{"id":27239,"date":"2025-07-21T23:24:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T23:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/27239\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T23:24:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T23:24:08","slug":"kashana-cauley-reveals-her-unlikely-inspiration-for-the-payback-daily-breeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/27239\/","title":{"rendered":"Kashana Cauley reveals her unlikely inspiration for \u2018The Payback\u2019 \u2013 Daily Breeze"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kashana Cauley, whose previous novel was the acclaimed \u201cThe Survivalists,\u201d<\/a> is the author of the just-published, \u201cThe Payback.\u201d Cauley has written for TV shows such as \u201cThe Great North,\u201d HBO\u2019s \u201cPod Save America\u201d and \u201cThe Daily Show with Trevor Noah,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Q. Your novel is set in the Glendale Galleria. What made you choose that spot?<\/p>\n

While most mall real estate is dedicated to chain stores that are all over the country, there are\u00a0always a few stores or a vibe that tells you exactly where you are.<\/p>\n

The Galleria is both just like some of the malls I used to work in when I lived in Wisconsin \u2013 its old-school, darker interior lighting, and its long corridors \u2013 and very Californian with the In-N-Out<\/a>, the Din Tai Fung, La Michoacana, The Coffee Bean and\u00a0all 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.<\/p>\n

ALSO SEE:\u00a0Like books? Get our free Book Pages newsletter about bestsellers, authors and more<\/a><\/p>\n

When I first moved to L.A., my coworkers told me to go to the Americana. But all that \u201950s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Californian-ness.<\/p>\n

Q. Is there a book or books you always recommend to other readers?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Trees,\u201d by Percival Everett<\/a>. It\u2019s a book that sounds impossible when I describe it, because it\u2019s 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\u2019s very \u201cAtlanta\u201d meets \u201cTwin Peaks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Q. What are you reading now?<\/p>\n

I just finished a few great books. \u201cGreat Black Hope,\u201d by Rob Franklin<\/a>, which is an indictment of respectability politics told through the eyes of a Black queer upper-class narrator who gets arrested for drug possession; \u201cSky Full Of Elephants\u201d by Cebo Campbell<\/a>, 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 \u201cThe Compound,\u201d by Aisling Rawle<\/a>, where a reality show contestant realizes what exactly she\u2019s willing to do for capitalism as the other contestants are eliminated.<\/p>\n

Q. How do you decide what to read next?<\/p>\n

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\u2019m a sucker for a strong cover and a good pitch. I\u2019m also that person who will at least open any book anyone leaves behind in a hotel or guest bedroom.<\/p>\n

Q. Do you remember the first book that made an impact on you?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSong of Solomon,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Q. Is there a person who made an impact on your reading life \u2013 a teacher, a parent, a librarian or someone else?\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u2019t 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\u2019t pushed my brain in a faster direction.<\/p>\n

Q. Do you have a favorite bookstore or bookstore experience?\u00a0<\/p>\n

These days, my favorite bookstore is Reparations Club in West Adams<\/a>. The vibe there is very much your cool Black Auntie opened a bookstore in the \u201970s. I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n

Q. What\u2019s something about your book that no one knows?<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

So, of course, I grew up, and drew up a slightly speculative police force in \u201cThe Payback\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kashana Cauley, whose previous novel was the acclaimed \u201cThe Survivalists,\u201d is the author of the just-published, \u201cThe Payback.\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[223,88,2992,2628],"class_list":{"0":"post-27239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-the-book-pages","11":"tag-things-to-do"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}