Q&A with Kelly McWilliams

From my Q&A with Kelly McWilliams, author of Agnes at the End of the World:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

My title, Agnes at the End of the World, makes the novel’s stakes clear from the get-go—this is a story about a girl standing on the edge of a cliff, which just happens to be the collapse of society as the result of a terrible pandemic.

But the title has metaphorical resonance, too. Raised in a doomsday cult, Agnes has been anticipating the apocalypse for her entire life. But Agnes’s world doesn’t end in fire and brimstone, as the controlling Prophet of Red Creek predicted. Ultimately, her world ends in ways she never could’ve anticipated—and it ends twice: First, when she must leave her family and everything she’s ever known behind in order to save her brother’s life; then again, when she discovers the Outside world is...[read on]

Visit Kelly McWilliams's website.

The Page 69 Test: Agnes at the End of the World.

Q&A with Kelly McWilliams.

--Marshal Zeringue