Born on Monday
Richard R. Becker
Copywrite, Ink (2025)
ISBN: 979-8988881667
Richard R. Becker is an award-winning American author whose gripping stories blend resilience and moral complexity. His new novel, “Born on Monday” (2025), promises a thrilling tale of small-town sins that will captivate readers.
His debut novel, “Third Wheel” (2023), soared into Amazon’s top 100 thriller and suspense literary fiction novels, earned a Kirkus Reviews feature, and won seven awards, including Literary Thriller of the Year by the Artisan International Book Excellence Awards. His collection “50 States” (2021), crafted from a challenge to write one story a week for 50 weeks, topped Amazon’s literary short story charts and won multiple honors.
Raised in Milwaukee, Richard overcame poverty and personal challenges, infusing these experiences into his work to add emotional depth. When not writing, he enjoys acting, hiking, photography, and time with his family. He is married and has two adult children.
Hi Richard. Welcome to Reader Views! What is Born on Monday about, and what was your inspiration behind the story?
Born on Monday is the story of four estranged friends who are brought back together in the small town of Augusta, Maine, where they face past sins, present day threats, and a historic nor’easter. The inspiration was a short story called “Time Capsule” in my debut collection, 50 States. It was about how people who move away after high school are changed, but those who remain behind, not so much. And in this case, some bring secrets home with them.
Paint a picture of Augusta, Maine. Why was this the right setting for your story, and how does the approaching nor’easter shape the tension and timing of events?
The original short story was set in a fictionalized version of Augusta, and I was thrilled to revisit the town for this novel. In many ways, it’s like those I’ve known in New England and the Midwest — a smaller state capital dwarfed by larger metropolitan areas, which makes time feel like it stands still for them and their storied pasts. Even the approaching storm fits the setting as the community faces it with a certain familiarity. They know what to expect because they have weathered it before.
Jessica Michaud, a survivor of domestic abuse who has returned home to care for her mother, is trying to rebuild her life while facing the shadows of her past. What did you want readers to understand about her at the very beginning?
Jessica is an intelligent, self-reliant, and somewhat arrogant junior advertising account executive from New York City, returning home to care for her ailing mother and escape an abusive ex. What I’d like readers to consider as they get to know her is that her more admirable, strong traits don’t save her from becoming a victim of domestic abuse. They enable her trauma, forcing her to remain silent for the shame of it.
So while not every reader will take to her, her story arc is consistent with real-life stalking stories. Stalking happens to an estimated four percent of women and two percent of men every year, but only 30 to 50 percent of those cases are ever reported. And, of those reported, fewer still ever result in outcomes favorable to the victims.
Billy Stevens becomes both her anchor and her reminder of everything she’s lost. What makes their relationship such a powerful part of the story?
Although Jessica broke up with Billy when they were in high school after his opportunities to “escape” with her seemed to evaporate, she didn’t break up with him as much as everything she wanted to leave behind.
It’s not uncommon for small town high school graduates to be enamored with the opportunities afforded them by big cities. But later in the story, there comes a time when Jessica begins to wonder: If she could be wrong about so much, maybe she was wrong about him, too.
Andrea and Dustin push the story in opposite directions, one searching for truth and the other trying to bury it. How do their choices influence the path Jessica and Billy take?
Just like Jessica and Billy have opposing story arcs in that Billy’s story is one of expansion and Jessica’s is one of contraction, Andrea is motivated by the truth and what it promises whereas Dustin is motivated by deception and what it promises. As the story progresses, Andrea’s truth empowers Billy as an inspiration whereas Dustin’s truth becomes a hard-learned lesson for Jessica. They are both guides, but on the opposite ends of a spectrum.
Kyle Brondi’s psychological games center on a haunting nursery rhyme called Solomon Grundy. What about this rhyme resonated with the mood and message you wanted to convey?
The nursery rhyme is something Kyle Brondi adopted as a modus operandi. He both sees himself as Solomon Grundy, but also as a means to distance himself from being human. He applies the poem, which is about a man who lives an entire life in a week, to a familiar pattern among his ill-fated relationships. They all start well enough until he is eventually betrayed, which fuels his need to punish his betrayers. The poem is often used as a reminder of Kyle’s methodical cruelty and underscores the inevitability of violence to come.
The abduction sequence is one of the book’s most gripping moments. What emotions or turning points did you want listeners to experience during that part of the story?
The abduction scene taps into intense feelings of isolation, vulnerability, and violation. Even if we see Jessica as a reasonably strong protagonist, her mother’s presence adds weight to her vulnerability. It’s not just Jessica’s life on the line, but her mother’s as well. In addition to a clear and present danger, the storm becomes a co-conspirator in violating their home — a space we all want to think of as safe.
The confrontation at the lake house is both shocking and precise. How did you strike a balance between realism and intensity in that scene?
It seems to me that balancing realism and intensity is critical to any novel. So many stories today skew toward show-all shock value. And sure, there may be a place for it. I tend to look for something in the middle, where I can share a few coarse details that serve as a framework for readers to fill in with their imagination, which is inevitably more powerful and impactful than anything put down on the page. Stories that try too hard to shock tend to feel hokey.
The story examines small-town power, secrets, and influence. What did you want to reveal about the way communities remember and sometimes rewrite their own history?
Personal and communal secrets shape the fabric of many small towns. There are things everybody knows, but nobody talks about. What I hope readers pull away from this is not only the cost of secrets but the complexity behind them. Of all the characters, Andrea must face this truth more than anyone else. As a journalist, she never had to make a pragmatic compromise before, and I think it leaves us wondering whether mercy and justice can coexist.
Grief runs through the story, especially in the shadow of Autumn’s loss. How did that grief guide the emotional direction of the story?
The sacrifice made by Autumn is a pivotal turning point in the story as we come to terms with the fact that the stakes of this story are high. When Billy, more than anybody, comes to terms with what has happened, we’re not exactly sure if he will crumble before a new threat in his life or earn redemption for what he perceives as past sins. Given his physical strength and emotional vulnerability as a compelling contrast, it’s anybody’s guess what might happen.
Jessica faces real danger alongside public judgment. What did you want to say about the impact of online shaming and the way fear spreads in the digital age?
So again, here we have a woman in her 20s, a successful junior account executive at a New York advertising agency where she is seen as smart, self-aware, and ambitious. And yet, this does not save her from becoming a victim of abuse nor does it help her break the cycle. One of the cruelest tools in the antagonist’s bag of tricks is secretly videotaping his victims and then using their shame as both a threat and punishment. It strikes at the heart of psychological abuse, which can be equally if not more dramatic than any physical abuse. While one kind of hurt can heal, shame feels inescapable.
The police investigation builds tension as the truth starts to surface. What did those scenes reveal about the difference between seeking justice and shaping a narrative?
The tension created during the police investigation is tied to the uncertainty of whether the police are protectors or detractors. Unlike the District Attorney, who is also a complicated character, we only see the police officers from the point of view of the characters who they interact with and, as a result, through their lens. For Billy, who has a reputation as a mean drunk and trouble maker, we’re left to wonder whether the police have it in for him or if Billy is projecting his feelings onto them. The same can be said for Jessica, who also has a run-in with the police.
The timing of everything, from Halloween to the storm and the power outages, creates a sense of fate closing in. Why was that convergence important to the story’s meaning?
Admittedly, the storm was a happy accident. I was researching the weather for the time period in which the story takes place and there was a historic nor’easter that knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of customers across the region, including many in Maine. As a result, the storm becomes a third antagonist in that it is just as threatening as the antagonists who take advantage of it. Yet, at the same time, the fury it brings is needed as a catalyst to uncover the truth.
The story shifts between quiet reflection and sudden danger. How did you want those contrasts to reflect Jessica’s state of mind?
For trauma survivors, the struggle is always internal as much as it is external. You know what you should do, but that doesn’t always mean you will do it. Past trauma tends to lay the ground work for how we think we will respond, but we never really know how we will respond when faced with the next crisis. One of the reviewers mentioned that the novel deals with real scars, not storybook wounds. I’m hopeful readers will experience this through Jessica.
The dialogue feels authentic and rooted in place. What does that Maine sensibility bring to the heart of the story?
In this novel, the small town’s tight-knit community enables corruption and the burying of secrets. And I do critique how insularity can foster complicity, despite the fact that this also provides a necessary glue for survival. For me, dialogue addresses this complexity.
Many of the characters have simple anecdotes to explain the world in which they live. They know it’s not always ideal or even just, but they accept it, and have learned to talk around it with great ease. I’ve also always been fortunate in that dialogue is one of my strengths, in part because of my experience with writing scripts.
Born on Monday holds both darkness and hope. What do you hope readers carry with them once the story ends?
Like many of my stories, I tend to layer things like psychological depth, visceral action, and the human condition. The storm helps accelerate the story toward the climax, acting as a co-conspirator as well as catalyst for uncovering hidden truths.
But once those truths are laid bare, we learn that life rarely serves up clean, simplistic conclusions. More likely, life gives us something else — a reflective, morally complex resolution. So, where readers might not find a sense of hope in the story as a whole, they may in the individual healing and redemptive arcs of those who survive it. What they carry away from this story, will depend largely on what they bring into it.
Looking ahead, are you carrying any part of Born on Monday into what you’re writing next, or going in a completely new direction?
My next work in progress (WIP) can best be described as a speculative thriller, blending and bending science, metaphysics, and something akin to the supernatural. It’s a continuation of the short story “Dead Ends” from 50 States. “Dead Ends” was one of the most called-out stories from the anthology and involves a young couple who take a reckless turn off a state highway and find themselves in a nightmarish government biohazard.
But along with that, readers should know that Born on Monday is well established within the 50 States universe. It directly intersects with stories that take place in New Hampshire and Vermont, leaving us plenty of room to see some characters return in future novels — Andrea Kearney in particular. As for Billy, who knows? He’s in the wind.
Is there anything you would like to add that hasn’t been asked today?
Yes. I’m thrilled to share that Born on Monday rose to become the #1 psychological thriller new release in its first week. The novel also won its first literary award — first place in the Thriller Suspense category in The BookFest Awards Fall 2025. Readers who are interested in following its success and upcoming book signings can find information at byrichardrbecker.com.
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