Alyssa Cole on Challenging Mental Health Stereotypes in One of Us Knows

Alyssa Cole’s One of Us Knows was one of We Are Bookish’s most-anticipated reads of 2024 and it’s not hard to see why: A locked-room thriller that features societal critique and explores trauma through the lens of dissociative identity disorder—sign me up! You can imagine I was thrilled to not only get to read this book early through NetGalley, but also get the chance to talk to Cole. Read on for our spoiler-free discussion on the island that inspired her, dismantling mental health stereotypes, and the challenges of plotting the most ambitious book she’s ever written.

One of Us Knows blends together classic thriller tropes (a locked-room mystery set on a remote island) with staples of your writing that readers return for time and again (social commentary, nuanced depictions of race and mental health, and even a touch of romance). What first inspired this idea and how long have you been working on it?

Kavanaugh Island, the island in the book, is based on Pollepel Island, or Bannerman’s Island, which I saw from a train window years and years ago. I thought I was hallucinating for a minute, seeing a castle out in the river, and when I looked it up later I thought it’d make a great setting for a book. I’ve also always been interested in the brain’s ability to create “spaces,” like recurring settings that appear in your dreams over months or years. The dissociative identity inner world was a way to explore this idea in a real-world way. There’s also an element of my childhood in here that I’ve always wanted to add to a paranormal or gothic story (I won’t specify here because SPOILERS!) and it was fun realizing that this story would be perfect for it. I started working on it in 2020, and finished in 2023, which is a really long time for me to work on one thing, and it was a uniquely difficult process.

Historically there have been a lot of harmful depictions of mental illnesses in thrillers. What stereotypes around mental health and the genre did you want to work against or correct? How have you seen the genre change in regards to mental health representation?

The protagonists of One of Us Knows are members of a dissociative identity disorder system, which in pop culture used to be known as having “multiple personalities.” Because this is also a convenient plot device for hiding villains, the character with DID is often the bad guy in mysteries and thrillers. The main protagonist of One of Us Knows, Ken, would be the “villain” in a lot of these past stories, and she’s well aware of this. And all of the characters have other underlying mental health issues and neurodivergencies. I thought a DID system would make for the perfect ragtag band of misfit amateur detectives, and a great way to give the protagonists agency and subvert stereotypical portrayals. 

I think that mental health representation in the genre is changing for the better, in line with how more people are becoming aware of these issues in everyday life and more authors from marginalized backgrounds are being published.

There’s been a lot of misunderstanding around society’s perception and understanding of dissociative identity disorder (DID). What was your research process like when it came to exploring Ken, her headmates, and how they navigate life together?

I read a lot of books, research papers, blog posts, and testimonials, both from psychiatrists and systems themselves. I already had a basic idea of what I wanted to happen and wanted to make sure that I was accurately portraying DID, and not contributing to any harmful beliefs about the disorder. I also had an accuracy consultant. Though I don’t have DID, I tried to find ways in which my own experiences allowed me to understand aspects of the disorder and create characters who feel real to the readers. I had to narrow down what their system was like because there were infinite possibilities. Like with anything I write, I researched with an eye on what was within the realm of reason and, as usual, found that there are so many cool possibilities before you approach anywhere near “unrealistic.” I also looked at group dynamics in a number of ways. For each member of Bad Day system, I thought of their neurodivergence, zodiac sign, enneagram number, etc, and how the general traits (good and bad) attributed by these personality systems (and the personality that came through for each while writing) would interact with each other.

You’ve said that this is the “most ambitious and difficult thing” you’ve ever written. How did you go about plotting this book, particularly with the way DID results in headmates having access to different information and experiences of dissociative amnesia?

I started my writing career as a pantser, and no matter how hard I try to be a plotter, I’m still somewhere in between. I had the initial basic plot points down from the beginning, but the process of getting to know each character shifted the paths between those points. I had decided who each member of Bad Day System was, but as is usually the case, that changes when you start writing. Each change would have a ripple effect on the story because of the way that each character and the way they operate in the system affected the rest of the book.

I also had to consider things like “who is the best person to share this information with the reader?” or “what is each character’s arc and how does it affect the system as a whole?” and a host of other things that were specific to the fact that they were all sharing the same brain but not all the same memories.

Then there’s the aspect of trying to present these characters not in their initial chaos of when they were first diagnosed, but as they’re starting to backslide (since progress isn’t linear). And so many other things. It was like having a 1000-piece puzzle where all the pieces look similar, but putting one in the wrong place means having to undo everything that came after. 

Throughout the book, we get to know the headmates in this system. Which headmate was the easiest to get into the mind of and which was the most challenging?

Ken was both the easiest and the hardest for me. Because she’s so capricious, it was sometimes tricky to figure out how to convey her behaviors in a way that was realistic but not totally frustrating for some readers. Mesmer was also a little difficult because I didn’t want to make her a caricature but also wanted to convey that, in some ways, she was one. The members of the system are getting to know themselves and each other on a deeper level as the reader is getting to know them.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is present in this book and felt layered in both its connection to the 1918 Influenza pandemic and as an example of a collective trauma experience (perhaps even as an analogy for the trauma experienced by Ken’s system and the way each headmate manages it differently). What drew you to wanting to tell a story that included COVID-19 in this way?

I remember seeing some discussions about how the 1918 pandemic shows up indirectly in the art of the time, and at first I thought I’d go with a subtle acknowledgment of the pandemic in my work too. Later, I realized it was way more important to the story than I’d originally envisioned.

A lot of my writing is, on some level, me using the genres I love to process difficult events of the past and present, and tease out how they’re connected, so trying to avoid the giant spiked virus in the room just wasn’t working for me. I also write about things that piss me off, and clearly I have strong feelings about how the pandemic was handled.

If readers haven’t picked up their copy yet, which indie bookstore(s) would you like them to support?

What a great question! First, my faves: Loyalty Bookstores (DC/MD)! The Ripped Bodice (LA/Brooklyn), Astoria Bookshop (Queen), Uncle Bobbie’s (Philly), The Lit. Bar (the Bronx), WORD Bookstores (Jersey City/Brooklyn), Reparations Club (LA), A Room of One’s Own (Wisconsin), and Harriett’s Bookshop (Philly)!

What have you read recently that you’ve loved and would recommend to readers?

I read an absolutely gorgeous sapphic fantasy romance that really drew me in–Tamara Jerée’s The Fall That Saved Us. It has demon hunters descended from angels, a succubus with a crush, generational trauma and familial grief, plus a cozy bookshop. It’s so well done, and I couldn’t put it down!

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