I am ecstatic to welcome Liann Zhang as today’s featured author. Her debut thriller Julie Chan Is Dead, about a supermarket cashier who assumes her dead twin sister’s influencer identity, had me reading late into the night (yes, it was a sub-24-hour binge read for me). If you love, hate, or love-to-hate influencers and online culture, this one should be at the top of your list.
Below, Liann joins us to talk about influencer research, thriller pacing, and more.
Connect with Liann on Instagram, TikTok, and her website. Grab a copy of Julie Chan Is Dead from your retailer of choice here.
Welcome, Liann! Julie Chan Is Dead is an absolutely wild ride, following a young woman who discovers her estranged twin’s body and adopts her influencer identity. What drew you to the influencer world as a setting for a thriller? Did you do any research on influencers to help realistically craft this world?
I was briefly a small-time influencer during my teenage years, so I saw a lot of the behind-the-scenes. There is naturally so much natural connection and love, yet tension and jealousy among influencers. A lot of interesting behavior as well. When combined with my chronically online knowledge of influencer scandals, I knew there was a good book hidden there.
It takes years for a book to get published—and yet Julie Chan feels eerily relevant, especially considering the recent TikTok trend labeling New York City influencers as “boring.” (Those who aren’t chronically online probably won’t know about that, but trust me, it was a whole thing.) How did you approach writing about online culture?
Yes! I was so pleased when I saw the NYC influencer discourse, because I could self-insert my book into it, haha! It felt very timely, and I was so glad to see that many people seemed to have the same thoughts as me about it.
Considering the pace in which the online world seems to move and pivot these days, I worried about the relevance and timeliness of my book. I worried that, by the time the book pubbed two years after I initially wrote it, the issues that I discussed would have been yesterday’s news and that no one would care. Thankfully, it hasn’t been the case. In fact, I think, the internet is coming to certain conclusions about influencer culture that reflect the themes of my book. Almost a certain “influencer-consciousness” that’s been propelled by the over-saturation of influencers thanks to apps like TikTok.
I still believe that influencers will be an evergreen topic for the foreseeable future. However, I think it helped that I didn’t focus on specific scandals or niche topics that become a relic of a short period of time, but instead discussed a lot of the underlying structures that impact social media. Topics like race and class will never go away, even if influencers do. So, I think by anchoring my topical book in these enduring themes, I helped ground the novel in a wider, more conceptual framework that won’t fade as quickly as your typical influencer scandal.
Julie Chan is propelled into this new lavish lifestyle by a mix of desperation and opportunity. What do you love, or hate, about her character, and perhaps also that of her influencer twin? What themes did you want to explore by placing a “normal” person into this influencer life?
Julie mirrors a lot of myself in the way that she has this toxic love-hate relationship with social media. If you couldn’t tell by the book, I have many conflicting thoughts about being online. I love the connection and community and genuine joy I can find on social media. Yet I hate the shallowness, the superficiality, and the general time-suck, brain-cell-eating amoeba that apps like TikTok can be. And perhaps, that is what I love most about Julie. She’s raw and honest about her distaste of online-culture, yet when she finds herself trapped in it, she struggles to let go. I think she mirrors a lot of what real people feel about social media on a magnified level.
I wanted to show how easily a person like Julie, who seems to have a decent head on her shoulders, could get sucked in and churned out by the machine of social media. How easily she could be inducted into this world because of the very vulnerable and real desire for attention and connection. And in a way, she is an exaggerated exemplar of most influencers—don’t all influencers start out as “normal” people? Yet, I see it all the time: They become different people as their millions grow. They become more jaded, more selfish, more morally-gray. At some point, the influencers you looked up to for being “normal” stop being relatable. Off the top of my head, I can think of five influencers who were relatively “normal” but go on to do interesting things in pursuit of followers. And they rarely revert to who they were. They never learn their lesson. Just look at the news! Look at the scandals! Julie is just like them.
Julie Chan evolves into something that, for me, was wholly unexpected. From a craft perspective, and without spoilers, how did you decide to take the story where you did?
I had the ending planned from the beginning, but everything else was a bit nebulous except for a few scenes here and there. Personally, I am a pantser, and I let the characters choose their own adventure and dictate the ways specific scenes play out. As I was writing, listening to some ominous classical music, many of the more intense moments came very naturally to me. It’s almost as if Julie transported into my soul and forced me to write those scenes. That being said, I am also a horror fan and someone who likes to explore the extremes of the human condition. Also, as a kid who had unrestricted internet access from a very young age, I saw many things I shouldn’t. So, let’s just say, I’m a little deranged. (Affirmative.) Everything in Julie Chan felt like a natural choice for me.
Lastly, what are you currently working on and/or are excited to share?
I’m currently tidying up my first draft of my new manuscript. I sold in a two-book deal, so it’s already being slated. It’s about a true crime podcaster, and as you might expect from me after reading Julie Chan, the main character can be a little off her rocker. (In a positive way.) Lots of weird fun, I hope!
Thanks so much to Liann for the interview. Detectives, I hope you enjoyed it! If you aren’t already subscribed, please be sure to sign up for the Cluesletter and get author features like this alongside other mystery goodies, delivered to your inbox every other Tuesday.