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Nicole Ransome: Hi, I'm Audible Editor Nicole, and I'm excited to sit down with YA thriller author Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, whose 2021 debut thriller, Ace of Spades, launched her onto the New York Times bestseller list and won her the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work for Youth and Teens in 2022. Now, she's here to discuss her latest whodunit boarding school mystery, Where Sleeping Girls Lie. Welcome, Faridah.
Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé: Hello. Thanks for having me.
NR: Where Sleeping Girls Lie follows formerly home-schooled Sade Hussein, who's been recently orphaned as she arrives at her new boarding school. Then to roll out the welcome wagon, her roommate goes missing her first night on campus. The setting becomes a huge driver of the plot. What inspired you to choose a boarding school as the location for the story?
FAI: I have always loved boarding schools, and specifically boarding school mysteries. When I was younger, I grew up in a very working-class neighbourhood. My high school was a public high school, and so I just always dreamed of going to boarding school. So, me writing them is almost like my escapist fantasy, because my mom never let me go because, obviously, they're expensive. So, yeah, I like writing them for my teenage self who wished I could go to one.
NR: I had that same wish. My mom, she was like, "No. There's no way" [laughs]. So I can relate. This story features themes of toxic campus culture that can exist at long-established academic institutions. What message were you aiming to leave listeners with by highlighting these themes?
FAI: So, while I love boarding schools and I love the fantasy of them, there's also a lot of things that go on in these institutions. Topics of classism obviously come up because you have some of the most privileged children in the world going to these schools and also some children that don't come from these backgrounds who are given scholarships to attend these institutions. And when you have these environments where parents are absent and a lot of things can just happen without anyone seeing because of the lack of supervision, it's really important to, I guess, spotlight those things because I think they represent a lot of the things that happen in society at large. I think school stories are so important for that reason.
At school, I went to an all-girls Catholic school, and so I had a different experience from the characters I write. But when I got to university, I was exposed to all sorts of dynamics. I was meeting people who went to the best schools in the country, some of them the best schools in the world. I was meeting people who were, you know, boys for the first time because I went to an all-girls school. So boys were not really a part of the conversation. We didn't think of boys. I mean, we thought of them, but they were mostly a concept. They weren't really a real thing.
"My books are meant to be fun. But also they're meant to give Black and Brown students and teenagers the language to describe what they're going through."
And so having to come in contact with class discussions, race discussions, because I also grew up in a very diverse neighbourhood. My school was mostly Black and Brown, and I was going to university in Scotland, so that was going to be a different dynamic in general. And then also gender dynamics as well were introduced to me. So I thought it was really interesting that I had such a special kind of unique experience to a lot of people. A lot of people went to high schools that were PWIs, predominantly white institutions. And I didn't have that experience. And so I think it's so interesting uncovering what that looks like for someone that's coming of age.
NR: Were there any real-world events that inspire some of the situations in Where Sleeping Girls Lie?
FAI: Yeah. Actually, so, I was in university during the #MeToo movement, and that was something that really touched me at the time. I was discovering feminism a lot when I was in my later years of high school and finding my voice within the conversation because, obviously, feminism can be a very white landscape, and finding Black feminists and Black feminist resources was very interesting and important to me. And when the #MeToo movement was happening, I thought this was a new movement. I didn't realise that it originated with a Black woman in the early 2000s. And I thought about that erasure of Black women from the discussion of sexual violence and violence against women in general, and how it took white women and white womanhood being threatened and white women's being victims for people to take it seriously. And I thought that it was such an important conversation. But, as usual, a lot of Black and Brown girls were left out of the conversation.
Other real-world influences for me was the adultification of Black girls and generally misogynoir and how that impacts Black girls and their coming of age. And so I really wanted to have this conversation but really centre people that looked like me and the girls that are often left behind in these conversations.
NR: Yeah, I was going to say, the school is very diverse. One of the first things, I was like, "There are a lot of Black kids at this boarding school, aren't there?" But I actually really enjoyed that because as I've said before, I'm a huge fan of boarding school mysteries. And I think that's always an element that's missing, it's Black voices from the conversation as well and those experiences. So I think that's great. And that actually leads me into my next question, because Where Sleeping Girls Lie and Ace of Spades both take place at elite schools for children in the upper echelons of society. What inspires you to write characters driven by the parameters of these kinds of environments?
FAI: So, as I mentioned before, I went from being in a very working-class neighbourhood environment schooling system, where everyone was struggling in some way. We all came from families that were either single-parent or low-income. And also my area was very diverse. My school, my high school, was about 99 percent, I'm sure, Black and Brown. And so going from that environment to being kind of thrust into the world of elite kids and these really fancy institutions that have people that are so used to privilege and so used to a certain environment and rules and all of these things, that it really made me want to unpack that in a story. Because I really struggled when I was confronted with that. And I think the idea that people like me coming up in those environments but younger – I was 18 when I had to go through that, but people that are 14, 15, 16, coming into those environments and not having the language to describe what they're going through, I really wanted to give them the language to describe that.
I think that for such a long time when I was first in those environments, I thought that I was the problem. I thought that I was just uniquely different and like I just intrinsically had something wrong with me. I didn't realise that there was external forces at play here. And it took me a long time to realise that everything was systemic. There was no way I was going to catch up to people who had their entire lives planned out for them, essentially had things given to them in a way that was going to boost them and help them have an easier time at university and at these institutions. So, essentially, my books are meant to be fun. But also they're meant to give Black and Brown students and teenagers the language to describe what they're going through, through an entertaining-ish story. My stories are quite dark, and so obviously they're also entertaining but also quite dark. They’re meant to be two things at once.
NR: Yeah, I definitely think that that's represented through the Elizabeth character. She definitely brings in that working-class background. Like, you understand the dichotomy between the experiences of Sade who is, you know, she's going through a lot, but she still has that luxury aspect to her life because she still has that, I would say, fallback plan, regardless of what goes on. I definitely see that a lot especially with the Elizabeth character.
FAI: Yeah, actually with Sade, she's influenced by something that I came across when I was at university, which is that I assumed that everyone that looked like me was going to be working class as well. And so that was such a big shock for me to go to university and find other Black people who went to boarding school or private schools. And so we both related on a race level, but then when it came to talking about class discussions, they couldn't really relate to where I was coming from and what I was going through. With Sade, she fears expulsion for different reasons to Elizabeth. Elizabeth, if she loses her scholarship, she loses essentially a future that has been provided to her by this institution, but Sade, she just loses an opportunity that she could easily get again. So I find that very interesting.
NR: Yeah. The stakes are way different for both characters, as we can tell as the story unfolds, definitely. So, when writing a mystery that features a diverse cast of characters all driven by their own agendas and pasts, how do you choose which characteristics and personality traits will best lend themselves to an intriguing and satisfying mystery?
FAI: So, I usually come up with the plot twist when I'm writing first. And soon after the character follows. And so I think of the big twist that's going to happen or the big plot point that I'm leading up to and I think what character, what main character, would be interesting for that to happen to, and why. So, with Ace of Spades, it was the idea of having two different types of Black people and have them react to an institution in different ways to show that we are a very diverse group of people, characteristic-wise. But Where Sleeping Girls Lie, I needed to find an outsider who was also an insider in other ways as well. And so I needed to create a character who understood a lot of things about this world, but was ultimately kept out of it because of her own traumas and her basically having to navigate through that in specific ways, without giving spoilers away. But, yeah, I always come up with the plot and the plot twist, and then characters who will lend themselves to an interesting story, to creating an interesting story through their eyes and their viewpoints and the way they see the world.
NR: That's actually very interesting. I feel like usually when I ask a question like that, it's always kind of like I want to figure out the situation to put the character in. It's not that the situation was created and then here comes the character and then how will they respond. I love that, because I feel like you can see in the story how each character really does have its own personality and they're driven by their own agendas. And so it really does make those twists gel together a lot more. It's like, "Oh, I can see that. This makes sense.”
FAI: Yeah, exactly. I feel like I have a really big, diverse cast in this story. And I didn't sit down and think I want this story to have 12 characters or whatever as the main group you're following. It was more so that I'll have a scene and I'm like, “Someone needs to be here to provide this in this scene, or I need this type of character to show this point through.” That's how they all develop. For example, if I need comic relief, I'm like, "I need to create a character that's going to make these scenes a lot lighter than they are already." So, yeah, I think that I find it really nice doing that rather than trying to shoehorn characters into a story.
NR: Yeah. Wow. You know what? As you talk about comic relief, I did like the Bas character. He just provides some good jokes.
FAI: Exactly. Yeah.
NR: I will say I had moments where I was looking at Bas like, “Is he going to disappoint me in any way as the story develops?” But I really did enjoy his character a lot. And speaking of characters, the main character, Sade, she has a lot of depth to her. She's been through a lot prior to attending boarding schools. So, it was in a way kind of refreshing to watch her struggle with some lighter obstacles, like navigating the cliques and friendships, demanding schoolwork, the mean teachers, budding romances. Did you ever have a moment where you were writing another layer to Sade's character that made you say like, "Wow, she's been through a lot"?
FAI: Yeah. Obviously, she's gone through so much as a child. And she's lost both her parents at a very young age. And me and Sade, we share similarities. I also have CPTSD. And so I thought to myself as a teenager, what sort of character would I want to see, someone that obviously also has same traumas as me. But how would it help me as a 16-year-old reading a character like this? And I thought that it would help by making her have normal teenage experiences, because I think when you come from a background of having really bad trauma or a really, really traumatic childhood, it can feel like you can never be normal again. And it can feel like there's no way of you navigating life the way other people do.
And so having her have these lower-stake issues and just living life as a regular teenager despite all the traumas she has with her was really important for me because I think that showing her character exists and thrive and just get over these smaller hurdles like everyone else makes it feel as though you can thrive even with trauma. So I thought it was really interesting working on that. And I had to convince myself that as well because I'm still struggling with that as well.
NR: I'm sorry to hear that. Sade is of Nigerian Muslim background. One of her struggles while in her new boarding school was finding proper food accommodations for her religious dietary restrictions. As someone who was also Muslim, were any of Sade's experiences inspired by any of your own experiences?
FAI: Yeah. Actually, I've always wanted Muslim, Black Muslim representation in the media because I never see it anywhere. I've seen it recently in recent years, luckily. But when I was a teenager, it didn't exist. And so I liked the subtlety of having her have issues with finding halal food, for example, because it's something that happened to me a lot. I would go to a lot of events when I was a teenager, open days for college, and they would serve lunch. And I would ask for halal food or food that hasn't got any pork or anything like that, and they just didn't have that prepared. So I was just wanting to add in those little moments to basically show that she's Muslim without it being announced.
I like to have casual representation in my stories. So, the characters aren't announcing that they're Black or that they're gay or that they struggle with this mental illness or that they're this religion. It's more so a nod, kind of like just acknowledging it in subtle ways rather than them having to announce it. All of it is kind of casual representation so people feel seen in a casual way.
NR: Yeah, well, that's a great message to send. And honestly, I think that definitely speaks to a lot of people's struggles. And I can imagine what an elite boarding school, trying to find your proper dietary restrictions and meals that will accommodate that, what that could possibly be like, especially considering most of those institutions are PWIs.
FAI: Exactly.
NR: So, I was actually pleasantly surprised by the ghostly element included. Why did you want to add a paranormal element to this story?
FAI: So, as I mentioned earlier, I'm Nigerian. And it's really funny, in Nigeria contemporary stories will have a paranormal element to them because Nigerians, we believe that the paranormal is not supernatural necessarily in the sense of, like, it being fantastical. The paranormal is part of everyday life. So, for example, an aunt can just tell me randomly, "Oh, I saw a ghost of my next-door neighbour." And it won't be a weird thing. It would just be a part of daily life. Or I was told by my cousin that one of my aunts has turned into a cat. She's retired and turned into a cat. And she lives in, like, the back garden. And so Nigerians are very strange people when it comes to paranormal stuff, we just believe in things being normal and naturally weird and supernatural in that way.
NR: I need to ascribe to that because I'm telling you if I turn around and see a ghost, I'm high-tailing it out of the room [laughing]. That's actually one of the things that always spooks me, a good ghost, so that's why I really do enjoy it. I like to be spooked. But not, like, actually behind me or something like that, that would kill me. The ghost leads to a pretty big reveal in regards to some of Sade's own hidden truths. Without giving away any spoilers, did you always know what Sade's background and secret would be?
FAI: Yes. So that was part of the big twist that I was coming up with when I was first planning on writing the story. And the ghost element, other than it being a Nigerian thing to have weird stuff happen in day-to-day life, the ghost thing, I think, is also meant to be a subliminal message about the story’s themes, because there's a lot of codes and secrets and things that you think are happening, but maybe you're making up in your head. I feel like the ghost is up to your own understanding of how you see the story. Maybe there was a ghost. Maybe she's just saying there's a ghost. Maybe it's not actually a ghost.
"In Nigeria, contemporary stories will have a paranormal element to them because Nigerians, we believe that the paranormal is not supernatural necessarily in the sense of, like, it being fantastical. The paranormal is part of everyday life."
So, yeah, I think that with the big reveal at the end and the fact that she feels like she's been haunted, it's more so meant to be Sade and her trauma and you seeing how trauma follows you rather than necessarily it being actually I guess ghostly or scary. You're meant to just basically feel the weight of all of her traumas coming together. And so I wanted that to lead up to this big moment at the end where you see why she's been followed in this way and how that has led to the big reveal.
NR: Natalie Simpson's performance of Where Sleeping Girls Lie was really strong, especially in the way she singularly performed the diverse cast of characters. What were you most excited about with Natalie's performance?
FAI: So, I'm a huge fan of Natalie outside of my audiobook. I am a big Shakespeare fan. I just did my master's degree in Shakespeare. I just graduated. And Natalie is in my favourite performance of Hamlet ever done. It's the 2016 Royal Shakespeare Company's Hamlet. And she plays Ophelia. And Ophelia's story and the themes around Ophelia are referenced a lot in Where Sleeping Girls Lie in a very subtle way. So I thought it was really cool when she got casted to be the narrator for the audiobook. She's incredible. I just finished listening to the audiobook recently. And I thought it was incredible. I really love audiobooks because I'm dyslexic. So they helped me with reading as well. And, yeah, she just did an amazing job.
NR: Oh, well, if you are a fan of Audible, do you have any listens you'd recommend for listeners?
FAI: Yes. I love Audible. This is actually great. I love Julia Whelan, who is a narrator who does a lot of big romance books, or she does every genre, to be honest. But one of the ones I really love that she does is Emily Henry's romance books. And so Julia did Book Lovers, which is my favourite Emily Henry. I also really like the narrator for Scythe by Neal Shusterman, which is Greg Tremblay. That was really well done, I think. I love the audiobooks. I'm always on Audible listening to books.
NR: Well, we love to hear that [laughs]. Going back to Ace of Spades, your authorial debut was an instant bestseller. How did it feel to receive that reception for your debut?
FAI: It felt really strange for many reasons. One of them being that it was the pandemic when Ace of Spades came out, and we're all in lockdown. And so while there were external things happening, so I was being told that the book had hit bestsellers lists around the world and it was doing really well, winning awards, it felt kind of not real because I had not met any readers at that point. So it didn't feel like there was anyone out there actually reading the story. But it felt still really special seeing that it was doing really well, especially because I was still in college at the time. And so it felt like I had started my college journey writing Ace of Spades, and it came out at the end of my college journey. So it felt like I had gone on a journey with my characters and with the story. And it felt like the finale of my experience there.
NR: How does it feel to have released your second novel now?
FAI: It feels really weird because there's been a big gap between Ace of Spades and Where Sleeping Girls Lie, a three-year gap between the publication dates. And for a long time, I didn't think I could finish the book because second books are really hard. They're notorious for being hard. But I just didn't expect how bad it was going to be, the experience of working on a second book, especially following a successful first book. So I'm really happy it's out. And I'm really happy that readers are resonating with the characters. And, yeah, it just feels so strange. It feels like it was an idea in my head for such a long time. And now it's real.
NR: It's a really good one too. I actually really did enjoy the second book. It's a really good story. I think that the build-up to the twist was chef’s kiss.
FAI: Thank you.
NR: So, what inspired you to become a YA thriller author?
FAI: I really find thrilling stories interesting because I think that they often reflect things that we’re scared of in real life. There's a history of horror and thrillers being used to talk about real-world horrors. And so I find it a really cool medium to talk about horrific things that happen in the real world, in a story. I think that it's also very comforting as someone with trauma or someone who has a lot of issues with the world that we live in today, I think that it's a great place to unpack it and in a safe space, you know, that you're going to be safe after reading a story, hopefully. And so I think that it can be really special for that reason. It's a place where you can confront things without necessarily being harmed but while also learning a lot about things you didn't know.
NR: How did you foster your passion and skills for writing over time?
FAI: Well, when I was 10, I wrote my first story, which was a really bad knockoff of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. And I gave it to my teacher at the time. And she read it and she said that she really loved it and she was like laughing and she told me to continue to pursue publishing and writing and when I was published I should come and tell her about my book. And so I did that, actually, last year. And she was very proud. I think that was the moment where I felt like I could write. And so I just continued writing from that point on. I was writing a lot of fan fiction for myself, basically, on my computer, just writing about my favourite characters going on adventures. And then when I was 16, I think I wrote my first story. It was a very bad story. But I think just always working and writing fan fiction, that helped me with fostering a love of writing.
NR: Wow. You know, I used to love fan fiction as well. I love to see a good pipeline from fan fiction to an author. I love it.
FAI: Yeah. I never published anything but I liked it for myself. It felt like a nice little world I created.
NR: Oh, so you used to read your own stories. It was just for yourself.
FAI: Yeah. I literally would write it for myself, and just come back home and read it as if it was someone else writing.
NR: As a YA author who no doubt inspires quite a few young adults to become writers, what advice would you give to your fans who envision for themselves an authorial debut in their future?
FAI: I think that you should read a lot of books. I think that reading is where it all starts because that's where you learn about stories and where you learn to love stories. And I think that it teaches you without it being like a lecture. It's teaching you subtly, about characterisation and building a story. And so that's always where I think people should start.
"I always say to people: try to finish a story even if it's bad because then your brain knows you can do it, and you can replicate that again and again."
Another thing is fan fiction, I think people should write in any form they want and just have fun with it because I think that treating it as a job, especially when it's not a job yet, is the worst thing you can do. I think you should have fun when you're writing. And then also trying to get something finished even if it's a short story. I think that the first time I finished writing a proper manuscript from beginning to end, I was around 17 years old. And it psychologically does something to you. It makes you realise that you can finish something. When you're just writing and scared of finishing, your brain doesn't know you can do it yet. So I always say to people try and finish a story even if it's bad because then your brain knows you can do it, and you can replicate that again and again.
NR: Wow, that's great advice. Are you currently working on anything new?
FAI: Yes. I've got some things coming out this year. My next project is out in June. And it's with my best friend, Adiba Jaigirdar. It's a rom-com called Four Eids and a Funeral, which is a Muslim rom-com. And then I've got some anthologies that I'm a part of. One of them is called The White Guy Dies First, which is a horror anthology that's basically subverting horror tropes and taking back the narratives that we've been force-fed about Black and Brown characters and their place in horror. And then, lastly, I've got another anthology which is with Marvel. And I'm writing a new Spider-Verse character who's called Spider UK/Zarina Zahari. And she's a Muslim Spider-Verse person. She's Muslim and Black and from London. So that was really cool to work on because I felt like I was writing someone I wish I had as a child.
NR: Wow. That's a really cool thing. Well, you have a lot going for you. So it's only all the way up from here, huh? [laughs]
FAI: Yeah.
NR: I love that. Thank you, Faridah, for taking the time to chat. Listeners, you can get Where Sleeping Girls Lie on Audible now.
FAI: Thank you. So lovely to be speaking with you too.
