Psychological Thriller by Milwaukee Native

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Until recently, men were usually and largely oblivious to the insecurity women feel in the face of unwanted male attention. That attention can be shrugged off in many cases, but sometimes—especially when fueled by alcohol or other drugs—it can end in harassment, even sexual violence.

Andrea Bartz’s third novel, We Were Never Here, is a story of that insecurity nestled inside a psychological thriller, a #MeToo murder mystery. Emily is a young Milwaukee woman vacationing in Chile with her friend Kristen. When she returns to their hotel room, she finds Kristen “crumpled on the floor, crying. Her tears mingled with a spray of blood across her jaw.” On the floor lay the body of the young man, a fellow tourist, who attacked her.

It’s horrific and strangely reminiscent of their previous vacation, in Cambodia, where a backpacker was found dead in the hostel where they stayed. As the plot develops, Kristen has reason to worry about Emily. Does her close friend conceal some dark secrets? How well can we know anyone? “What if monsters walk among us and they aren’t nut jobs,” Kristen wonders as tension rises. “Maybes regular people do terrible things all the damn time.”

Bartz will be take part in a virtual event, 7 p.m. Monday, August 9 sponsored by the Elm Grove Public Library and Boswell Books, https://www.boswellbooks.com/book/9781984820464.

To attend, click the Attendee Registration Link or register here. The book can also be purchased at:

 https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/645863/we-were-never-here-by-andrea-bartz/9781984820464/ 

I recently discussed We Were Never Here with the author:

Were you living in New York during the worst of COVID and if so, how did you spend the months of quarantine? Was We Were Never Here completed before the pandemic?

I finished a first draft of We Were Never Here in late January 2020, and it was due to my editor April 30. So, I spent the early weeks of the pandemic alone in my studio apartment trying to wrestle all 100,000 words into shape. I worked on revisions with my editor throughout 2020 and it went into production (i.e., got sent to the copyeditors) in November, so I sort of mentally escaped the monotony of quarantine by slipping into the world of Emily and Kristen, whose wanderlust rivals my own. It was definitely strange to work on scenes set in crowded bars and cheery brunch restaurants while the world was shut down!  

Perils of male-female friendship is one theme in your work but so are the perils of female-female friendship. Can you give me some thoughts about that? Do you have any response to the old idea that men have an easier time getting along with each other than women do with each other? 

All of my thrillers are centered around complex female friendships; many psychological thrillers (e.g., domestic suspense) hinge on a primary romantic relationship, but I’ve always thought female friendships can be equally fraught. I don’t think men are better at getting along with each other than women are (and in fact, I think a lot of men are quite lonely!), but I do think women have been fed since birth the patriarchal lie that success is a zero-sum game, that other women are competition, and that another woman’s success is your failure—and that internalized sexism creeps into our friendships, when we feel jealous of or competitive with those we love the most.

It’s interesting—I think of We Were Never Here as a travel story about women vs. the world, but people like to see it as Emily vs. Kristen. Obviously, it is a story about a toxic friendship, too, but being a travel writer is what gave me the idea; people are always telling me I’m so brave for visiting countries alone or with a female friend, warning me to “be careful” and take precautions to avoid being robbed, attacked, or killed.

I wanted to turn the idea that female travelers should be afraid on its head by exploring how women can be just as cruel ... to male backpackers and, ultimately, to each other. I hope the book gets people thinking about the violence we casually heap on women, as if it’s their birthright, without expecting or allowing them to dish it back.

Are you surprised when you encounter friends from the past and find them changed?

We’ve all had the experience of outgrowing a friend or realizing you and someone you used to be close with no longer have the relationship you once had. I liked the idea of introducing trauma as a bonding mechanism—doing something truly horrific (like burying a body) with another person makes it hard to casually part ways.

Do thrillers allow you to explore characters, and human responses, in ways that would be difficult in other forms of fiction?

Most women feel like we’re living in a thriller novel multiple times a week. We hold our keys like brass knuckles when we walk home at night; we refer to boyfriends (real or imaginary) when a stranger won’t leave us alone; we feel our heart rates speed when a passerby follows a little too close or tells us what he’d like to do to “dat ass.”

We Were Never Here explores women’s safety—at home and abroad—because being attacked is a genuine (and realistic) fear of mine. All of my book ideas spring from whatever terrifies me: I take those deep-seated phobias and build a narrative around them, with different characters playing out different approaches to the central problem. I’m not trying to shoehorn terror into my novels; I’m trying to face it head-on, and I can’t imagine taking that approach to anything other than a thriller (or maybe a horror) novel.

Milwaukee is one of the novel’s settings. Do you keep in touch with people here and keep up with developments? Is there anything about Milwaukee that makes it especially interesting as the site of fiction?

My parents still live in Brookfield and I have close friends all over Milwaukeeland. Emily (who’s from Minneapolis but lives in Milwaukee) experiences a real identity crisis when she has to square her self-image as a “Nice Midwestern Girl” with the reality that she helped bury a body in Chile. I love Milwaukee, but there's tension between its wholesome image (the museums! The lakefront! The Friday Fish Fries and friendly dive bars!) and its comparatively high crime rate. There’s lots simmering below the “Milwaukee Nice” surface, which is also true of Emily herself. I also enjoyed throwing in little Milwaukee details—Old Fashioneds, Brady Street, frozen custard, etc. I had to coach the audiobook narrator on how to pronounce certain Wisconsin locations ("Bonduel" is not obvious!). 

A chunk of the book is also set in a cabin Up North (based on my parents' cottage in Oconto County), and I had fun capturing how far off the grid it can feel; the characters stargaze and reflect on the silence and space there, which harkens back to their nights in Chile's remote Elqui Valley.