Goodreads asked Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling I was working as a reporter for my local newspaper, interviewing Jessica Soule, a Grafton, NH veteran, about her efforts to get disability benefits from the VA. While I was sitting in her living room, she said something to the effect of "I used to let my cats outdoors. But that was before the bears came."
I was instantly hooked by the idea of cat-eating bears.
Over time, as I asked more questions, I learned that cat-eating was just one absurd aspect of a much larger, very entertaining story about a town that was in danger of going off the rails entirely.
So I guess you could say that I instantly knew it was going to be a good story. And over the first couple of months of reporting, it became clear that the story was so large and complex that it could only be told in book form.

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