Libba Bray: The American Mythos

Libba Bray by Vania Stoyanova

7 September 2012

Young adult author Libba Bray tells Katherine Woodfine about her latest novel The Diviners - and why she wanted to write about New York City in the Roaring Twenties

We loved your latest novel, The Diviners. How did the idea of for the book came about - and what made you want to write about New York in the 1920s?

Thanks very much. I suppose it’s the old, ‘Write what you love.’ I love supernatural stories and I love history. So an historical supernatural was a no-brainer, and, as I’ve just established that I’m quite selfish about wanting to enjoy what I’m writing, I decided to delve into the 1920s, a period that had always fascinated me—and I was right to be fascinated by it.

As I did the research, I began to see interesting, often disturbing parallels between America in the 1920s and post-9/11 America: xenophobia, anti-immigration fervor coupled with a nasty nativist streak, fears of terrorism/anarchism, a backlash against labor, a rise in evangelicalism, the creation and worship of a youth culture, and the lionizing of American business and businessmen as sort of the standard bearers of ‘Americanism.’ And, of course, there’s the run up to financial collapse.

To quote Laurie Anderson, ‘And I said, “Hmmm…”’

I really wanted to explore those parallels, the richness of the 1920s, and the American mythos. New York was really where it was happening in the 1920s: the Harlem Renaissance, the Ziegfeld Follies, crime, corruption, the Art Deco architecture—all the good stuff. It was the pinnacle of modernity. The fact that I live in New York City and had easy access to the research I needed didn’t hurt.

Both The Diviners and your previous historical series, which began with A Great and Terrible Beauty, have a strong supernatural element. Tell us about why you're interested in writing about magic and the supernatural.

I have always had a love of the supernatural and of horror. It started with Dark Shadows when I was an impressionable child. So let’s lay the blame squarely on my Barnabas Collins crush. I was also a huge Hammer Horror fan and would race home from school to watch those glorious B movies—you know, the ones featuring 18th- and 19th-century heroines with completely historically accurate beehive hairdos and cat’s-eye black eyeliner. Horror and 60s/70s glamour—forever merged in my mind. I read a lot of horror, too, from fairy tales to comics to novels.

But I also grew up in the church, as my father was a minister, and I think when you introduce the concept of otherworldly beings to a very imaginative, somewhat anxious, ‘overthinker’ of a child, it’s hard for her not to make those syllogistic leaps from ‘Wait, so God is everywhere and can see everything. And ghosts are everywhere and can see everything. Ergo…God is a ghost! AAAHHHHH! SLEEP WITH ONE EYE OPEN!’ They kept talking about the Holy Ghost, and I’d think, well, what does this Holy Ghost look like? Is it like Jacob Marley? A little Christ-on-the-moors? Let’s just say that theology did very little to decrease my anxiety. But it did stoke my imagination. (For the record, my liberal parents explained that it was all allegory and metaphor. That didn’t help at five.)

Enter horror, which, strangely enough, is a great outlet for anxious children. It gave me catharsis through actual monsters to battle. (And when that failed, there was always Monty Python. If you’re going to be eaten by beasties, go out laughing.)

Last but not least, I had a great-grandmother who regaled me with tales of her grandmother who was supposedly a psychic. Apparently, she would fall into trances and communicate with the dead. Whenever I’d visit my great-grandmother, which wasn’t all that often as she lived far away, she’d tell me some fascinating new ghost story, which felt, as horror often does, deliciously illicit. In this odd way, we bonded. For some families, it’s trips to Disneyworld and Christmas dinners. For us, it’s stories of the vengeful walking undead. That’s how we roll…like a severed head bouncing down the stairs of an old castle.

'Naughty John' is a wonderfully terrifying villain. Where did the idea for the character come from? Is it based on any real folklore or superstition?

I borrowed from everything and everywhere: A dash of H.H. Holmes, a touch of The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, a soupçon of Lizzie Borden, a pinch of David Koresh, a hint of the Heaven’s Gate cult. Throw that all together and you’ve got yourself a nice soufflé of evil. (I’ve just decided that Soufflé of Evil is my new band name.)

I wanted to explore the concept of a uniquely American villain, and since we have a long history of evangelicalism and Puritanism woven into the fabric of our country, I thought it would be fun to incorporate that into my own mythology, to create a fictional religious cult that came about during the Second Great Awakening in the United States. The idea was this: What if you have a sect who are so devout that their faith actually tips over into a fanaticism that brings about the very evil that they are supposed to be fighting against?

Not that that ever happens.

True story: Herff Applewhite, the leader of the ill-fated Heaven’s Gate cult, was known to my family back in Texas in the late 60s/early 70s. Again—I come by this creepy stuff honestly.

We loved all the period detail in the book from the flapper fashions to the 1920s slang. How did you go about researching the novel?

With fear, trepidation, and humility.

I’m not a terribly organised person, and I don’t have genius researching skills. But I am insatiably curious and determined. I’ll just keep reading and searching until I locate what I need or until I find the truly skilled people who can help me, like librarians. (Really, you cannot have too many librarian friends.) I began the research about four years ago, reading up on the period, books like Ann Douglas’ TERRIBLE HONESTY: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s; SACCO & VANZETTI: The Men, the Murders, and the Judgment of Mankind by Bruce Watson; FLAPPER: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern, by Joshua Zeitz, among many others. Then I read literature from the period. That was all to bring me up to speed. Next, I made use of New York’s many resources: the libraries, the Paley Center for Media, the New York Historical Society, and the MTA museum and archives.

Finally, when it was clear that there was just so much more I needed to know, I hired the services of a ninja librarian, the outstanding Lisa Gold, research maven, who was able to help me find everything from primary sources on Follies girls to old New Yorker columns on New York City nightlife and speakeasies to NYC education law and beyond.

It takes a village—and lots of cocktails for that village.

We hear that The Diviners has been picked up for the big screen! How do you feel about the idea of the book becoming a movie - and do you have any thoughts on who your ideal cast might be?

It’s exciting, isn’t it? I have no idea if it will ever actually become a movie, but fingers crossed.

As for an ideal cast, I always want to cast Bill Murray and Bruce Campbell in every role. That’s probably why I shouldn’t be part of the casting process.

The Diviners is the first part of a trilogy. Can you give us any hints about what might be coming next?

It’s actually part of a quartet, but who’s counting?

As for what’s coming next, well, book two, I should think. Or should I be experimental and come out with book three first?

Very mysterious! We’ll be waiting with baited breath...

You've written both historical novels and contemporary novels for young adults. What are the differences between them in terms of your writing process - and do you have a preference, as a writer?

I wouldn’t say that I approach the actual writing of the stories differently, because, ultimately, I’m trying to figure out the who and the what of it and why it matters so much to me that I’m willing to spend my every waking moment thinking about and obsessing over it.

But certainly, with historical novels, there’s the research part of it. There’s a back and forth between researching like mad and diving into the writing, then realizing there’s another few layers of research I need to know and so on. That pattern goes on until the typesetter is literally tearing it from my hands. And since DIVINERS is a series, there’s a bit of a road map. I know where I’m headed even if I’m not entirely sure where all I’ll stop along the way and what, exactly, might happen in each town.

Tell us about your writing routine - where and when do you like to write?

I’ve always loved to write in cafes here in New York City. I particularly like dark, underground, Hobbit Hole cafes where there’s a weird music mix playing and the baristas can regale me with stories of their bands or dates gone horribly wrong. But lately, I’ve also been cloistering myself away in a cubicle at a writers’ space, which feels a little like ‘Altered States’—all sensory deprivation. I’ve needed that kind of concentration, I suppose.

I’m absolutely at my best in the morning. I’d be happy starting in at 6am and sometimes do. I’m useless in the evening. Utterly useless.

Which books or authors have particularly influenced you?

I have been influenced by every book I’ve ever read, to be honest. That’s the wonderful thing about books. I’m a big George Saunders fan. His Pastoralia is one of my absolute favorites along with The Hotel New Hampshire, Watchmen, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Salem’s Lot, Jane Eyre. Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was a big one for me as a child as was E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web. I’d go see anything written by Tom Stoppard or Caryl Churchill. I also admire a lot of TV writers—Joss Whedon comes to mind. And I think what Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat have done with the reboot of Dr. Who is brilliant.

What advice would you give to an aspiring writer for young adults?

Read. A lot.

Thank you Libba!