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| Karen Dukess (photo: Nina Subin) |
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Karen Dukess has been a tour guide in the former Soviet Union, a newspaper reporter in Florida, a magazine publisher in Russia and a speechwriter on gender equality for the United Nations. She is an alumna of Brown University and Columbia University and the author of The Last Book Party. Her second novel is Welcome to Murder Week, coming from Scout Press/Gallery on June 10, 2025.
Tell us about the inspiration for Welcome to Murder Week.
This book was born out of a trip I took to England with my sister in the fall of 2022. I had seen some photos, posted by an author I knew, of the Peak District--it was so beautiful, and looked just like my fantasy of the English countryside. My sister Laura and I have similar tastes in books and British culture, and we had never traveled together on our own, but we decided to do it. And it was a dream. People were very friendly, and we didn't see many other Americans. Especially after the pandemic, the Peak District doesn't get a lot of American visitors.
We went to Bakewell in Derbyshire, and it was like stepping into all the novels I had loved for years--Jane Eyre, Rebecca, Agatha Christie's. I was seeing it all through the lens of fiction. We did tons of walking and going to pubs, drinking tea and visiting grand estates and walking the Jane Eyre trail. Every night I would post on Facebook about our adventures, and my posts reflected the giddy, silly mood I was in. It was just such a lark, and so fun.
I had recently completed a novel set in Russia, where I lived for six years. But I was trying to sell it right after Russia invaded Ukraine, so it felt rather anachronistic. After my England trip, I had other ideas bubbling up--so I decided to write about Americans going to England and having the same kind of experiences I'd had. Having fun was my main motivation for writing; I wanted to enjoy it. I thought, I will amuse myself, and hopefully it will amuse other people. And it was the most fun I've ever had writing anything.
The book pays tribute to Agatha Christie and Golden Age English mysteries, but it's a modern story. How does it fit into that mystery tradition and also offer something fresh?
I'd never written a mystery before! I'm a mystery reader, but not a huge one--though I did read a lot of Golden Age crime while writing this book. (And I watched a lot of Midsomer Murders!) Having said that, I've always been drawn to stories that have mystery and secrets in them. We read those kinds of stories to find out what happened in the past. Withheld information is often what keeps us reading. There are so many stories that are not classified as mysteries, but they have mysteries in them. You're chasing a question: What's going on here? What explains this? During my research, I also discovered some contemporary mystery writers. Getting to know the genre better has been really fun.
The book's plot centers on a fake murder mystery, but the characters don't always know who's involved (and/or who's telling the truth). How does the book explore the concept of truth vs. lies?
I think that's interesting in so much of fiction: what a character says versus what they're actually thinking. Or: a character believes a certain narrative about their life and makes decisions according to that, and then they discover that that narrative is not necessarily true. Cath, my protagonist, has spent all this time rebelling against her mother's way of living, thinking she was flaky and flighty, but never knowing why her mother was that way. It has led Cath to live a narrower life--reacting against her mother, trying not to be like her mother. She's been burned by her mother but is also curious. And she learns some things throughout the book, but she never really figures out her mother, not completely. She has to find a way to move forward without knowing everything.
It's also been a fun experience to talk about the fake murder. People then start to think it's not a "real" mystery--but it is a real mystery! It's just not a real murder. The true mystery involves Cath's story and her search for answers about her mother. When you read a traditional mystery novel, part of the joy is that you know the mystery will be solved. But Cath's story is a little more complicated.
Cath is an optician, but she can't always see what's in front of her. How does the book play with themes of seeing and vision?
I wanted Cath to have her own business, doing something she had done since she was young. It was inspired by an optician in the town I grew up in, a woman who had worked at an optician's shop since high school. She worked for this man for years and basically took over the business from him. And when it was quiet in the shop, she would always read. In Cath's case, she sometimes chooses not to see, or she insists on seeing her own version of things, which is not necessarily the truth. Mr. Groberg, her former boss, encourages her to travel, telling her that it can be like getting new glasses. It struck me as a perfect metaphor for a trip that will really change how Cath sees her mother, and ultimately herself.
How is this novel similar to your first book, despite their very different settings?
In some ways, my novels are very different from one another--my first book is a literary coming-of-age story set in the 1980s. But I think it's true that writers often write the same story again in different forms. My books are both about women who are basing their decisions on a narrative about the world, or about their family, that they've accepted, but which turns out not to be entirely true, or won't bring them happiness. They both learn something that makes them change their approach to life. In some ways, I'm always writing about the stories that we tell ourselves, and how confining those stories can be. Sometimes you need something that jolts you out of your story. Both my novels are about women making those discoveries. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams