For E. Lockhart, a story does not need to leave readers with one definitive answer. The New York Times bestselling author behind the phenomenon We Were Liars returns with The Pools, a novel where love, loss, identity, and emotional struggle exist alongside hot springs, secrets, and a situation the writer herself describes as impossible to solve. Rather than delivering a single message, Lockhart prefers to explore the tensions and questions that fascinate her — while surprising readers along the way.
In the interview, Lockhart discusses the intuitive, poetic approach behind the new book, her fascination with the open-ended metaphors of fairy tales, and her decision to make a young man recovering from depression and self-harm the story’s romantic hero. She also reflects on why love can offer hope without necessarily “fixing” someone, and explains that her desire to surprise readers does not come from the enormous response to We Were Liars, but from something much simpler: she still wants to be surprised herself whenever she reads a novel.
The Pools is written in verse with short chapters, a different structure from the work through which many readers first discovered you. When did you realize this story needed to be told in that form, and what did verse allow you to express that traditional prose might not have?
All my most popular books have short chapters! And We Were Liars most definitely features a kind of prose poetry. Same with We Fell Apart and Family of Liars. So the format of The Pools is actually exactly what readers expect from me. Just more more more.
I wrote in a super-intuitive way. I definitely used some poet’s tools, and very occasionally some poetic forms — but mostly, I don’t consider The Pools to be verse at all.
The novel was inspired, among other texts, by a well-known fairy tale about swans. What draws you to fairy tales as a starting point for contemporary stories about trauma, love, and identity?
Fairy tales are full of open-ended metaphors. It’s thrilling.
Lexie and Chester both carry secrets and wounds before they even meet. How do you build a love story in which romance can offer hope without suggesting that love itself can “fix” everything the characters need to confront?
One of the appeals of love stories is that they’re (usually) hopeful. Even We Were Liars’ love story is hopeful, though it doesn’t end with a happily ever after. Cadence learns she is beloved and forgiven for the worst thing she ever did. That doesn’t fix it, but it heals some part of her.
In The Pools I put the lovers in the most impossible situation I could think of. It’s truly bonkers and can’t be solved. Can they still love each other? How will they show it?
Water and the pools seem to function as both a source of attraction and danger. What does that image symbolize within the story, and why did you want something seemingly beautiful and inviting at the center of such a dark narrative?
The Pools takes place in a town known for its hot springs. Everyone goes to the pools nearly every day — for them, swimming is as familiar as breathing. I loved the idea of a community shaped by this ancient water, and I began to wonder what terrible thing that water might do to them…
The Pools explores depression, anxiety, suicide, self-harm, and death for a young readership. How do you balance approaching those subjects with honesty and intensity without turning suffering into spectacle?
In The Pools, Chester is in recovery from a period of depression and self-harm. We learn what he did to get himself to recovery, and what he still must do to keep himself there. This is the romantic hero! He’s awesome! But he is also a person with problems that he’s working on. Like all the best people are. When I represent characters who are struggling or grieving, I want to normalize getting help for mental and emotional problems.
Following the enormous reach of We Were Liars, particularly with a new generation discovering the story through social media and its screen adaptation, do you feel pressure to surprise readers again? How do you protect your creative freedom from those expectations?
I do feel pressure to surprise readers, but it doesn’t come from social media or from the reception of We Were Liars. It comes from the fact that I myself like to be surprised when I read novels — E.M. Forester once described fiction as a series of small astonishments. I love that idea.
The Pools is described as a story of young love and sisterhood, but also one of loss, coming-of-age, and identity. When readers reach the final page, what question about themselves or the people they love do you hope continues to stay with them?
I don’t ever have a single message for my readers. Instead, I write explorations of tensions and questions that exist within me, and hopefully those explorations are also really fun, emotional, escapist, consuming. The Pools is meant to be an entertainment — a love story that feels fresh and shocking and simultaneously strange and relatable.
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