Author of ‘The Hunting Wives’ on her new East Texas thriller

Texan May Cobb, author of The Hunting Wives, is back with a new thriller set among the oil-rich of East Texas. All the Little Houses, which publishes Jan. 20, pits a spoiled teen and her mother against a new family in town. The new folks live a simple, back-to-the-earth lifestyle, but it turns out they have secrets, like everyone else in the story. We talked with Cobb about the inspiration she found in Little House on the Prairie, her fondness for the 1980s and life as an outsider in small-town Texas.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

What inspired the Little House on the Prairie motif?

I grew up watching the show The Little House on the Prairie — it was one of me and my sister’s favorites — so I thought it would be fun to do a twisted wink and nod to it, incorporating the elements of the current trad wife phenomenon coupled with the town’s reigning rich mean girl, Nellie.

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Your books usually have contemporary settings, but this one takes place in the 1980s. What drew you to that time period?

Three main reasons: First, I grew up in the 1980s when Little House was always on, so I thought it might be fun to try and appeal to the audience like me, who’d grown up watching the show. Second, I love the 1980s: the big hair, the shoulder pads, Jazzercize, banana daiquiris, the music, the nighttime soaps — hello, Dallas and Dynasty — just the whole decadent era, so I wanted to celebrate that. And lastly, I thought that setting it pre-internet would give it a creepy vibe, i.e., there’s no teens on Snapchat and if you’re in the middle of the woods at night at a keg party and something goes wrong, you can’t just call or text for help.

"All the Little Houses" is a 1980s-set thriller by May Cobb.

“All the Little Houses” is a 1980s-set thriller by May Cobb.

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One of the more interesting relationships is between Nellie’s mother, Charleigh — who grew up poor and married money — and her interior decorator Jackson — a gay man in a small Texas town in the 1980s. Is it their outsider status that bonds them?

Absolutely! I love this question and I do think that their outsider status is one of the driving forces of their relationship, the thing that really forges their bond as they both try to navigate the treacherous landscape of high-society East Texas.

Jackson seems to be considering, at the end, whether he and Charleigh are truly friends. Are they?

They really are. Even at her most toxic, there’s an unconditional love underneath all the messiness.

Nellie and other teens in the book are leading lives of incredible privilege: big houses, nice cars, nothing to do all summer but hang out at the swimming hole and party. Are they happier, do you think, than characters like Jane and Luke, who are poor?

Great question! And it makes me wonder … is Nellie ever happy? But in all seriousness, I would say the answer is quite possibly no: Everyone in this novel is dealing with differing, complex pressures, issues and societal demands that turn explosive and deadly.

Author May Cobb was born in Dallas, grew up in Longview and now lives in Austin. Her new...

Nellie’s parents both seem to know there’s something not quite right with their daughter. Why do they choose cover-up over confronting the issue?

I think for Charleigh, she views Nellie as an extension of herself, i.e., Charleigh’s success hinges on Nellie’s. But she doesn’t have a real handle on how to mold and guide such a volatile, complicated daughter that I think for her, it’s easiest to just use their privilege to gloss over, cover up and try to stay 10 steps ahead of whatever disaster Nellie’s left in her wake. As for Alexander, Nellie’s dad, I think he’s in the sort of mindset of, “Oh well, let teens just be teens,” and he’s kind of checked out, leaving Charleigh to really be the one who deals with Nellie.

What are you working on next?

I’m just finishing up edits on the sequel to All the Little Houses, which is called All the Little Secrets, and I can’t wait to share with readers another scandalous, unhinged romp through oil-rich East Texas with both teens and adults behaving badly aplenty again.

Details

May Cobb will be at Half Price Books, 5803 E. Northwest Highway, on Jan. 22 at 7 p.m. to discuss All the Little Houses and sign books. $28.11. Tickets include a copy of the book. eventbrite.com.

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