SAN ANTONIO — A Texas native’s latest thriller explores friendship, isolation and wildlife found in the rural parts of the Lone Star state.
Samantha Mabry’s novel “Clever Creatures Of The Night,” was inspired by her own personal fears that heightened during the pandemic - especially as a mother.
“I remember being just like generally afraid of everything. And then afraid of this little person that I was responsible for,” Mabry said.
During the COVID-19 epidemic Mabry and her family isolated themselves in Mineral Wells, Texas – about 50 miles from Fort Worth and home to several wild hogs.
Mabry said she felt all of these compounded fears and she was also worried about her young son who was just starting to walk at the time.
“I was convinced that I was going to have to wrestle a hog to the ground to save my child,” Mabry said.
She then started to think about how everyone was reacting differently to the isolation and loneliness of the pandemic, and essentially how people respond to big life-changing events.
Mabry said this helped her create the characters in her 2024 novel.
In “Clever Creatures of the Night” a group of people isolate due to an environmental disaster. But this is only the backdrop of the story as main character Case goes looking for her missing best friend Drea.
This search forces Case into this bizarre, cultlike—and possibly murderous world formed by this group of people - who have started to cope with their detachment from the world in unique and strange ways.
For example, one character excessively bakes while another pretends everything is fine.
“They’re all reacting in very different ways as we all did to the pandemic,” Mabry explained. “I wanted to take that sense of general underlying fear of everything and turn that into something that wasn’t just a pandemic novel but certainly inspired by the emotions that come out of being stuck in a questionable situation with a group of people.”
Mabry also explored the ideas that some people didn’t solely fear the coronavirus but the vaccines and CDC restrictions.
“I also just knew there was just layers of fear,” she said.
Mabry set the novel’s scene in Palo Pinto County in a seemingly beautiful plot of land that's also surrounded by wild animals.
“No, it’s not lovely. It’s terrible and it’s full of things that will kill you,” Mabry joked.
She admits she couldn’t see the good in the isolation and explored those thoughts in the novel.
Mabry said she typically finds herself drawn to more macabre tales, ghost stories, and westerns.
One of her previous novels is a ghost story of sorts and takes place in San Antonio.
“Tigers, Not Daughters” is a YA novel based on the lives of her mother and aunts. The book highlights sisterhood, the Mexican American culture, mourning and even death.
Mabry said she enjoys working on the setting in books before the plot or characters even materialize but wants to know the place well enough to write it accurately.
“I do love Texas and I do love places. And I do love the west and I love the overlapping of identities that Texas has,” she said.
Mabry grew up writing song lyrics, playing bass and reading thick books. If she received good grades in school her father rewarded her with a new hardback from Bookstop.
“I’m an only child and I was just like all my friends are books kind of person,” she said.
Mabry has a master’s degree in English and confessed she enjoyed required reading for classes. Her favorite novel is Dracula by Bram Stoker – which she’s re-read several times.
“I feel like it’s for sentimental reasons. I love that book,” she said.
Despite her love for literature Mabry never thought she would become writer.
“I just couldn’t ever have conceived that I could’ve written anything as good as the things I was reading,” she said.
Before becoming an author Mabry began reading Wilkie Collins ghost stories and lovely giant books by Dan Simmons. She credits “Imaginary Girls” by Nova Ren Suma and “The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender” by Leslye Walton for inspiring her with their groundbreaking stories.
“I want to do this. I want to do what they’re doing,” Mabry said.
She hopes to one day expand her writing and loves how authors are changing the western genre.
“I would love to write a proper western. Like set in the west. There are other writers that do that so well,” she said.
Mabry would also love to write a magical realism book based on her grandmother and her extended family.
“I also kind of think I write magical realism," she said. "Like I really resonate with that as a Hispanic person. It really makes sense to me.”
Mabry said that although she isn’t under contract for a specific book, something is always in the works for her.
For more on Samantha Mabry and her works, click here.
