Mindy, what was your inspiration for writing THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES?
SPECIES is actually the first novel I wrote, over 15 years ago. I was a freshman in college and cable was a new experience for me. I was watching some sort of true crime show about a murder that had occurred in a small town. It was a situation where it was fairly obvious who the killer was, but there wasn't enough proof for the courts. The documentary named the small town, and I thought, "Man, if someone watched this and was convinced of that guy's guilt, they could just go kill him." And then I thought.... huh. Interesting story.
I had always known I wanted to write a novel, but I hadn't done it yet. The idea of vigilante justice stuck with me, and with all the freshman warning talks about parties and date rape and self-defense classes, the story came together for me. As I said, it was my very first novel, and I didn't execute it well at all. It was honestly, quite terrible. I worked on that book for years. Revised. Scrapped. Revisited. Scrapped. After hundreds of rejections I decided it was unpublishable and moved on.
When I was throwing possible ideas for future projects at my agent Adriann Ranta, I happened to mention the concept behind SPECIES. It was originally an adult novel, but I knew it could very easily be adapted to YA. Adriann was excited about it, so I re-read my original novel. It was terrible. Actually unreadable, to be honest.
I started from scratch, using only the concept and character's first names. It's a complex story with a killer for main character so I needed to be able to build empathy for someone who is morally questionable... not easy to do. I don't think I was a good enough writer to execute that the first time I tried. Fifteen years later, I had more experience.
Is there a scene you particularly love?
My favorite scene happens at a party where Alex's violent tendencies come out for everyone to see. She saves a girl from being gang raped, but all anyone can talk about is the fact that... well I won't say what Alex does to the guy in question but, it's memorable.
How long or hard was your road to publication? How many books did you write before this one, and how many never got published?
Very. Hard. As I said, SPECIES was my first completed novel, but my debut NOT A DROP TO DRINK was my fifth finished novel. I had four failed manuscripts, ten years, and hundreds of rejections under my belt before I acquired an agent.
What are you working on now?
Lots of things, actually! I have a fantasy, GIVEN TO THE SEA being released in April of 2017 from Putnam, and PHANTOM HEART is my Fall 2017 release from Katherine Tegen. Beyond that I have the sequel to GIVEN TO THE SEA (drafting that one right now) and another contemporary that will be releasing in Fall of 2018 from Katherine Tegen. So... yeah. Busy!
HCC Frenzy Mindy McGinnis Interview
We’re BIG fans of Mindy McGinnis here at Frenzy. We’ve read and loved each of her previous books, so her latest, The Female of the Species, was easily one of our most anticipated books of the year. It follows a young girl named Alex whose older sister was murdered three years ago. When the killer walked free, Alex uncaged the language she knows best—the language of violence.
The Female of the Species is an intense, unforgettable read that we just can’t stop thinking about. We asked Mindy a few questions about the book (and more!) because we need to know more.
FRENZY: What inspired you to write this book?
MINDY: I was in college in the early 2000’s and had cable for the first time. I was watching a true crime show about a murder in a small town. It was a situation where everyone more or less knew who the killer was, but there wasn’t enough physical evidence to convict. They named the small town, and the supposed perpetrator in the show. I thought to myself, “Man, if someone was really convinced he was the killer, they could just go there and dispense justice themselves.” Then I thought, “Huh. That’s a novel.”
FRENZY: What was your favourite book as a teenager?
MINDY: I don’t know that I had a favorite book during that age range, but one of my all time favorites is THE STAND by Stephen King.
FRENZY: If you could have coffee with any author, who would it be?
MINDY: Stephen King, for sure. I’ve been reading his stuff since I was thirteen.
FRENZY: What’s your favourite way to waste time?
MINDY: I’m really good at wasting time so I have many answers. Twitter, petting my cat, talking to my dog, napping. But in the end I’m building relationships with people or animals, and napping is good stuff… so is it really a waste?
FRENZY: What’s the best writing advice you’ve received?
MINDY: You don’t have to write every day to be a “real” writer.
FRENZY: Describe your book in four words.
MINDY: Rape Revenge Vigilante Justice
The Strand Magazine: Desperately Seeking Nancy Drew
I’m a collector at heart, something that has caused me no small amount of trouble when it comes to books. I started young, maniacally memorizing the order of the Black Stallion series, double-checking that my many-colored Goosebumps books were in the right order, and constantly comparing the facial expressions of the Wakefields to decide which was Elizabeth and which was Jessica on the Sweet Valley Twins covers.
Far and away, the series that gave me the most amount of anxiety was my Nancy Drew Grosset & Dunlap editions. There was no Internet to access an amazing amount of information such as link: http://www.series-books.com/nancydrew/formats.html) to help me decode the printings, editions, and reprints. Yes, I probably could have asked a librarian or a bookseller for some help but… I fancied I was a bit of a sleuth myself
You could frequently find me on the floor of my local library or bookstore (R.I.P. Waldenbooks) underneath that ever-present row of yellow spines, copying down the titles on the back and making checkmarks next to the ones I had or didn’t have, depending on my mood and how much money was in my pocket. By the time I was in middle school, I felt I had the Nancy Drew issue mostly under control.
And then this happened.
Yes, it was an updated Nancy Drew, with everyone wearing puffy clothes and sweater vests. This plagued me from 1986 onward, with a whopping 124 books to collect. I would occasionally drift away from the goal, then find a title I’d never heard of taunting me from the library shelf, usually with an obscenely high number (#111??!?! How did that happen? I just found #23!) By 1997, Nancy was using computers to solve mysteries— and so was I.
Lists! Pictures! Titles in chronological order! The Internet was my friend… but unfortunately, Nancy didn’t rank for me anymore. I was going to college. My paperbacks couldn’t go with me and Mom was interpreting “empty nest” literally, and so I did some shelf sweeping.
But not my yellow Nancy Drews, some of which were my mom’s.
So my books traveled with me, from college to first home, to second home. I don’t have a pristine book collection, by any means. They were dumped, dropped, stacked, and moved more times than I can count. All of my books are well loved, with cracked spines, yellowed pages, dirty thumb smudges, and curled corners. A true book collector might look at what I have and see nothing more than lost value. But a book lover would see what I do: books that have been loved, read, eaten over, cried with, and sweated on into the long hours of the night back when I didn’t have air conditioning and my reading lamp produced real, palpable heat.
I prefer them that way. My books have been read, multiple times. And that’s what they are for, to be interacted with and touched. I love my banged-up books, and The Secret of the Old Clock ranks highly as one of the most abused, since I was determined to one day read the entire series, starting with the first, straight through to the end. But I always lost my steam somewhere along the way, distracted by some other series or a new release. So The Secret of the Old Clock suffered many re-readings and handlings… whereas I’m pretty sure my copy of The Mystery of the Fire Dragon has never been cracked.
I still have them, and yes, those gaps of missing books in my series still mock me. Someday I need to use eBay to fill those holes, but where’s the fun in that? I may have outgrown Nancy but a bit of her is still lurking inside, sending me to the easily spotted “yellow shelf” whenever I wander into a used bookstore.
And then I’m a kid again, staring at the artwork and getting some delicious chills from the cover of The Message in the Hollow Oak and The Mystery of the Moss-Covered Mansion. And of course, I flip the book over and scan the titles, trying to remember which ones I don’t have… and which ones I do.
Rural Poverty and The Female of The Species by Mindy McGinnis
Sometimes, it is indeed a small world after all. Shortly after moving to Texas, I learned that author Mindy McGinnis lived just 10 minutes from the very library I had spent the last 10 years working at in the state of Ohio. This town was my home, the place where my children were born. It was also, at the time, the county with the highest poverty rate in all of Ohio.
So while there were many aspects about Mindy McGinnis’ THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES that stood out to me, one that stood out most vividly is the depiction of rural poverty. THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES is set in a small, Midwestern town that is ravished by poverty and in my mind’s eye I could picture the very places around this small town that I thought Mindy might be talking about.
And while all poverty is bad, each type of poverty has its unique challenges. For example, one of the greatest challenges in rural poverty is transportation. Rural communities are often spread out and don’t have public transportation systems, which makes things like going to a grocery story or doctor’s appointment quite challenging. There are usually fewer options in rural communities, and less options means less competition and less price choices.
Although I currently live in Texas, I work in a public library in another rural Ohio community that is also fighting high poverty. Many of my patrons don’t have the money to buy current technology, and even if they did have the money the truth is, there are still parts of my community that have no providers offering wireless or DSL Internet. Like many other places experiences high rural poverty rates, drug use and drug related deaths are reaching epidemic proportions. So as I mentioned, THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES resonated with me in ways that I can not even begin to describe.
Today, I am honored to host author Mindy McGinni who talks about rural poverty and the part it plays in her newest release, THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES.
The Female of the Species addresses many issues within its pages; rape culture and vigilante justice being the most prevalent. A quieter issue raises it’s head though, one that is easy to overlook, shadowed as it is by the more controversial topics.
Rural poverty.Much of the time poverty is associated with urban life and that is certainly a truth that cannot go ignored. However, there is another face to poverty, one that looks picturesque. Farms with collapsed barns. Homes where no one lives anymore.
I was born and raised in a rurally impoverished area and now I live and work in one. For fourteen years I have been employed as a library aide at a local school where nearly forty percent of our student body receive free and reduced lunch.
During deer hunting season our attendance list shows double digits of our students are excused for the day to participate… and in most cases it’s not a leisure activity for them. They’re putting much-needed food on the family table.
Food pantry lines are long, faces are pinched, and during the summer months many of our students go without lunch because they depended on the school to provide it. Because it is a sprawling, rural community, people who have to weigh the cost of gas for the drive to the pantry against the food they will get there.
None of the characters in my book suffer the indignity of hunger, because I feel it’s an issue that deserves more space than there was room for within this particular story. But hunger breeds a specific type of desperation that calls for an escape, and this can open the door to darker things.
Upper and middle classes know the need for a vacation. We all feel the cycle of our daily lives triggering stress, causing irritation and anger, and even pushing us towards exhaustion. So we take a “mental health day,” call off work for little or no reason, or we cash in those vacation days and just “get away from it all.”
We have that luxury.
Many of the jobs available to the working poor pay by the hour, and to take a day off means to take a pay cut – one that the budget doesn’t allow for. Vacation time may be possible, but the idea of affording to actually leave is laughable. Escapes from reality are sometimes sought not in a getaway, but in drug use.
There is a major heroin epidemic in my area. We have lost students in my small school district to it. One Twitter user already thanked me for mentioning the epidemic in The Female of the Species, saying that she hopes it may draw more attention to the issue. If it doesn’t, this should; last weekend alone multiple people OD’d, two of them in a mini-van with a four year old.
It’s easy to point fingers, lay blame, criticize and judge. What kind of people do this?
The desperate. The addicted. The hopeless.
Such descriptions aren’t solely the realm of the poor, but there are correlations that can’t be denied.
On my worst days – and we all have bad ones, no matter who we are – I can get upset, feel like giving up or just ducking out of reality for awhile. Stress is present in all our lives, no matter our socioeconomic standing.
But on these days I remind myself that I have food. I have clothes. I have a working car that I can drive to my next school visit, library appearance, or book club talk. I can fill the gas tank and go to work without having to worry about paying for that stop.
The small luxuries of our lives are something that most of us take for granted until they are taken away from us – a cracked phone that doesn’t work, the car being in this shop for a few days, the heat and electric always being on.
When you do have one of those days, think about those who can’t afford a phone at all, and are literally holding their cars together with duct tape. In the past I’ve had students that heat their home with the kitchen stove, and the children sleep with the pets to share body heat.
Spare a thought for them on your bad days, and if you can spare more than that, please do.
On Rape Culture
In preparing to do a guest post about rape culture, I wondered what I had to say that could add to the conversation. The subject has been covered, and well, by others. So I told myself to wait for a couple of days, and something would come up.
I didn't mean for my thoughts to be taken literally.
Last week was our county fair. It's been hot and dry here. Thousands of cars and pairs of feet had stirred up a dust cloud, and as I was leaving the grounds I saw a minivan coated in a fine film of dirt that someone had decided to treat as a canvas. The ubiquitous dick and balls drawing was everywhere, along with FUCK ME scrawled multiple times.
I watched people walk past it, some pointing and laughing, some shaking their heads. Parents covered their children's eyes and rolled their own. But nobody did the one thing that made the most sense.
Nobody erased it.
There we were in a public place with multiple erect, demanding penises in clear view of anyone who walked past, along with a directive to perform a sexual act on it. And no one was willing to make it go away with a swipe of their forearm. Sure, it can be argued that they didn't want to touch someone else's personal property, but I wonder if such passivity sends the message that the dicks had a right to be there, or in the least, are an acceptable background in our culture, one deserving only of an eye roll and a quicker step to put it behind you.
Do I think people are being actively harmed by dicks drawn on dirty cars? I don't know. As for the FUCK ME, I can't argue against bad language without painting myself a hypocrite, as I have a sailor's mouth. It's the passivity that bothers me, the acceptance of a situation that young girls will see a dick as soon as they are old enough to open their eyes in public - and will never stop seeing them.
I did the only thing I thought I could do. I tucked my hand in my shirt sleeve and wiped the van free, uncovering a sticker family on the back, two little girls bringing up the rear.
So that's two that didn't have to see a dick.
It's a start.
Top 5 Things You Need To Know About Given to the Sea →
1) A kernel for the idea of GIVEN TO THE SEA was planted a very long time ago when I was a child. I loved the TV movie of IVANHOE with Anthony Andrews. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanhoe_(1982_film) There's an amazing scene with Sam Neill and Olivia Hussey where she's locked in a tower and he comes to see her. She thinks he's there to force himself upon her and she gets up in the window and says she'll jump if he comes a step closer. He's a decent guy who means her no harm, so he manages to talk her down but it's a very powerful scene. It stuck with me (even though I didn't understand all the implications until I was older). Elements from that scene have found their way into SEA at various levels - the girl who doesn't want to be touched, a boy in a power position who *could* take advantage if he wanted, a girl who's pride is so strong she'll die before she submits.
2) This is my first fantasy, and I went into it reminding myself that I had complete creative freedom. This is my own world in which I can do anything that I want. The life forms don't even have to be carbon based if I choose. It came time to make up some woodland creatures and for the life of me the only thing I wanted to populate the woods with was huge feral housecats. So I took all my freedom of creativity and made big tabbies.
3) Likewise, I had this idea that writing fantasy would be easy because I get to make up all the rules, no research required. Not true. In a contemporary your audience already knows, in a sense, what the setting is. If I say the main character attends a poor public school, you get the idea and I don't have to do all the world building - it's implied. In fantasy, nothing is a given, nothing is assumed. I have to do a lot of explaining... and keep that interesting. I've written post-apocalytpic, historical, contemporary, and now fantasy. Fantasy is by far the hardest.
4) Part of the idea for Khosa's pre-disposition to dance into the sea is based on a book I read about Huntington's disease, which is what killed Woody Guthrie. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntington%27s_disease) It's a hereditary disease that causes spasmodic movements that make it appear that the sufferer is dancing, however the movements are outside of their control. I wondered what it would be like to be trapped in a body you can't control, headed toward the sea, while onlookers simply let you go because they think you are doing this willingly. *shudder*
5) The Indiri twins, Donil & Dara, are my favorite characters in the book. I know I'm showing my age here, but part of their creation comes from the dancing baby off Ally McBeal. I thought that was just about the creepiest thing I had ever seen in my life. But then I thought about a baby that could have that kind of body control, what it could learn early on about coordination and movement. That baby could become one heck of a fighter... and so a long time ago I had this idea in my head about a culture where babies are "born knowing" - able to speak, walk, process logic - all from birth. They don't have to spend the first few years of their life learning how to feed themselves, or the alphabet. They'd be way ahead of everybody else.
The Unhinged Historian: Interview with Mindy McGinnis
1. Tell us a little about your journey to becoming a published author.
I was writing for ten years before I landed an agent. NOT A DROP TO DRINK is my debut novel, but it was the fifth finished novel that I had under my belt before I got to that point. Granted, the first four weren't so great - practice makes better. Never perfect. Just better.
2. Your first two books are sci-fi. How did you get into historical fiction and inspired to do this specific book?
I read widely, and I will read anything. My interests are extremely varied and I knew I wanted to jump genres - more than once, as it turns out. A MADNESS SO DISCREET was my first foray into historical. My next novel from Harper, THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES, is a contemporary rape-revenge vigilante justice novel, and I have a fantasy series coming from Penguin / Putnam in 2017. So I keep hopping around :)
3. How did your publisher/editor/agent/readers feel about the switch in genre?
I'm lucky in that Harper trusted me to make the jump. True, my first two novels were dystopian, but that was very much the trend at the time - and trends change. You can't keep writing the same thing over and over and hope no one will notice. They didn't know what to expect from me next, so when I handed them a Gothic historical thriller I'm sure it came as a bit of a surprise.
4. What kind of research did you conduct for this book? Did you know much about the topic beforehand?
I knew quite a bit. The concept behind MADNESS came about because I was reading a biography of Dr. Walter Freeman - the famous "lobotomy doctor." I had The Devil In The White City by Erik Larson, which is about America's first serial killer, and a collection of Sherlock Holmes short stories sitting together on my bed stand. I was looking at those three spines and thinking that someone should combine those elements - insane asylums, lobotomies, serial killers and the beginnings of criminal profiling - and then I thought... well hey, I'm a writer. Maybe I should do that. I researched for nearly two years before I wrote a word of the boo
5. How much of the book is based in historical fact?
Quite a bit. The book is set in 1890, and lobotomies weren't a practice at the time, but I needed them in order for my plot to work so I had to get creative. Phineas Gage, a railroad worker, had had a steel pike blown through his frontal lobe in the 1840's and lived - but with a drastically changed personality. He'd basically received a frontal lobotomy from a steel pike. The medical establishment was aware of Gage and the brain science involved in his situation, so it wasn't outside of the realm of possibility that one of them might try to re-enact that situation (minus the blasting powder and pike) and be performing lobotomies before the term existed. So you do have to get creative at times, but for the most part all of the medical practices, treatment of the insane and criminal procedures you see in the book are based on fact.
6. What inspired the magical elements in A Madness so Discreet?
There is a mental patient who believes he can smell cancer, and another who believes that she has a String hanging next to her ear that tells her the future. I've read stories before about medical doctors who use dogs to sniff out cancer in patients - not exactly a standard practice, but some people swear by it. There are also real stories of people whose senses have become scrambled in one way or another - people who can "taste" feelings or things like that. So I thought creating a former doctor who believed he could smell cancer (and actually could) wouldn't be too far out on the extraordinary limb. As for String, that's actually a story from my family. My grandmother had a "crazy" aunt who had a String.
7. Do you plan to return to historical fiction and what's next for you?
I may. I have an idea for a sequel to MADNESS, but it has to sell well in order for that to happen. (So tell your friends! Tell your enemies, if you have more of those!) My next book is THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES, which will release September 20 of 2016. I also have GIVEN TO THE SEA the first in my fantasy series, which will be releasing in April of 2017.
8. What are some of your other projects (blogs, etc.)?
I run a blog for aspiring writers called Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire. I'm also ridiculously active on social media - I'm in all the places. I also write short stories when the mood strikes me and have shorts in a variety of different anthologies, all of which you can find on Goodreads.
9. Have you discovered any novels that are similar to yours?
One of my favorite novels is THE ALIENIST by Caleb Carr, which was published in the 90s. It also deals with the turn of the century and criminal profiling. It was definitely an inspiration.
10. What are you reading now?
Right now I'm reading Les Miserables. I figured it was time.
Luna Station Quarterly: Interview with Mindy McGinnis
I’m very excited to bring readers this interview with YA author Mindy McGinnis who recently won the Edgar Award (YA Category) for her new novel, A Madness So Discreet. Mindy was generous enough to answer some questions about the book shortly after winning the award. Here’s what she had to say …
KC: A Madness so Discreet is a huge departure from your previous young adult novels. What inspired you to delve into the world of 19th century mental institutions for this one?
MM: I never know what’s going to spark a novel. In this case it was the stack of my current reading on the nightstand. I had a history of insane asylum treatments (the good and the bad), a biography of a famous lobotomist, a history of serial killers, and a collection of Sherlock Holmes shorts. I was looking at these spines and thought, “Wouldn’t it be really interesting to combine all those things in one book?”
KC: Unlike the protagonists in your Not a Drop to Drink duology (Lynn and Lucy), the protagonist in this book (Grace Mae) starts out as apparently powerless in the face of a horrible situation. Was it more challenging to write a protagonist who is literally trapped by the system as opposed to characters with more apparent freedom?
MM: I don’t think it was more challenging, but it required a different approach. Lynn and Lucy are both strong characters – Lynn physically and emotionally, Lucy through her resiliency and humor. There are so many different kinds of strength, and when people use that (now hated) phrase “strong female character” it needs to embrace all those different meanings. Grace’s strength is in her mind, her obstinacy, her intelligence, and her refusal to give in to the darkness that surrounds her – even if she may succumb occasionally. She could exhibit strength within the system, and ultimately escape it.
KC: The details in the book on mental illness and how it was treated in the 19th century are incredibly realistic. How did you go about researching the book?
MM: I researched for 18 months before writing this book, and at times I knew *too* much. I read nearly two thousand pages about the frontal lobe, lobotomies, and Phineas Gage, only to use the information in about two paragraphs. However, the background knowledge I acquired emanates from the book as a whole, in ways that aren’t intentional but the reader is aware of.
KC: The story is extremely dark and some of the opening chapters in particular depict hospital activities that are quite harrowing. How hard was it to make this material accessible to a younger audience? Did you ever consider writing the story as a book for an older readership?
MM: There are always qualms about content when you’re dealing with disturbing situations and a younger readership, but as a librarian I’ve found that teens are good at self-censoring. If they are reading something that is too much for them, they will voluntarily put it down. When it comes to gatekeepers – parents, teachers, fellow librarians – when I’m asked why I would write a book for teens about a girl who is sexually abused by her father, my answer is – “Because that’s who it happens to.”
KC: The book just won the Edgar Allan Poe Award in the YA category – CONGRATS! Are you a fan of Poe’s work? Who are some of your favorite authors in the mystery/horror genres?
MM: I do like Poe, and read quite a bit in my formative years. Although I think “Annabel Lee” is probably my frontrunner over “The Raven.” I’m also a huge fan of Stephen King, and in the YA arena Kate Karyus Quinn is a fantastic, under-appreciated author of dark fiction.
KC: Can you tell us what’s up next for you?
MM: Yes! THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES will be releasing on September 20. It’s my first contemporary, a rape-revenge vigilante justice novel that takes a hard look at rape culture. It was recently picked by Publishers Weekly as a Buzz Book for the Fall / Winter 2016 season, and the first four chapters can be read for free in the Buzz Book catalog, along with 19 other up-and-coming titles.
Castle Maguire Book Blog: Interview with Mindy McGinnis (2016) A Madness So Discreet
I’m very excited to bring readers this interview with YA author Mindy McGinnis, both because she just won the Edgar Award (YA Category) for her new novel, A Madness So Discreet and also because she's the first person to make a THIRD guest appearance on this blog. Mindy was generous enough to answer some questions about the book shortly after winning the award. Here’s what she had to say …
KC: A Madness so Discreet is a huge departure from your previous young adult novels. What inspired you to delve into the world of 19th century mental institutions for this one?
MM: I never know what's going to spark a novel. In this case it was the stack of my current reading on the nightstand. I had a history of insane asylum treatments (the good and the bad), a biography of a famous lobotomist, a history of serial killers, and a collection of Sherlock Holmes shorts. I was looking at these spines and thought, "Wouldn't it be really interesting to combine all those things in one book?"
KC: Unlike the protagonists in your Not a Drop to Drink duology (Lynn and Lucy), the protagonist in this book (Grace Mae) starts out as apparently powerless in the face of a horrible situation. Was it more challenging to write a protagonist who is literally trapped by the system as opposed to characters with more apparent freedom?
MM: I don't think it was more challenging, but it required a different approach. Lynn and Lucy are both strong characters - Lynn physically and emotionally, Lucy through her resiliency and humor. There are so many different kinds of strength, and when people use that (now hated) phrase "strong female character" it needs to embrace all those different meanings. Grace's strength is in her mind, her obstinacy, her intelligence, and her refusal to give in to the darkness that surrounds her - even if she may succumb occasionally. She could exhibit strength within the system, and ultimately escape it.
KC: The details in the book on mental illness and how it was treated in the 19th century are incredibly realistic. How did you go about researching the book?
MM: I researched for 18 months before writing this book, and at times I knew *too* much. I read nearly two thousand pages about the frontal lobe, lobotomies, and Phineas Gage, only to use the information in about two paragraphs. However, the background knowledge I acquired emanates from the book as a whole, in ways that aren't intentional but the reader is aware of.
KC: The story is extremely dark and some of the opening chapters in particular depict hospital activities that are quite harrowing. How hard was it to make this material accessible to a younger audience? Did you ever consider writing the story as a book for an older readership?
MM: There are always qualms about content when you're dealing with disturbing situations and a younger readership, but as a librarian I've found that teens are good at self-censoring. If they are reading something that is too much for them, they will voluntarily put it down. When it comes to gatekeepers - parents, teachers, fellow librarians - when I'm asked why I would write a book for teens about a girl who is sexually abused by her father, my answer is - "Because that's who it happens to."
KC: The book just won the Edgar Allan Poe Award in the YA category - CONGRATS! Are you a fan of Poe's work? Who are some of your favorite authors in the mystery/horror genres?
MM: I do like Poe, and read quite a bit in my formative years. Although I think "Annabel Lee" is probably my frontrunner over "The Raven." I'm also a huge fan of Stephen King, and in the YA arena Kate Karyus Quinn is a fantastic, under-appreciated author of dark fiction.
KC: Can you tell us what's up next for you?
MM: Yes! THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES will be releasing on September 20. It's my first contemporary, a rape-revenge vigilante justice novel that takes a hard look at rape culture. It was recently picked by Publishers Weekly as a Buzz Book for the Fall / Winter 2016 season, and the first four chapters can be read for free in the Buzz Book catalog, along with 19 other up-and-coming titles.
The Book Nut: A Chat with Mindy McGinnis
1. What is the difference in writing books like DRINK and DUST and then writing something like MADNESS or Female of the Species?
It’s all in voice, but that is true book to book regardless of a genre jump. I’d say the biggest difference of going from something like MADNESS to a contemporary is the lack of research. There’s definitely still research involved, just not the level of world building that you put into a historical.
2. Writing isn’t your only job, can you tell us a little about what else you do?
I work full time in a high school library. Love my job. Nothing quite like it.
3. How do you manage your time between all the different things you do?
Multi-tasking is a big thing for me. I also read 80 or so books a year and try to lift, kickbox or run at least 5 days a week. So if I’m jogging on the treadmill I’m also reading. You learn to say to yourself, No, you don’t NEED to watch House of Cards the second it’s available. You NEED to get this book finished.
4. You did tons of research for MADNESS, what was you favorite part of all of it? Did you learn anything seemingly random that just had to end up in the book?
My favorite part was actually visiting old asylums, especially the Athens Lunatic Asylum in Ohio, which is where MADNESS is set. And yes, I did learn something random that ended up in the book – the crocodile living in the asylum fountain is a true story. When I learned this in the history of the Athens Asylum I knew it had to get into the book. I changed the time period, but that was all.
5. What is your favorite part of being an author?
I make up things for a living. How awesome if that?
6. Who are some of your favorite authors?
In the adult world I’ll read anything by Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood. YA you can’t go wrong with Leigh Bardugo, Marissa Meyer and the more familiar names. But some of my favorites are also my critique partners – RC Lewis, Kate Karyus Quinn, and Demitria Lunetta.
7. What was your worst subject in school and why?
Math. I *can* do it. I just don’t want to.
8. Can you tell us a little about Female of the Species?
It’s a rape revenge vigilante justice story. Think if Dexter were a teen girl that wen after rapists.
9. Which was your favorite book to write?
My least favorite book to write is usually whichever one I’m working on at the time. My boyfriend claims I’m always lamenting that “this one is going to kill me.” And he’s like, “That was the last one, remember?” I do think SPECIES was probably the easiest to write, mostly because the story itself had been percolating inside of me for about 15 years. When you know something inside and out like that, it’s easier to execute.
10. Do you have anything else you’re working on that you can talk about? (Or news, upcoming events, something else you’re up to?)
Yes! My fantasy series, the first entitled GIVEN TO THE SEA, will be released from Putnam/Penguin in April of 2017. I’m also working on a novelization of my short story, “Phantom Heart,” which was included in the anthology AMONG THE SHADOWS.
PBS Miami Book Fair: Mindy McGinnis on The Female of the Species
Once Upon A Teen Reader Interview: Mindy McGinnis
Once Upon A Teen Reader: Using no more than 10 words how would you describe A MADNESS SO DISCREET?
Mindy McGinnis: Gothic historical thriller set in an insane asylum.
OUATR: You went from a post-apocalyptic wasteland to a 1890's insane asylum, what prompted the staggering change in scenery, or at least time period (seeing as I think they are both actually set in Ohio)?
MM: They are both set it Ohio, yes! As far as prompting the huge change, I'm varied in my storytelling. I read across all genres and so I write across them as well. There is always one story that supersedes the others, and MADNESS just happened to be what percolated after I was finished with NOT A DROP TO DRINK and IN A HANDFUL OF DUST.
OUATR: Not only did you have regular historical information to get right, you also had some criminal psychology and medical history to get right. What kind of research did you do while writing this book?
MM: I researched for an entire year before writing a word of this book. There was much to learn – the beginnings of criminal psychology, the history of asylum medicine (both the good and the bad), and of course historical details in general. What kind of lighting would be in a room in 1890? What would an asylum inmate be wearing? I’m very particular, and there were days when I couldn’t finish a sentence without doing half an hour of research in order to make sure I got it (hopefully) right.
The specific setting – the Athens Lunatic Asylum in Ohio – has an amazing history. You can do a quick Google and learn about how it’s one of the most haunted places in the world and hear horror stories about the graveyard. And while I’m a fan of the supernatural, I’m also a fan of data. That type of history doesn’t interest me, because most of it quite frankly, just isn’t true.
The Athens asylum was actually an amazing model of humane treatment for the insane. If you were crazy (or just unlucky enough to be deemed so) in 1890, it was a good place to land. One of my best resources for the history of the asylum was Asylum On The Hill: History of A Healing Landscape, by Katherine Ziff. If you’d like to learn more about the actual history of the Athens Lunatic Asylum give it a shot.
I also toured the buildings, which are now part of the Ohio University campus. You can’t go into the patient wards for safety reasons (they are literally crumbling), but some parts of the building are currently in use as staff offices as well as an art gallery. The gallery is open to the public, and when you visit you can see original floors, staircases and woodwork from the insane asylum years. Definitely hit up my Pinterest board if you want to see some pics from my tour!
You can most definitely repost some of my pics from Pinterest, just make sure if you use any of the older ones that you use the attribution that I did, b/c some of those actually belong to University Archives.
OUATR: Not only is Grace struggling with being pregnant in a time where that's taboo, but she's also struggling with a madness that twists her mind. How did you go about writing a character that may not be able to trust everything she was seeing or hearing?
MM: Being in touch with our own dark sides is an important part of fully understanding who you are. I use writing to learn about myself in that way, so I'm familiar with what it's like to really consider the parts of yourself that aren't that pretty, or socially acceptable.
OUATR: You have two novels set to be published in the next two years, what can you tell us about them?
MM: In the future you'll be getting a dark contemporary - rape revenge and vigilante justice - titled THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES (Fall, 2016 from Katherine Tegen Books) and also GIVEN TO THE SEA, the first in a fantasy series, coming Spring 2017 from Penguin/Putnam.
Fast Five;
1. On a scale of 1 to 10 how scary would you say your book is? I think that really depends on what you think is scary. I personally find the reality of how horrible people can be to each other much more frightening than anything supernatural -- so if we're talking that kind of scary - a 10.
2. Would you survive in your own book? Honestly, probably not. I have a terrible temper and would be blowing up and running my mouth off at the asylum staff... which wouldn't end well. Grace is smart enough to keep her mouth shut and her head down.
3. What is your favorite scary movie? Hitchcock's Vertigo
4. Favorite Halloween candy? Reese's peanut butter pumpkins
5. What YA horror/thriller would you recommend? ANOTHER LITTLE PIECE by Kate Karyus Quinn
Taking a Historical Look at Mental Health
Although #MHYALit doesn’t officially kick off until January 2016, I recently read (and really loved) A MADNESS SO DISCREET by Mindy McGinnis which is a historical mystery/thriller that reminds us of how mental illness used to be viewed. It’s true, today there is still a lot of negative stereotypes and stigmas that are associated with mental health and mental illness. But it is also true that we have in many ways made tremendous progress in how we talk about mental health, how we treat many who struggle with mental health issues, and how much more readily those with mental health issues were abused. We still have a lot of progress to make, the stigma is real, the stereotypes are harmful, and abuse is still rampant. But one of the many things I valued in reading A MADNESS SO DISCREET was that glimpse into the history of mental health and mental health treatment. I have seen author Mindy McGinnis talk about this book, which was released recently, and know that she did some extensive research for this book. Today she is sharing a few words with us about mental health and her book, A MADNESS SO DISCREET.
Mindy’s Thoughts:
Mental illness used to be something to be spoken of in hushed tones, or not at all. While we are edging away from that, I sometimes see that movement being done in leaps and bounds, where everyone is an armchair psychiatrist who reels off a DSM diagnosis simply because they have the vocabulary.
Bi-polar and OCD are the obvious go-to’s, with people characterizing simple mood changes and a penchant for cleanliness as an opportunity to trot out their ten-cent words, not realizing the damage done by flippant assignment of truly horrifying illnesses.
Knowing the terminology does not signify knowledge any more than being able to identify an ocean on the globe makes someone a deep-sea diver. Mental illnesses are vast, varied and complicated. A supposed familiarity with such a large topic can do real harm, leading to self-diagnosis, self-medication, or just plain old bad advice.
If you suffer from a mental illness, seek help from a professional. If you know someone who suffers, encourage them to do the same. Much like the diagnosis, the treatments for mental illnesses are legion, and different approaches will work better for different people.
Let a professional decide what’s best – not your friend who watched every episode of HOUSE.
YA Bookmark: Interview with Mindy McGinnis
1. Hello! I'm so happy to have you on the blog. So to break the ice a little, can you describe A Madness So Discreet in a tweet (140 characters)?
It's a Gothic historical thriller set in an insane asylum, with madness, murder, and mystery.
2. Your previous novels, Not A Drop To Drink and In A Handful of Dust, were dark survival stories. What inspired you to step into the mystery genre?
I always write whatever story inside me wants to come out next. I read widely, and so I write widely. MADNESS just happened to be the story that said, "It's my turn now."
3. Every time I read the description of A Madness So Discreet I get more excited. I think it's the "criminal psychology" part because I have a bachelors in psychology and I'm hoping to specialize in forensic psychology. That being said, I'm super interested in the research you did. Did you find that you had to do a lot more research than with your other books?
I researched for an entire year before writing a word of this book. There was much to learn – the beginnings of criminal psychology, the history of asylum medicine (both the good and the bad), and of course historical details in general. What kind of lighting would be in a room in 1890? What would an asylum inmate be wearing? I’m very particular, and there were days when I couldn’t finish a sentence without doing half an hour of research in order to make sure I got it (hopefully) right.
The specific setting – the Athens Lunatic Asylum in Ohio – has an amazing history. You can do a quick Google and learn about how it’s one of the most haunted places in the world and hear horror stories about the graveyard. And while I’m a fan of the supernatural, I’m also a fan of data. That type of history doesn’t interest me, because most of it quite frankly, just isn’t true.
The Athens asylum was actually an amazing model of humane treatment for the insane. If you were crazy (or just unlucky enough to be deemed so) in 1890, it was a good place to land. One of my best resources for the history of the asylum was Asylum On The Hill: History of A Healing Landscape, by Katherine Ziff. If you’d like to learn more about the actual history of the Athens Lunatic Asylum give it a shot.
4. If so, what was one piece of research that caught your attention but you didn't include in A Madness So Discreet? (If not you can completely ignore this question haha)
The spinning chair was something I wanted to get into the asylum, but there wasn't room for it in the narrative. Some doctors believed that madness was caused by the non-mixing of humors within the body, and so a "treatment" was to hang a chair from the ceiling, tie a patient into it, and spin them around until they passed out.
To learn more about the spinning chair, and other not so useful medical treatments, check out this YouTube video I made. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fcdsZBI14s
5. Ohhh, for those who don't know, you have a short story in Among the Shadows, a darker anthology. Can you tell us a little about your story and how it was different writing a short story versus a full length novel?
Sure! My short is titled "Phantom Heart" and is about a girl who absorbed her twin in the womb. But her sister's heart was stronger than her own, and retained it's position. As she ages it becomes clear that her sister would have been a very different person than she is, attracted to a totally different type of guy. It causes some issues for her.
In a lot of ways I think writing shorts is much more difficult than writing a novel. You've got less space to create tension and empathy.
6. There are some amazing books coming out this fall, which ones are you most excited for?
I'm most excited for SPINNING STARLIGHT by RC Lewis, WALK ON EARTH A STRANGER by Rae Carson and VENGEANCE ROAD by Erin Bowman .
7. What are your favorite things to do to get into the fall spirit?
Just being outside does the trick. The chilly air, the leaves falling - out where I live, the corn rustling. That's all it takes!
Down The Research Rabbit Hole
My muse is fickle and unreliable, which is really frustrating for me because I’m the type of person that is constantly busy. I knit while watching TV because being still is not in my body’s repertoire. So when Miss Muse shuts down for a little bit, I tend to get frustrated with her, and she usually responds by dumping three to four great concepts into my lap at once, declares her job done, and disappears again.
She pulled this trick on me in 2013 when the barren waste land that had formerly housed my inspiration suddenly said, “Hey, you should write a Victorian Gothic novel set in an insane asylum about a girl who assists a criminal psychologist in catching killers. Also, she has to pretend to be lobotomized in order to escape her abusive father. That should be easy to deliver, ta-ta.”
To which I said, “Hey, thanks muse. Nice. How do I go about doing that?” But she didn’t answer because she’d already jetted off to wherever she goes when not spouting difficult-to-execute concepts at me. But I already knew the answer: research. I needed to know a lot of things in order to even come close to doing this the right way.
How did insane asylums operate in the 1890’s? How was criminal psychology executed then? How often was it right? Was the science accurate enough that a well-trained person could conceivably have caught a killer based on what they knew about the criminal mind at the time? How were lobotomies performed?
OOPS—snag. Lobotomies weren’t a medical practice in 1890. That’s a pretty huge roadblock for me since the plot hinged on my main character being (supposedly) lobotomized. Shifting the timeframe to 1936, when the first lobotomy was performed in the US, would screw up my plot even more. So instead I needed a feasible situation where a doctor could be aware of the benefits of a lobotomy-like procedure, without…you know…actually calling it a lobotomy. This train of thought ended with me reading this book, and this one. Yes, I was really popular on public transit.
I also read this book, and this book, this one (it has pictures—ouch), and to get the other side of that story, this one. And finally a slightly more relaxing one so that I was familiar with my setting. Then just to be thorough, I took a trip to the asylum where the book is set because I’m a big fan of knowing what the hell I’m talking about.
A year after Miss Disappearing Muse dropped the concept on me, I figured I knew enough to actually start writing the book. Except, no. This was the first time I’d ever attempted to write a historical, and because I despise anachronisms I had to get things as correct as I possibly could. From what kind of lighting was in the room my character waked into (Fire? Gas? Electrical?) to what she was wearing, to the question of whether she was working side by side with “policemen,” “cops,” or “constables,” I found myself in the position of not being able to finish most sentences without a quick fact check.
It was painful, torturous writing – and not only because of what I put the characters through. To make thing worse, I’d spent so much time researching that I’d painted myself into a pretty serious corner in terms of deadlines. I won’t tell you how quickly I wrote MADNESS because you’ll question my sanity, but I will tell you I gained almost fifteen pounds doing it because I basically shut myself in my room and wrote while slamming cheeseburgers. At one point I would’ve accepted a catheter just to get the job done more effectively.
A Madness So Discreet released yesterday, and I’m pretty proud of it. It marks a genre departure from my earlier works—Not a Drop to Drink and In a Handful of Dust are post-apoc survival—but not a departure from what I do best. Which apparently is write rather stomach-churning scenarios while eating.
Told you I’m a multi-tasker.
The Book Addicts Guide: Mindy McGinnis Interview
Brittany: I really enjoyed that A Madness So Discreet is a historical horror/thriller novel! Did you have any specific references or influences from history when creating the setting and characters?
Mindy McGinnis: Yes, definitely! For setting I was relying heavily on the history of the Athens Lunatic Asylum in Athens, Ohio. It was a beacon of moral treatment in the late 1800’s for the insane. Characters I always allow to grow and inform me on their own time. I start with a shell and let the story make them, so, no historical influences there.
B: I just loved the gothic horror feel of the book. Did you have any specific inspirations for this time period while writing Madness?
MM: Not necessarily. I love the 1890’s because it was a huge cultural change for a lot of people. Technology was moving forward in leaps and bounds, medicine was changing, schools of thought across the board were morphing constantly. There was a lot of quiet upheaval going on, which relates well to the book.
B: Are there any awesome trivia facts or anecdotes about the writing and creation of Madness (I recently read that you wrote it in three weeks!)?
MM: Ha! Yeah, I did write the majority of it (probably 90%) in three weeks. I was confused about when my deadline was, and writerare better at procrastinating than actually writing. So… that was interesting. I don’t recommend it, although I was immersed in the world.
B: What did you find the most challenging about writing a historical fiction piece?
MM: I researched for an entire year before writing a word of this book. There was much to learn – the beginnings of criminal psychology, the history of asylum medicine (both the good and the bad), and of course historical details in general. What kind of lighting would be in a room in 1890? What would an asylum inmate be wearing? I’m very particular, and there were days when I couldn’t finish a sentence without doing half an hour of research in order to make sure I got it (hopefully) right.
B: The different locations throughout the book were so vivid for me! Did you have a favorite setting within the book or one that was exciting to have the characters explore?
MM: The Athens Lunatic Asylum in Ohio has an amazing history. You can do a quick Google and learn about how it’s one of the most haunted places in the world and hear horror stories about the graveyard. And while I’m a fan of the supernatural, I’m also a fan of data. That type of history doesn’t interest me, because most of it quite frankly, just isn’t true.
I toured the buildings, which are now part of the Ohio University campus. You can’t go into the patient wards for safety reasons (they are literally crumbling), but some parts of the building are currently in use as staff offices as well as an art gallery. The gallery is open to the public, and when you visit you can see original floors, staircases and woodwork from the insane asylum years. Definitely hit up my Pinterest board if you want to see some pics from my tour!
You can most definitely repost some of my pics from Pinterest, just make sure if you use any of the older ones that you use the attribution that I did, b/c some of those actually belong to University Archives.
B: Is this book the start and end of A Madness So Discreet or do you think you will revisit it somehow (novella? Companion? Inspiration for another historical novel?) at a later date?
MM: I would love to write more in this series. I have an outline for another Grace / Dr. Thornhollow adventure, but it is unsold, as of this interview. If Madness does well, that could change!
Hypable: Mindy McGinnis the Mental Gymnastics of A Madness So Discreet
Tell us five random facts about yourself.
1) I have very fat thumb pads. They’re grotesque.
2) Glitter really freaks me out. What is it made of? I don’t understand.
3) I don’t ever paint my fingernails because when I do I can feel them suffocating.
4) Much like a cat, if you raise my body temperature, I will promptly fall asleep.
5) I learned how to walk in high heels from watching Tootsie.
Which is more challenging to write — the first line, or the last line?
Oddly enough, I usually know exactly what both of those will be. It’s filling up the space in between that jams me up.
What was your initial inspiration for A Madness So Discreet?
I was reading a lot about lobotomies and I needed a place to put all that information. It’s not a socially acceptable conversational topic (I tried) so I had to go in a corner and talk to myself about it with my laptop.
What was it like to move from the post-apocalyptic-ish Not a Drop to Drink to the gothic historical fiction of A Madness So Discreet?
Surprisingly easy, yet intimidating. I read widely, and I’d like to write widely as well. The writing in Not a Drop to Drink is very spare, and I needed that to change to preserve the tone of the time period. I read a lot of Anthony Trollope to get a feel for speaking cadences and narrative in order to execute A Madness So Discreet properly.
Your protagonist, Grace, is a sane person among mad people. However, her trauma significantly complicates her psychology — how did you approach these two delicate elements of the story?
Great question! It ties into one of the major themes of the book, that we are all mad in small ways. Many of the inmates of insane asylums during this time period weren’t necessarily insane — they were simply socially unacceptable people. Every single one us has characteristics that aren’t the norm, we’ve just learned to quash them. Weaving true mental disorders into the story alongside Grace’s trauma, and comparing it to the madness in both the killer they are chasing, and the man who damaged Grace is part of the journey.
How do you go about crafting your villains and antagonists?
I let them craft themselves. They are real people in my head, so I give them the freedom to transfer to paper and they do most of the work. I’m hardly necessary.
Is there a YA book you wish you’d had growing up?
Any of the YA available to teens now would have been great. I had a darker bent as a reader even when I was young, and YA was mostly clean when I was growing up. I went from Sweet Valley to Stephen King. And I’m okay with that, but a little jumping off point would’ve been nice.
Would you rather be a book or a computer?
I’d rather be a book, because any computer will be outdated in two years :)
The Time It Was About A Madness So Discreet
1. where did the idea for a madness so discreet come from?
weirdest answer ever: i was lying in bed wondering what a lobotomy would feel like.
2. why do you love grace and why should we root for her?
because she’s a survivor, and mentally tough. we’re big on strong female characters these days, but that’s usually a literal sense. grace is strong in the quiet ways.
3. there are a lot of great characters in this story. who was the easiest to work with and who was the hardest?
grace was difficult to write because she’s a mute for most of the story. nell was the easiest because her accent just flows.
4. what was your favorite scene of the story?
anything with the girls bonding. they’re bright spots in the book and in grace’s life.
5. describe a madness so discreet in 5 words.
gothic historical thriller insane asylum
speed [ish] round:
1. you get the call/email/letter that says you’re being published for the first time. describe the next 5 minutes.
no shit – i scooped the cat’s litter pan because no one was answering the phone.
2. what three things would you take to a desert island?
three manuals on how to survive on a desert island.
3. you can only read one book for the rest of your life. what is it?
something extremely long.
4. who are your favorite swoony boys/girls?
mindy does not swoon.
5. what is the one thing about publishing you wish someone would have told you?
that your work is never finished.
6. you wake up and discover you are bella in twilight. you know how it plays out. what do you do differently? {huge thanks to bookish broads for letting me use this question!}
i’d ask for a truck that works better and head to the east coast.
10 Awesome Authors Share Their Stories on YA Open Mic
Mindy McGinnis, author of A Madness So Discreet
For many people, creativity and depression go hand in hand. Becoming a published writer has been an interesting experience in so many ways, but the most touching is meeting people who get it. I’ve never been ashamed of dealing with depression, but in writing communities I have the support of people who know that a casual “cheer up,” or teasing “get out of the wrong side of the bed today?” can do much more damage than good. If it were as simple as cheering up, believe me, I’d do it, and if I could pinpoint the cause to something such as the geographical location of where I wake up, I’d change it.
Much like the inspiration for our books or songs, most creatives can’t tell you where our depression comes from. The only source is the jumble of chemicals in our brain that mixed badly on any given day, a toxic soup we can’t easily toss out to whip up a new batch. The writing community has been invaluable to me in so many ways, both as a support group for mental illness and to help maneuver the ups and downs of a forever undulating industry that, in some ways, feeds the beast.
But in the end my creativity and depression feed off each other. So I wouldn’t trade it—or the community I’ve found.
My Friends Are Fiction: Interview with Mindy McGinnis
There is no other author I know that can wreck your heart and destroy your dreams of love as well as Mindy McGinnis. Her prior novels, Not a Drop to Drink and In a Handful of Dust are gripping, raw and heartbreaking. With these companion novels, Mindy created a world lacking in water and characters that epitomized survival. These two novels were startling and terrifying because of the ease in which the reader can visualize and imagine our (not so distant) future without access to water.
Next month Mindy will be venturing into a new genre, a historical thriller, with her novel: A Madness So Discreet. I’m beyond excited to read this…check out this little tidbit from the summary on Goodreads:
“In this beautifully twisted historical thriller, Mindy McGinnis, explores the fine line between sanity and insanity, good and evil—and the madness that exists in all of us.”
Today I am honored to have Mindy here to answer questions about her books and give us some insight into what we can expect with A Madness So Discreet
INTERVIEW
I was incredibly impressed with the depth you went into with portraying how life would be in a world with little water in Not a Drop to Drink and In a Handful of Dust. You explained water purifying techniques and dowsing for water as well as firing rifles and traveling miles over land. What type of research did you do to learn so much about these subjects and to approach them so realistically?
The honest answer is that a lot of those things were just part of my childhood. I live in an extremely rural area, and I grew up knowing how to handle firearms safely. When someone was getting ready to build a house, you called a dowser to see if there was a legitimate water source to tap into. It’s just how we live. The purifying techniques involved in both DRINK & DUST were definitely research based. I strive for realism. The method from DRINK involving plastic water bottles and exposure to the sun is called the SODIS method. You can read more about how it works in the paperback of DRINK, which has an essay from me in the extra content about the science behind it.
Did you experiment with any of the survival techniques you wrote about?
I do garden and can a lot of my own food, so that’s all speaking from experience. I also own a pond, but I’ve never drank from it, SODIS method or not. But if I HAD to – of course. And as a matter of principle I always inform people that I’ve never shot anyone. I think that’s an important baseline to establish.
From the summary your next novel looks to focus on mental illness and criminal psychology. I can’t tell you how excited I am to see you explore both of these topics. Can you tell us a bit more than the summary provides us about your story?
Sure! I’m very excited to get A MADNESS SO DISCREET out to my readers. My main character, Grace, has been a victim of abuse in her home, and is pregnant as a result. She’s from a wealthy, politically influential Boston family, so it has to be swept under the rug. In the Victorian era, inconvenient pregnancies were sometimes handled by sending the girl into an insane asylum until the delivery of the baby, explaining away their absence by saying they were abroad. This is Grace’s fate.
She’s been cursed with an eye for detail and infallible memory, along with a mother who won’t listen to the truth. When we meet Grace she’s a selective mute in the asylum, having given up on language after it failed her. Asylum conditions are… pretty horrible. Grace loses her child, finds her voice in a burst of violence that lands her in the darkest corners of the asylum, and there meets a young doctor who spots her talent, knowing it will be influential to him as he moves into a new career dabbling in criminal psychology (criminal profiling).
He helps her escape the asylum, and effectively removes her from the reach of her father. But faking insanity in order to live as an inmate at the Ohio asylum where the doctor works takes a toll, and she starts to question how much of her act is a farce. Combined with dark nights chasing killers – and one in particular who is targeting young women – Grace has to struggle with the fact that the life she’s escaped to isn’t exactly beautiful… and she kind of likes it that way.
Could you tell us a bit about the research you did about the asylum that helped inspire your setting, Athens Lunatic Asylum? As an aside- you MUST check out Mindy’s Pintrest board here.
I researched for an entire year before writing a word of this book. There was much to learn – the beginnings of criminal psychology, the history of asylum medicine (both the good and the bad), and of course historical details in general. What kind of lighting would be in a room in 1890? What would an asylum inmate be wearing? I’m very particular, and there were days when I couldn’t finish a sentence without doing half an hour of research in order to make sure I got it (hopefully) right.
The specific setting – the Athens Lunatic Asylum in Ohio – has an amazing history. You can do a quick Google and learn about how it’s one of the most haunted places in the world and hear horror stories about the graveyard. And while I’m a fan of the supernatural, I’m also a fan of data. That type of history doesn’t interest me, because most of it quite frankly, just isn’t true.
The Athens asylum was actually an amazing model of humane treatment for the insane. If you were crazy (or just unlucky enough to be deemed so) in 1890, it was a good place to land. One of my best resources for the history of the asylum was Asylum On The Hill: History of A Healing Landscape, by Katherine Ziff. If you’d like to learn more about the actual history of the Athens Lunatic Asylum give it a shot.
I also toured the buildings, which are now part of the Ohio University campus. You can’t go into the patient wards for safety reasons (they are literally crumbling), but some parts of the building are currently in use as staff offices as well as an art gallery. The gallery is open to the public, and when you visit you can see original floors, staircases and woodwork from the insane asylum years. Definitely hit up my Pinterest board if you want to see some pics from my tour!
You can most definitely repost some of my pics from Pinterest, just make sure if you use any of the older ones that you use the attribution that I did, b/c some of those actually belong to University Archives.
Grace Mae, your main character, is battling with mental illness- did this make it more difficult to write her character?
Ha – no. It made her much, much easier to write than a person with no issues at all. Those people don’t exist.
Criminal psychology is a fascinating practice- how has it changed over the years and what resources did you use to incorporate it into your story?
What’s interesting is how some things have changed – and some really haven’t at all. Methods of crime can change, but motivations essentially don’t. We’re just as human now as we were in 1890. Some of the crime solving methods from back then were incredibly spot on even today, while others are just not. And just like today, people argued within their own fields about what was and was not accurate. Phrenology, for example is something that comes up in the book.
Do you listen to music while your write or for mood setting inspiration? If so what type of music did you listen to while plotting/writing A Madness So Discreet?
I usually don’t, although sometimes that can change from book to book while I’m writing. With MADNESS I definitely did not. I had to be very conscientious of every detail while writing this book. There was no “flow” with this one. It was work. Every word. No room for distractions.
You wrote your prior books in third person, is AMSD also in third person?
It is. I don’t plan my books at all, so I don’t walk into any book knowing how it will be narrated. I just let the first line happen, and that usually dictates person and tense.
Is A Madness So Discreet a standalone, series or will there perhaps be a companion novel?
As of right now it is a standalone. But I’m alarmingly ready to revisit this dark nasty world.
Can you tell us anything about what you’re working on next?
I do have a book coming from Katherine Tegen in 2016. It is a dark contemporary… and guess what? It’s a multiple POV in first person