Exclusive: Author Lila Raicek Will Take "Racy" As A Compliment

"“This feels like fate,” says playwright and author Lila Raicek, smiling as she leans over the shady Central Park bench we just happened upon and pulls out her phone camera to snap a picture of the ever-so-slightly patinaed plaque reading: John Gregory Dunne (1932-2003)/Quintana Roo Dunne Michael (1966-2005)/In Summer Time And Winter Time. “This has to be her bench,” she tells me in a near whisper."

"“In the tradition of Didion, The Plunge explores the liminal space of life after tragedy. The erotic thriller follows Liv, a playwright who retreats from LA to New York after the sudden death of her high-profile, recently disgraced husband. Listless, she lives out of a suitcase in the maid's room of her mentor's home. In free fall, she becomes ensnared in the romantic web of Damon, a mysterious jeweler, and Isabel, an older woman he's charmed.”"

"“Like Liv, Raicek has a self-described ‘scandalous’ past. When her ex-fiancé, Roy Price, was ousted from Amazon Studios after sexual harassment accusations at the height of the#MeToomovement in 2017, her name was splashed across tabloids. Soon after, her best friend suffered what Raicek calls a ‘catastrophic death.’”"

"“I was in a period of grief and confusion trying to understand how to rebuild after loss,” Raicek says. “I set out to write a novel that really explored that murky and turbulent space of aftermath, which I feel like has not necessarily been addressed”"

A playwright and author finds a plaque for John Gregory Dunne and Quintana Roo Dunne Michael in Central Park and connects it to Joan Didion, a major inspiration. Her debut novel, The Plunge, is set in the liminal space after tragedy. Liv, a playwright, retreats from Los Angeles to New York after the sudden death of her high-profile, recently disgraced husband. She lives out of a suitcase in the maid’s room of her mentor’s home and becomes emotionally unmoored. In free fall, she is drawn into a romantic web involving Damon, a mysterious jeweler, and Isabel, an older woman he charms. The author also describes a scandalous past and grief after a friend’s catastrophic death, shaping the novel’s focus on aftermath.

Read at Bustle