"I WANTED TO TAP INTO THE MORE NOIR ASPECTS OF L.A.": AN INTERVIEW WITH THE HOLLYWOOD ASSISTANT'S MAY COBB
May Cobb's latest, The Hollywood Assistant, the author used early job a personal assistant to an actress and her director husband as a jumping off point for a fun, sexy, summer thriller. May was kind enough to talk to The Hard Word about what she used from her experience and crafting the book.

SCOTT MONTGOMERY: What did you see in your old job as material for a thriller?
MAY COBB: Honestly, not much! It was such a dream job and the couple I worked for are the very best. I only used the basic premise of a young woman getting hired as an assistant to a married couple as the jumping off point!
S.M.: The relationship between Nate and Marisol are at the core of this story and they are very different from the couple you worked for. How did you go about building it?
M.C.: They are very different indeed! I love stories about toxic marriages and relationships where you think, at first glance, all is shiny and happy but soon discover there's more than meets the eye. In terms of building Marisol and Nate, my characters come alive for me most when I get out of the way and let them reveal themselves to me on the page. It sounds a bit woo woo, but that's my process. Whenever I'm stuck, I always remind myself that it's usually because I'm trying to control a scene and what I need to do is let the characters lead me, with their dialogue, with their subtle clues about themselves.Â
S.M.: There are many crime novels set in L.A. What did you want to get across about your experience of the city?
M.C.:I wanted to tap into the more noir aspects of L.A. At least the ones from my memory of having lived there twenty years ago: the Hollywood Hills with its twisty roads where you never know who you'll meet around the corner, the sometimes eerie phenomenon of June Gloom, when the beach is sometimes veiled with fog, and also the blurring between reality and fiction that happens in Hollywood. I also wanted to pay homage to 80s and 90s erotic thrillers, like Body Double.
S.M.: You build a lot of suspense even before the murder happens. Can you talk a little bit of how you chose and placed the information Cassidy and the reader receives?
M.C.: Threaded through the story is a narrative that happens in the future, beginning with the Prologue, that hints at the murder and Cassidy's implication in it. I felt it was important to sprinkle this throughout the story in order to edge up the suspense/crime factor, since the rest of the plot points that the novel hinges on are more about Cassidy falling deeper into this couples' life.

M.C.: Thank you!! Gosh, starting out, A Kept Woman and the device of a script within the book was going to be a much larger piece. As I drafted it, though, it receded a bit more into the background. I wanted this script to accomplish a few things: Cassidy's ascent with Nate as he realizes she's capable of being just more than an assistant, i.e. she gives damn good notes on Nate's scripts, the charge between Nate and Cassidy building via them reading a certain scene in the script together, and I also wanted to highlight this notion of A Kept Woman -- because we don't know for a very long time if Marisol is kept or keeper.Â
S.M.: Your sex scenes are eotic and tiintilating, but never fall into porongraphy. How do walk that tightrope?
M.C.: This is high praise! And it's a balance I try and strike. I think the simple answer is that I try and pull the camera back a bit, show enough that there's no mistaking that it's a sex scene, but also try and leave some of the more graphic details up to the reader to imagine.
S.M.: I'm sure everybody asks this, but have your former employers read the book and what did they think?
M.C.: They have the book and I'm excited to hear what they think! We've laughed about it but they know they are certainly not toxic Nate and Marisol.
For those in the Austin area, I'll be interviewing May at The Arboretum Barnes & Noble, August 10th, 2pm.
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