New Literary Psychopath Just Dropped

Anna Dorn chats with Paula Bomer about her diabolical novel 'The Stalker.'

Robert Doughten Savile — “Doughty” to most — is a man of bottomless delusion and zero actual skill. In The Stalker, Paula Bomer drops this entitled failson into early ’90s New York, where he lies, leeches, and preys his way through a city that should have spit him out immediately. The publisher compares the novel to The Talented Mr. Ripley and American Psycho, but I was more reminded of Emma Cline’s The Guest — both novels follow deluded New York grifters, rendered in stylish third-person prose that keeps you oscillating between dread and morbid fascination.

But while The Guest’s Alex is no model citizen, Doughty is a different beast entirely: a malignant narcissist, a predator, and quite possibly the worst man I’ve ever met on the page. And yet The Stalker is a blast to read. That’s Bomer’s genius. Her voice turns Doughty into the grotesque punchline of a very dark, very satisfying joke. Every delusion is met with a wink. Every vile act is delivered with just enough distance to make you want to scream, laugh, throw the book across the room, then immediately pick it back up. It’s an ambitious concept — writing an entire novel from the perspective of such a repulsive parasite — but Bomer nails it. And without spoiling anything: He gets what’s coming for him.

I imagine you’re quite different from Doughty. At least I hope you are. What was it like inhabiting his perspective for an entire novel?

It was fun at first, but then it started to take a toll on me. After I finished writing the book, I read an interview with Alissa Nutting about how she felt while writing Tampa, and she also talked about the actual mental and physical toll it took to stay in “character” while writing from the POV of an awful person. But it was a great high to find a way to tell this story.

What’s Doughty’s diagnosis?

That’s a great question. He’s a psychopath, but lately, due to a discussion I had and keep having with a friend, and now with myself, I’ve been wondering when does he veer into the psychotic? I don’t have an answer, but it might be when he’s deep into his crack addiction. And yet, that doesn’t make his original non-drug related psychopathic nature obsolete. Can you tell I was a psychology major? This subject matter interests me endlessly.

If your book is adapted, who needs to play Doughty? What about Sophia? Beata?

My son said it should be Timothée Chalamet. I’d pick Patricia Arquette for Sophia and maybe Aimee Lee Wood for Beata.

What’s your favorite time and place to write?

I write in the mornings almost exclusively. I take notes all day when I am deep in a project. I read an interview with Graham Greene a long time ago and he wrote 500 words every morning and then edited in the afternoons. I try to be Graham Greene. I have been fortunate to have an office for much of my life, but I also had two small children and was their primary care provider, had an old house with many home repairs, too many animals — so I love to go on my Airbnb residencies in various places. I get so much done when I’m living out of a small bag of stuff. It’s amazing.

What media were you consuming when you wrote this book?

I am very precious and don’t really read anything that isn’t research. At night, I watched a lot of those 90 minute horror movies made on one set, with few actors during Covid. Hush, In the Tall Grass, The Lodge, Annihilation, The Ritual, The Wretched. I probably watched all sorts of stuff, but those were somewhat related in that they were tight, narrative structures.

Did you outline The Stalker, wing it, or somewhere in between?

Somewhere in between. What I did do and always do, is immerse myself in research, with things like a map of Waterbury from the ‘80s, old encyclopedias, the screenplay to The Karate Kid, and all sorts of nonsense. I create a very strange specific world around me, half of which didn’t make it into the book.

Are there any books you feel The Stalker is “in conversation with” as they say?

I just stare at my pile of books on my desk that gave me inspiration while I was writing: The Dwarf by Pär Lagerkvist, Therese Raquin by Émile Zola, American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead, The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing. The Life & Times of Michael K by J. M. Coetzee. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

Read a lot. Be a boring person who sits around reading old books that are still being read 100 years later. Read until you develop eye strain.

Where’s your dream writing retreat?

If I didn’t own my dogs, or — this is morbid but true — when they pass, I am going to live out of a small suitcase in various small apartments around the world that have a window looking out on something nice, like a tree, some rooftops, the sky, a mountain for hiking, or a beach for long walks. Preferably in a country where everyone speaks Spanish. Then return to Brooklyn of course, where I will write my 500 words. My word count is much higher when I’m away from my home duties.

What are your most overused words?

I can’t believe I’m going to share this but here I go: In the draft of Tante Eva that I sent Mark Doten, my brilliant longtime editor, I had the narrator Eva say “oh” 55 times. I deleted every one of those. What’s funny is that when you are in “character” you don’t see those things. Thank God for editors.

If you could get a drink with any fictional character, who would it be?

In contemporary fiction, Jane from Liars by Sarah Manguso. We would talk all night. Or Pierre Bezukhov from War and Peace, where I would probably listen rapturously.

What’s a book that made you want to write?

That’s a tough one. I was already writing when Bad Behavior by Mary Gaitskill came out, but that collection pushed me to believe I could say the things I wanted to say. It was a huge inspiration.

What’s your relationship to self-promotion?

I want people to read my work, we all do. But my dream life as a writer would be to be Elena Ferrante or Thomas Pynchon. I am not those writers, so I do my best to get it out there. I owe it to my publishers.

What author’s (dead or alive) persona is aspirational?

Jonathan Franzen. He’s so genuinely himself and so dedicated to the work. I love how little he participates in the greater publishing world and yet he can’t help himself by helping people like me or Nell Zink. He’s genuine, painfully so. Ferrante. What I would do to have her privacy.

I noticed you thanked your therapist in the acknowledgments. Is therapy a part of your creative process, or just necessary to inhabit a character like Doughty?

I dedicated my first book, Baby and Other Stories, to my therapist. Then I added my father, because while I was in galleys, he died. I have an embarrassingly long relationship with my therapist. I am a huge believer in the examined life, of nit picking a day or a week or an hour of existence and trying to find out why? Why was it so? That said, this is only the second time I wrote acknowledgements and I think I am going back to not writing them after this.

What’s your favorite recent read?

I read Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan and I was completely blown away. She is a class above me and most other writers.

What’s one word to describe what you’re working on now?

Different.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.