Gutted received a 4+ star review, making it an IndieReader Approved title.
Following find an interview with author Anna Madorsky.
What is the name of the book and when was it published?
My debut novel is titled Gutted, and it was published on May 29, 2023.
What’s the book’s first line?
“My formative years didn’t so much scar me as gut me from the intestines out like one lethal claw swipe by an enraged grizzly bear.”
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
A chance encounter between Elliott and Jason, both damaged and disillusioned, leads to a strong connection between them. But when she learns a chilling detail—he’s a serial killer—she must grapple with her own instabilities, their shared animosity towards a broken world, and the truth of who she is and what she’s capable of.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
The short answer: Exhaustion. The long answer: I never had the intention of writing a novel. Historically, my outlets for creativity and storytelling have been music and poetry, and I’ve always felt contented within those constraints: meter and cadence, rhythm and melody. I love the detective work of it. You know the clues are in there, and if you keep your focus, you’ll eventually ferret out the answer. And there’s always this sense of unlocking a great mystery. Some kind of truth is revealed that is only unearthed and can only be arrived at through the creative process of writing a poem or composing and recording a song. All the rich interiority of a character can be built up through songwriting and producing music, and a full album allows for the layered complexities of a character, a conflict, or a web of relationships to shine through. Songs are the chapters; the album is the story. Perhaps I should have suspected a novel was in the cards when I started drawing little maps and writing short backstories that weaved together different albums. But I just figured I was creating my own strange genre of literary pop.
But then, in late 2012, after several years of intensive work on music projects, I hit a wall of exhaustion. Sound itself was overwhelming. And in that silence, Gutted was born. While trying to enjoy lunch on the patio of a small cafe, the first two lines of the book materialized, letter by letter and in Courier font. I could even hear the typewriter clicks. It was like watching the opening credits of a movie. I immediately dropped my shawarma wrap, transcribed the words into my phone, and went home to write. I knew it was somehow important, but I figured the prose would end up morphing into song lyrics. But it didn’t. I wrote for about eight hours, went to bed, and woke up early the next day to do the same thing again. And this went on for three months—waking up at four in the morning, writing for a couple of hours before work, writing on my lunch break, and then coming home to write until after midnight. So, what I thought would be a song—or a short story at most—became a full novel. I was more surprised than anyone. But the story wrote itself, and the characters were (and still are) so palpable to me. It’s like they’ve always existed, and I just happened to fall into their world through a magic portal that opened one random afternoon outside a little Mediterranean cafe. And after nine years of disbelief that I’d actually written a book, I finally pushed myself to put it out there. But the story feels more relevant with each passing day, so I’m happy to have released it.
As far as the content of the story—a woman with a fragile mental state who falls in love with and gets entangled with a serial killer—I’d say it’s informed by a few different things. Firstly, I’ve had a lifelong interest in brain science and behavior. I have an educational background in neuroscience and psychology, and I’ve always found the mechanisms of the mind endlessly intriguing. And psychopathologies like antisocial personality disorder provide so much context for the incredible spectrum of the mind’s capacity.
I think it was also an artistic reaction to society and media. At the time of writing the novel, anti-heroes were all the rage in popular culture. We had Tony Soprano, Walter White of Breaking Bad, etcetera … and every time these types of characters were described as “morally complex”, I’d cringe. Sociopaths and malignant narcissists are not really that complex. They are one-trick ponies with a stunted sense of self. Objective-driven, intractable, and intent on rationalizing recidivistic behaviors. And of course, those traits do correlate with success, power, and influence in society. We don’t live in a world that’s good at incentivizing good behavior. For me, the character who must engage with their own complexities whilst navigating a routinely inhospitable society is by far the more compelling study. So, I think all of that contributed to the birth of the main characters. It’s a psychological thriller, but it’s also very much a work of literary fiction and an exploration of the social conditions that take us one way or the other. I’m very interested in the material differences between individuals that account for disparate trajectories. And of course, from rates of violent crime to how depression manifests, it’s impossible to explore mental health or tackle phenomena like violence and not discuss the differences between the sexes.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
To experience a dizzying avalanche of events through the eyes of the snowball tumbling downhill, who also happens to be a captivating narrator.
What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character? Who-real or fictional-would you say the character reminds you of?
The main character has a complex inner world, so much so that her mental chatter often eclipses real life. She reminds me of many people I’ve known who have not yet dealt with their traumas.
Is there something in particular that motivates you (fame? fortune?)
Civilization tends to drag us towards distractions and gadgets, and we run the risk of losing ourselves in the noise. Art has the power to reconnect a person to their own singular essence, that untouchable thing beyond any tangible representation or constructed identity. As an artist, I’ve always been motivated by this. When I feel lost or get derailed, creating art has consistently been my path back to myself. In turn, it’s very rewarding to stir an authentic thought or feeling within another person. In fact, it’s this notion that helped push me to publish. When I first wrote Gutted, I shared it with a small group of people. One reader was so affected by the story that they found the courage to confront their abuser. If my work can spark a reconnection to the self for even one more person, then it’s worth the effort of releasing it.
Which writer, living or dead, do you most admire?
I have a profound admiration for dissident writers. I’m sure this is at least partly informed by my family’s experiences in the Soviet Union, but the strength of character it takes to face censorship, imprisonment, exile, or death is an inspirational guiding light for me. When I think about the many individuals throughout history who have paid a price for their words—Varlam Shalamov, Anna Politkovskaya, Avijit Roy, Jamal Khashoggi, and countless others—I’m reminded to wield this tool wisely, and to never take it for granted.