In her new romance ‘Happy Medium,’ Sarah Adler finds the perfect balance between reality and the supernatural plane

The following interview contains spoilers for ‘Happy Medium.’

When it comes to romance novels, inspiration can be found in the most unlikely of places. Yes, they all feature swoon-worthy tales of earned, learned or undying affection, but it is the background noise that can take a story from good to great. Every author is different, pulling settings either from well-loved locations, the depths of their imagination or a mix of the two. However, no matter how the multitudes of worlds created by ink and paper come to be they all start somewhere. If you have read Sarah Adler's Happy Medium, you may think the idea sprung from the simple fact that the author believes in ghosts, but her sophomore novel is less an ode to her thoughts on the supernatural and more the result of a good-quality pun. Before she took pen to paper and wrote her latest book, she first tweeted the basic plot for a hypothetical work of fiction titled 'I ain't afraid of no goats.' Over time, the one-line joke became a full-fledged novel, set as one might expect on a haunted goat farm.

When Gretchen Acorn, a con woman with a conscience, is asked to assist with an exorcism by her favorite (read wealthiest) client, she packs her sage in a weekender bag and heads to the appointed small town, thinking the job will follow semi-standard faux-medium procedure. However, she couldn't be more wrong. The octogenarian Charles Waybill, whom she was planning on meeting, is not actually old at all. In fact, Charlie is quite attractive, irritatingly grouchy and immediately suspicious of her trade, which would be fine if the farmhouse was not actually haunted and its owner cursed. Now, the only person who can save him from himself is Gretchen, assisted by the property’s resident ghost, Everett, a spirit more akin to Casper than Beetlejuice. As the unlikely pair teams up to save the non-believing farmer, sparks fly in unexpected ways between Charlie and Gretchen as both learn there is more to the other than first impressions and internal bias may have implied.

The FMC was lucky enough to get some time to talk to Sarah about her time spent writing Happy Medium, her encounter with the paranormal, the novel's not-so-deleted scene and more.

Happy Medium is such a fun book. It has a really unique premise. Where did the inspiration for this story come from?

It actually started as a joke with myself. When I'm bored, either alone or with my husband, I like to come up with puns. And then I think about what a book with whatever pun for the title would be about. [laughter] Happy Medium began as ‘I ain't afraid of no goats.’ I came up with a premise similar to what Happy Medium ended up being and posted it on Twitter as a joke. My critique partner saw it and was like, “Actually, that's really cool. You should do that.” It was all very silly, and I did not think it was going to actually become anything, but the idea would not leave me alone. I was trying to work on something completely different, and I kept thinking back to the ‘I ain't afraid of no goats’ concept and how it would actually work. Suddenly, it clicked into a plot, and I was like, “I'm going to ask my agent if I can do this.” Once I had her blessing, I worked on a pitch for my editor. My editor was also like, “That's crazy. We love it.” And then, I had to figure out how to turn a one-line joke into an entire book. [laughter]

Well, you did it wonderfully. The plot begs the question, do you believe in ghosts?

I don't know. I have relatives who say they've seen them. My mom and my mom's side of the family very deeply believe in them. I think I do. It's interesting because when I was a teenager, I worked at a historic train station in Gettysburg. It's the train station where Abraham Lincoln arrived before he gave the Gettysburg Address.

Oh, that’s cool.

It is supposed to be haunted, and I have never had a weird experience there at all. The only weird experience I've ever had was when we were house hunting. Our agent took us to this cute little Cape Cod house. It was probably built in the 1940s or 50s. My husband, myself, our then baby and our agent were the only ones in the home. We're upstairs looking at the bedrooms and talking, and we hear booted feet walking on the ground level. It was a very distinct sound. We all just looked at each other like, “Did somebody come in here?” My husband and our agent went downstairs to check it out while I stayed with the baby upstairs. But there was literally nobody there. Nobody in the basement. Nobody was on the first floor. The doors were all still locked. It was just the four of us.

I would not buy that house.

We thought about it for a second. We were like, “I wonder if we could lowball offer because of it.” [laughter] But then we're like, “No, no, no.”

That's really funny in the context of Happy Medium.

It is! Maybe I drew a little bit from that experience, which is my only ghostly experience, even though I grew up around Gettysburg and should have, in theory, run into a ghost there at some point.

I’d say that’s a pretty significant instance, to be fair. This is your sophomore novel. What were the biggest differences this time throughout the publishing process?

To start, the actual process of writing the book was terrible. I think some of it is the sophomore slump. But I don't think it was the pressure of reception, so much as the process of publishing the first book, that hindered me because most of the writing was happening in the lead-up to publication for Mrs. Nash's Ashes. It wasn't that I was necessarily worried about what people would think about it so much as I was the fact that I was under so much stress during my debut year. My anxiety was terrible. My depression was terrible. It was not a good time for me personally. So, I just kept finding that my writing was coming out wrong and sad and dark and not the kind of book I wanted it to be. It wasn't until I leaned into that feeling, instead of trying to run away from it, that I was able to break through and find a happy medium, so to speak and find the right balance. On the other hand, the actual publication process has been so much easier because I know what's ahead and what to expect. The things that were very challenging last time around have been so easy this time around. The amount of nervousness I have, on a scale of one to ten, is at a two instead of a twelve, as far as publication day is concerned. It's a very different and more enjoyable experience this time around. While Happy Medium was much harder to write, it's been a joy to actually turn it into a book that will be on shelves.

I’m glad it grew into something that you can be proud of. With the actual writing, do you think that your debut was easier because there wasn't really a deadline?

That was absolutely part of it. I had to ask for two or three extensions, which I don't think I've ever had to do with anything in my entire life. I was definitely struggling in a way I hadn't before. Mrs. Nash's Ashes was very much a passion project. It was me trying to put everything I've learned through my failed attempts at getting published into something new, something really genuinely myself. It was very much me trying to prove to myself I could actually do it. I was just having a lot of fun with it. At the time, I was a stay-at-home mom, and so it was my time to myself that I would get in the evenings or on weekends. It was the pandemic, so I couldn't really go anywhere. I wrote a lot in parking lots in my car and outside of coffee shops. It was very much a labor of love and something I was doing for myself. Writing under contract is a really different beast and something that I think takes a lot of getting used to. Adjusting to doing this as a job instead of something I was working towards was difficult.

I think that is true for a lot of things, but I can definitely see it in terms of writing. For you, what makes a compatible fictional couple?

I think communication is important in real life and also in fiction. I enjoy writing about people who genuinely want to understand each other and genuinely like each other for who they are, as opposed to hoping they will magically transform into somebody else. I think that's a theme in my work. People who see each other in a way that other people do not see them and like what they see enough to want to be with that person no matter the circumstances.

One of my favorite moments in the book was the billiards scene, where you get to see a new side of Charlie. I think it creates a really sweet moment for him and Gretchen. What was your biggest challenge with this story?

Just getting through it was probably the biggest challenge for the reasons already mentioned, but figuring out where Everett fit into the story was hard. I knew I wanted him there. I knew he was my comedic relief. But I don't think I realized until I was pretty far into the story how important he was to Gretchen's growth as a character. His friendship is really crucial to her growth. It turned out that all of these characters were really lonely and needed each other. Figuring out what Everett’s deal was beyond just being in the way was important and something I had to work my way towards. Originally, he was going to have basically conned her.

What?

Yeah! He was going to be much more malicious. Eventually, I realized that doesn't fit who he is. What drives him is his loneliness. Getting to the point where I really understood his motivations was challenging, but I think the book is much better for it.

I really liked him as a character. He added so much to the main story. How did you decide which TV shows Everett would be obsessed with?

I wanted to get a good sampling of the time period in which he would have been watching TV. I wanted to make sure it wasn't all references from a certain time period, so some of them changed a few times during revisions to make it more even. I also used things that would set up for a good joke. I wanted him to have watched Ally McBeal so that he would do the weird baby dance that is famous from that show and I wanted him to quote Guy Fieri. I wanted to set up certain jokes. But other times, it was just shows that I really enjoyed, shows that I felt like he would enjoy or shows I had watched recently.

I was just so curious [laughter]. This is kind of a question for me. Because I had the book on NetGalley, I couldn’t see how much I had left. I’m typically very much a physical copy girl. The one thing about the book that kind of threw me with Happy Medium was that I kept expecting Gretchen’s dad to show up. All of a sudden, I was in the epilogue, and that hadn’t happened, so what made you decide not to include that interaction, or were there any drafts where he was more in the picture?

Okay, I love this question. I've been waiting for an excuse to say this on the record. [laughter] When I first drafted this book and sent it to my editor, it was similar to how it is now, except there's no conversation with her landlord. Gretchen’s relationship with her dad was very up in the air. It was just that he was probably trying to find her, and maybe he'll find her one day. The reason I did that, and the reason I explained to my editor that I did that, was because I didn't know how to write the scene where they were face to face. So, I just didn’t. She was like, “That's valid. Do you think we could try a scene where they have to interact in this next round? I was like, “Sure. I'm happy to try it.” I wrote an entire chapter where Gretchen and her dad talk, and I sent it back. My editor gave me the funniest note I've ever received: You put so much work into this, and you did such a great job. That being said, I think we should cut it and go with your original instinct.

Amazing.

But I would like people to know that we did try it. My husband reports to me with sort of general trends and reviews because I try not to read them myself, especially the negative ones, and he's been like, “A lot of people feel like that plotline is never tied up.” We did try to make it neater, but it didn’t work. I also think that something that matters to me in fiction, and this feels really silly to say considering the plot of this book, is realism. I like it when there is an underlying element of real life behind any story. The fact that that relationship is left open-ended feels like something that could be true. I think that it's important to acknowledge that sometimes things like that aren't finished with a nice neat bow. They aren't ever resolved in your life. Sometimes, you fall out with somebody, and you'll never get closure. Sometimes, there's not really an answer to all the questions, and you just have to learn to live with them or move on. Maybe that's not satisfying for some readers, but it does feel true to me.

That is completely understandable. I don’t think it would have stood out to me as much had I had a physical copy and knew how much story was left to play out.

It's one of those things where it's like, I promise you you don't actually want that because we tried it, and it was not worth it.

In the acknowledgments, you wrote that Happy Medium ended up being deeper than you intended. Where in the drafting process did you notice that

It definitely came during revisions. When I turned in this book, I was so pessimistic about it. When I sent it to my editor, I literally kept writing, ‘I'm sorry,’ and then backspacing. I could not figure out how to send it to her without apologizing for it. My mental health was not great at the time, so I was very much feeling done with it, even though I knew it probably wasn’t going to be good.

No first draft is good, not one.

I felt as if there was no world in which the story was going to get to a place where I felt good about it. But that's why editors are important, especially brilliant ones like mine. We worked through three rounds. She just kept pushing me gently on different things. She's very good about things like characterization and motivation and getting me to think more deeply about those things. By the time we got to that final draft, I understood the characters way better than I had while drafting. I felt like they had finally told me what their problems were, and then I was able to help them find their solutions to each other. That was when Happy Medium became something that felt a little more hopeful and a little bit less depressing, and I started to feel very proud of it. I took this thing that I thought was garbage, and I made it something that felt good to me. All the credit goes to my editor for helping me get through those revisions and giving me the perfect notes. It was just such a relief to finally be like, “Okay, maybe there's something I can do with this after all.”

Having somebody else read something you wrote that's not you is always helpful because you can't get away from it like they can. Lastly, my favorite final question is: which FMC archetype do you identify with?

I'm definitely a nerd. I was on the chess team. I don’t have a choice here. I have to go with that one.