Bookwild - Mandy McHugh: Chloe Cates is Missing

Episode Date: March 23, 2022

On this episode, I talk to Mandy McHugh about her thought provoking thriller Chloe Cates is Missing.You can also watch the episode on YouTubeAuthor LinksInstagramGoodreadsWebsiteCheck out the book hereChloe Cates is Missing SynopsisChloe Cates is missing. The 13-year-old star of the hit web series, “CC and Me,” has disappeared, and nobody knows where she’s gone — least of all ruthless momager Jennifer Scarborough, who has spent much of her daughter’s young life crafting a child celebrity persona that is finally beginning to pay off. And in Chloe’s absence, the faux-fairytale world that supported that persona begins to fracture, revealing secrets capable of reducing the highly-dysfunctional Scarborough family to rubble. Anxious to find her daughter and preserve the life she’s worked so hard to build, Jennifer turns to social media for help, but the hearsay, false claims, and salacious suspicions only multiply. As the search becomes as sensational as Chloe’s series, Missing Persons detective Emilina Stone steps in, only to realize she has a connection to this case herself. Will she be able to stay objective and cut through the rumors to find the truth before it’s too late?Told from multiple points of view including Jennifer, Emilina, and pages from Chloe’s lost diary, Chloe Cates Is Missing is a suspenseful novel of a child pushed to the brink, and of the troubled family that desperately needs her back.  Get Bookwild MerchCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackCheck Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck out the Imposter Hour Podcast with Liz and GregFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrian 

Hi, my name is Kate and I love to read. Like, I was carrying books around with me before Kindles were a thing. So I decided to start a podcast where I interview the authors of some of my favorite books, ask them all of my questions so that I can read between the lines of the books. Welcome back to another episode of Between the Lines. I'm here with Mandy McHugh who wrote Chloe Kate's Is Missing, which is a very twisty, thought-provoking thriller that I loved reading. So thanks for being on the podcast.

Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. So before we dive right into the book, I did want to get to know a little bit about you. So when did you know that you wanted to be an author? Probably from elementary school. I used to do, you know, I had a little notebook with one of those like multicolored pens that had like all the colors you could flick through and every different paragraph would have a different color. And I started writing stories kind of like goosebumps and then graduated to Fear Street. The Thrill Club was like the first

book I can remember thinking, I really want to write something like this. And then it just took off from there and I majored in English in college, but I didn't really write anything other than like short stories for a very long time. I wrote a play in grad school that was public. and hopefully never sees the light of day again. And then after grad school, when I had my daughter and my son, I was not sleeping very often. So I thought, you know, I need this outlet. I have all this time while I'm, you know, feeding at 3 a.m. I'm just going to try to write a book.

That is so cool. So is that this book? Is it Chloe Cage is missing? This is actually the third manuscript that I finished. Okay. The first that I finished was supposed to be published by a very small indie press that eventually went under. But I'm hoping that that'll find its place somewhere at some point in time in the horror community. Yeah.

Because that one is just like straight horror. Okay. Nice. Yeah. My second manuscript is actually my second book that's coming out. Okay. Yeah. I saw that on Goodreads, actually.

So that's pretty exciting. So other than the fact that you were writing. writing while you were breastfeeding. What is your writing process like? So do you typically like know what you're going to be writing when you start writing it or do you kind of figure it out as you go? I figure it out as I go. What are they called? Panser or plotter. I have always been just, I get an idea. I start writing and then I might take time to outline or flesh out different ideas, but for the most part, I have no idea where a story is going to end up when I start out writing. Chloe Kate's in my head was a completely different ending and a completely different

trail to get there from when I sat down and wrote the first chapter. That is so fascinating to me. I've been reading for years. Yeah. And every time I read a book, I'm like, wow, how did they have the foresight to do this? And like, how'd they come up with this? And so, especially when I read really good books. I'm like, how do they not know what they were, how, how is it possible that they didn't know what they were doing? It's still amazing to me. Yeah. I feel like I'm getting more people saying that they don't know than people who say that they plan and outline and do all of that. So my second, my second book, I planned a little bit more because it was inspired by King Lear. So I was like taking specific like either quotes that stuck out to me or scenes that I really

wanted to kind of capture and play off of it in my head. So I had more references points that I wanted to hit. Chloe Cates was like, I had this image of a crazy momager, like dance moms type to the nth degree. And I rolled with it from there. Yeah. That and it rolled. And it rolls. It describes most of the book. For sure. So speaking, you kind of knew that you wanted her as a character. Like that character is the one that came to you. Do you plot or do you plan out your characters at all or do you kind of like get to know them while you're writing too? I get to know them while I'm writing. I have like a basic idea of where I wanted, but like I know we're going to address this a little bit.

But Jennifer, the mom, was a completely different person in my head. I found her being like a sympathetic character and one who would be kind of like you could understand where she was coming from with wanting more. for herself and the struggles she has as a new mother. But as I got into her, I'm like, she's kind of despicable and I can't find very many redeeming qualities here. And she just, I started like picking apart her piece by piece and ended up with what she is. Yeah. Yeah. She is fascinating for sure. I could kind of tell because I remember when I was reading the first chapter, you don't dislike her in the first chapter. And it does feel a little bit like you're just kind of like sympathetic and you're like, oh, she overcame stuff. And then you get to know him more and you're like,

never mind. Yep. I guess I had the same experience that you did in getting to know her. Yeah. Yeah. So how would you describe Chloe Kate's is missing in a couple sentences without spoilers? Chloe Kate's missing is basically just a story about a dysfunctional family who is overtaken by social media and the pressures to meet what their appearances are online. Yeah. They just their whole world revives around their online personas, and it gets to this point where it's going to explode. Yeah.

Or implode. Yeah, either. Yeah. So was it Jen's character that completely prompted you to write it, or what idea kind of came to you? first? It was it was kind of two simultaneous ideas. I really wanted to explore a mother-daughter relationship that was borderline toxic, if not completely toxic. You know, hasn't started out that way. Right. And it was kind of like a Jody Piccult scenario where you have this like how much

should I put my child's life online? How much agency should she have about her, you know, what she wants to put out there and at what age do we give that consent? So I had this idea. But at the same time, I'm like, well, what would prompt somebody to be so engrossed and need this like validation online? And that's where Emmalina and Jennifer's storyline came from. And I really love the 90s era and wanted to incorporate.

all of that and how this mean girl scenario could kind of snowball into what she became. Yeah. That is, yeah, that's definitely at the heart. It was nice having those alternating perspectives. There is a perspective of one of Jen's friends, basically. So it did help in understanding her a lot. So we are going to start talking about spoilers a little bit. So if you haven't read the book, just pause it and go read it and then come listen to it.

but if you are listening because you already read the book, then you can just kind of keep listening. Hang out. Yeah. So you kind of just mentioned it. Jen is the mom at the center of the story. And she's extremely obsessed with appearances. So she really wants her relationship to look really sweet with her daughter online.

She wants even her relationship with her husband to look really good online. But they're actually like. in this massive financial decline. They're struggling to keep sponsors. There's actually a huge divide between Jen and Abby. So what inspired you to kind of write about the obsession with appearances and how wrong things go when we're too obsessed with appearances? So I think that storyline kind of originated in my own insecurities, especially as like a new mother. And, you know, I have this chunk of time to fill. And it was increasingly spent just scrolling through Instagram or Twitter as it happened to be.

I got Twitter right around that time too. And I'm like, there's so many filters. There's so many things that everybody seems so happy online. And here I am like shoveling fistfuls of peanut M&Ms in my kitchen in the middle of the night with like my hair. outgrown and haven't seen anything without leggings in two years. You know, how do I keep up with all of these people? And then I realized, like, when did my mindset shift from just being happy with, you know, having a happy kids and happy house to I need to keep up with everybody?

And I realized how much that was impacting me and how it was everywhere. And then I had shows like dance moms and the toddlers and tiaras and they were everywhere. And I just couldn't get out of this like, I couldn't get away from this thought. Like it's so much a part of our lives. And everything we see is like filtered and, you know, handpicked. Yeah. So that's really where that came from. And I wanted to look at that.

a little bit more through an influencer side of things. Right. I feel like it would, I don't have kids, but I feel like it would be so overwhelming, like becoming a new parent when it's already like so prevalent. So like, how much do I show? When when my son was born, I got kind of looped into the whole Lula Row thing. You know, I didn't have like a team under me. It was never the goal, but I, you know, I knew I needed to, like, post and you were encouraged to put pictures of yourself out there.

And right before I had my launch, I took a picture of my daughter in, like, her little Lula Roe dress and put it out there. And I'm like, it's so cute. But, like, I had strangers liking her picture and commenting on her. And it really bothered me. And I was like, I am not comfortable with people commenting on, like, my three-year-olds. appearance at all. And then at just this one point, I'm like, when do I like give her permission or when do I like give her the choice of what I post of her?

And it's right. And then I went back through my feet and it's like everything is just pictures of us and the family. And when she's a baby with her cute little like pearls and hat and I'm like, is she going to want this stuff out there when she's a teenager? Right. You know, it's not like when I was a kid. and like your throwback picture was your senior year and your yearbook that your parents put in to embarrass you.

Like it's everywhere and you can't get rid of it. Printed photo. Exactly. Yeah. It's not like HD in showing all of your skin imperfections. No. So then I'm like, what if I was this like overbearing person who just found a way to use it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That's very prevalent throughout it. And yeah, I don't know how I don't know how I'd make the decision on how I handle it. Because I know it was making me think of how Dax, Dax Shepherd and Kristen Bell have done a lot with like getting the paparazzi to quit taking pictures of kids. Yes. For the same reason. They're like they, they have no consent.

I chose this life. It doesn't mean they're going to want to be famous later on in life. I love them for that. Yeah. They're so cute. I do too. It's such a. Yeah.

And they were kind of the first people to like really be like, no, stop it. Like, you should feel bad about yourself. And I think it's kind of made it a little bit better in Hollywood, at least. I hope so. Yeah. And there's, I mean, the free Britney campaign happened for a reason. Oh, my gosh. At least she is free.

Yeah. Yeah. It's good now. I'm very happy. It looks like I would be too. Seriously. Yeah. So for the Scarboroughs, they, to keep out that,

outward appearances. They have to do a lot of pretending to kind of convince themselves to play the part. So Jackson, who's the dad in the story, even when he's thinking about his wife, he thinks at one point maybe she doesn't have a heart of gold, but I'll settle for brass. Throughout the book, he really seems to be struggling with justifying why he's staying with her. So were you also intentionally trying to show what goes wrong when we start lying to ourselves, not just to social media? I don't think that was actually intentional. Jackson was kind of an interesting character for me to write. I had no idea where he was going to go if he was going to be the hero, if he was going to be a villain of sorts,

if people were going to sympathize with him or like crucify him. Right. But as I got deeper into the book and saw like the trajectory of like, whoa, this is this is definitely going there. It definitely came out. That was maybe not intentional, but explored. Yeah. Yeah.

It's kind of like it's still like a part of the keeping up with appearances theme. So I could see how it just kind of naturally happened. So we also are reading Abby or Chloe. Abby or Chloe's journal entries are kind of sprinkled throughout. And she has like, she's not, most of them are not very happy journal entries, but she has one that's kind of happy when she's starting to have a relationship with someone who sees her as Abby,

not just Chloe. And so she writes, being Chloe is so much easier when I get to be Abby too. And I just like loves. how poignant that sentence was and how much it like how much was packed into that one sentence because typically a lot of things at least for me and my life get easier when I'm at when I'm actually having a space available where I can actually be my true self do you feel like things could have turned out differently for Abby if she'd been allowed the space to be herself

while still being Chloe as well I would like to think so yeah um you know maybe if things had been a little bit more normal for her to have like an outlet even. But she didn't even really have that and didn't realize that she was missing it until all of these things came together and very pointed head of this moment of embarrassment, basically. And the slow build to get there. It's hard to say for sure if she would have turned out differently, but I would like to think that being able to at least have. have this something that she has for herself, um, that she can just have complete ownership of,

um, would have helped her be a little less. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She didn't even, she really specifically didn't even have that like she couldn't even be herself with her mom. Um, because her mom, I mean, even throughout the book, there are so many mentions of her still calling her Chloe even after she's gone missing. So, it's like there really wasn't there was no space at all i feel like jackson wasn't going to be that space either because he was just kind of cowering swept along yeah yeah yep um you know and even down to the way her closet is organized the clothes that she has they're not she doesn't get to pick them uh the artwork that's on her door every aspect of her life is controlled and narrated for her um just

and for a developmental standpoint, like clearly she needed something that she had control over. Yeah. And Joe Jackson was definitely not going to be that space either. And he is a little bit of a tricky character. So when you were saying, like, you couldn't tell people were going to crucify him or they're going to feel sympathetic for him, it is pretty difficult to kind of decide. So there are multiple moments where it's clear that he knows his wife is ruining his family, especially his daughter, but he doesn't intervene. So at different points, he thinks, I didn't realize that supporting my wife's innocent venture would tear my family apart.

And I realized I would stand idly by as my daughter lost her independence on one decision at a time. And then at one point, he thinks, am I supposed to dismiss what Jen's doing to our family? because 20 years ago she was bullied for women clothes from Walmart. So it's like he's even trying to maybe be sympathetic himself. And he's like, it doesn't really seem like it though. And then later, Emmalina,

who's trying to find Abby or Chloe, she says later she almost died because her mother was too crazy to let her have a normal life and her father was too scared to leave. So in your opinion, and after you did get to know, Jackson, is Jackson a victim or is he a co-conspirator in the demise of his family? I don't think I could ever say he's a victim. I couldn't either at all.

No, I think I'm loathe to use words like, you know, weak because he's not weak. He's just kind of paralyzed by his indecisiveness. And by the time he finally starts questioning, like, maybe I should have stood up or maybe I should have done something different. It's way too late. Like, they've already dug the hole. So when I wrote Chloe Cates, I originally saw it as a trilogy. So I actually have 60,000 words of a book two written where a lot of the focus is Jackson. and what happens at the end of Chloe Kate's in this next segment.

So I'm kind of hoping that I can unravel it further. That's exciting. Yeah. So we'll see how that goes. But basically, no, he's not a victim. He's not an anti-hero. He's just, and he's not entirely sympathetic. Like at some points you can kind of feel bad for him.

and I definitely integrated some of the, like, Catholic guilt that I was raised with into his character. Yes. But there's a point where you're like, you can't just keep blaming everybody else around you for the things that are happening in your life. Yeah. So I'm interested to see where he's going to go from there. But in Chloe Kate's, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because it's, I can't remember now.

when you said Catholic guilt, it made me think he was also fearful religiously to divorce her. I can't remember if that was actually in the book, but I do know there are so many people that stay in terrible marriages and people who are terrorizing their children. And they're like, yeah, but God wouldn't want me to get divorced. So I'll stay married. Yeah. I live in upstate New York. I was raised. I did the whole religious instruction throughout high school. And, uh, no, um, but it's not like, uh, you know, we're not Bible belt up here, obviously. Um, but it did play a huge part in, um, my own, the way that I view the world. And Jackson has a little bit of that and him too, um, where he, he sees these billboards. And I've actually seen a billboard that like the one he sees in the book about like advertising divorce and how it's basically just something that you can pick up at, at the grocery store and for $400, you can just get your next spouse. Yeah.

But he doesn't, you know, he thought, you know, I'm going to do it once. I'm going to do it right because of his upbringing and that's how it was supposed to be. And, you know, that's one of his excuses for a while. Like, this is how it should be. This is how I was raised. Yeah. But at what point is it more damaging than anything? Yeah.

Can't hang on. It can be really damaging, especially when there's just so much toxicity in the house. It can be so damaging to think you just have to stay in the marriage just because, like, such a painful reason to stay in the marriage. Because she took a vow in church. Right. Yeah. Yep. So then there's Abby.

So she's obviously still a child, and her life has just been, like, massively been disrupted by kind of faking. who she is and having to be, um, having to be Chloe Kate's all of the time. So I did mention that most of her, uh, journal entries are pretty heartbreaking. So, um, and some of them she's mentioning, I'm hurt. I'm being raised by a crazy person. I'm held hostage in my own home, forced to play this stupid part. And at one point she says, like, remember that time, mom decided to ruin my life. Great question. That's every day. And then later when Emilina is thinking about Abby's situation, she points out it's disconcerting when you lose that sense of safety. Home is supposed to be the place that keeps the danger away, a barrier between you and the rest of the world.

How do you find peace when everything that's supposed to protect you feels wrong? And she also thinks about how sometimes your parents aren't going to be able to fix the problem. Sometimes your parents are the problem. Very true throughout the whole story. So in that context, is Abby a victim? Are her actions with Missy, kind of an inevitable progression of growing up in all of this stress? Or is she just as culpable as Jen is for her behavior? So I love this question.

I think that's like the ultimate question is like how much of the blame do we put on her? Yeah. You know, how much control did she have when she? She was born into the circumstance and never asked for it and never asked to be a celebrity. You know, when she starts out the blog, it's just this fun game and something fun she can do with her mom. And then as she starts realizing, like, she's not enjoying it, she doesn't like this. There might be something else more out there. You know, that's a great moment for her.

But is this further action that she takes in the book? would it have been avoided if it hadn't been too late for her to reach that point? Right. But a lot of that then is like the question of like, you know, Jen is still her mother. If it wasn't the blog, would it have been something else? That's great. So I would like to think that yes, she would be able to have a different path for herself. But there's also the doubt because her actions do reach this, you know, incredibly violent level.

Yes. So is it just her mother and the social media and this like lack of nurture that she gets? Or is there something that was already there? Yeah. And that kind of parallels with Jen's character because it's the same thing. Like is it just the product of people being mean to her constantly? Or is there something about her that she was born with? Yes.

And I really like that examination. Yeah. One of my follow-up questions to that then would be. Yeah. So if Abigail had a daughter later in life, how do you think her daughter would handle conflict with other girls? And how do you think she would interact with people in general? I don't think she's going to react very well.

I have been thinking about this question. I'm like, okay. So not everybody who has a terrible childhood turns into a murderer and has these violent tendencies. But for Abby specifically, you know, this is where we are with her. And I think a lot of it will have to do with how she handles, you know, she's still a child. Right. And even though she's, her voice kind of sounds confident and sure in the moment. moment, she's still developing and is going to have to come to grips with what she did and

the impact her mother had, which I actually have started looking at in the next section. But like, if she doesn't handle it, what is her life going to be like? Is she going to be able to form relationships with other people at all? Or is it all going to be kind of like a facade where she's got this bubble wrap around her because she never really lets anybody in and she can't connect in that way. Right. Because it was missing for her. Yeah.

And then maybe Jackson turns out to be, you know, this steadfast presence in her life that will help her recover or come to terms with it and progress and get better. But, you know, he's got a lot to unpack too. He married a murderer and, you know, and he's got his own hangups that are addressed as well. well that are kind of ambiguous, but also, like, you're, you're pretty sure. Right, right. So, yeah. I think it could go either way, but it's, yeah, it's always hard to tell. Because it's like someone else could come into her life, too, that could, like, be compassionate and just totally change everything, even if she never found that in her family.

There's a lot of, you know, the bad boy stereotype you can gravitate to when you're teenage years. And I mean, who knows what kind of people she would attract into her life as she got older in college. Yeah. You know, finally having freedom after not having freedom, it's like. It can be overwhelming if you've been so controlled. So it can kind of go either way, typically. Yeah. And you finally do have freedom.

Yeah. So Jen is the last one that we haven't talked about. There's not much to love about her. She's kind of been wreaking havoc on. everyone in her life since she was a teenager. Does she deserve to go to jail for Missy's murder? And is Abby justified in finally being able to fight back against a mother who never felt like a mother? Well, that's a question, isn't it?

Right. Does she deserve to go to jail? as somebody who's actually looking at this part of it right now. Oh, wow. I mean, not in my real life. I'm not actually going to jump. Right. Oh, my God.

Could you imagine? No. I can't. No. I don't think she deserves to go to jail for the murder that she did. didn't commit. You know, there's a difference between massive parental mistakes that definitely need to be addressed.

Right. And going to jail for somebody else's crime. And I think at the end, when she starts kind of piecing things together and voicing her concerns, like, I made a mistake, if we love her, you know, despite all my crazy, she needs to get help. Yeah. And nobody around her at that point is listening. Right.

So I think, you know, she's trying to come to some sort of redeeming quality, but I don't think she should go to jail for that. Right. And Abby, again, there's a big difference between taking ownership of this violent crime and having grievances with your mother who just cannot let go and has put you in this awful situation. Right. you know what is justice here right and it justice doesn't mean happy ending or a good outcome but is it jail right is that going to solve anything is anybody going to learn or grow or get better and at this point it's like do you have one murderer on the street or two and yeah how much good did jen do after you know she murdered somebody and didn't get caught right this is that was the

main thing that was sticking with me where I was like yeah she did didn't go to jail for a previous murder. So in like a universal sense, there's a way that you could see that justice finally kind of got like carmic justice. Yeah. But there wasn't justice for what Abby did in that case then. So it's kind of tricky. No.

And then I mean, she, it's not like she's taking responsibility for the crime that she actually committed. Right. It's just, you know, she's kind of martyering herself and falling on the sword for her daughter. Right. Yeah. And it still comes back to her. Right.

Well, I am so excited that there might be more. And fingers crossed. Obviously, I want to read it now already. But where can people follow you so that they can keep up with it, see if there is more coming out or just anything you put out? So I am on Twitter and Instagram, mostly. my Twitter handle is writer AC McHugh and my Instagram is AC MacCute writer. I don't know why it's different, but I wasn't thinking clearly when I made that stuff. And then my website I update pretty regularly is Mandy McHugh.com.

Okay. Awesome. I will put all of those links will be in the show notes so people can go follow if they want to. And hopefully we'll be talking about. part two here sometime soon. Yeah. But thank you for that would be great. Thank you for having me and thank you for reading.

Yeah. It's so surreal. Yeah, I would imagine it is.