In Favourite Daughter, debut author Morgan Dick delivers a funny, tender,
and emotionally rich novel about two estranged sisters thrown together by
their late father’s will. Tackling themes like grief, addiction, mental health,
and the complexities of family, Dick balances heartbreak with humour in a
way that feels both relatable and cathartic. In this Q&A, she opens up about
the personal experiences that shaped the novel, how she found the story’s
bittersweet tone, and why flawed characters make for the most compelling
fiction. If you love messy, heartfelt stories with a comedic edge, this one’s
for you.
Favourite Daughter deals with some serious topics like broken families and alcoholism, and yet it is surprisingly funny. How did you manage to find the right tone?
A creator who walks this line really well is the New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi. Across the board, his work is hilarious, devastating, weird, and deeply moving – a vibe often described by critics as ‘happy/sad’. The first time I came across this term, I sat up straight in my chair and thought, That’s it. That’s the stuff I want to write.
Mental health is one of the main topics you explore. Why did you choose to write about it?
As someone who experiences mental illness, I was intrigued by the questions of whether people who are struggling can really get better (spoiler alert: they can!) and what it means to really change. In my view, it involves a lot of hard work, a lot of help, and a lot of starting over, learning to accept the second (or third, or fourth …) chances you’re not always sure you deserve. I was also interested in exploring the theme of addiction, and specifically the kind of high-functioning alcoholism that is often hidden in society. My brother is a recovering alcoholic, and the impact his illness had on our whole family really can’t be overstated. Growing up with an alcoholic in the house definitely left a mark on me, and writing this book was also a way for me to sort out some of my feelings about it.
Did you find any characters particularly easy or difficult to write? If so, can you tell us more about that process?
Mickey, the sister who’s sent to therapy as a condition of her father’s will, was definitely the easiest character to write. She’s put in a very vulnerable position, and I think that makes her immediately relatable and easy to root for. As the therapist, meanwhile, Arlo holds most of the power at the outset of the relationship. She’s a character who, while seemingly put-together on the outside, is actually a huge mess on the inside. She’s not particularly aware of it, leading her to make a lot of questionable choices – which made her trickier to write. Over the course of revising the book with my editors, however, I really grew a soft spot for her. We did a lot of work to deepen her point of view and help readers better understand her actions. I hope that shines through. She’s a bit of a disaster, yes – but aren’t we all?
“She’s grappling with so much in her head, trying to convince herself that everything is okay when deep down she knows it’s not.”
If you had to write a ‘five years from now’ scene for Mickey and Arlo, where do you think they’d be?
I love this question! I imagine that five years from now, Mickey would be exactly where she always wanted to be – teaching. She’d still be sober, though not without having navigated a few ups and downs. Arlo would be in a demanding but completely different job. Maybe she runs her own interior design company? They would meet for brunch once or twice per month and attract all kinds of attention for talking too loudly and swearing too much. And when Mickey receives her invite to Samson and Daria’s beach resort wedding, she’ll bring Arlo as her plus-one (much to Samson’s horror; he’s still not quite over the whole thing).
Do you have a favourite scene from the book? If so, why?
It sounds somewhat terrible to say, but I loved writing the scene when Mickey is getting ready for her birthday party and trying (and subsequently failing) not to drink. Usually, this kind of scene, where a character is wandering around her apartment by herself, is difficult to write because there are no external forces to create tension. She has nothing and no one to argue with except herself – but that’s actually what made the scene so interesting for me. She’s grappling with so much in her head, trying to convince herself that everything is okay when deep down she knows it’s not. I also loved writing the therapy scenes that we see from both sisters’ points-of-view. It was so fun to think about how each would interpret the other’s words and actions. And then the reader gets to see what each sister got right (or more often wrong!) about the other.
Which books have most influenced you as a writer, if any?
Oh, I could go on forever talking about this! But I’ll try to brief. As a writer, I’m hugely inspired by books that feature flawed, messy women, like Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss and Emily Austin’s Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead. I’m always taken by stories about big, complicated families and fraught sibling relationships, like Emma Straub’s All Adults Here, Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth, and Kevin Wilson’s The Family Fang. Lastly, Alison Espach and Mona Awad are two writers whose work always challenges me to go deeper into characters’ points-of-view and really explore the strange places people can go to in their minds. Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age also had a big influence on Favourite Daughter. I read it shortly before I started drafting the book and found the alternating-POV structure so engrossing that I had to try it for myself! I love how that book lets the reader in on things the characters themselves don’t know. It creates so much suspense – like you’re watching two cars on a collision course.
Favourite Daughter by Morgan Dick is out now.
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