NEED TO KNOW

  • Author May Cobb reveals the story behind her book The Hunting Wives, which became a smash hit Netflix series
  • The Cobbs were in dire financial straits before the show was sold, and the author credits the team behind the book and its adaptation for saving her family
  • “The cost of special needs is high,” she says, of caring for her son who has autism. “We were literally digging for change out of our car for groceries”

The Hunting Wives author May Cobb didn’t know where grocery money was going to come from when a phone call changed her life.

Cobb started her writing journey 25 years ago, with a nonfiction book about a jazz musician she admits she “still has to finish,” but after loving books like Gone Girl and Girl on the Train, decided to try her hand at thrillers. Her debut, Big Woods, came out in 2018 and while it was well reviewed, sales weren’t enough to make a dent in their finances. 

“We were barely making ends meet to be perfectly blunt,” the author explains. May’s husband, Chuck, was working in the restaurant business while May stayed home to care for their son, then 6, who has autism and needs specialized care. 

“Some months, we weren’t making ends meet. We got eviction notices, and my mom would come in and cover our rent, but the cost of special needs is high. We were literally digging for change out of our car for groceries.”

Cobb was in the midst of applying for other jobs and not getting any traction when the idea for The Hunting Wives struck. She wrote the first part of the book in “a feverish sprint” throughout the summer of 2018 and after showing it to a friend, got the kind of feedback that would soon prove prophetic. “Get your ass in there and finish this,” Cobb’s friend told her. “This is gonna sell for sure.”

And a few months later, that prediction came true. Cobb pitched it to a handful of agents over Thanksgiving week and got the call from Victoria Sanders, who’d become her literary agent, on a particularly tough day.

“I remember she called me on a Saturday, and we had had an incredibly challenging morning with my son. He just wasn’t doing well,” Cobb recalls. “I just felt so much despair, and she called, and she said, ‘I see this as a big publishing deal. It’s going to be a big TV deal. It was one of those calls where you feel like everything’s gonna be okay.”

May Cobb on the set of ‘The Hunting Wives’.

Lionsgate

That March, on Cobb’s mother’s birthday, she found out the book had sold at auction. While they waited for contract details to get solidified, Sanders fronted the Cobbs some money “so we could live,” she recalls. “No one does that. But that meant we could just exhale.”

They weren’t out of the woods yet, though. The COVID-19 pandemic hit, and Chuck quit his job to care for their son so Cobb could finish the book. They were “really on the ropes” when producer Erwin Stoff called, enthusiastic about producing the series. 

A scene from ‘The Hunting Wives’ starring Malin Akerman and Katie Lowes.

Lionsgate

“That was another call that was like, ‘Okay, is this the universe calling me? Because he was like, I’m gonna sell this for sure. This is definitely gonna happen,’ ” Cobb remembers. But when the book hit shelves in May 2021, it didn’t make quite the splash everyone expected. While Hunting Wives did find its fans, it didn’t hit the New York Times Bestseller list, widely considered the main indicator for a book’s success. 

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“I still did three more books after that,” Cobb says. “But I felt like my career plateaued.” The Cobbs were “bleeding money” as the pandemic and then the writer’s strike hit the publishing and television industry hard, and her son lost access to many of the services he depended on, so both parents had to stay home with him at all times. With May under writing deadlines and Chuck caring for their son, “Things got pretty challenging financially,” she added. “We were still on the ropes into 2023.”

A scene from ‘The Hunting Wives’ starring Chrissy Metz.

Lionsgate

That’s when creator and showrunner Rebecca Cutter came down to Texas to meet with Cobb and see the world where the book — and eventually the show — took place. They got along like lifelong friends right away. “I vividly remember we were on my sister’s ski boat, taking her around the lake, which the Hunting Wives was inspired by and showing her the big houses, and we were just spilling our life stories to each other,” the author says. “And she said, ‘Okay, I understand the assignment and the mission is we’re going to do this, so we can take care of your son.’ ” 

Then another miracle phone call arrived, exactly when Cobb needed it. 

“I’m literally feeding my son dinner, and I was just having one of those days. I was doom-spiraling — about money and the future and an uncertain publishing career. And I said to my husband, ‘Can you take over? I need to go into the other room, and just kind of have a moment,’ ” Cobb says. 

Malin Akerman and Dermot Mulroney in ‘The Hunting Wives’.

Lionsgate

“I actually came to my bedroom and I was [looking at] our bank account, and I was almost having sort of a panic attack where I was just like, ‘I don’t see how this is gonna work like this is.’ But then I look down and my phone’s lighting up, and it’s Erwin.”

He told her the show was going forward, starting pre-production that January and filming in March. “I thanked him and then I had to hang up because I was bawling,” Cobb recalls. “And then I hollered out for Chuck and I just remember, like, staggering into the hall, collapsing in his arms and telling him we were going to be okay. And it just was, I mean, it was that life-changing.” 

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The journey since then has been “nothing short of surreal.” Cobb was able to sit in on the writers’ room, see the production come together from start to finish and when she saw early episodes in the spring, told Cutter, “This is the kind of show that’s going to break the Internet.”

She was right. 

“I don’t even know how to describe it other than it’s beyond my wildest dreams,” she says of the response, adding that she’s incredibly happy with the adaptation. “[Cutter] told me her vision for it, and my only response to her was, ‘Well, where were you when I was writing the book?’ ” she adds with a laugh. “She just was not afraid to celebrate the spirit of the wildness of the book, and I just love that because you could have really toned it down or done things differently. And I’m really glad that she did the opposite. She turned it up.”

May Cobb on set for ‘The Hunting Wives’.

Lionsgate

But as they say, there’s no rest for the weary — or working authors. Cobb’s next book, All the Little Houses, comes out in January. The author describes it as “my twisted, skewed love letter to Little House on the Prairie. It’s got a trad wife and rich bitches, and it’s really like a soap opera.”

She’s also hard at work on the sequel, and excited to try her hand at more screenwriting so she can bring her own work to the screen in the future and maybe even pen some originals. But above all, she’s grateful for the team that’s thrown their enthusiastic support behind her book and the show it became. 

‘The Hunting Wives’ by May Cobb.

Lionsgate

“I can’t say enough about how getting a TV show made us,” Cobb says. “It afforded us the opportunity to care for our son even more — it’s really because of everything that’s happened. And that’s amazing. I can’t even put it into words.”

The Hunting Wives is streaming on Netflix now and the book is also available, wherever books are sold.