Sharon Doering thrills readers with her triumphant debut novel, She Lies Close. 

A five-year old girl has been missing for six months. The only suspect lives next door to Grace, the brilliant protagonist of Sharon Doering’s suspense-thriller. Grace’s genius mind goes into primal overdrive to discover the truth and protect her own children. Doering, a former science professor, unleashes emotional tidal waves with surgically-precise prose and plotting. Doering talked to Library Journal about art and science.  

SHE LIES CLOSE is a bona fide page-turner. What are your techniques for keeping readers spellbound? 

I threw the kitchen sink at this book. My focus was making it as intense as possible. I really wanted an editor to not be able to put my book down. My desperation to get published oozed into Grace’s desperation. If nothing momentous happened during a chapter, I deleted it.  

How does your science training influence your creative process?  

Science and art both involve asking strange questions and exploring reality from alternative perspectives. The content is different, the purpose is different, but the exploration can be wildly creative for both. I guess I approach the work in a similar, self-disciplined way. Lots of reading. Lots of processing. Science always sneaks into my fiction.  

During your first meeting, what would you say to the SHE LIES CLOSE movie director to make sure they got it right? 

I would say: Grace is your neighbor or your friend or your sister. She is funny and is trying to be a good parent -- her world revolves around her kids -- but she hits a point where she is feeling so stretched, exhausted, desperate, terrorized, she isn't thinking straight. That transformation is important. 

Grace says, “I don’t mean to be a vulture, but I am. I gobble up tragedy, shove it into my mouth hastily, sloppily, with my hands.” Why is tragedy so irresistible and delicious? 

Tragedy, when it's not ours, gives us a jolt of adrenaline, makes us feel alive, helps us appreciate what we have. Tragedy is also Grace’s playbook. She makes her decisions based on tragedies she's familiar with. In this day and age of connectivity, she is overwhelmed with too many stories of tragedy. 

Grace says, “Well-meaning media terrorizes my mind.” Do you have any serenity tips for handling stressful news days? 

Put the phone down. Turn off the TV. Disconnect. That's what I tell myself. If only I listened! 

Graces watches the missing girl’s YouTube video “as a cautionary tale, as a reminder to not put our children on display.” As a mother, what advice do you have for parents in the Internet Age? 

I have high schoolers now, and they don't post on social media. So, if I started posting photos of them, they’d be like, “What the hell, Mom? Not cool.” I think we drilled it into their heads years ago, Once you put it online, it's out there forever. Watch it, watch it!!!  We might have turned them off to social media. I think it's harmless the way most people post about their kids on social media. It's a lovely form of connection. I just twisted it into a “cautionary tale” to serve the story.  

Early on, bats bite Grace. Later she says, “bats are certainly demons sent from underground hell-caves to spread disease, fear, and chaos.” How does it feel to be so prophetic?  

Creepy, right? Damn bats. But I don't think about it as prophetic because all these other diseases have been jumping species from bats to humans for a long time, so within the realm of science, it's just known. Bats are notorious super-hosts for zoonosis, but viruses are frequently jumping from other animals (pigs and chickens) too.  

In your previous work as a xenotransplantation researcher, did you study xenozoonosis? What can you tell us about the initial moments of the COVID-19 pandemic? 

I used to teach a class called The Biology of AIDS. The University of California television has a great lecture on the origin of HIV. It gives a great feel for how zoonosis happens and how there are so many factors involved (politics, social, cultural). It's not just about the science. Overpopulation and poverty drive pandemics. When you have animals and people in close and frequent contact, humans exposed to the animals’ blood and excrement, you get the opportunity for viruses to jump. Sadly, as long as the social issues aren’t addressed, we will be at risk for pandemics like COVID-19. 

Sponsored by