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[Interviewer's Note: This is a series of interviews featuring the contributors of The Beastly Bride: Tales of the Animal People edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling.]

Christopher Barzak‘s stories have appeared in, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Salon Fantastique, Trampoline, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Nerve, and other magazines and anthologies. His first novel, One for Sorrow, won the 2008 Crawford Award for Best First Fantasy and is a finalist in the 2008 Great Lakes Book Awards. His second novel, The Love We Share Without Knowing, was published in 2008 and is a Nebula nominee for 2010. Interfictions 2, which he co-edited with Delia Sherman, was Amazon.com’s Best Book of 2009. Chris grew up in rural Ohio, has lived in a beach town in southern California, the capital of Michigan, and returned in 2006 from a two year stint in Japan where he taught English in the Japanese school system outside of Tokyo. He now teaches writing at Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio.

Charles Tan: Hi! Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. First off, what made you decide to use the Melusine myth in your story?

Christopher Barzak: I first came across the Melusine myth while I was reading A.S. Byatt’s Possession, years ago now. I had never encountered it, and was taken with the prohibition of a woman who enters into a marriage with a man based on the condition that one day out the week she will bathe and he must promise not to disturb her while she does. Of course he does, and what he finds is that when she is bathing her lower body becomes that of a serpent, like a mermaid, but in a monstrous way. Because he breaks her rule, she curses his children for generations to come to be like her. It felt oddly like a description of a genetic feature she was handing down, albeit as a curse, and it also reminded me of the very male oriented prohibition fairy tales and myths like Bluebeard, where it’s usually a female who is not supposed to witness her husband’s dark secret doings lest she be punished for seeing this side of them. I liked this variation and wanted to use the Melusine myth, at least peripherally, in Map of Seventeen as a way to illuminate the idea of hiding versus being seen, being “out” maybe, for Tommy and Tristan in a small rural town, where they don’t want to attract unwanted attention to their same-sex relationship. I also think there aren’t enough mermen out there. It always seems to be a mermaid in stories when a mer person appears.

CT: I like how your inclusion of the fantastical element heightens the feeling of ostracism (by society) in the story. What made you decide to tackle this theme?

CB: I tend to write about characters who are at odds with the norms in their societies in general, I think. This is really just another extension of that particular vein in my writing. I’m attracted to tales of outsiders, misfits, people who are relegated or pushed off to the fringe of society, for many reasons: sexuality, gender, race, class, age (the very young and the elderly alike). I think fiction is a lens by which we can make those who are invisible able to be seen. And I think it’s important for these people whose lives are lived outside of the center of society be seen. Otherwise, fiction begins to be a very middle class enterprise, and it becomes less interesting to me if it’s really just another art form made for and by one particular kind of person. I’m glad the fantastical element heightens the feeling of ostracism. I was hoping it would achieve that effect, seeing how Tristan has to hide his true being from others. It matches the feeling everyday ordinary humans who are different from established social norms feel, or at least have felt at one time or another. I love how fantasy can allow us to step outside of what we think we know and look at ourselves from a different angle.

CT: Your POV is an interesting choice: how did Meg as your narrator come together?

CB: Meg was a no-brainer to me. She’s a no-nonsense, tough-minded, logical sort of girl, very strong willed and a little afraid of her own abilities to accomplish things, the somewhat overlooked power and ability that an “ordinary” person might not realize they even have: the power to provoke change, raise their voice, or will something to happen. She’s fiercely protective of her parents, and suspicious of Tommy for all sorts of reasons, but especially because she thinks he treats her mother and father unfairly in his artwork, after they’d supported him his entire life and put him through college at a good school. I particularly wanted to approach this story with same-sex sexuality at its center from the point of view of someone in the story who is NOT the same-sex sexually oriented character, which often seems to be the norm in these kinds of tales. I wanted to see this issue from the point of view of a family member, what they go through, how they see it. I also wanted to depict a Midwestern rural family that is quite loving and good toward their gay child. Too often I see rural Midwestern folks depicted as narrow-minded bigots. It’s a stereotype. Certainly the Midwest has its narrow-minded bigots, but I’ve met this kind of person in a variety of places, urban as well as suburban and rural. And I’ve met lovely, loving folks everywhere too. It’s just that it seems rural people are associated too easily with a particular kind of ignorance.

CT: What was the most challenging aspect when it comes to writing this story?

CB: Getting the jocular banter between Tommy and Tristan down right was a challenge but very fun at the same time. They have a somewhat lighthearted romance together, with some real sadness underlying. Writing dialogue that captures that layering of opposing emotions was real work for me. Another thing was trying to capture aspects of the art world realistically. Luckily I have some visual artist friends who were able to help me with the language and realities of that artistic sphere. I probably only make several statements in the story that have to do with that world, but I wanted them to be right details.

CT: What’s the appeal of the Beastly Bride concept for you?

CB: It’s wide ranging scope, and this concept of marriage with someone who is human and non-human at the same time. Between those two poles, a lot of unexplored territory exists. What is human and what is our relationship to the non-human lifeforms that surround us? Isn’t our relationship with other lifeforms, animals and plants alike, a kind of marriage? A partnership? How do we use, abuse, love, and engage with these particular kinds of “others” in our lives?

Related posts:

  1. EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Delia Sherman and Christopher Barzak on Interfictions 2
  2. REVIEW: The Love We Share Without Knowing, by Christopher Barzak
  3. TOC: Interfictions 2 edited by Delia Sherman & Christopher Barzak
  4. REVIEW: Interfictions 2: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing edited by Delia Sherman and Christopher Barzak
  5. EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Ken Edgett

Filed under: Interviews

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