This debut novel by author Heather Levy, is chock full of gray areas that authors can tend to shy from for teen protags such as abuse, sexual awakenings, and crime. It tells the story of Sam Mayfair, a young woman struggling to cope with trauma and the murder of her abuser.
The death of the man who plagued her dreams for years should have put an end to the torture she’s endured. But when her stepbrother, Eric, becomes the prime suspect, Sam is flung back into the hell of her rural Oklahoma childhood. Yet as details of the murder unravel, Sam quickly learns that some people, including herself, will do anything to keep their secrets buried deep. Walking Through Needles is a riveting and unflinching look at violence, sexuality, and desire from a compelling and unforgettable new voice in Heather Levy.
It opens with:
“Pain. I seem to have an affection, a kind of sweet tooth for it. Bolts of lightening, little rivulets of thunder. And I the eye of the storm.”
-Toni Morrison, Jazz
It sets us up to know that this is not going to be a “cozy beach read” and I am always glad for that. Levy’s protagonist is not your usual teen MC. Sam proves to be an amalgam of hope, love, and her own brand of masochism.
Thoroughly engrossed in this read and nearly halfway through, I wanted to get the author’s thoughts on how she crafts certain choices for particular characters.
We really don’t know much about Sam’s early life. How did you decide at what point in Sam’s life we would be introduced to her?
For any story I’m working on, I always ask myself where the inciting incident happens. In the case of Sam’s life, everything in her world centers around her mom and grandma on the farm where they live until her mom marries a town newcomer. Then Sam has this sudden shift in her home with a man and his teen son living with her. It’s the point where everything changes for her, good and bad.
What did you wish readers could know about Sam that there may not have been time/pages for?
Since I have a fifteen-year gap between my timelines, I wish I had more time to show the transition from Sam’s teen years to being an adult woman, but I didn’t want to weigh down the narrative with a bunch of exposition. As a writer, you just have to figure out the minimum you can give readers to give them an idea of those missing years while keeping the pacing in the story.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Sam, but as a reader there are times I am disappointed with her choices about who to love or let love her. You do a wonderful job of crafting a relationship of reader and character, however, where I will weather being frustrated with her to see what’s going to happen. Did you intend for the reader to be so conflicted about Sam’s behavior?
I knew from the start that Sam would be my most difficult character for readers to understand. She’s unapologetic about her masochistic sexuality, which is something I love about her, but it’s the way her sexuality is explored and manipulated by an abuser where I feel many readers will have trouble following some of her decisions. I tried to keep in mind that most of her poor decisions happen when she’s a teenager and hormones and the need to feel seen are so strong. We’ve all made bad decisions as a teen with various degrees of repercussions. For her, those repercussions happen to have a lasting, rippling effect in her life and with others.
Were you, as the author, conflicted about where her character led you at points?
I wouldn’t use the word conflicted as much as I’d say I was concerned about where her character led me within the story because she can be careless with some of the people who love her. She has a tendency to do something I used to do at her age, which is to sabotage relationships before they get too serious because she’s afraid she doesn’t deserve anything good. Some of this is hinted at with Sam’s father leaving her and her mom at a young age. So, when someone comes along and makes her feel good about herself, someone who had a similar experience to her, she latches onto that feeling even though it’s tinged with red flags she refuses to see.
There are some heavy themes in Walking With Needles and I am always glad to see an author tackle taboo subjects. Do you feel your story grapples more with sadism or masochism and what would you say would be the difference?
As a masochist myself, I look at the story as dealing with power exchange in general and the abuse of it by some. Most people in the lifestyle, I’d say, are safe and consensual, but there’s always a tiny percentage where abuse happens, which is what I wanted to explore. The biggest difference between sadism and masochism is who’s doing the giving and receiving of pain or control. Sadism isn’t only about giving physical pain, and I tried to write about some of the psychological sadism that turns into abuse as well. I also wanted to show Sam’s masochism at the very start of the book, long before any abuse happens, so the reader would know it belonged to her first. And I know some readers may want an explanation for why Sam enjoys pain with pleasure from a young age, but not every masochist starts out as an abused person. However, I’ve known many masochists who’ve experienced past abuse who’ve reclaimed their sexuality through BDSM practices because it places them in control as a submissive dictating what they want. I think that’s one of the biggest misconceptions about BDSM–that submissive people are being controlled by the sadist. It’s the opposite; in a healthy, consensual situation, a submissive has complete control over what they want done to them.
Was there something in particular(an event, experience, or something else you read) that led you to tackle this topic with a teen MC?
Years ago, I wrote a personal essay that was a sort of coming out as a masochist. I had so many people asking me what happened to me to make me like pain. I found it fascinating how important it seemed to some people to have an easy-to-swallow explanation. The fact is that the brain and how it experiences pleasure and pain are still such a mystery. To me, it wasn’t so much the why but the how someone would react to an abuser trying to manipulate their sexuality without realizing it. I’m always interested in resilience in the human experience.
How would you say writing this book changed you?
From a craft standpoint, I learned a lot about handling a dual POV and timeline while keeping the pacing. From a personal standpoint, I feel even stronger in being open about my sexuality to deter misconceptions about it.
How would you like it to change the reader?
I hope it opens readers to understanding the difference between consensual and non-consensual BDSM practices. I also want readers to feel hopeful about trauma not defining a person for the rest of their lives. There’s a point in the book where Sam as an adult is in a sexual experience she realizes she doesn’t want, and she makes it clearly known to the other person. She has agency she didn’t have before, which is something I think all sexual abuse and assault survivors want to get back to somehow move forward from their trauma.
You can find Heather Levy’s book at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and other literary retailers.