Heartsick author Jessie Stephens is our next big thing

Her debut book on relationship trainwrecks has international tongues wagging. Now the Sydney writer is on the cusp of being our next big literary export.

Jessie Stephens, author of Heartsick

In perfectly rounded letters, grey lead clearly sharpened to point, seven-year-old Jessie Stephens outlined her future with prophetic confidence.

“When I grow up I plan to be a book writer,” the grade two student declared in a letter to her teacher at St. Ambrose Concord West primary school.

“I am talnted (sic) at writing books.”

Jessie also wrote that she was “pretty good at spelling” while chastising her “anoying” twin brothers, but let’s park that spelling issue aside for a moment, because 23 years on Jessie Stephens has indeed proved she is talented at writing books.

The Sydney based writer and podcaster is the darling of the publishing world, on the cusp of being Australia’s next big literary export.

Her debut book Heartsick which was released in Australia in March, has international tongues wagging after it was signed by coveted New York literary agent Dan Lazar, who represents behemoth bestsellers like Chandler Baker, Jane Harper and Hannah Kent.

“Jane Harper posted something on Instagram about the book, and then Dan Lazar rang me,” Jessie explains.

“I was pretty casual. I said to him ‘in terms of managing my expectations, what’s the real likelihood we are going to sell this?’ and in his beautiful New York accent, very matter-of-fact tone, he said, ‘I do not represent books I cannot sell,’ I was shaking at my desk!” she laughs.

“I think it’s probably testament to how well Australians lift one another up,” she humbly adds, “Jane Harper didn’t have to endorse my book, but by doing so it literally changed the story of my book and who would read it. I’m so lucky.”

Heartsick is a narrative nonfiction work which reads like a finely crafted novel, in fact at times you forget real people are at the centre of each page-turning chapter.

It follows the experiences of three real-life, but pseudonymous Australians – Claire, Ana and Patrick – as they fall in love, only to end up bruised and broken by their experiences.

Ana is happily married with three children when she unexpectedly falls in love with her husband’s best friend. University student Patrick dives headfirst into a relationship with Caitlin who doesn’t necessarily feel the same intensity of love. The loveable but luckless Claire brings her partner Maggie home to Australia from London only to find the girl she fell in love with isn’t really who she thought she was.

All three agreed to share their stories on the condition of anonymity and you very quickly understand why, particularly in the case of Ana whose intense affair with her husband’s best friend threatens her family’s happiness.

Jessie Stephens’ book Heartsick.

There’s undoubtedly an element of voyeurism to the book, but Stephens has so deftly plotted the inevitable trainwreck as each relationship unravels, it’s impossible to look away.

To truly plumb the emotional depths, she spent months interviewing Ana, Claire and Patrick, trawling their diaries and gently pouring emotional vinegar on very raw wounds.

“Ana came directly to me after I put a call-out on Instagram and I knew immediately this was a story I wanted to explore. Patrick reminded me of my brothers because he is so emotionally aware, and Claire was recommended to me by a friend.

“Both Claire and Patrick had kept journals of their relationships which they were willing to share, Claire had actually written a stage play about her relationship, and a lot of Ana’s affair took place over email, so I had wealth of material to build on, but they were all such fascinating interview subjects.”

Stephens had been exploring the issue of heartbreak and the all-consuming grief that comes with it since she was in her early 20s, after her then boyfriend broke her heart one week before they were due to fly to Vietnam.

The intense physicality of the pain stayed with her.

“I was so sad, I was frozen with grief,” she says. “I walked into a bookshop looking for a book about relationships breaking down and heartbreak because I knew I couldn’t think about anything else and I wanted to really lean into it, but I didn’t want a self-help book or fiction and I couldn’t find the book on the shelf that I wanted. That was the moment I thought ‘OK this needs to be written’.”

“There are elements in each story that I relate to, that’s why I chose them. At times, it was an uncomfortable process writing the book because when I was writing those sentences I was remembering where I felt it in my body and the thoughts that ran through my head at that time, but writing the book was incredibly validating in that I didn’t know these feelings I had were so universal. What I know is that we are interested in other people’s train wrecks!”

A decade later that grief has manifested into the best-selling book which was the subject of a hotly contested international auction. Heartsick will be published in the UK and the USA in early 2022 and yet, it was almost a book that didn’t happen.

Although writing is all Stephens wanted to do from a very young age, the prosaic approach of school and university writing sucked the joy right out of her. Thankfully friends coaxed her to give this book a go.

“As I grew older and into high school and university my writing got so wrapped up in anxiety and perfectionism and achievement that I stopped loving it. It was like pulling teeth. I found writing so easy when I was a kid and I had such sass and tone when I was young but that voice got trained out of me through school essays and the formulas you have to follow, and I lost my voice along the way, I forgot that writing was something I wanted to do.

“I knew I had a great idea for a book because I’d clung to the theme of heartbreak so tightly over many years. A colleague said to me ‘you’re never going to write that book until you get a publisher, you need a deadline’. And she was right, I needed the push to get me started.”

Dan Lazar is hard to impress so perhaps the greatest compliment the young author has received is that the literary agent devoured Heartsick in one sitting. Speaking from his New York office, a building once owned by William Waldorf and John Jacob Astor 111, he says Jessie’s voice pulled him into the pages.

“I saw a bit of myself in all the characters, though I imagine every reader will align themselves with a favourite,” he said. “I did.

“The book made me realise how much time we spend talking about relationships that went badly without exploring the journey of heartbreak itself – that feeling often sticks with us a lot longer than the actual break-up. I love how Jessie gives readers a new way to talk about love, and a new, stronger way to look back at heartbreak in their own lives.”

 Sue Smethurst is the author of The Freedom Circus (Penguin Random House)