The 5+1 Not-About-Writing Interview with KILL THE BOY BAND Author Goldy Moldavsky
Her new novel, The Mary Shelley Club, taps her deep knowledge of and love for horror movies
With her novel Kill the Boy Band, Goldy Moldavsky holds the unofficial title (unofficial because I’ve deemed it so and am in no way an official proclaimer of things) of best, um, allow me to be redundant here, title ever for a young adult novel. The book’s cover — hot pink text on a black backdrop — not only pops aesthetically but channels something subversive and a little dark, not unlike the poster for Heathers, the classic 1989 film Moldavsky told the Guardian inspired her to make her debut a dark comedy.
I was surprised to find that Goldy is actually a fan of boy bands, though that makes sense; we always hurt (and make the subject of our fiction) the ones we love. She’s since released two more novels, the most recent of which is The Mary Shelley Club. This title also instantly took me by the lapels (is anyone wearing lapels right now? They come in so handy for figurative declarations). Ever since reading that Mary Shelley came up with Frankenstein while on vacation — and as part of a contest with her husband Percy Shelley and his newfound vacay pal, noted literary fuckboi Lord Byron to come up with a scarier story than the ones they’d been reading — I’ve been moderately obsessed with her.
In Moldavsky’s new novel, new girl Rachel Chavez is mostly trying to keep her head down and her secrets kept from the other students at Manhattan Prep. But she’s chosen to join a secret society, The Mary Shelley Club, which orchestrates Fear Tests, elaborate pranks inspired by urban legends and horror movie tropes.
I asked Moldavsky about her plans for a secret society, and a playdate with Mary Shelley.
IMP: What's the horror movie rule you live by and why? And, have you ever broken a horror-movie rule?
GM: The one I live by is don't make out with anyone when there is danger afoot! It may seem like a nice distraction but it would just make me more anxious, haha. Always be on alert!
As for which rule have I broken? I'm guilty of investigating weird noises. But in my defense, I think that's a pretty natural response to weird noises and better to rule something out than hide from everything.
IMP: What boy band do you think still hangs out sometimes and what is their post-Covid celebration going to look like?
GM: Well, we know Backstreet Boys still hang out, and New Kids on the Block, because they're still touring. Their post-Covid celebration is, I hope, taking place within a reality show where they dish on their boy band lives.
IMP: Some of your promotion for The Mary Shelley Club included listing each character's favorite Joshua Jackson role: what's yours and why?
GM: Yes, there is a scene in the book where the characters discuss their favorite Joshua Jackson role while watching his movie Urban Legend. I don't know why I wrote that scene, but I did and now it's in a book forever. Joshua isn't even my favorite actor but he is very charismatic and tends to pick really good roles. I'd have to go with Blaine Tuttle from Cruel Intentions. I quote his character all the time.
IMP: Do you think you're capable of starting a secret society and what would be the requirements for joining?
GM: I would love nothing more than to start a secret society but am I capable? Absolutely not. You need a certain level of organizational skills and a determination to rally people up, and I can't do any of that. But if I did have a secret society it would probably be very similar to the Mary Shelley Club, actually. We'd have to like the same things, and for me that's movies and TV. Maybe a horror movie club just without all the scary pranks.
IMP: If Mary Shelley appeared at your door (like a time-travel thing, not a zombie version) and said she had one day to hang out, what would you put on the itinerary?
GM: I'd probably be way too embarrassed to hang out. I put her name on a book and I don't know if she'd be ok with that! But supposing she would be, I'd take her on a roller coaster. She needs a little fun — and a different kind of fear — in her life.
IMP: Okay, writing question. So, I'm a known chicken who still gets nervous when I so much as think about the movie Candyman but horror still intrigues me; it seems fun to write. (I'm better with blood and scares on the page than on screen.) It's a genre with so much material it strikes me that it would be great because in research mode, you can really gin yourself up with your favorite movies and books. Yet, it also seems maybe daunting because horror devotees both enjoy and look for certain tropes but will call you out if they feel like they've seen a move too many times before. How do you dig in to your new ideas and how do you know if your scares feel fresh enough?
GM: One of my favorite things about The Mary Shelley Club was that I got to play around with classic horror movie tropes. The characters in the club are such cinephiles—such experts in all things horror—that they know the tropes by heart but in the game they play, they use those tropes to see if they really work in real life. In having the characters play with tropes I get to deconstruct them and — hopefully —subvert them.
Take the classic “Hook Man” scenario, where there’s a man with a hook outside a car where a couple of teenagers are busy making out. It’s a metaphor for punishing teenagers for their burgeoning sexualities. In the book, I show you how one of the members uses the trope to try to scare a cheating ex-boyfriend and his new squeeze. I take the metaphor out of it and literally trying to scare a couple of teenagers out of having sex. The scare is only somewhat successful, and the club members get to dissect it and discuss why it both does and doesn’t work. So my intention was always to use the tried-and-true scare tactics, but keep them interesting by breaking them down and seeing what about them really scares us.
Other stuff I’ve been liking lately:
Mare of Easttown — I often avoid shows and movies set in melancholic and claustrophobic small towns, not only because they’re depressing but also because the color palette doesn’t work for me. But, the acting in this is so good (Jean Smart’s and Kate Winslet’s particularly) that I’m hooked. (HBO MAX)
Reading Jane Austen’s Persuasion for the first time — I don’t know how I’ve gotten this far in writing life without picking this one up but Austen’s sly one-liners and observations are, as ever, still so awesomely modern it blows my mind.
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday (audiobook) — I avoided the mess about Philip Roth’s biography and instead picked up Halliday’s novel, which features a fictional version of Roth, with whom Halliday had a romantic relationship. The novel unspools way more than that romance, and takes place in the early 2000s at the start of the Iraq War (and partly during Boston’s World Series winning post-season; the baseball details are top notch). I’m only half done with the audiobook, which has four narrators, but I recommend this one as both a listen and a read.
Books by friends out now (the read-it-and-then-contemplate-your-post-pandemic travel People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry) and coming soon (love letter to Memphis and to messy relationships, Indestructible Object by Mary McCoy, out June 15 — I was lucky enough to blurb this beauty!)
Deactivating my Twitter and reactivating it a few days later — Some quitting is better than no quitting, right?