The Committee Will Kill You Now was the winner in the Socially Conscious category in the 2025 IndieReader Discovery Awards, where undiscovered talent meets people with the power to make a difference.
Following find an interview with author JL Lycette.
What is the name of the book and when was it published?
The Committee Will Kill You Now, published November 9, 2023
What’s the book’s first line?
The hospital had a saying — you came to work unless you were dead.
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
In 1992 Seattle, at a busy teaching hospital, an intern dies by suicide, and Noah Meier, a first-year family medicine resident reeling from the shock of it, commits an accidental medical error. In a desperate move to save his patient’s life, he covertly seeks help from audacious surgical resident Marah Maddox, igniting a bond between them. Noah turns to his late father’s journal for guidance and makes a chilling discovery that could expose the hospital’s toxic secrecy culture but upend both of their careers. Noah will have to choose: shoulder his surgeon father’s devastating legacy or tear it all down, saving not only his patient but himself and his fellow trainees.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
The inspiration for THE COMMITTEE WILL KILL YOU NOW was three-fold. First was the real-life history of ‘The God Committee’ in early-1960s Seattle, WA—a committee of primarily laypeople who secretly decided which people would be allowed the first kidney hemodialysis in the U.S. The committee first came to public light in an exposé article in Life Magazine written by Shana Alexander in November 1962. In my book, the main character, Noah, learns about the committee when he finds his father’s old journal.
Secondly, I wanted to tell the ‘villain origin story’ of the character of Dr. Marah Maddox, who is the antagonist of my first book, THE ALGORITHM WILL SEE YOU NOW. In that book, Marah is a senior physician in a position of power, and readers meet her after she’s long lost her moral compass. In COMMITTEE, which is the prequel to ALGORITHM, readers meet her as a young surgical resident physician in the early 1990s and will learn the events that set her on her ill-fated path.
Thirdly, it tells the ‘villain origin story’ of modern medical culture: the abuse of young residents who the system demands work unlimited hours and deny their humanity by depriving them of basic bodily needs such as sleep. My concept for THE COMMITTEE WILL KILL YOU NOW was dark academia where the culture of medicine itself is the secret society that is killing people.
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 of THE COMMITTEE WILL KILL YOU NOW is Dr. Noah Meier. The most distinctive thing about him is that he’s a good-hearted, anxious young doctor who, despite being the son of an illustrious surgeon, is a fish-out-of-water in the early-1990s cutthroat medical scene, where he hides his sensitivity and panic attacks out of fear of being perceived as ‘weak.’
One of my editors said he reminded her of John Cusack in the movie Say Anything, and as soon as she said it, I couldn’t stop picturing him as a young John Cusack.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
I think to answer this, I’ll quote this review from The Big Thrill:
“THE COMMITTEE WILL KILL YOU NOW isn’t just entertaining. It’s important. Through Noah’s journey, Lycette spotlights high suicide rates among residents, and offers a profound insight that has the potential to save lives. If you need a gripping read that will stay with you long after you close the book, Dr. Lycette has already written the perfect prescription.”
If they made your book into a movie, who would you like to see play the main character(s)?
Since John Cusack isn’t in his 20s anymore (see question 5 above), I think perhaps Tom Holland for Noah’s character. In addition, I think Florence Pugh would be perfect to play the dynamic Marah Maddox.
Is this the first book that you’ve written?
This is the second novel I’ve written. It’s the prequel to my first novel, The Algorithm Will See You Now.
What do you do for work when you’re not writing?
In my day job, I’m a hematologist & medical oncologist (a doctor of blood and cancer medicine).
How much time do you generally spend on your writing?
I’m not someone who can write every day due to the demands of my day job, so I usually write for long stretches on weekends, probably about 8-12 hours each weekend (not necessarily consecutively).
What’s the best and the hardest part of being an indie?
The best part by far is being able to tell the stories I want to tell and retain creative control. The hardest part is trying to get my books seen and find their audience (in other words, the marketing is the hardest).