Why Author Sam Lansky Switched To Fiction For New Novel ‘Broken People’

Sam Lansky’s new novel Broken People (Hanover Square Press) follows a character in his late twenties named Sam, who hears of a shaman who can fix everything that’s wrong with you in three days. Sam, a single, sober gay man in his late twenties who lives in Los Angeles, works in media and has written a memoir, is full of anxiety about the many things he thinks are wrong with him. Drawn the promise of being fixed for good, he, along with a friend, joins the shaman for an ahayuasca-fueled weekend retreat in which he revisits past relationships, as well as his relationships to family, weight, sex, love, work, money, sobriety and health, in his search for resolutions.

Lansky, also the author of the 2016 memoir The Gilded Razor (Gallery), began writing Broken People soon after his first book’s publication. He originally conceived of it as a memoir, but pivoted to fiction to be able to tell the story he felt was most compelling. Via email, I asked Lansky about his writing process, making the switch mid-manuscript from memoir to fiction, and releasing a book during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At what point did you decide to change it from memoir to fiction? Was that solely your decision?

It had been suggested to me many times that I write fiction, which was something I’d always resisted; I think I was stuck on myself as a subject, in a way that I ultimately came to realize, the more I wrote, wasn’t serving me. When I began thinking of this as a novel, about a year after I first began writing, it felt like a way to address, on a meta level, some of what I’d begun to realize about my own tendency to tell stories about myself—both to myself, on an intrapersonal level, and to the world, as someone who had long written about their life—and how that was keeping me stagnant both personally and creatively. Ultimately I realized: This was a story about the many little fictions we tell ourselves and the people around us about who we are, every day. How could it be anything but a novel? 

How does it feel to be putting a book into the world that’s deeply autobiographical and revealing, but is billed as fiction? 

It’s billed as fiction because it is fiction! I’m not trying to be slick in saying that—I drew extensively from my own life experiences to tell this story, but ultimately it’s a work of imagination, with many elements that were invented for the sake of the narrative. At the same time, I do feel like there is so much of me in the character of Sam, and for that reason I feel incredibly vulnerable releasing it into the world. But I’ve learned that we set ourselves, and others, free by sharing what’s true for us, and my hope is that what I’ve shared in this book will help others feel less alone.  

What made you want to change it from memoir to fiction? What do you think that adds to the story? 

While I was writing, my working title was Memoir: A Novel. (I’m glad we went with Broken People.) But the thing I was most eager to explore, as a writer, was how the act of self-narrativizing can be a double-edged sword. In an era where everyone is expected to have a “personal brand” on social media, I think we’ve all become architects of our own mini-memoirs, for better or for worse. Part of what I wanted to explode with this book is how illusory those memoirs can be—how, ultimately, they all come down to a form of fiction. It gave me something to really sink my teeth into as a writer, but it’s also an invitation for readers to reflect on the stories they tell themselves, and where those might be in need of a shift. 

Did you make any changes to the substance of the text to fictionalize it?

Oh, yes, so many! I think it’s important to preserve the mystery of what pieces of this were drawn from my real life and what was invented, because I don’t want the exercise of, “How much of this actually happened?” to be distracting for readers. But as I began to migrate from the personal narrative I’d written as part of my own process into conceiving of this as a novel, much was changed to make the story feel as engaging as possible, and the freedom of fiction as a form provided lots of opportunities to get imaginative.  

How was writing this book different from writing The Gilded Razor? 

From the beginning of writing The Gilded Razor, I knew exactly what it was—the arc of the story, and what the beginning, middle and end looked like. The process of writing this book was much more of an exploration, as I began to bear down on what pieces of the story felt most vital to tell, and what ended up being extraneous. Writing it felt a lot more trial-and-error. By the time I was done with this book, I’d written hundreds of thousands of words—not an exaggeration—on the way to finishing the manuscript. But all of that work was necessary. Only by saying way too much as part of my own process could I find what I actually needed to say.

What do you hope readers take away from Broken People?

First of all, I hope they get swept up by the story, which I wanted to be engaging and entertaining above all else; as much as I had lots of opinions and ideas, I wanted to be sure the book didn’t feel didactic or proselytizing even as it endeavored to communicate some wisdom. But in the flow of that story, I hope it provides an opportunity to reflect on how anxiety, self-criticism and insecurity can be traps that keep us anchored in counterproductive ways of being, and that it’s always possible to shift perspective and do things differently. 

What are you doing differently for the release given the COVID-19 pandemic? 

The pandemic has upended so much of what I had planned to do for this book, and at this very moment, we’re in the midst of another time of major upheaval, over the scourge of racism and police brutality in America. That conversation is much more important than me or my book, and it’s vital that I remain sensitive to that, as I interrogate the ways in which the project of whiteness has benefited me, my attachment to my own privilege, and the ways in which I can be a better ally. So right now, the biggest thing I’m doing differently is taking my foot off the accelerator of self-promotion, instead trusting that this book will find its right readership in its right time.

I also want to use this space to amplify the voices of queer Black writers—I have deep admiration for the work of Brandon Taylor, Saeed Jones and Michael Arceneaux, to name a few—and to support Black bookstore owners. I’ve ordered from Eso Won Bookstore in Los Angeles, but I encourage readers to find those in their local community that they can support.