Bookwild - The Outlier by Elisabeth Eaves: A Female Corrective to the Psychopath Thriller

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

This week, I talk with Elisabeth Eaves about her thriller The Outlier.  We dive into what attracted her to writing an "unlikeable" female psychopath for the main character, and the quandary of hurting few to help the many.The Outlier SynopsisCate Winter, at 34, is a wildly successful neuroscientist and entrepreneur who has invented a cure for Alzheimer's that will improve the lives of millions. On the verge of selling her biotech company for an obscene sum, she is also about to become very rich.But Cate has a secret that keeps her deeply uneasy about everything she is and does: she grew up at the Cleckley Institute, a treatment facility for the rehabilitation of psychopathic children. And, as far as she knows, she is the institute's only success: all of her peers have become thwarted, maladjusted or even criminal adults.Then Cate discovers the existence of another ex-patient and outlier who might prove that her success isn't a fluke. He has not only stayed out of jail, but he's made a mark in business and science. Though his identity is confidential, she breaks the rules and drops everything to track him down. And when she finds him, living under an assumed name in Baja California, she is immediately obsessed. Like her, he is driven and brilliant, an innovator willing to do what it takes to perfect a new energy technology that will stop global warming. Here, at last, is her mirror, her ultimate collaborator, the possible answer to the enigma of her nature.But in the wake of a mysterious death, Cate can't avoid suspecting him. If he is involved, do his ends justify his means? Ruthless herself, she's about to find out whether there are any moral lines she won't cross. 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 

Yeah, sort of rebelled against the idea of the unlikable quote on character. That was kind of a term that cultural gatekeepers would give both to dismiss a female character that we just kind of don't find that pleasant or that like sweet. But I, so the unlikable female character was kind of an idea. I was wanted to, like with Kate in the outlier. She was really fun to write, you know, because she is a psychopath, even though she's not a killer. And it was just fun to not have to kind of like couch her in all this like niceness and pleasantness. This week I got to talk with Elizabeth Eves, who is the author of The Outlier, which is a psychological thriller that has been called the corrective to the psychopath thriller.

So here's what it's about. Kate Winter at 34 is a wildly successful neuroscientist and entrepreneur who has invented a cure for Alzheimer's that will improve the lives of millions. On the verge of selling her biotech company for an obscene sum, she is also about to become very rich. But Kate has a secret that keeps her deeply uneasy about everything she is. She grew up at the Klekli Institute, a treatment facility for the rehabilitation of psychopathic children. And as far as she knows, she's the Institute's only success. All of her peers have become thwarted, maladjusted, or even criminal adults. Then Kate discovers the existence of another ex-patient and outfire who might prove that her success

isn't a fluke. He has not only stayed out of jail, but he's made a mark in business and science. Though his identity is confidential, she breaks the rules and drops everything to track him down. And when she finds him living under an assumed name in Baja, California, she's immediately obsessed. Like her, he is driven and brilliant, an innovator willing to do what it takes to perfect a new energy technology that will stop global warming. Here at last is her mirror, her ultimate collaborator, the possible answer to the enigma of her nature. But in the wake of a mysterious death, Kate can't avoid suspecting him. If he is involved, do his ends justify his means?

Ruthless herself, she's about to find out whether there are any more lines she won't cross. book is a really unique take on the psychopath thriller with the rehab that she grew up in as a child as a really interesting point and also brings in some really interesting elements of business and the environment. So if you love your thrillers, a mashup of all of those things, or you love a thriller with one of those things, you will probably really enjoy this book. But for now, let's hear from Elizabeth. Before we dive into The Outlier, I did want to get to know a little bit about you. So when did you know you wanted to write or when did you know you wanted to write a book?

I was a kid who always loved language and history and English class and those kinds of things. So there was kind of a natural desire to write. And then after college, I started getting more into like, what can I do here? How can I do more creative writing? And I realized one of the few things you could do as a writer and get paid and do it as a profession was to become a journalist. And so I did that. And so I kind of come out of journalism as a creative writer. So I did that for years. I loved it. I love reporting and asking people a million questions to learn about their lives or whatever. they do. And somewhere along the way, I wrote my first two books, which were nonfiction books. So my last one was a travel memoir because I was a very obsessive traveler. And then after that, I was trying to figure out another book topic. And I really do love narrative nonfiction,

like those writers like David Grand or Rachel Aviv who write these incredible narratives that are nonfiction. But I couldn't find the right subject. Like I had kind of themes and ideas. And I'd always had some interested in fiction. You know, I'd written, I had stories on my hard drive. I'd never published anything. And so then I decided now it's time to write fiction. And I wrote one novel,

which my agent shopped and we didn't sell it. And so then I wrote another one and this is that outlier, the one that's come out now. Yeah, that's quite a writing journey. What do you think about writing as a journalist and nonfiction writer? How did that inform your writing when you went to start writing fiction? Yeah, that's a great question. And I think there are some skills that translate over really well. Certain types of writing, like I think journalists are pretty good at writing dialogue.

We're pretty good at writing setting, I think, and kind of picking out those details for writing a setting. We're good at self-editing, which is actually an incredibly important task. Like, how do you narrow this down and make it not like sprawl all over the place, even if you have all the stuff you want to include? So those things I think translate over well And then There's things you just really have to unlearn too Like the style well depending what kind of journalism we're talking about But if you're talking about like news

The style is very choppy right It's like back back back quote Back back back quote And you are thinking about proving all your points Like here's the quote Here's the source here's you know the documentation and in fiction you don't have to do that and you don't want to do that because it's too it takes the flow away i think so like fiction just has to be just be plausible but it doesn't

have to be true because it's fiction so the writing's a little more flowing and you know longer paragraphs that kind of thing so i think there were things i definitely had to unlearn um like i had this instate to want to like document reality in a very accurate way and I had to like just let go of that and think about like what's the best story to tell here yeah you do see some of how that is useful though in the outlier where there are times where like you're like I just need this to be delivering facts about it basically so that's cool I can kind of see how that played into it how did your writing process evolve with fiction. Do you plan ahead?

Do you plot? Are you a plotter? Are you a pancer? Like, what's your process? So I go back and forth, and I kind of don't believe there are pure plotters and pure pansers, although maybe people would dispute beyond that. My method is, well, I think it was different from it, because I'm working on a new novel now and then I worked on that other novel before.

So it's changed a little for each time. But I think, like, the best method for me now is to. make an outline, but don't make it too long or have like too much detail or two step by step, but kind of have that loose outline. And then start drafting and then probably go do more research.

So I will have probably done research before that first draft, write the first draft, but then do more research because I don't really know what I'm missing. until I have that draft. I don't know where the holes are. And then I will also, as I'm writing, be making my outline more precise. So I may, even though I had that earlier outline,

I may, as I go along, realize I want these new characters or realize how I want the ending to be different. So I'll kind of go back and forth, essentially. Yeah, that makes sense. I do think a lot of people are actually more a hybrid version of it, probably. So with the outlier, you have a non-traditional female as the main character. And it also kind of, there's a little bit of travel involved, like traveling into Mexico and stuff. So I know your two nonfiction books, Wanderlust, has to do with traveling.

and Bear really tackled like working as a stripper, which is not negative, but is a non-traditional female vocation, basically. So did anything from those books kind of inform this book? Yeah, I think I've always sort of rebelled against the idea of the unlikeable, quote, unlikable female character that was kind of a term that cultural gatekeepers would use for a long time, probably more in Hollywood than in publishing, but to some extent in both, to dismiss a female character that we just kind of don't find that pleasant or that like sweet or traditionally feminine. And I think, I do think that's changed now. Like now we have all kinds of, you know, assassins and like just slabs and like sort of quote unquote unpleasant people now all over in books and

and um film so that's that's a great change but i so the unlikable female character was kind of an idea i was rebelling against and like um wanted to like with kate in the outlier it was she was really fun to write you know because she is a psychopath even though she's not a killer And it was just fun to not have to kind of like couch her in all this like niceness and pleasantness. It was it was very liberating. As for how that relates to my earlier books, I'm trying to think about this carefully. I mean, with with bear, which is about strippers and, you know, other dancers, but also myself in that profession, like if you're going to do that and you're going to do it by choice, you kind of have to not care that much. whether people are going to disapprove of what you're doing.

Like, you kind of just have to throw that aside and not worry too much about what people think of you and what you're doing. So I think that comes through in the Kate character. And then, of course, my travel writing in general, both in Wonderless, my memoir, and then also, so I, when I was a journalist, I kind of went through some phases. So I was this writer, and then I was a travel writer. and then I was a science writer. That's essentially how I would divide up my journalism career. So all that travel writing, I think, absolutely informs the outlier, both the landscapes in Baja, the little beach town, which is also a tourist town,

and the tensions in that town kind of revolve around. There's some tension between like the locals and the newcomers and the tourists. And that's something I've seen. certainly in a lot of places in Mexico, but also all over the world. So both on the positive and the negative side, I think, yeah, my travel writing is present in the outlier. And I think it probably, that'll be true, probably in all fiction I write, like I'll want, you know, have these hopefully interesting settings.

Right. Yeah, that's really cool. So some of the marketing about this when I received it was calling the outlier. corrective to the psychopath thriller. So, one, what drew you to having a psychopathic main character? And what did you feel like needed to kind of be corrected with it? So obviously, like all of us, you know, I have like watched shows and read books about psychopath, like very kind of evil, bad people.

And then there's the pop culture reference, you know, we'll sort of casually call people like a psychopath or sociopath if you do something really unsavory. So I was exposed to all that. And then for a few reasons, I became very interested in kind of the brain side of that and like how the brain works and how, you know, the clinical and scientific community. community actually understand psychopathy as a neurodevelopmental disorder, like a developmental disorder, like there's many of them that, you know, we're aware of now, ADHD and autism. And I'm not saying that like psychopathy is like those things, but that they are a spectrum disorder, so people can have a little bit or a lot. And that it really has to do with how the brain is shaped and how it's functions.

So I became very interested in that side of it and that background to it. And then a couple of works of nonfiction really inspired and interested me. So one was a long magazine story by Barbara Haggerty in the Atlantic. This is, I don't know, probably seven or something years ago. And it was about children who were identified. as psychopathic or sort of proto-psychopaths that's in the clinical community, they call them call them unfeeling children, I think because they don't, you know, you don't want to write a psychologist.

But there's a whole clinical community and facilities where doctors are essentially trying to train and educate young people who are like this. And so I found that really fascinating, like the whole idea that this. is something you could screen for and identify early and potentially educate people in such a way that they become productive members of society and not, you know, go off the rails in a criminal direction. So it's very interesting that. I read another book where that's a memoir by James Fallon who is a neuroscientist. And you know, had been studying people like this. And then he, it's a complicated story, but he essentially

gets his own brain scan mixed up with the brain scans of like psychopaths who he's studying. And he realizes that like his brain looks just like theirs. Like it's the same, um, pattern. And so then he realizes that he is in fact a psychopath. So this is actually happened. This guy like wrote about it. I I think he did a TED talk. So that fascinated me too. Yeah. And yeah. And then also like probably my personal experience.

So my, my mom was a child psychologist. And so, you know, there was a lot of dinner table talk about like brain development in young children. So that probably informed things too. Yeah.

Yeah. I want to read about this guy who discovered he was a psychopath when he was studying psychopaths. Yeah. I'm definitely going to be looking that up. What drew you to writing a thriller? Or did you just kind of have a story and you told it and then you realized it was a thriller?

It was definitely the latter. I didn't know that I was writing a thriller at first. I think for subsequent novels, I will have a clearer idea going forward. But I just, I had these ideas. these characters and themes. And it was kind of as I was

writing that I realized I wanted to have this cat and mouse and kind of you know cataclysmic collision between these two people. So that's really when I knew more like what it was.

It was like much later in the game than when I set out. Yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned that you read an article about like kids who were like doctors who were trying to kind of deal with kids with those traits. And in the book, Kate basically, she kind of grew up in Klekli Institute for psychopathic children. Did you, so did you do any further research on like how to create that environment and like what would be going on there? Not really. I mean, Klekli is, totally fictional. I mean, I know there are facilities that treat children like this. I think the more fictional aspect in Cleckley is that it's like a whole school and kids

stay there for years. So it's kind of a combination of like a boarding school and a reform school and the clinical facility. So that part is totally fictional. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Did you do any other research into psychopathy itself? Yeah, a lot of reading, like both academic reading and popular science reading, there's a professor emeritus named Bob Hare, who is kind of considered like the pioneer of studying psychopathy in criminal populations and like really kind of wrote the book. Like he, you know, has a list of like, he has a whole assessment tool that is the assessment tool that's used now. So read a lot kind of by him and about him. And then like popular books like there's one called the psychopath inside, I think. There's a one called the psychopath test that's by a really funny journalist named John Ronson. There's a, there's kind of a major psychologist in the UK

called Simon Baron Cohen, who's written a book about like brains that don't have empathy or people that don't have empathy. So kind of a range of from the more academic side to like the more popular science side. Yeah, that's really cool. I hope you're enjoying this episode of Book Wild. And if you are, could I ask you a favor? Could you go and rate and review this podcast and whatever platform you're listening. Ratings and reviews make the biggest difference in discoverability of the podcast, and I definitely want to find all of our fellow thriller readers out there. So if you could go rate the podcast and leave a short review, that would make a huge difference. Thank you. And let's get back to the show. The other thing that's kind of cool, the way you use her psychopathy,

is she is able to find a cure for Alzheimer's, but she's able to do it because she does some morally gray things, but it's benefiting so many people in the future. So it's kind of justifiable. So how did you approach that tension of kind of like showing how some of her skills could be useful, even if they're kind of damaging at the moment? Yeah. Like she's a ferociously focused person, but like to the point where she could just like ignore everyone in her life for five days, ferociously ambitious, you know, but also really smart. And she has this business partner who's much more like contains her somewhat and is like more the face of the company and kind of like normalizes Kate somewhat.

So I'm sorry, I forget what the question was. No, you're totally fine. Like how did you like approach the nuance of like she did some bad things to cure it? she cured Alzheimer's. Yeah. Yeah. So that came out of, okay,

so when I was a business reporter and like I worked at Forbes magazine, which does like this billionaires list every year and obviously covers a lot of, you know, founders and CEOs. And I became very fascinated with this idea of like the figure

in tech, usually in tech, who does invent something, world changing. But, that, you know, might be like a pretty big jerk in other respects. And we're all, like, I'm not going to name names, right? But we can all, we can also think of these like CEOs and founders that we talk about now.

So I was very interested in the name. I almost named a name. Well, I mean, yeah, we all know who we're talking about. So that was really interesting to me. And like, I don't think there's an easy answer, but it's kind of a philosophical question. of, you know, I think there is a philosophical test where, like, if you're going down, like, if you're going down a railway track and you can go this way and you know you're going to kill, like, five people who you don't know, and you could shift tracks and you'll kill one person

who you do know, like, which is the better course of action. So I think that's something philosophers talk about. But it's kind of like that. It's like, well, if this person has these traits we think of as negative, and yet they can channel those into, you know, doing something amazing that kind of changes the world, like, how are we supposed to think about those people? And I mean, I kind of come down on the side of like, you know, if she invented a cure for Alzheimer's, like, great. Like, good for her.

Like, she doesn't have to also be a nice person. Correct. And then, of course, the person she's kind of. of chasing in the book is also sort of in that category or he, you know, he's like her, which is why she's trying to go go find him. Yeah. With that relationship, you can feel how like she would love the idea that someone else is like her. Like, I think it's on the synopsis that she's like one of few who didn't go to jail as adults after being a part of the study. and then she finds out someone else was.

But you can feel how she kind of like wants to be able to like kind of have a sense of community or see herself reflected in someone else, make herself feel even a little bit more normal. So how did you kind of approach the fact that she is a psychopath? But she also like kind of really wants this relationship that might feel affirming. Yeah, like how, yeah, I had to think about a lot about like, So what does she actually like? So psychopathy, like I said, is a spectrum disorder, which means you can have a little bit or a lot. And one of the traits is lack of empathy.

Another trait is like a low depth of feeling, or they call it shallow affect. But essentially it means like you have feelings, but you don't. like feel things very hard. So I kind of decided, well, like, okay, like she doesn't have a large depth of feeling, but she still has some, like where she does want to have these connections in life. So I had to really decide kind of which psychopathic traits were going to be most prominent in her. She's definitely like a risk taker and a thrill seeker for sure. Yeah.

She's kind of like looking for that, that feeling like she's kind of looking to give herself stronger feelings so she you know she's like an extreme sports person yeah so I just had to sort of decide and calibrate like what is this person actually like and I think the fact that she's you know such a unique person because she's come out of this institute and she's like succeeded greatly in life But she doesn't know anybody like her. And there's kind of like nobody in the world you can talk to about this institution that she grew up in. So when she finds out about him, she really feels this sense of like, oh, my God, there's like this person just like me.

I have to go find him. So yeah, she's drawn to him. And she, you know, she has these connections like with her old mentor and her business partner. So she has, she does have like a few human connections in the world. Yeah. Yeah. she really she does the other thing that the story examines is the environment and global warming and how sometimes our efforts to even improve the environment there's also still like damage that comes

from going after something like that uh so what drew you to kind of including some of this like environmental science aspect part of it too so yeah i'm going to sound like such a such a walk which I kind of am. So I was very interested in this idea of the unintended consequences of exciting new technology and how many of them are kind of a double-edged sword. And that probably comes out of the fact that I worked for this publication for seven or eight years, mostly as an editor, that covers nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, climate change, you know biological weapons

essentially like human invented technology that could kill everybody really quickly right if things go wrong yeah that place is called the bulletin of the atomic scientists they're the ones who do the doomsday clock if you've ever heard about so yeah I've been so I've been working there for a while and like so just constantly thinking about these themes

of existential threat and you know you look around in our world and we're seeing it constantly. It's like, okay, we need carbon-free technology. Let's have hydropower. Well, okay, hydropower does all these things to like the fish, right? And it's like, okay, well, let's have wind power. It's like, well, wind power is troublesome for the birds. So I think, or like nuclear is like this amazing carbon-free energy source, but, you know, it has this little radioactive waste problem that upsets people. So I feel like we're constantly seeing that as as the world tries to solve these problems.

Yeah. You know, like there's people now who are getting all excited about geoengineering, which is you sort of like see the clouds to cool the world. Well, like, yeah, it's great if it works, but it's also kind of like terrifying if it doesn't work. So these are just things going on in our world

that I was very interested in. And like, there's kind of maybe a bit of a tendency to get really excited and like a new technology there'll be a lot of hype around it and then people don't totally think about like what are the impacts of this going to be so yeah yeah it was really thought provoking in both like the environmental part and kate as a character is really thought provoking too it's interesting too because it's like you kind of gain more empathy for a psychopaths while like sometimes that's the thing they have the least of um but yeah i just thought it was cool how you pulled all

of those elements together into one book. Thank you. You're welcome. I kind of just layered in different obsessions of mine. Yeah. Like stuck it all in there. Yeah. I mean, I feel like it makes sense, like write about the stuff that you're already excited about. So at the end, I've been asking people if they have read anything recently that they loved. But I know some people don't read all the writing. So it's okay if you don't have any. Yeah. So, I mean, I could, so if we're talking about newer books. So any, yeah, I in sort of in the broad thriller category, what I tend to read the most are murder mysteries and spy stories. Those are kind of like to do on go-toes. So those will probably will be several of my recommendations. But like, I love the office.

author Tanna French, if you know who that is. He has this series of murder mysteries set in Ireland. And I think she's a fantastic writer. So she had a new book out this year that's called The Hunter, I think. Sorry, one second. I actually wrote this stuff down because I'm always afraid of blanking in the moment. So, like, I made a list of like my favorite books. But yeah, so her new book that came out this year is called The Hunter.

and she it's in like a tiny rural town in Ireland and she um I think she's an amazing writer because her writing is really really atmospheric like you really get the sense that you're in these places and her writing's like very flowing and kind of beautifully descriptive and then there's like a murder mystery kind of better than that um so she's great um the writer jean half corollets who wrote the plot a few years ago. She has a new book coming out in the fall, which I'm excited about. It's called the sequel. So I think it's also like playing with these ideas of like who gets to tell what stories

and then like stories being stolen from one person, you know, one writer to another. Yes. And then just some recent thrillers. Like there's a new one out. I think it's coming out in August. I have an arc. called The Divide by Morgan Richter. And it's like set in Hollywood.

And it's kind of a doppelganger story of like someone looks at somebody else. And maybe you've seen it because it's. I do. I have a copy of it. Okay. Yeah. The cover's so cool. Yeah.

Yeah. The palm trees. Yeah. And then like I think you've talked about rabbit hole on your podcast. I know, like you, Brody. I thought that was a really good, you know, combination of like beautiful writing. and then the rabbit hole is like a Reddit rabbit hole kind of true.

Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. Those are some things that I'm like, yeah, into right now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Rabbit hole is so emotional and very powerful for sure. Yeah. So prepare yourself for an emotional one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like PSA.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's really great. But yeah. It's powerful and heartbreaking at times, which is good that she conveyed it all. Yeah. Where can people follow you on social media to keep out to date with everything?

So I'm just going to say Instagram, Instagram, Instagram, because I really like just focusing on one social meeting and not trying to be everywhere. So yeah, it's just my name, which is Elizabeth with an S, Eves, that's like Eves on a house. So it's at Elizabeth Eves on Instagram. Yeah. Awesome. I will have those links in the show notes. And thank you so much for coming and talking with me. Thank you.

Really fun to talk with you, Kate.