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Learn more about Samantha Allen’s new novel Roland Rogers Isn’t Dead Yet, publishing December 3rd. Allen’s humorous and unconventional novel is making a splash and has already been reviewed by Library Journal, Kirkus, and Publishers Weekly; it also received a starred review from Booklist. We are delighted that Samantha made some time to chat with us.
Ingram Library Services: Can you give us the elevator pitch for your book?
Samantha Allen: Roland Rogers Isn’t Dead Yet is about a ghostwriter who ends up ghostwriting for the ghost of a famous movie star. It’s also about being gay, getting older, and accepting that we don’t get to do any of this over again.
ILS: What was the inspiration behind this unlikely romance?
SA: Apart from my own books, I have ghostwritten, co-written, and edited a fair amount of work credited to other people. I believe that inhabiting another person’s voice requires you to fall in love with them — maybe not romantically, but certainly creatively. And yet your influence remains largely hidden from public view.
Roland is in part a thought experiment about leveling the playing field: How could an ugly behind-the-scenes gremlin like me actually stand a chance with a celebrity? Maybe if the A-lister was completely invisible! That fantasy is borne out of my own anxieties about aging amid an appearance-driven social economy where we increasingly expect talented authors to also be beautiful.
So, although this book is loosely based on my professional experiences, it’s mostly about being embodied — or disembodied, in Roland’s case — in a world that’s never been more visually oriented than it is now.
ILS: This is your second book that deals with a relationship between a person and a non-human entity (the first being Patricia the Sasquatch in Patricia Wants To Cuddle). What draws you to “monsters”?
SA: Mostly, I’m just trying to keep things interesting for myself! Two people talking to each other? Yawn. A woman brushing Sasquatch’s hair? Now you’ve got my attention! A ghost falling in love with a gay memoirist? Sign me up!
In seriousness, I’ve spent much of my own adult life as a visibly queer person being perceived as something less than fully human. I know what it’s like to exist on a perpetual periphery, always skirting the edges of mainstream society. That’s why I’m so fascinated with monsters, broadly conceived. We need love in the shadows, too.
ILS: What do you hope readers take away from this story?
SA: Above all, I hope readers feel prompted to write their own stories. Roland has a fun premise and a lot of humor about Hollywood but it’s also about regret. It’s about old wounds that never fully heal. I’m not equipped to dole out life advice, but I do know that narrativizing my own life — whether through a diary entry, a memoir, or a novel like this one — has allowed me to find some solace. Pens and keyboards aren’t time machines, but they can help us reframe the past to find a way forward.
ILS: What’s the best book you’ve read recently?
SA: Speaking of time machines, my favorite recent read is from the future: Woodworking by my friend Emily St. James, coming March 2025.
ILS: What’s next?
SA: An Olympic pole-vaulting gold medal.
Just kidding.
I’m writing another book, this time with only human characters. No cryptids. No ghosts. I was tempted to include a vampire in the next one, but I’m exercising restraint. After two “monster” books in a row, I’ve gotta keep ’em guessing. Only normal fiction from here on out. No promises, though.
ILS: Do you have a favorite library memory?
SA: I basically lived in the El Dorado Branch of the Long Beach Public Library as a child. But at the age of 37, what I remember more clearly than all the books I read there was how delicious and cold the drinking fountain water was. I’d guzzle it until the kid behind me told me to “save some for the whales,” and then I’d take another few gulps for good measure. Promoting literacy and hydration? What can’t libraries do?
