‘A Small Affair’ Dives Into Fashion, Instagram and Adultery
Flora Collins is a subtle writer, and she knows what she’s talking about.
Tuesday’s release of “A Small Affair,” a HarperCollins page-turner, is testimony to that. Part of a two-book deal with the publisher, this follows New York City-based Collins’ debut, “Nanny Dearest.” Intent on writing another psychological thriller, Collins said the initial inspiration for “A Small Affair” came from a documentary about the 2018 Chris Watts case. Watts killed his pregnant wife and two daughters “partially to be with his oblivious mistress,” Collins said. He is currently serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to the charges.
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Recalling watching the true-crime film in 2020, she said, “I thought, ‘Oh my god, I wonder what it would be like to be her.’ She had no idea what was going on. She seemed oblivious that he was still married and taking care of his children.”
She only saw the documentary once, but it served as a jumping off point.
Most days Collins is working her primary job at a tech start-up, in the marketing department penning blogs and handling the company’s LinkedIn page Mondays through Thursdays. Fridays are reserved to write. Collins starts writing after a morning workout, some procrastination, and maybe some lazing around. She stashes her phone before breaking out the laptop and cranks out a minimum of 2,500 words — 10 pages or so — in her Brooklyn Heights apartment or at a nearby coffee shop.
Hinting at Nora Ephron’s adage that “everything is copy,” the main character in “A Small Affair” holds an integral social media Marketing role in a direct-to consumer New York-based company fashion Brand and her ex-fiancé led a bro-loving start up.
Collins’ mother, Amy Fine Collins, has long been a respected fashion industry insider and now helps to oversee the “International Best Dressed List.” Whether describing the fashion scene or the New York City-based tech start-up in “A Small Affair,” Flora Collins does so with an in-the-know levity that she chalks up to having grown up so close to fashion.
“I asked my mom a lot for advice or research regarding Vera’s job in the book. And [with] the tech stuff, I wouldn’t say that’s inspired by my job. I know many people who have worked in tech, or are currently working in tech. It’s just a normal Millennial job to have,” she said, adding that she made the tech references intentionally vague to avoid having to explain the nitty-gritty.
Collins is funny in satirizing the idea that main characters are mirrors of their ideal selves or, more precisely, their ideal selves. This superficiality is not accidental. “It’s kind of poking fun at these Brooklyn one-percenters. Brooklyn Heights is where I live so I’m always watching. I’m always thinking and watching. It makes it sound creepy. [laughs]. But I write creepy books,” she said.
Online dating is a great way to meet people. social media are threads that run through the book, Collins said she isn’t trying to convey any lessons. “I have a lot of experience being on Instagram and with online dating…I think too much of a good thing can be bad. But I’m not trying to make any kind of moral statement about anyone’s use of those applications. There are certainly parallels and dangers. But I would never tell someone, ‘Don’t use the dating apps.’ Or, ‘Don’t use Instagram.’ Because I love those things. I’m not a hypocrite in that way.”
The purpose of this article is to help readers understand that fashion is an art form and requires a lot more thought. Collins added, “There is also more gatekeeping that goes in fashion than in other industries. I don’t want to spoil my book, but that becomes more apparent as you get deeper into it.”
Another takeaway is that the person whose name is on the label isn’t always the individual who is making things happen for a brand. “That is very true. Like any industry, there are many people behind the scenes working to make things work. That’s often forgotten…staying in the background moving the puppet strings is more powerful in some ways than having your name on the door,” she said.
There won’t be an Instagram campaign for the book’s launch Tuesday, but Collins likes to reshare favorable reviews and DM with fellow authors like Hannah Mary McKinnon, Emily Freud and Clemence Michallon. Collins attended Chapin and later graduated from Vassar College, and has been big on storytelling and reading for many years — writing has always been her “shtick,” she said.
Her parents’ keep-at-it support has been a plus, as has rejection. “The more you are rejected, the thicker your skin gets. One manuscript I wrote did not sell to publishers. It died on submission, as they say,” Collins explained. “That was a great learning experience. I was able to write ‘Nanny Dearest’ right after that.”
Stephen Barbara, an InkWell agent, is the writer who is currently reading books Megan Abbott, E. Lockhart and other thriller experts. “I will say that I read almost exclusively in my genre. It’s my favorite thing to read. Reading other thrillers is a great way to learn. Sometimes I venture out from that category, but for the most part that’s what I enjoy,” Collins said.
She is a social person and spends almost every night out with friends. Collins is currently writing a novel about an all-girls school. Collins is already one hundred pages in her next book.
As for the inevitable is-anything-autobiographical question, Collins said “definitely not” with “A Small Affair.” She added, “It’s easy for me to set books in New York because I grew up in New York. But I wouldn’t say that I am any of my characters. Some of them might contain elements of me. But no one is a placeholder for me.”
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