New York Times best-selling author Stacy Willingham’s third novel is hitting the shelves this week — and though its plot is entirely fictional, she credits much of the inspiration behind the setting to her hometown, Charleston.
She sat down recently with the Charleston City Paper at her West Ashley home — an open space of neatly curated, chic decor and a minimalist office with pink walls and a bookshelf. She lives there with her dog and husband.
Willingham, who will be embarking soon on a month-long book tour, said her work didn’t initially see widespread success.
“I wrote my first book — it took me about five years, and I was never able to get it published” while working another job, she said. “But then after I gave up on that one, I started writing another book, which turned out to be A Flicker in the Dark.” It was an immediate bestseller.
A new thriller with twists and turns
Willingham’s new book, Only If You’re Lucky, is a twisty thriller that takes place at Rutledge College, which, if the name doesn’t give it away already (hi, Rutledge Avenue!), is a product of Willingham’s mind and a reenvisioning of the College of Charleston.
Margot, the book’s protagonist, begins her time at Rutledge overwhelmed by grief for her late best friend Eliza, whose cause of death was ruled an accident but has nonetheless been the subject of widespread speculation and doubt.
Willingham added all of her books revolve around “hot, humid” Southern climates. Only if You’re Lucky, however, hits a little closer to home in its depiction of a Charleston summer. Though Willingham went to college in Athens, Ga., far away from the coast, Margot’s summertime activities as a rising sophomore mirror the author’s experiences growing up.
“The kids are going to the beach and going out on the boat and all those things that I did when I was in high school,” she explained.
Willingham said another aspect of the setting — Margot’s house — was based on the author’s own memories at the University of Georgia. In college, she lived in a house owned by and readily accessible to a few fraternity boys. Like the house in Only if You’re Lucky, it was connected to the boys’ fraternity living quarters by a shed.
Fortunately, Willingham added, she remembers the boys as “really great landlords.” But she said now, years later, she still wonders what might’ve happened if they weren’t. And so does her latest book.
The plot, other fictional aspects
Besides the house and coastal college setting, Margot’s story doesn’t have much in common with Willingham’s personal experience, she told the City Paper with an air of visible relief.
“I grew up with a really, really supportive, loving family environment. I’m grateful for that. But when you put it in a narrative setting … it’s a little boring,” she admitted with a chuckle.
So she invented Margot, who struggles to relate to her uptight, picture-perfect parents and “felt like going away to an out-of-state school was defying them in some way,” Willingham said. This move coupled with a dysfunctional family and recent tragedy is what “drove [Margot] into the arms of someone like Lucy,” a new friend who sucks the protagonist into a lifestyle in which nothing is as it seems.
“A word I use a lot in the book is ‘malleable’ because I feel like you’re very malleable at that age,” Willingham added. She noted that Only If You’re Lucky “at its core, is about female friendship,” though whether or not Margot’s attraction to Lucy extends past the platonic is something she leaves up to reader interpretation. “I didn’t do that intentionally,” she said of its romantic potential. “I’ve never really answered that question for myself.”
What Willingham did know definitively while writing, however, was how she would portray the characters’ gender roles. The book discusses an instance of sexual violence, which some associate with a predatory sort of fraternity culture also depicted in the narration.
“With my previous two books and Only If You’re Lucky, I always have some kind of horrible man. I don’t know why. But I think that’s on my mind — how men treat women sometimes,” she said.
Charleston boasts bookstores, coffee shops
In addition to the inspiration Charleston provided as a location, Willingham has been especially grateful for the city’s bookstores and coffee shops.
The latter, she said, are where she goes to get work done when she’s “struggling to get in the zone” — that flow state of writing where time flies without notice. In particular, she has frequented Second State in West Ashley and Mercantile and Mash downtown. Plus, “I wrote pretty much the whole first draft of A Flicker in the Dark— my debut — at The Harbinger,” she said.
The Lowcountry’s independent bookstores, Willingham added, have been instrumental in supporting her as a local author. Her official tour starts Jan. 13 in Charleston’s backyard — at Wild Dunes on the Isle of Palms. Then, she will travel west to share her craft with readers as far away as Arizona. On Feb. 7, Willingham will host an event at Buxton Books downtown. Itinerant Literate in North Charleston will feature her new release for its Feb. 20 ticketed book club at The Junction Kitchen & Provisions.
So don’t worry — she’ll be coming back to her home in Charleston, she said, adding “It’s just hard to stay away from here.”
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