You've referenced some of your own experiences that have been baked into the book. But Asking for It is not autobiographical, right?

"Obviously, Asking for It is set in a small town in West Cork, [Ireland], and I'm from a small town in West Cork. I'm very familiar with that world and the culture. But Emma is not based on me. I have had my own experiences — to be honest, I know very few women my own age that don't have a story. When I was 18, I was sexually assaulted. I couldn't quite piece together what had happened, so I just put it in the back of my mind. When I got older, I was telling my therapist the story, and she said, 'You know, you didn't give consent in that situation.' I was like, 'I don't really understand what you're saying.' It just wasn't even a conversation I was used to having.

"What I found funny was the amount of friends who contacted me once they read the book to tell me about something that has happened to them. I wondered, Why have we never talked about this before? I'm that person that people tell stuff to. So why haven't we talked about this? Everyone said, 'I just wanted to forget about it.'"

One of the hardest parts of this book is that it reveals, in a culture that's hostile to survivors, that it actually is easier to stay quiet, however damaging. You leave Asking for It open-ended in that way. Emma doesn't get a triumphant moment. Why did you decide to take it in that direction?

"The first part of your question I wanted to address is that it's easier to be quiet, because I think there's a real truth in that. A lot of people actually said to me, 'I don't understand why she wants to pretend at the start that she had consented.' I was like, 'You obviously didn't grow up in a small town.' People just look at you in a completely different way. Emma is concerned with how people perceive her and manipulating her image — of not being able to control that, and being seen as a victim.

"As for the ending, I think a lot of people are very frustrated with me. Even my editor asked, 'Why did you end it this way? It's really dissatisfying.' And I said, well, I want it to be dissatisfying. I want the reader to finish the book and feel so furious about what happened to Emma — so furious at the fact that those boys will get off and won't see any jail time — because I really feel like that fury is the only way that we're going to enact any sort of real change."

How does social media compound the trauma of Emma's rape?

"There are two elements to that. First, there's something so horrifying about an unconscious girl being violated, and that people's first reaction isn't to stop to help her, but to take a photo. It reflects our need to record every part of our lives. It's just such a lack of empathy. I think it also highlighted the entitlement that these men had, to use her body in whatever way that they wanted, and this real presumption that they couldn't be touched, that they were invincible, that if they put the photos on social media, they wouldn't see any sort of repercussion, legal or moral.

"Beyond that, what I was interested in with Emma is that I actually don't think it's necessarily the rape [that is the most traumatic]. I'm not saying this is the case for all survivors. I mean it is individual to Emma: It's the humiliation. It's the reaction afterward — the way her family failed her; the way her friends turned their backs; the way that her entire community and people that she's known since she was a child and that she loves have all banded together to protect the perpetrators and to isolate her. I think that is what is so crushing for her.

"Twenty years ago, Emma could have moved to Dublin. She could have gone to New York. She could have moved to London. She could have started an entirely new life for herself. But once something is on the Internet it lives forever. She can't escape this now."

You've tackled some major social issues with your first two books. What's next?

"I'm in the middle of writing my third book, but there's pressure; Asking for It really seems to have hit a nerve. Since it's been published, there's hardly been a day that I don't receive email from a woman, and a few men, who want to share their stories of being raped. I gave a talk at a sexual violence center for survivors. One person I spoke to afterward sticks with me. 'I was raped five years ago and I've been in counseling ever since. Everyone keeps telling me that it's not my fault. When I finished your book, it was the first time in five years that I thought maybe it hadn't been,' she said. And I honestly was so overwhelmed. I felt like such a fraud, to be honest. I'm just a writer. I'm not a therapist. I'm not saving lives.

"That creates a little more pressure because maybe the next book — now I need to tackle some new social issue. But as a writer, as a creative person, I don't know. The story comes, and you tell it the best way you can. It just so happened that the first two stories that came to me dealt very strongly with important social issues. I don't necessarily think that the third one is going to. But I'm just at the very beginning."

Asking for It goes on sale in the U.S. April 5, 2016.