Stacey Abrams says she writes ‘because I need to’

It’s a choice born of practicality, analysis and admitted nerdiness on Abrams’s part, qualities imbued in Avery Keene, the main character in “While Justice Sleeps,” released today by Doubleday. It’s also a nod to the fact Abrams began the novel in 2008, just a year after she’d been elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. Landlines were still a thing back then.

Credit: Emily Mahon

Credit: Emily Mahon

Over the past 21 years, Abrams has published eight romance novels under the nom de plume, Selena Montgomery. Her first novel, “Rule of Engagement,” was written while she was a law student at Yale. The following seven were penned during a career that spanned tax attorney at Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan; deputy Atlanta city attorney; business owner; and state House minority leader. While running for governor and after a bitter loss to now Gov. Brian Kemp, Abrams wrote two non-fiction books. And she has continued working on a children’s book and a teen superhero novel while advocating for voter rights and equitable economic development with her organizations Fair Count, Fair Fight Action and the Southern Economic Advancement Project.

Her national profile has so soared since the run up to the 2020 election, that three of her earlier romance novels are being reissued in 2022 by Berkley Publishing Group, an imprint of Penguin Random House. “Never Tell,” published in 2004, is currently under development at CBS, with Abrams attached as a producer.

“While Justice Sleeps” is the first fiction book published under her name. It poses the question: What happens if a Supreme Court justice is comatose and unable to resign? And what if that vacancy leaves a split court with national security hanging in the balance? From there the plot roves from Bangalore to the North Georgia mountains, to waterfront warehouses in Washington D.C., to holding chambers continents away. A justice suffers from a degenerative neurological disease, and a parent is gripped by a debilitating drug addiction. Keene, law clerk to the ill judge, must unravel it all with the help of friends and her knowledge of chess, a game Abrams taught herself to play growing up in Gulfport, Mississippi. Keene also faces a U.S. Solicitor General named David Ralston, who bears a striking resemblance to and shares the name of the current Georgia House Speaker.

Credit: Alyssa Pointer / Alyssa.Pointer@

Credit: Alyssa Pointer / Alyssa.Pointer@

“I write because I need to write,” Abrams told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an interview about her other career.

Q: There’s been research on people who take 20-minute naps at intervals over the course of a 24 hours rather than sleep a dedicated number of hours each night. The nappers claim they get an extra 20 years of productivity over the course of a lifetime. Is that you, because how do you find the time to write these books given the other demands of your professional life?

A: I’ve always been able to subsist on less sleep and, I’m also very organized and methodical about my writing. I’m organized and methodical about my life. And particularly when I have a contract, which I’ve had since my first book, I’ve had the responsibility of delivering it just like I have to deliver any other work product. And so, I organized my time to make sure I could get it done. I’m privileged to be able to write fairly quickly. I can read about 3,000 words in a sitting. Procrastination leads to speed.

Q: You’re not the type of writer then, who, plot-wise, can’t see beyond what’s in the beam of their headlights, just discovering the path as they go along?

A: I’ve got MapQuest. I printed it out. I know the turns.

Q: So, when you map a book out, do you use a white board? Spreadsheets?

A: I will start with a spreadsheet. For fiction, I translate it to notecards: Create the problem; complicate the problem; solve the problem. But the solution to the problem has to create a new problem. And for nonfiction, I use giant Post-it notes because that’s more about having a theme. Understanding “What’s the problem? Why is the problem? How do I solve it?” But that doesn’t require the kind of connection that fiction does.

Q: You and bestselling novelist Tayari Jones were taught by acclaimed Atlanta novelist and playwright Pearl Cleage at Spelman College. What was Cleage’s influence on your writing?

A: I took a playwriting class from Pearl Cleage and there were two things that I really internalized. One was the propulsive nature of storytelling. The audience was relying on you to move the story along, and you were required to create action in each moment. And the other was, she said, “Someone has to live, and someone has to die.” For me, that was so gripping, because it became not just a question of a character, but as she talked about it, it’s an idea. When you’re willing to fight and you’re creating tension and conflict, it is a cop-out to simply dissipate the argument. If it was important enough to fight about, then someone has to win, and someone has to die. It could be a physical death, an emotional death, but something has to give.

Credit: Miguel Martinez for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Credit: Miguel Martinez for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Q: Hacking, Supreme Court deliberations, the workings of the human genome, you seem well versed in all of it. How much time is spent on research?

A: I’ve done this for every book I write: I immerse myself in the research. My mom not only was a college librarian, she was a research librarian. In our family, if you were told go look it up, it was, go look it up. And if you had to go to the college with my mom to look it up in books, you will look it up. So, I love the research part of things, but what I like about my brain is I don’t get caught with analysis paralysis. Because of the authenticity of a story, especially when you’re doing suspense or thrillers, you have to have enough legitimacy to the story that an expert might raise an eyebrow but won’t completely dismiss it right away.

When I have specific questions, my family is my own personal Google. I can call my sister, the scientist, or my sister, the anthropologist, or my sister, the judge, or my brother’s a social worker, or my brother, who reads all these thrillers. They all have great imaginations, but they’re critical. They’ll tell me, “No, this doesn’t make sense,” or, “Yes, that can happen, but not the way you did it.”

Q: There are leading characters of different races and ethnicities in the book, but there’s a moment where three Black characters try to unlock a deeply coded clue, and it was striking because we don’t often see the genius of Black characters in thrillers. Did you read other Black thriller/mystery writers like Walter Mosley, Eleanor Taylor Bland, Barbara Neely along the way who featured strong, smart Black sleuths?

A: I read Walter much later in life. And I love his storytelling style. But for me, it was much more, “This is a story I want to tell.” I want people to see themselves in these stories. And while race is very clear, it is not the story. Often, there’s this presumption that when a character is a person of color, when a character is Black, that the story is all about their blackness. How decisions are made, and how lives are lived, and who we become is absolutely grounded in race. But it cannot be the only identifier for who we become.

Q: Former U.S. Rep. Doug Collins was mentioned in one of your earlier romance thrillers, “Reckless.” And early drafts of “While Justice Sleeps” featured other politicians you worked with at the state House. But the only one who remains in the new book is state House Speaker David Ralston. How did he survive to the final draft?

A: It was less about not including them and more about scenes got cut. There was a whole political thing that played out in the book, and I was told that was too boring and take it out. So, a lot of folks who were in that section in my computer didn’t make it to the final book.

Here’s the thing about David Ralston. I got to the Capitol in 2007. I was assigned to the judiciary non-civil (committee). He was the chair. And it was under David Ralston that I actually had the most impact in my early time in the legislature. We were in committee once and the Republicans were clearly going to get this bill through that they wanted. Democrats, we were adamantly opposed to it. One of the Republicans basically tried to hijack the conversation and stop it. And I remember Chairman Ralston said, “It is unlikely that we will lose the vote, but there is no reason to not allow a debate.” He shut down this Republican and allowed every Democrat in the committee who had questions, every witness we wanted to bring.

Let’s not be confused, he’s still he’s a conservative, and he’s gonna use it. But he didn’t use it to diminish my ability to participate in the process.

We talked about this for years, that he was in this book. To me it seemed a petty thing to take him out of the book because of our disagreements about policy. And while I’m incredibly disappointed about his behavior on SB 202 (Georgia’s new controversial voting law), I don’t revile him as a person. We’ve been friends and we remain in a very respectful friendship. That kind of petty vengeance doesn’t make sense to me.

Q: If you run for a higher office, whether governor, president or something else, should you win, do the thrillers and romance novels continue or will you stick to non-fiction?

A: I will never choose what I write based on the office I’m in. I write based on what I want to tell.

Questions and answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.

FICTION

‘While Justice Sleeps’

by Stacey Abrams

Doubleday

384 pages, $28.95

VIRTUAL AUTHOR EVENT

DBF Summer Reading Series. The AJC Decatur Book Festival presents Stacey Abrams in conversation with author Joshilyn Jackson 7 p.m. May 18. Via Zoom. Free, registration required. www.decaturbookfestival.com