Kashana Cauley, whose previous novel was the acclaimed “The Survivalists,” is the author of the just-published, “The Payback.” Cauley has written for TV shows such as “The Great North,” HBO’s “Pod Save America” and “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah,” and has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker and other outlets. Here, she takes the Q&A about her new novel and the books that inspired her.
Q. Your novel is set in the Glendale Galleria. What made you choose that spot?
While most mall real estate is dedicated to chain stores that are all over the country, there are always a few stores or a vibe that tells you exactly where you are.
The Galleria is both just like some of the malls I used to work in when I lived in Wisconsin – its old-school, darker interior lighting, and its long corridors – and very Californian with the In-N-Out, the Din Tai Fung, La Michoacana, The Coffee Bean and all the laid-back looking teens with surfer hair. I spent six years working in malls, and despite the often ridiculous working conditions retail employees face, I adored them anyway.
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When I first moved to L.A., my coworkers told me to go to the Americana. But all that ’50s music and the manicured lawns made me feel nervous and vaguely unwelcome. So I wandered across the street to the Galleria, which was huge, and lovely, and more relaxed. I watched the California sun try to fight its way into those dark hallways, which reminded me of the dark hallways where I grew up and made mistakes and pretended I could handle caffeine, and I fell in love.
When I knew I wanted to set the novel in a mall, the Galleria immediately sprang to mind. I knew what it would feel like to be bored in a place like that, working a retail job, but I also wanted my transplant narrator to feel both excited by and slightly out of place in the Galleria’s Californian-ness.
Q. Is there a book or books you always recommend to other readers?
“The Trees,” by Percival Everett. It’s a book that sounds impossible when I describe it, because it’s a really, really, really funny novel about lynchings. But it did everything for me. He treats the lynching history with such care while making you laugh for hundreds of pages. I often fantasize about making it into a TV show, since it’s very “Atlanta” meets “Twin Peaks.”
Q. What are you reading now?
I just finished a few great books. “Great Black Hope,” by Rob Franklin, which is an indictment of respectability politics told through the eyes of a Black queer upper-class narrator who gets arrested for drug possession; “Sky Full Of Elephants” by Cebo Campbell, where Black people who survive a catastrophic event that kills most White people have to decide what Blackness means in a world without Whiteness, and “The Compound,” by Aisling Rawle, where a reality show contestant realizes what exactly she’s willing to do for capitalism as the other contestants are eliminated.
Q. How do you decide what to read next?
I love taking book suggestions from everywhere. Books that are recommended by friends, books that are mentioned somewhere on the internet, books in the front window of a bookstore I walk by. I’m a sucker for a strong cover and a good pitch. I’m also that person who will at least open any book anyone leaves behind in a hotel or guest bedroom.
Q. Do you remember the first book that made an impact on you?
“Song of Solomon,” by Toni Morrison, which taught me that I could also be a Black American who had no idea where my family came from, see myself in a book, and write books.
Q. Is there a person who made an impact on your reading life – a teacher, a parent, a librarian or someone else?
Probably my mother, who taught me how to speed read via a computer program that flashed words on a screen faster and faster. I finish something like 70 books a year, and I probably try out and put down another hundred per year that don’t quite work for me, and I would never have discovered one of the greatest joys of my life, which is being able to sample this many books a year, if she hadn’t pushed my brain in a faster direction.
Q. Do you have a favorite bookstore or bookstore experience?
These days, my favorite bookstore is Reparations Club in West Adams. The vibe there is very much your cool Black Auntie opened a bookstore in the ’70s. I’m mainly a fiction person, and they have a peerless supply of Black fiction, but they also have a great selection of nonfiction and some mouthwatering cookbooks.
Q. What’s something about your book that no one knows?
When I was a little girl, my mom would get the Mary Kay catalogs. She had friends who sold the cosmetics, and we both knew you could earn your way to the pink Cadillac. I thought the Mary Kay ladies were some of the most glamorous people in the world.
So, of course, I grew up, and drew up a slightly speculative police force in “The Payback” who are oddly attractive, wear turquoise uniforms, and can earn their way up to a turquoise car by confiscating money and belongings from people who are behind on their student loans.
So the thing no one knows about my book is that the Debt Police are more than a little based on the Mary Kay ladies.