澳洲Author Emily Henry: ‘I get sick of writing for periods of time, but I always come back to it.’

There is a playful nod to many rom-com tropes in Henry’s writing too – slow burn, enemies to lovers, forced proximity, opposites attract – but she cleverly subverts readers’ expectations in the execution. As the UK Sunday Times columnist India Knight (like me, a fan) has said: “It’s not just that Emily Henry can write and has wit and elan to spare, but also that she is clever – just when you think, well, now she’s obviously now going to do X, she does Y. She’s also made me think that many of the female characters at the more tiresome end of literary fiction look awfully self-obsessed, weedy, navel-gazing and a bit dim about themselves when viewed through the Henry lens.”

The secret to Henry’s success is her ability to offset the sincerity and big-heartedness of her characters with bite, humour and intelligence. “In my last book, Funny Story, there was a line about how being a cynic is just a romantic who’s too afraid to hope,” she says. “And I really believe that, because actually, at my core, I’m sort of a cynic.

I keep writing these stories to remind myself that there are these beautiful parts of being alive.

Emily Henry, author

“It’s really easy for me to see the bad in things and expect the worst and I think I keep writing these stories to remind myself that there are these beautiful parts of being alive that can justify and absolve a lot of the pain.”

On Instagram, Henry has over half a million followers, and there can be a dialogue between the author and her audience. “The reactions of the fans trickle through to me,” she says. “They feel very connected to my lead characters because I always go deep into their psyche and history. The idea in writing that the more specific you get, the more universal something feels, is really true. I think we’re always looking to see ourselves in a way that makes us feel less alone.”

Henry’s success has also been turbocharged by BookTok, the community of (mostly young, mostly female) fans who evangelise about books and authors on TikTok. Henry doesn’t have a TikTok account herself, but the hashtag #emilyhenry has been used in more than 100,000 posts.

Henry’s latest book, Great Big Beautiful Life (GBBL), came out last month and, like the others, the setting is a location scout’s dream. Little Crescent Island is a fictional place based on an island Henry visited in the southern US state of Georgia, complete with oak trees, Spanish moss and a salty sea breeze. It’s here that her protagonists, Alice and Hayden, compete for the job of writing the biography of a famously reclusive heiress.

“I feel like with every book, I create some new challenge for myself,” Henry says. “So when I was going into GBBL, the thing that I was most concerned about was creating a situation where two characters realistically could not be together for concrete reasons. Because I did that, the interpersonal conflict between the main characters was set, and that was easy, but there were all these other new issues.”

Every time she finishes writing a book, Henry texts her friends to tell them that this is the one that just won’t work. And every time they tell her, “You said that last time.” “The self-belief doesn’t get easier,” she admits.

Meanwhile, the film adaptation of You and Me on Vacation (called People We Meet on Vacation, to match its US title) “shouldn’t be too much longer”. How does it feel to collaborate with directors and studio execs when you’ve been creating whole worlds at home in your tracksuit for so long? “It is nerve-racking,” she admits, “but the draw of an adaptation is the collaboration.”

When Henry saw the audition in which My Lady Jane star Emily Bader read Poppy and Tom Blyth (The Hunger Games) read Alex, it was obvious within two minutes that they had the right chemistry to bring her beloved characters to life. “They did such a phenomenal job that they became the characters to me, and I think a lot of readers will feel the same way.”

Though she has multiple adaptations in the works, like many fans Henry remains frustrated by how few rom-coms make it to the big screen. “It still feels like a lot of the people at the top of these studios don’t think it’s viable and have blinders on to the power of the genre,” she says.

Before she dives into writing the next book, Henry is giving herself some time to recover. “I get sick of writing for periods of time, but I always come back to it. And if I can bring people some joy and laughter and give them the experience like they’re falling in love while they’re reading, I do feel that’s a noble pursuit. But mostly I just love doing it.”

The Times (UK)

Great Big Beautiful Life (Penguin) by Emily Henry is out now.

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