Lauren Ling Brown ’12 Sets a Thriller at a Princeton Eating Club

For the setting of her debut novel, Lauren Ling Brown ’12 picked Princeton — or, at least, a fictional version of Princeton featuring an eerie eating club, a secret society, and a morally gray dilemma faced by her main character. The result is Society of Lies, a twisty thriller that snowballed in popularity this summer. The PAW Book Club wanted to know why Brown picked Princeton and what it was like conjuring Sterling Club and Greystone Society — and for which parts of this novel she drew on her own experiences. 

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TRANSCRIPT:

This is the PAW Book Club podcast, where Princeton alumni and friends read a book together.

Today I’m excited to talk with Lauren Ling Brown, from the Class of 2012, about her debut novel Society of Lies. There are lots of reasons why this twisty thriller landed on bestseller lists and got picked up for Reese Witherspoon’s own book club, but here at PAW, our intrigue hit closer to home. The book is set almost entirely on Princeton’s campus. It bounces readers back and forth across the 10 years that separate the commencements of two sisters, Maya and Naomi, in the wake of Naomi’s violent murder during Reunions Weekend.

The story is entirely fictional, thankfully, but the dorms, the darkened towpath, the experiences of Princeton students, and the eating club and secret society conjured by Lauren sometimes look a lot like the real Princeton. Our book club members wanted to know the same thing we at the PAW office wanted to know: How much of this book was based on imagination and how much on more?

Lauren, thank you so much for joining our book club to talk with me today.

LLB: Thank you so much for having me. It’s such an honor to be here.

LD: All right, so this really was, I have to say, the perfect summer read, and it was so eerie. I kept imagining murderous consultants following me around campus, right, and we got some great questions from our book club members. I’m going to dive right in with Alexandra Garey, who’s a friend of PAW, who asks, “Why did you choose Princeton as the backdrop of this book instead of a fictional school?”

LLB: Yeah, that’s a great question. I like to write about real places that I’ve experienced, and Princeton, especially during that time of my life, 18 to 22 years old, becoming an adult, it had such a profound impact on me, and I think about Princeton a lot. Some of my closest friends I met at Princeton. So I wanted to bring the beautiful campus to life in a fictional world.

LD: Now, Eleanor Vivona-Vaughan ’79 asks, “Was there anything that happened while you were a student at Princeton that motivated you to write this book, or inspired it in any way?”

LLB: I definitely thought back to my experience at Princeton while writing this book, but I was trying to make it a thriller version of, not even of that experience, but the characters, Naomi and Maya, were reflections of who I was at different points in my life.

There wasn’t anything in particular that happened at Princeton that motivated the story, but I did think about who I was when I first showed up on campus, being 18, from Northern California, a multiracial Black and Chinese young woman who felt very just out of her element and ready to experience all the things that college had to offer, ready to learn. I was so excited about, at first I thought I would major in econ, but then I switched to English. And the campus just being so overwhelmingly beautiful. So a lot of those feelings of being new to Princeton, I tried to bring to the book, but no one particular experience.

LD: How did your experience at Princeton go? Because, I’m hearing this and I’m hoping that by the end, you felt totally accepted and like this was the place for you! Did you find your way?

LLB: No, I loved my experience at Princeton. I played soccer there. I was an English major. I switched from econ to English because I studied abroad in London, which was an incredible experience. Studied econ at LSE, and then I decided while reading just so many books that my real love and passion was for literature and fiction, and so I became an English major, took my very first creative writing class, and that was just such a transformative experience. Fell in love with writing and joined the Black Arts Company, so got a chance to learn how to dance and perform in Frist. It was just an overall incredible experience. I was a part of an eating club that I loved, met some of my closest friends to this day in eating club, so my experience at Princeton was very different than Maya and Naomi’s, luckily.

LD: Thank goodness. OK. Whew, I’m glad to hear that. OK, so you mentioned that you were in an eating club, we’re going to get to that, but first, Sue Rhoades, who is a graduate alum from the class of ’92, asks, “How much if any of this story is based on your own experience or observations of student social life at Princeton?”

LLB: I tried to be true to my experience of the eating clubs, especially sort of the nightlife around the 2010 period that I went to school there. But then after that, because it was fiction, because it was a commercial thriller, I kind of embellished and enhanced that feeling. So it’s not really meant to be taken literally.

LD: OK, so now we need to know, because Sue Rhoades also asks, as did all of us. You belonged to an eating club. Which one? Was it Cottage, was it Ivy? Was it Charter? Was it Terrace? What was it? You have to tell us.

LLB: I was at Cottage. Yes.

LD: You were at Cottage. OK. Mystery solved. She asks, “How much or a little of what we have,” so I mean, you kind of just indicated, but maybe you could go into a little more detail. “How much of the eating club experience, your eating club experience, are we seeing in this?” You know what I mean? Can you kind of separate out some of those threads for me?

LLB: Yes, and it’s difficult to determine how much of it is real and how much is fiction, because I was imagining Sterling Club, this fictional eating club that also had this kind of dark thriller element to it, so I brought as much of my experience of college and of the eating clubs to build that fictional secret society and fictional eating club, but it wasn’t a one-to-one portrayal of what I experienced.

I guess the dance floor, the feelings of being that age, being in your early twenties, and for me, being a sheltered high schooler and then getting to experience the eating clubs for the first time, it was more that feeling that I really tried to bring to life.

LD: So what was it like, Rachel Marek ’17 asks, “What was it like creating a fictional eating club?”

LLB: It was fun, actually, because I had the freedom to really bring my own spin to what the eating club was, Sterling Club, which is what I called it in the book. It was a great place to explore this moral dilemma that I wanted for the main character, Maya, which was, if this secret society housed within a fictional eating club, within Sterling Club, if this secret society offered her a life of her dreams, the opportunity to have a successful career, have connections, take care of her younger sister, would she take that opportunity even when she learned that that new life came at the expense of someone else’s well-being, if that secret society was hurting someone else?

That’s the moral dilemma and the moral question that is really at the heart of the book, and that I think is really important. It’s exploring that gray area, and I thought that creating the fictional secret society was a great way to explore that question, because it’s sort of a locked room, closed environment, where these members become so close — just like I did with my other eating club members, which thankfully were good people — the Sterling Club members all become close and they want to protect each other, and so the main character Maya has to decide whether she’s going to be a member for life and protect these people, even after she realizes that one of them is doing something awful.

LD: That’s really interesting. The question of, which one is the greater good? You’ve got this personal situation and you have this more outside-of-yourself situation, and which one is the greater good?

LLB: Exactly. That was the moral dilemma and the question at the heart of the book.

LD: Tray Evarts from the Class of ’90 wants to know, “Did anything inspire the idea of secret societies, like St. A’s?”

LLB: Oh, interesting. I read a lot of nonfiction books on secret societies, actually, not just at Princeton, but at Yale, and just secret societies throughout history. Those more inspired the secret society rather than any particular one at Princeton.

LD: Princeton, I think, is not supposed to have them. Right? Theoretically?

LLB: I believe that they were banned, yes, but I don’t know much about them, to be honest.

LD: OK. Well, I can tell you, St. A’s, I have it on good authority, does exist, but it’s not that secret. They have a website, so there’s that.

LLB: I did do as much research as I could on the Princeton secret societies, but I purposely wanted to make sure that Greystone was far away from anything related to Princeton.

LD: I think, did you find that they play a bigger role at some of the other Ivies?

LLB: Yes, definitely.

LD: If there are real secret societies that are a big deal? Yeah?

LLB: Yeah. At Yale.

LD: Yale. OK. Karen Eschenlauer Macrae ’81, she says, “I presume that the death in this is a totally fictional story.” It is, we’ve established that.

LLB: Yes.

LD: “Were you or the University concerned about harm to the University’s reputation from that, or from the way the secret society and eating clubs are portrayed in the book?”

LLB: That’s an interesting question, and while writing it, I didn’t think that I was portraying the University — I really tried my best not to portray the University in any sort of negative light, because I love Princeton and I want the best for the school. To me, this is very clearly a fictional story and a thriller, and there have been others, like Ninth House and The Rule of Four, set at different Ivies. I didn’t think that, I thought people would be used to seeing universities in a fictional thriller setting.

So at once I tried to make sure that I did my best to portray Princeton as a good place, as not involved with this fictional Greystone society, in the book, and also for the reader to hopefully realize that this is fiction, this is a thriller. It’s a commercial thriller.

LD: I’m going to take a little departure and just ask a question that I personally had. This is my privilege, getting to do these. Right? Is this a genre that you enjoy? You know what I mean? Did you think, “I want to write a story that’s in this mystery thriller genre,” because it’s something that you enjoy, or was it something that you kind of liked writing more than you liked consuming?

LLB: Good question. I think growing up, I read a lot of mysteries. I read a lot of Agatha Christie, Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, which definitely inspired this, and now I read more upmarket fiction, like Jodi Picoult [’87] or Celeste Ng, Gabrielle Zevin. I do read some mysteries, but I find it really fun to write a mystery because there’s so many different threads, and it’s like a puzzle, putting it together, but it also is a great place to explore deeper subjects, even though it has broad appeal. Even though it’s a commercial book that a lot of people can consume very quickly, like a page-turner, I think introducing some of these deeper themes on sisterhood, on ethics and silence, staying silent in the face of a crime or seeing something that you disagree with, I think some of those deeper themes can be discussed in book clubs, even though it’s kind of a less serious genre, overall.

LD: How has the reaction to this book been for you? What have you been hearing?

LLB: It’s been very positive. Some Princeton students have reached out saying that they really identified with the characters, especially multiracial young women, and that meant so much to me. Some of them are writing novels themselves, and they said that they were inspired by this, and so those are the type of comments that really mean a lot to me, when I can reach someone who’s had a similar experience as a multiracial woman. Yeah, overall, people have been very supportive.

LD: That’s wonderful. Tell those students to set their books at Princeton, then we’ll have more to read and more to talk about. That’d be fantastic. OK. Sue Rhoades also wanted to know, “How would you characterize the impact of privilege on student life at Ivy League universities like Princeton or in the current film industry,” where I believe you have some experience?

LLB: Yes. I think that privilege is a topic in Society of Lies that really interests me in general. And the way that it works, because going to school at a place like Princeton, I feel so fortunate to have that kind of community and that network, and I think that the people you surround yourself with are going to become your closest friends. You’re going to most likely work with them, or they’re going to help you get a job, and so privilege sort of, to me, works in that way.

And for that reason, I think it’s so important to help those who don’t have those kinds of opportunities, because in order to level the playing field and make sure that the most talented, smartest minds are working on the world’s problems, it’s just so important to help those who don’t have privilege in their upbringing.

LD: Rachel Marek ’17 wanted to know, “Did you know how the story would end when you began writing it?”

LLB: Yes. I knew who I wanted to be the ultimate villain of the story, so I didn’t know exactly how I wanted it to end, but as I did drafts, and I did many, about 30 drafts, if not more, of this book over four years, the ending changed several times. Even though I knew who I wanted to be the ultimate villain, the way that it came about changed.

LD: Alexandra Garey, who again is a friend of PAW, wanted to know, “Why did you choose to depict a strained relationship between the sisters?”

LLB: I have a sister who’s four years younger than I am, and a brother who’s 10 years younger, and I brought a lot of my personal experience as the eldest of three to the story, and how, as the oldest sister, I wanted to take care of my little sister. Sometimes I try to help her by giving advice, but now that we’re both adults in our thirties, she doesn’t need advice. She wants to, you know, figure things out on her own, and she’s very capable of that, and so I brought some of this experience and miscommunication over many years to the story. And overall, I wanted to capture the experience of two sisters who love each other so much, but don’t always know how to express that.

LD: Now, Etta Kan ’87 said, “I enjoyed reading this novel with so many Princeton University references. Thank you. Maya and Naomi experienced Princeton a decade apart. Did the author spend time at Princeton recently to get a perspective on the current campus and student experience, or was it pure fiction?”

LLB: Yes, I did go back to Princeton to visit, speak with Princeton students, and also, I spoke with other friends’ kids who are college age now to get that kind of Gen Z perspective, but a lot of it was from my own personal experience as well.

LD: Maria Arnold, from the Class of 2001, I have to share this because we’re going to call her Eagle Eye Maria. She spot-checked some pretty precise details in your book. Are you ready for this?

LLB: OK, yeah.

LD: Here we go. “Curious why she decided to say you could see the fireworks from the 10th Reunion tent, which would be impossible, and on a Friday, when they’re always on Saturday, when neither is the case, or saying that Maya is going to Greenwich, Connecticut, on graduation night, and yet no mention of the very strict policy of having to move out by noon the next day, and,” she says, “it was misleading to say that Liam only got into Princeton because of his tennis, implying an athletic scholarship when those are not offered.”

There we go. Do you have an answer to any of that, and did you expect that Princetonians, knowing the very detail-oriented, clever people that they are, would notice all these small details?

LLB: Yes. Actually, my editor at Penguin Random House also went to Princeton 10 years before me, and she had a similar note, I think, on the fireworks one, but we decided to just embellish and stretch a little bit for the sake of the story.

Some of the other ones, the one about Liam, I also thought people might have an issue with, because yes, he had tutors, he had good grades, he got into Princeton on his own merit, but having that connection to Matthew DuPont, his mentor, helped him also get into the school.

LD: Princeton does not offer athletic scholarships, which, there we go.

LLB: Yes, and also, in the book, I try to make it clear that Princeton’s not OK with Greystone society, not OK with what’s going on.

LD: That sounds accurate. That sounds true to reality. OK. Sue Rhoades and also another reader, both asked, said, “This is an amazing novel, but a thriller, it would be a perfect movie. Being in the film industry and as a screenwriter” — which I’d love to hear more about, by the way — “could we expect to see this on the big screen someday?”

LLB: I hope so. My fingers are crossed. We did sell the rights, so the film option right has been sold, but we just haven’t announced yet. Yeah, I really hope that it makes it to the big screen. I think that would be amazing.

LD: Tell them to film it at Princeton.

LLB: That would be very cool.

LD: That would be amazing. Can you tell me a little bit more about your experience of screenwriting? I think, as I’ve talked to alumni in these podcasts, I’ve found that they really like learning how someone comes to write a book, right? A lot of Princetonians write a book, so we at PAW do a lot of stories about alumni writing books. What was your career trajectory? How did you get into screenwriting and how did it bring you to this?

LLB: Yes, so let me go back a little bit further. My parents both are big readers, and my dad’s a lawyer, and my mom was a civil engineer, and they both instilled a love of reading in me from a very young age. I love to read, went to Princeton obsessed with reading already. Took my first creative writing class with Colson Whitehead, which opened my eyes to the world of fiction.

And he had this short story called “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” written by Ursula K. Le Guin. It had this moral dilemma where a utopian society could only function because of the pain and suffering of one individual, and so that story really stuck with me for my entire life since, and I’ve read this short story many times since graduating.

But I went from Princeton to USC School of Cinematic Arts to major in screenwriting, hoping to go into film. And I wrote many screenplays there. I wrote a screenplay about a secret society at Princeton with a young woman with a moral dilemma, so that was sort of the very first seed of Society of Lies, about 10 years before I wrote Society of Lies.

Then, I didn’t end up working in screenwriting, but instead I went and worked in post-production, worked my way up from an assistant editor to an editor, worked on documentaries, where we were rewriting the story over and over again in post-production. It was during the pandemic when I had a series of surgeries on my hips and my knee that I had this extra time, because I was working from home, and that’s when I wrote Society of Lies.

LD: Did you feel like your experience with the film industry gave you skills to write a novel?

LLB: It does help. I think when I approach writing a scene for a novel, I think of it visually and how I would want to cut into it as an editor. In that first chapter where Maya is at the reunions tent and she’s spinning her daughter around in the circle, and lights are flashing by, I saw that as a shot and thought about how I would want the scene edited together.

LD: Well, we’ve really gotten to the end of the questions that I had for you, so I have to ask, though, are you working on another book?

LLB: Yes, I’m working on another book. This time it’s set in Los Angeles, which is where I live now. It is again about privilege and ambition, and this time it’s about mothers and daughters, and two women in their forties who were close friends and who grew apart and back together. It has a suspense/thriller element, but also a deeper human element, and some deeper questions.

LD: Nice. When can we expect that one to be published?

LLB: I’m hoping by next summer.

LD: Very good. All right, well, congratulations. We’re going to look forward to that.

LLB: Thank you, and thanks so much for having me.

LD: Yeah, we really appreciate it. Thank you. 

The PAW Book Club podcast is produced by the Princeton Alumni Weekly. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and SoundCloud. You can read transcripts of every episode and sign up for the book club on our website paw.princeton.edu. Music for this podcast is licensed from Universal Production Music.