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Taylor Jenkins Reid is back: After hiatus, author surprised herself with ‘Atmosphere'
Taylor Jenkins Reid is back: After hiatus, author surprised herself with 'Atmosphere'
It's been three years since the book world saw a new Taylor Jenkins Reid novel, a long time considering the 'Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo' author published eight books in nine years.
Now Reid is back, refreshed and fundamentally changed by the research and writing of her space love story 'Atmosphere" (out now from Penguin Random House). For starters, she has a pretty good idea of what it's like to be in a catastrophic space accident. She has a deeper appreciation for the world and the people in it, she tells USA TODAY. She's got a healthier relationship with her creative spirit. And earlier this month, she came out publicly as bisexual in a profile in TIME Magazine.
'Atmosphere,' in the vein of other well-loved Reid novels like 'Daisy Jones & The Six,' is full of characters you miss after you turn the last page. Joan Goodwin, the novel's protagonist, is quietly ambitious, devoted to her niece and wading through a complicated relationship with her sister. Her dreams come within reach when she gets accepted into a competitive trainee class at NASA, alongside peers who become her new home. The closely guarded astronaut also has a shot at once-in-a-lifetime love.
After hiatus, 'Atmosphere' was a 'coming of age' for Taylor Jenkins Reid
'Atmosphere' is Reid's first departure from her famous-women quartet of books – 'Daisy Jones,' 'Evelyn Hugo,' 'Malibu Rising' and 'Carrie Soto is Back' – in years. It's also the first extended break she's taken since her debut novel 'Forever, Interrupted' came out in 2013.
When she wrote 'Carrie Soto,' Reid says she saw much of herself in the character, who reckons with her legacy, expectations and when to step back. All her characters teach her something about herself – Evelyn Hugo about ambition, Nina Riva about healthy boundaries. Carrie Soto was her catalyst to take a break.
'I needed to get more in touch with the thoughts in my own head and get some quiet and rest, and that's not something that I had ever been good at recognizing about myself prior to maybe 2022,' Reid says. 'I finally started to listen to all the people in my life who told me to slow down and to make sure there's time in the day for joy and rest.'
Now, after some much-needed time away, writing 'Atmosphere' felt like 'coming of age,' Reid says. She challenged herself. She started to find new things she never realized she loved. Since 'Atmosphere,' you can often find her in her backyard staring at the moon or searching for the Scorpius constellation.
'Joan is driven by the awe she has, not only for the universe itself and our particular solar system, but also the fact that our study of those things is our pursuit of understanding ourselves. That by trying to understand the universe, we're trying to understand our place in it and where we come from and where we may be going,' Reid says. 'Once you start asking those questions, it becomes more difficult to take any of it for granted.'
It shows in her writing. Reid's work is third-person and character-driven, plucking the reader from their reality and into something far more star-studded. And though there are blood-pressure-raising missions in 'Atmosphere,' the most touching parts are when she breaks that fourth wall to call out the reader directly, her gratitude practically leaping off the page.
'Look what we humans had done,' she writes in one chapter. 'We had looked at the world around us – the dirt under our feet, the stars in the sky, the speed of a feather falling from the top of a building – and we had taught ourselves to fly.'
How 'Atmosphere' took Taylor Jenkins Reid to the moon and back
Though 'Atmosphere' is not in the same universe as "Evelyn Hugo" or "Carrie Soto," writing about women in male-dominated spaces still drove Reid to the story.
'I don't think anyone was thinking 'Oh, when's Taylor Jenkins Reid going to write her space novel?' I don't think that is an obvious place for me to go,' Reid says, laughing.
She knew a space odyssey like 'Atmosphere' would be a significant undertaking, but she still underestimated how big it would be. There was a healthy amount of self-doubt she had to overcome, Reid says, to stop telling herself she wasn't capable of writing the mechanics of a space shuttle or how to engineer your way out of potentially fatal, zero-gravity danger.
So she got help. She started by reading 'Shuttle, Houston,' the memoir from NASA's longest-serving flight director. And then she called its author, Paul Dye, who wound up being so instrumental in her research process that she dedicated the book to him. 'Atmosphere' is a team effort – the words may be all Reid's, but, as she says, 'nobody is going to make it to space alone.'
'This book really represents how, if I'm open, there are so many things out there that I could fall in love with, and so many things I can try and find joy in,' Reid says. 'I think it cracked open something for me. I'm not the person I would expect to have written this book until I wrote this book.'
Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you're reading at cmulroy@
