Bookwild - Sascha Rothchild: Blood Sugar

Episode Date: May 4, 2022

On this episode, I talk to Sasha Rothchild about her character-driven thriller Blood Sugar.You can also watch the episode on YouTubeAuthor LinksInstagramGoodreadsWebsiteCheck out the book hereBlood Sugar Synopsis“I could just kill you right now!” It’s something we’ve all thought at one time or another. But Ruby has actually acted on it. Three times, to be exact.Though she may be a murderer, Ruby is not a sociopath. She is an animal-loving therapist with a thriving practice. She’s felt empathy and sympathy. She’s had long-lasting friendships and relationships, and has a husband, Jason, whom she adores. But the homicide detectives at Miami Beach PD are not convinced of her happy marriage. When we meet Ruby, she is in a police interrogation room, being accused of Jason’s murder. Which, ironically, is one murder that she did not commit, though a scandal-obsessed public believes differently. As she undergoes questioning, Ruby’s mind races back to all the details of her life that led her to this exact moment, and to the three dead bodies in her wake. Because though she may not have killed her husband, Ruby certainly isn’t innocent.Alternating between Ruby’s memories of her past crimes and her present-day fight to clear her name, Blood Sugar is a twisty, clever debut with an unforgettable protagonist who you can’t help but root for—an addicting mixture of sour and sweet. 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 today with Sasha Rothschild, who wrote Blood Sugar that I read recently. one of the most unique takes on a likable murderess that I've really ever read. So thank you, Sasha, for being on the podcast. Thank you for having me. Yeah. So before we get into the book, I did want to learn a little bit about you first. So when did you know that you wanted to write a book

or when did you know that you wanted to be an author? I have been a writer since I could literally write sentences and a piece of paper. I started keeping diaries probably when I was seven, eight years old and I have all of them still. And my father, yeah, my father was a journalist, so I understood growing up that being a writer was like an actual profession of some sort. But I always exaggerated and told stories and was clearly never going to be a journalist because I cannot stick to the facts. And I would come home from school and just tell, say all these stories and this and that happened. And, you know, half of it was true and half of it wasn't.

And my parents said, write it down. Just write it down. So my whole life, I've been writing it down. And I knew I just loved television and dialogue. And so I studied playwriting in college and then moved to Los Angeles to write for television. which that path took me on many twists and turns, and then ultimately had an idea for this novel, which I felt very clearly, oh, this is a novel. That's where this should live. So that's why, so the answer is I've always been a writer, and I'm always exploring new ways to write.

Yeah. So you kind of got into TV first. Is that what you were saying, and then wrote a novel kind of after that? Yeah. Well, I wanted to get into TV first. But I was not immediately hired. When I moved to LA, I learned all sorts of things. You get an agent. You write sample scripts. And you hope to get in a writer's room, which is working on someone else's show. And then you work your way up.

I was not immediately staffed on a show. And so in order to keep writing, I started writing articles and sort of first person essays, op-ed pieces. and they started getting published. And there was this amazing sense of, oh, I have a voice and I'm writing it. And now in two months I see it in a magazine. And as I was trying to write for TV and got into feature scripts, it was one of those articles that ended up getting optioned that looped me back around to TV and features.

It was called How to Get Divorce by 30. And after years of almost that article in one week, I had a book deal and a movie deal. So that all happened not the way I planned, but I just kept writing and then something ended up sparking fire. That's so cool. So what is your writing process like, whether it's for TV or for books? I'm very organized and I believe writers have to sit down and stare at the computer or your pad of paper, whatever. writing does not exist in your brain.

So every morning, unless I'm on set and I'm shooting, even then I'm right, I have my laptop and I'm working on rewrites while I'm on set. But every morning I wake up, I have coffee, I sit down, I start my day writing around 9 a.m. usually. I take an hour of lunch. I finish at 6. And I really just, it's a work day. And I put in 7, 8 hours, 5 or 6 days a week.

and whether I'm inspired or not, I just sit there and type words, whatever I'm supposed to be writing or something new. And that's, there's nothing glamorous about it. Yeah, just being really disciplined with it. It is like, I feel like the hardest part to kind of get over is like, yeah, you're going to have to just write, like, even if you don't feel like it. So it sounds like you did figure that out for yourself. How do you create your character? So do you do any like prep with them before you start writing or do you kind of get to know them while you're writing? I think it depends a little bit.

I find for me if I can anchor one part of my personality or one part of someone I know in a really real relatable way, then I take that part and then branch out and twist and turn and fictionalize, that's one way that I, create characters. For me, if there's a kernel of truth, it helps me keep the character grounded, and then I can do whatever I want with that character. And so I usually start with something very personal about myself or something I know about someone else, and I'm definitely like a people watcher. I've always been sort of sitting and watching and eavesdropping and looking and all the little moments I see people at the airport or people at a bus stop. I sort of collect those moments and try to use them for character. It would help to be like interested in people

as an author, to kind of like always be gathering ideas that way. Yes. I did see in your bio that you're also or that you have been. I think you are currently a showrunner as well. So how has that influenced the way that you write? So I am. I'm show running right now. We're shooting in Korea, which is really exciting. There is a spinoff to Jenny Hahn's amazing books to all the boys I've loved before. We're doing a Netflix spinoff called Exo Kitty. And so the thing about show running is for television writing, you start as a writer. And as you progress, if it's something you want, you end up being a producer and a writer.

And that means you cast, you pick locations, you're involved with like props, all those things. and then as a showrunner, you're really in charge of creating an entire world, which is very much like writing a novel because you're creating an entire world. So you have to think about all the pieces, do they fit together, what is the tone, is it seamless? With show running, of course, you're dealing with thousands of people working on the show and millions of dollars, which is very different from writing a novel where all the words are free. you can write whatever you want and you know they don't cost anything so there was something very

freeing about writing the novel but i also kept in mind if something wasn't important enough and i wouldn't have used it as a tv series i took it out of the novel because i didn't want to bog readers down with things that were not incredibly additive that's that's really interesting just kind of all of that hadn't even thought of the fact that you have so much more freedom with writing because there's not a price tag on the writing. You're just relying on people's imaginations. Yes. Yes. And one thing I've mentioned, and it's really stuck with me in my first show I was on was called the Carrie Diaries. And the first script I wrote, I said, Carrie walks down the street. It's a windy day. She's cold. And I got to New York for filming. And the line producer is the person who's in charge of the actual

non-creative numbers of things, said, you know, this wind, we have to have wind machines. We're going have to have somebody moving the trees we're going to have to be effects and i realized oh just putting that word windy is expensive it doesn't have to be windy she can just be cold and like you know and it it made me realize what words mean script wise versus in in um in novels fiction that is so interesting um yeah i'm just like trying to think of all the all the different things that probably cost money and you probably like watch TV differently too when you're aware of that yes you definitely watch how much goes into every moment and how much thought everyone has tried to make good right how would you describe blood sugar in a couple sentences it's a twisty smart thriller about a woman

who is accused of four murders, but she's only guilty of three. That is how I would describe it. Something very interesting that I've learned this week is a lot of readers do not think it's a thriller. They think it's something else, whether it's a psychological contemporary novel or a domestic thriller. And that's okay for me. I know, you know, you write something, it's got published, it's incredible, and it needs to be marketed. it has to be put on the shelf somewhere. But the debate has been at such a character study of Ruby.

And there's, she is sort of a serial killer, but not in a way we're used to where there's tons of bodies stacking up every, you know, chapter. And I think there's something really interesting about the fact that this book is, has been a little hard to actually pinpoint what readers say it is. But I like that. that it's a little bit of hybrid almost. That's even when I was trying to think of how I would describe it, just when I was like posting about it.

I was kind of thinking about that too. It had so many elements that were so good. And it still felt like a thriller because there is stuff she's having to work again. So it felt that way to me. But it did have so much character depth. It was again like kind of another book that follows someone almost like through a large chunk of their life. So you do really get to know the character. so much. And so it did, it felt like there was more character in it than some books that are just

so plot heavy. So I'm not surprised by that. And I thought it was really cool. I love when like multiple genres like fit together really well. Yeah. And I when I started writing it, I knew exactly what the plot was and I knew exactly who Ruby was. And I had never written any crime, anything about crime before really violence. All my television stuff is comedy. So this is a real departure for me. And I just dove in thinking, I want to write about a woman who I would be friends with who's maybe really kind of bad, who can be very polarizing and people can debate if they

love or hate her and both things are okay. Yeah. That's definitely the feeling you get when you're reading it. Like you don't know how you really feel about it. I was going to ask what prompted you to write it. Was that mainly it? Was it the idea of writing someone you could be friends with who was technically still a murderer?

Well, one, the idea came about it because in my real life, and this goes back to sort of taking moments from my real life and then twisting them and turning them. My husband in real life is a type 1 diabetic. And a few years ago, his continuous glucose monitor, which keeps him alive in the middle the night, started beeping to let us know he's very low. And I woke up and I woke him up and he ate sugar and he's fine. But I couldn't fall back asleep. And I started really thinking like, what if he died? And that was very upsetting, of course, but my writer brain kicked in 20 seconds later. It was like, but what if the police came and they thought I killed him? What the spouse is

always, and then I thought, wait a minute, what if I had killed people, but I didn't kill him? And then I realized, oh, this is a plot. Like this is. So it was just like my brain is constantly going to what if this and what if that and how do I take a story and twist it and turn it. And once I had that thought, I knew I wanted Ruby Simon to be someone really complicated and really relatable and use very clear justifications for her actions and sort of take. But we all, and there's a lot of, like, I talk a lot about, oh, you know, you eat one cookie, so then you eat the whole box and you feel bad about eating the cookies. Really basic feelings that we've all had, but actually ratcheting them up to murder. Right.

Was something I was very excited about with her. All of that is like the reason I just loved it so much. Like, it was, she felt like a complete person and she didn't feel like a sociopath. Like, she didn't feel like any of that. But just every now and then she murders. So I do want to get into the spoilers so that we can kind of talk about more of that. So if anyone listening has not read it yet, just pause and go read it and then come back. But if you're here because you've already read it, you can obviously just keep listening.

So the book is so unique. We've kind of covered like the real unique nature of the main character. and I just don't feel like I've ever felt that way about someone who would technically be considered a serial killer. So we have Dexter is kind of the only person out there where it's like, oh, we kind of like him, but like he's still really intense and he's definitely still some version of sociopath. Ruby doesn't feel that way. So how did you develop Ruby's really emotionally vibrant character while maintaining a believability with the three murders she does commit? Well, I think that she does not, one difference for her is she does not enjoy killing people in and of itself.

It is not a fun thing like Dexter truly enjoys killing people. Now he has a code so he can feel good about it. And I think even, you know, Joe Goldberg from you, who I absolutely love that series. He's sort of a good guy, but he's really, you know, he's very complicated. and I love Joe also, but I wanted, I wanted Ruby to start off, she kills someone when she's a very young girl and this changes who she is in life because if you do something when you're young, it then becomes an option for you to do it again. And it's not that she is driven to kill people or she has to kill people.

It's just that now it's an option. And I thought by starting there, it changed kind of. of the way we think about her as simple as again like if you learn how to water ski at summer camp and then you're 20 and someone says hey we have a boat want a water ski you might say sure I'll try it and it's it's simplifying this horrible act but making it so like clear this is the decision here's why it's right and I don't feel bad about it um so I worked on that her quite a bit. Yeah. Yeah. That first killing when she's really young is a boy, a younger boy, or a young boy, but she kills him in the ocean. And it's mostly driven by the fact that

he's been bullying her sister, who she just absolutely adores. And after she commits it, she's kind of reflecting on herself and thinks, I was born with an inner strength that pushed me to help those who are weaker. So did you want to ground Ruby's character, like right from the get-go as someone who is helping others to really make her an empathetic character? Yes, I definitely did. And I think there's a bond between siblings that we often see the older sister taking care, or the older sibling taking care of the younger sibling. We see that all the time. I think a lot about what what about if inherently the younger sibling is the one who's a little bit stronger or a little bit more forceful of a personality, when does the younger

siblings step up to take care of the older sibling? And that was very interesting to me. And I wanted to explore that immediately. And I also hope that once Ruby explains to us why this she, this boy had to go, that we would feel the love she felt for her sister and we would understand and be on her side. And another, another thing that I did is often serial killers are cruel to animals and that's their gateway. When they're young, they torture animals and they move on to humans. I very specifically wanted Ruby as a young child to be very kind to animals, but actually just killed a human. I thought that that'd be a really fun twist on what we're used to seeing. And another way to feel good about her is that she loves animals. It is. It was, it was

very endearing. Yeah, but yeah, she does save a bird kind of right after she kills a boy. And I was like, that's a nice touch. I like that. But after his death, she's also talking to her mom about how everyone doesn't use the word death. They have all these euphemisms for it. And so she kind of starts to learn about denial with her mom.

And as she's kind of learned about denial, she makes a vow. So she says, I made a vow then to never live in denial to know what I've done. I might lie to others, but I would never lie to myself. So do you think this vow, or were you writing it for this purpose, do you think this vow is what makes it possible for her to occasionally kill in her life, but also exceed in academics, exceed in her career, and like stay kind of mentally intact because she's not lying to herself? I do think so.

I think that people who are self-assured and self-aware, even if you might not like those people, those people are the most grounded people within themselves. The people who know who they are can walk through life with the sort of calm clarity. They know who they are. They're not battling against themselves trying to be this or trying. And so there's just this sort of like, and like for me, the sort of wish fulfillment in creating a woman who absolutely knows who she is isn't going to obsess about, did I do the right thing? Did I mess up? Did I say the wrong thing at the party?

Did I wear the wrong shoes? Did I say the wrong thing? Did it the guy? Whatever it is, blow that up to something as huge as it murder. And still, if she doesn't lie to herself, really there's nothing to struggle with. Of course, other than grief and the fact that, oh my God, the police are after her and all these outside sources. But what I wanted to do with her is not, she does not have an internal struggle, which I think was an interesting way to go about this character. All the struggle is from the outside in.

Yeah, that was definitely, that's, yeah, that's how I experienced her reading from her perspective, for sure. The book also, like, really explores what good and bad actually are and like if that if it's even if it's possible to kind of be both so when ruby meets Carlos who's kind of he's kind of a drug dealer like he's a little rough around the edges but she feels like she can trust him and at one point she's she thinks my instincts were on point he was a good bad guy and I loved that sentence because I feel like all of us like knew what that meant and it helped describe Carlos so well but were you also kind of setting the tone for Ruby's own moral relativism that she kind of has?

Yes, and I love that you noticed that and appreciated that moment. Yeah. I think that absolutely even as, you know, this guy is way too old to have this teenage girl in the car with him, he shouldn't be doing drugs, he shouldn't be giving her drugs. He's a bad guy, but he's not a guy that would have ever violently hurt her. or assault her or, you know, and that there are degrees and that part of Ruby's kind of way of surviving is understanding degrees of good and bad and she becomes a therapist because she is so good at being able to read people and knowing in herself. Yeah, she's she's sort of bad in

certain ways, but she would never hurt somebody who she cares about or somebody who, you know, like her she becomes very close with one of her patients gabrielle and just i think someone else looking and could say about ruby she's a good bad guy so that's exactly what i was hoping for her to say about carlos yeah i highlighted it when i was initially reading it and then once i got to the end i was like okay so that was like definitely going to just kind of stay throughout the whole book. So you mentioned, I love how you pointed out, that you wanted her to kind of have her first kill when she was a lot younger because then it became an option to her.

And after her second kill, when she's reflecting on that, she thinks, I have now killed two people 11 years apart. That doesn't make a habit or a pattern, just something I happened to do twice, both times for very good reason, which is like such a fascinating viewpoint because it made me think about like if I played basketball twice in the span of like a decade, I would not call myself a basketball player. Yeah. So when you were writing Ruby, did she feel like a serial killer for you or did it not even

feel like that for you to? Yes, she really didn't feel like a serial killer. And technically she is because she's killed three people. But she was not, she is not driven by killing people. And she says, you know, it's just a tool. has in her toolbox if it comes in handy. But I think one thing that I was very interested about and is in this literally in the book I put it in is Ruby has these

sort of rules about how many people she can kill, how many people she can sleep with. And I think many women are raised with certain numbers. How much do we weigh? We have to lie about it so we're not overweight. How old can we be? We start lying about our age because no one wants to be older than 40, whatever it is. How many people can we have slept with?

We have to lie because numbers are two, whereas men can do what, they can weigh whatever they want, they can be as old as they want, they can sleep with whoever they want. And like Dexter kills, you know, hundreds of people every five minutes. But women have to be more mindful about how they present themselves to the world. And I wanted to kind of get that in with also murderers. people. I just thought that was another very interesting aspect of how different a woman serial killer is from a man. Yeah. And then you also mentioned just like thinking about guilt and all of that and eating like the whole thing of cookies and then feeling bad. But that doesn't necessarily keep you from doing it again. So I had that highlighted as well. So Ruby's thesis that she has to write when she's getting her degree. She writes it about guilt. And when she's researching it, she comes of the conclusion, guilt is not intrinsically helpful emotion for future decision making.

And often the spiral of guilt and shame can lead criminals to remain criminals. So were you using her thesis as a way to show kind of another way that she stayed under a radar was because of her lack of guilt? Yes. And I think, I just really think, I agree with Ruby and all that. And I just think again, like taking what we can so relate to or even like a cheating spouse feels so guilty. And then they say to you, oh, I cheated or a boyfriend. I cheated on you. I'm so sorry.

They didn't tell you that to make you feel better. They told you that. So they release their own feeling and now dump it on you. It's not helpful. And I've never like had that one cookie. and then thought, oh, well, it's okay. And instead, you're like, I ruined my diet. I'm eating all of them.

And I know this is definitely a type of personality. But I think by Ruby cutting guilt out of her life, she was not shining a light on anything she did. She was not acting shady or acting like, you know, telltale heart. Like, oh, my, like, and because she wasn't acting that way, nobody thought a second about the fact that three people died in front of her until the one, you know, until her husband dies in front of her. Right.

But I think, and I also did, I did a lot of research about criminals and, and repeated crimes and how sort of, you know, you do get a lesser sentence if you say you regret it, but it doesn't actually prevent those people from being back in the system with more crimes. There's no bearing one way or the other. So it's a strange thing that we as humans feel like, oh, if they feel guilty, well, then, okay, we can forgive them. Yeah. That was another section I had highlighted, but I had so many highlights. So I was trying to pick the, like, best ones to keep in the format of a podcast.

But I thought that was fascinating, too, where the incident said something about, like, isn't it fascinating that in America, remorse, like, means something. to us, like, even if it's not going to change their behavior. And I was like, it is really fascinating that we're like, well, but if you say you feel bad, we'll give you less time. It's kind of weird. So it was painful having Ruby go to this stressed retreat. She kind of discovers in the process, like, hey, I'm a human. I don't have to be all of these huge high standards I have for myself in other ways. She comes back relaxed. She has, like, the best leap of her. her life and because she's having the best sleep of her life sleeps through her husband's monitor beeping and so he dies and then she's accused of murdering him so like all of this happens to her

right after she just like got less stressed and was okay with being human so were those events paired up like almost carmically like were you trying to kind of have some of her past catch up to her or is that just how you wanted to progress the story i did want to have her past catch up with because what I wanted her to learn is that as much as she thought she could, once she realized she didn't have to control everything, she truly couldn't and all of the things she thought wouldn't come back to hurt her in certain ways did. So I wanted to give her a moment of peace and then, oh no, actually, everything you thought is going to go wrong in a way you never predicted to kind of keep.

keep her on her heels. And, you know, strangely that I don't know why this just remind, this is so different, but I don't know if you're a Buffy, Buffy fan. But Buffy and Angel finally, it's so, it's such good storytelling. They are finally happy. They finally have sex. They're finally in love. And the second he finds happiness, his curse takes over.

he becomes evil. And I always think of just that the moment Ruby became happy, it all got taken away from her. Yeah. And in the end, it's Roman and J. Sula come together to get Ruby's case basically thrown out. And so she realizes two people who had never before met or who had never met before had acted together to protect me when I needed it because I was good to them. It was my kindness that saved me in the long run, not my cunning. So did you know when you started writing the book that you wanted it to be her kindness that was her saving grace instead of just her cunningness? I did not know that.

And actually, I didn't even see that until my editor pointed out, do you realize that this is what saved her? It's all in there. but this is literally why she was saved. And I was like, no, I didn't realize that. And so that was kind of a revelation that I made with my editor and added that line in because I was unaware. Yeah, I almost had a question too about because she gets called an angel repeatedly by different

people. I think just Sula was one of them. And so there was also even just the themes of her being an angel like other people seeing her that way. So it really, it really, it really felt like everything was supporting that conclusion, basically. But that's cool that you just, your editor kind of noticed it. Yeah. I was, I was, yeah, it's been, it's interesting.

I think subconsciously there's lots of things that I put in there, but that I didn't actually realize until someone else has brought it up. And I'm like, oh yeah, totally is that. Awesome. So where can people follow you so they can keep up with everything? Just kind of plug whatever. I am on Instagram at Sasha G. Rothschild. I'm on Twitter. I don't know for how long because of all that drama, but I'm at Sasha Rothschild on Twitter. I have a website, sasha Rothschild.com, which is very, people have told me it's very pretty. And there's little, the cursor has little glitter on it. So people just sit there and move around for hours. So feel free. And hopefully it will be more books. coming out and they'll be exo kitty will be on Netflix next year and those are all the places but I'm definitely very active on Instagram. I did join TikTok. I don't I don't even know if join is the right

phrase. I'm on TikTok. I don't know what I'm doing with it. Most people don't know what they're doing on TikTok but at least you're there. So I will put all those links in the show notes so that people can go follow all of that and keep up with everything you're doing and thanks for talking with me. Thank you so much. It was delightful and your dogs were very well behaved. They were.