Attica Locke on the US election: ‘It’s white Americans that have to fix this’

Attica Locke’s Bluebird, Bluebird was published in the early days of Donald Trump’s presidency, and introduced readers to Darren Mathews, a Black Texas Ranger grappling with the demands of law enforcement in a divided society. Locke continued his story in 2019’s Heaven, My Home, and now concludes the prize-winning Highway 59 trilogy with Guide Me Home, in which Darren must confront the traumas of his upbringing, the painful contradictions of his career and an intricate web of political and judicial corruption. Locke, who was born in Houston, Texas and now lives in Los Angeles, is also a screenwriter and TV producer; her work includes adaptations of Celeste Ng’s novel Little Fires Everywhere and the memoir From Scratch, by her sister, the actor Tembi Locke.

The Highway 59 books are compelling crime novels, but they are also deeply concerned with the US’s turbulent politics. How important was the political aspect for you?
It was not really my intent, but once Trump was elected, and I saw what was happening to my country, and I’d written a character who was in the thick of it, I just leaned into it. It gave me a space to process my feelings about everything that I was watching and how profoundly Trump’s election had broken me. He just really undid me. It’s him; it’s the people who voted for him; it’s what he represents.

When Obama was elected, I was one of those people who was like: “Oh, look at America go. She’s just getting her shit together.” And I really bought it, as someone who was born after the civil rights movement; both of my parents were activists, and all of my life has been on the other side of a bloody battle for equality. But it seemed like we were getting there. I just thought that we had arrived at a place, and then I felt as if I got slammed in a car wreck all of a sudden. The backlash to what Obama represented really deeply broke something in my soul.

Backlash is an interesting word: is that how it felt? As if a pendulum was swinging
Yes. In 2016, Beyoncé performed at the Country Music Awards here in America with the Dixie Chicks, and I have joked for years that that’s part of why Trump was elected. This Black woman got on their stage and owned it. I believe white mediocrity lost its mind to see Princeton and University of Chicago’s Michelle and Barack, the excellence of colour disrupting white mediocrity. I think there were enough people for whom it disrupted something in their psyche and they wanted things put back.

Did part of the distress come from seeing that Trump had such wide support?
What it taught you is the power of white supremacy, that it is so intense and insidious, and its power is its unconsciousness. Because you have people who have mixed families, who have Black friends at work, people who like Beyoncé – but yet, the idea of whiteness needing to be centred was so strong that you’ve come up with all these other reasons why Trump is a fit, and you’ve ignored the craziness and lies.

How do you feel about November? Do you think Kamala Harris can win?
Anybody can throw tomatoes at me and I’m not saying don’t vote hard and fight, fight, fight, but I don’t think it’s as close as it’s being reported to be. I think a lot of American reporting about politics has just fallen in love with horse-race talk. But I’m holding out a deep, deep faith – because otherwise, how would I get up in the morning? – that they don’t actually have the numbers for that level of crazy and hatred.

In Guide Me Home, Darren reflects on how exhausted he is with fighting racism and corruption, and wishes that white people would step in to do some of the work. Is that how you feel?
It’s been very tiring to wait for people to wake up. And I was expressing through Darren a feeling that I have had, which is however much people fight, it is white Americans that have to fix this. The people who are voting for Trump aren’t going to listen to me. They may listen to their cousins. They may listen to people at their church. But they’re not going to listen to us. So at a certain point, it is kind of: y’all fix this. Y’all got this fool in here, get us back on track.

Do you think they are waking up?
I feel like there has been a wellspring of support and realisation, because we are at the cliff’s edge of democracy, and I’m seeing people from all walks of life rolling up their sleeves and understanding what’s at stake.

Guide Me Home features a dystopic and terrifying corporate town, which controls every aspect of its residents’ lives in return for very basic welfare and healthcare. Do you think that’s happening in the United States?
I don’t think we’re literally where Thornhill is, but what is happening is our acquiescence, our acceptance of the marketplace filling in where the government won’t. That, I think, is real now: people’s desperation to be cared for by somebody, and if it’s not going to be the government, then let it be this company.

Darren has to contend with political, institutional and personal threats in these books, but they do, ultimately, feel hopeful. Are you?
You can’t ever fix or fight what you can’t name. I think the hope would be the realisation for a Trump supporter that it’s not an immigrant that’s doing anything to you. It’s a different system. And the reason why you don’t want people coming here and taking resources is because the resources are so scarce. It’s because you’re getting so little from your government.

I don’t know that in my lifetime all of the capitalist system is going to be dismantled, but there is both rage and clarity in seeing it. It makes you angry, but it also makes you feel less crazy. So there’s rage and clarity. I’m gonna put that on a T-shirt!

As well as fiction, you work on screenplays and in production. Is the variety stimulating?
I’m very blessed that I have these two skill sets, and I do very much enjoy writing for television. It’s a different way of being alive, because one is so solitary and intense, and one is like fireworks going off and just fun and excitement. Louder, but a ton of fun.

And you’ve recently started working with your sister?
We didn’t know if we would kill each other or what would happen. And it just turns out we’re really a great partnership. What a wonderful thing to discover late in life.

• Guide Me Home by Attica Locke is published by Viper. To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.