-jokes; they have all the delightful cleverness of a very good riddle. She is surprising and—still, after all these years—challenging to me, and I like flipping through her collection when I am stuck or otherwise looking for a distraction. Maybe Emily Dickinson is my Wordle? (I also love Wordle.)
What have you been reading lately, and what would you recommend to other readers?
I’m usually reading a few things at once: One or two novels that everyone else is reading; something that falls into the category of research for a current project; and a book of poetry. Lately, in the last, I loved my friend Leigh Lucas’s new chapbook, Landsickness. It’s intimate and surprising; Leigh is at once your best friend whispering in your ear and an artist reaching for the most evocative metaphor, and I marveled at the tightrope she spun on every page.
