I’m thrilled that author C.J. Farley is visiting today to discuss his novel, Who Knows You By Heart.
Tell me about your latest book.
My new book is Who Knows You By Heart, a novel that’s part thriller and part modern love story. It’s a book about Big Tech, new money, relationships, race, and finding out what’s real in the age of artificial intelligence. The book follows Octavia Crenshaw, a Black coder who is broke and burned out, gets a job with a Big Tech film, and has to make important choices about life, work and love. The book dives into some deep, timely things, but you’ll have fun reading it!
Why did you decide to write it?
Artificial intelligence is changing the way we live and love and relate to each other. But women and Black people are mostly shut out of the Big Tech firms that are behind AI, and so the increasingly powerful technology reflects a biased world view even as it lays claims to be dependable, logical and objective. In my book Who Knows You By Heart, a Black female coder tries to create an AI that’s free from racial and sexual bias—and discovers surprising truths about work, love and herself.
Who is your favorite character and why?
My favorite character in the book is Octavia, the computer programmer who is the main protagonist. She’s a brilliant coder, but like many of us, she’s struggling to figure out where she fits in and how she can best contribute to the world. Her voice is smart, funny, biting and ultimately uplifting. Early readers have also been fascinated by the character of Wombat, an Australian-American woman in my book who heads DEI programs at a Big Tech company. She’s a difficult, complex character, who on one level seems to be trying to do good things for women and people of color in the workplace, but on another level, is looking to boost her own career first and foremost.
When did you fall in love with the written word?
I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love reading. My mother and father, who were both professors at the State University of New York at Brockport, taught me to read when I was a baby using the Nola collection, a series of books about a young Jamaican girl. When I was in grade school and reading on my own, I remember loving The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Animal Farm, The Iliad, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, Roots, The Book of the Dao, and The Earthsea Trilogy. The poet Gwendolyn Brooks, the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize, visited Brockport College when I was a kid and stopped by my house to see my parents, and I remember looking her up in the encyclopedia and being excited and inspired. I also met writer Isaac Asimov when he visited Brockport, and it brought home the idea that although sci-fi, fantasy and fiction weren’t real, the people that wrote the stories were—and I could become an author too.
If you could pick another profession, what would it be and why?
I’ve worked as a tech executive, a podcaster, a TV programmer, a documentary filmmaker, and a journalist. It’s all about telling stories that summon up essential truths.
What books have you read lately and loved?
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor, Empire of AI by Karen Hao, and Fela: Music Is the Weapon by Conor McCreery and Jibola Fagbamiye.
What books are you most excited to read next?
Simply More by Cynthia Erivo, All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu, I, Medusa by Ayana Gray, Katabasis by R. F. Kuang, and, when it’s finally ready, The Winds of Winter by George R. R. Martin.
What’s next for you?
I’m working on my next novel!
Do you have anything you would like to add?
Please check out my novel Who Knows You By Heart!
To learn more about author CJ Farley, visit him on social media: @christopherjohnfarley