Caitlin Mullen’s second novel, Heather (Celadon Books) is a gripping crime thriller set in the Pine Barrens. It follows newly appointed police chief Callie Hauser, who unearths a cold case involving the mysterious disappearance of 16-year-old twin sisters decades prior, and the death of a newborn baby. Mullen’s first book, Please See Us, won the 2021 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. She lives in Princeton with her family.
New Jersey Monthly: Thanks for talking to me. I loved your book!
Caitlin Mullen: Oh, thank you. It’s especially nice to talk to a Jersey-based magazine. It’s really fun to talk to someone who has a background in the area.
After I read your novel, my son and I decided to watch the Sopranos episode called “The Pine Barrens.” Have you seen it?
Not for a couple years now, but yes, I’ve seen it. In the comment section of another interview I did, people said that episode was actually filmed in Harriman State Park in New York. Obviously, people are so eager to get that right—they seem to feel very strongly about it!
I agree. You’ve been getting great reviews on this book—congrats! I’ll tell you my story about your book: I was nearing then end and then I had to go into the city. I had about 15 pages left. And I meant to bring the book with me because I had to find out how it ended—but I forgot it at home. And I thought, Can I call my son and have him read me the ending over the phone? That’s how good it was. I didn’t end up asking him because he probably would have said no.
That’s funny—I love that so much. That’s amazing.
You must be thrilled with the reception the book is getting.
It’s really exciting, because you just never know. This is my second book—my first came out in March 2020, so it was peak Covid, and it was really hard to find readers. I didn’t get to interact with readers in the same way that I am now. So going into it, my perspective was always: You just never know what will happen. I’m so grateful. It’s gratifying to see readers engage with it and to see reviewers take to it. It’s beyond my wildest dreams in a way.
The New York Times reviewer said she read it in one sitting!
That was unbelievable. I’m still kind of stunned by that and so grateful. It was just such a hard go-around with my first novel—and as a debut author, that was a tough experience. So I didn’t really know what to expect with this book at all because I felt like my barometer was kind of off.
It was fun to read a book set in New Jersey.
It’s fun to write things set in New Jersey and to hear from people who live and work or drive through the places that you’re writing about.
Let’s talk a bit about the setting. You previously lived in the Pine Barrens, right?
I lived in Winslow Township when I was young, which is right on the edge of the Pine Barrens. Now I live in Central Jersey, and my mom lives at the Shore year-round, so I’m always driving through the Pine Barrens to see her, especially in the summer. I just felt like, There’s a story here somewhere. And I hadn’t seen fiction set there. There’s of course John McPhee’s famous nonfiction book [The Pine Barrens] from the ’60s, but I hadn’t seen anything from a fictional standpoint set there. And it’s just such an interesting place. People don’t think of woods when they think of New Jersey. And when you’re there, it can feel so isolated. It has such a distinctive ecology, and so much of it is protected. It feels really special, but it’s also just so different from the rest of the state.
Is it just my imagination, or are the Barrens starting to have their moment now?
I think there’s a lot of really cool stuff happening in the Pine Barrens right now. I’m doing an event next month with Pinelands Alliance—they do so much conservancy work, and they run the Pinelands Adventures group and do all sorts of cool hikes and tours, and are really into educating people. There’s also a great arts scene in the Pine Barrens, especially the music.
Was any of the novel based on real-life events? Some of the places were real, right?
Yes, the places were real. I fictionalized the town and the police department, because in real life most of the Pine Barrens are policed by the state police. But I wanted to be able to give my character the leeway to have independence from that and to be chief in a small station so that she could have different challenges and less oversight. She’s kind of acting on her own a lot of the time. I felt like, in a fictional town and with a fictionalized police force, there should be a lot more leeway. But there are name-drops of real places, such as Atsion Lake, Mullica River and Sea Isle City. Callie also goes to Princeton, where I live. So I tried to include real Jersey places, even though I was mostly fictionalizing the town.
I hate to admit this, but I did not know the story of the Jersey Devil until I read your book. Since then, I’ve been asking everybody, including my friends and coworkers, about it—and hardly anyone knew the story. So I said, There was this old woman named Mother Leeds, and it’s really a story about women being overworked…
I didn’t know either. I had heard bits of that story, and then when I revisited it, I already knew that the novel was going to have this unexpected pregnancy at the center. But then when I refreshed my memory on it, I was like, Oh my God, the story of the Jersey Devil is a birth story. I liked how it fit together with the novel’s themes. It kind of blew my mind. And then, of course, there are different theories about the Jersey Devil. You can go pretty deep into the mythology of it—it’s really fun and weird.
Can you talk about the mystical elements of the Pine Barrens? Is it actually a creepy place, or is that just a myth?
I think it’s kind of twofold. For me, especially the way I use setting and fiction, the setting always reflects what the characters are going through on the interior. So, for these characters who are, for the most part, experiencing big upheavals and periods of unease and worry and stress, that’s reflected back to them in the way they interact with and how they view the landscape around them. I think the Pine Barrens are very beautiful, and there are spots that feel very serene—but there are also elements that feel kind of creepy and unsettling. And part of that might be that I’m a 30-something-year-old woman hiking alone in the woods a lot of the time. Maybe I read too many thrillers where bad things happen in the woods! But I do think in the Pine Barrens, because of that myth of the Jersey Devil that’s centered there, you do have this sense that there’s something about these woods that feels a little unsettling and…
Eerie? There are abandoned buildings, right?
Yeah, there are abandoned factories and old railroad tracks. There are these kinds of outposts of civilization that have crumbled and been left behind. And there are also the ghost towns of the Pine Barrens. You can take a tour of them. There are all sorts of tours, such as one of the ruins that are located alongside some of the major hiking trails. One of the factory ruins that I include in the book is inspired by the Brooksbrae Brick Factory in Manchester Township, which is spray-painted all over with graffiti. So you have these 100-plus-year-old ruins that are covered with spray paint, and empty beer bottles lying around. You get the sense that kids go there to drink and do whatever.
Can you talk about the way you portray women in the book? Some reviewers said they loved how you treat them with such empathy.
I’m always trying to portray the experiences of my female characters so that they feel like real people in all their complexity. They have good qualities, they have bad qualities; they make mistakes, they’re imperfect. But overall, I want to treat them with respect. As a writer, you’re putting your characters through difficulties. But I strive to balance that and do it in a way that doesn’t feel exploitative. I feel like that represents how women actually move through the world, especially when they’re in vulnerable positions or when they’re exploited. Those are real things that happen. But I also hope to give my characters voice and agency, and portray them with care. So striking that balance, especially in a thriller—a genre known for violence against women—is challenging.
Anytime I start to feel like, Oh, maybe this part is overdone or overblown, I look at the news and what’s happening and the things we’re all talking about. It’s just so ingrained in our society to put women down, and it’s never-ending. And so I wanted to empower my female characters in their own way and have them navigate their survivorship in a way that hopefully feels at least a little uplifting.
I think you do that very well. Are you working on your next book?
Yes. It’s set in Central New York, outside of Syracuse, which is where I lived with my family for a stretch of my childhood. And I went to college in that area. So I’m revisiting that for the setting of my next novel. It will be another thriller.
I can’t wait to read it.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
