By the Book: Sarah Rees Brennan Is Ireland’s Fantasy Darling

Sarah Rees Brennan is no stranger to the publishing world. The Irish author made her debut in 2009 and quickly gained a loyal following for her young adult fantasy series.

While she has steadily been working in that field, her latest book has taken her on a brand new adventure. For the first time, she’s writing books for adults.

Long Live Evil is surely in some ways autobiographical, as it follows a sick woman who escapes into books. Sarah herself is a cancer survivor after being diagnosed in 2o17 with stage 4 Hodgkins Lymphoma.

We sat down with Sarah to chat about her long legacy and her latest moves in the book industry.

 

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Hi Sarah! How are you? Tell us a bit about, Long Live Evil.

I’m grand thank you, and yourself?

My new book is about a dying young woman who finds comfort in her favourite fantasy novel—and her favourite character. She’s given a chance to live by stepping into that dangerous fantasy world, where she wakes up in a palace on the edge of an abyss to find out she’s a villain due to be executed by that same favourite character. But hey, villains have all the best one-liners and outfits. She rounds up all the villains of the book to form a team and change their fate. The book is about loving stories and escaping into them, the fun you can have with them and the way you find hope, friends and yourself in them.

What’s the first thing you do when you sit down to write?

I read back over what I wrote previously, and I wonder why evil goblins have replaced my scenes with worse versions of the shining, perfect scenes I painstakingly constructed before. Then I wonder if I can somehow bribe or threaten these evil goblins into writing more scenes in the future… why do the evil goblins only rewrite… surely the evil goblins and I can come to some arrangement?

What is that childhood book that you still think about to this day?

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. A hilarious adventure that combines fairytales and portal fantasies and the most prevailing story of all–false beliefs about yourself and others.

Who are three authors that inspire you?

Leigh Bardugo, who reinvents herself and genre with almost every book – high fantasy, horror, most recently the richly imaginative historical novel The Familiar. Everyone says to brand yourself, but she knows people will follow her because she’s just that good.

Holly Black, who is a genius with story—balancing it, making it the perfect version of itself, and always learning. I always know her next book will be my new favourite of hers.

Anthony Trollope. For the time management, among other things! He wrote around his career as a postal clerk. He also invented the postbox during his day job. A man whose productivity fills me with awe!

What’s a book that you’ll never forget?

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, honestly. I read it for the first time when I was seven. I didn’t even understand most of it, I only knew it was funny. I just sat on the roof of a shed reading it and giggling at how sharp it was, and not knowing that it would fundamentally change the way I read, and how its keen observations would change how I saw people in my life.

Who is the favourite character you’ve written?

It’s always changing, because characters are both people you’ve built from the ground up and shards of fun-house mirrors of your own soul. Today I think I’ll pick Key of Long Live Evil – he’s an exploration of the kind of villainous rogue you see in stories—mad, bad and fun to read about but dangerous to know. He’s almost always having a great time, he’s excited to be part of an adventure, and I want my readers to feel that way too. He’s all the joy of wickedness, and in many ways, he’s the key to the whole story. (Funnily enough, I didn’t know he was when I called him that.)

If you could go into a book universe, which would it be?

I would not go into a book universe. It’s dangerous in there! Horror, evil magic, murder mystery. There are so many worlds I’d love to see – Cair Paravel in Narnia, the land of Rohan in Middle Earth. But I am, in true villainous fashion, a weasel coward.

What is the best advice you’ve ever been given?

‘Don’t believe in yourself, and do it anyway.’ At the time I got that advice, I didn’t understand it—often the way with the best advice–because believing in yourself is so important! But then I got seriously ill, and my writing fell off a cliff, and it felt like the world forgot me, and I forgot myself too. I couldn’t muster up any belief in myself. But I still loved stories. I still wanted to write. So it really did help to just say ‘It’s obviously doomed, but let me try anyway. Let me love the attempt.’

 

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Is there a book you wish you could read again for the first time?

I actually have an Amnesia List of books I want to read again for the first time, if I ever get that convenient amnesia that leaves you only interesting blank spaces that need to be filled in. (This kind of amnesia mostly just happens in books… as I discuss in Long Live Evil, where my protagonist pretends to have it. ‘Oh no—who am I… and who are you, handsome man?’)

I believe stories shape us into who we are, though, so the me who wakes up and hasn’t read Pride and Prejudice might be an entirely different person…

Forget dinner party guests, what are the three books that define you?

… Which cues me up for our next question. There are many books that define me, I’m a kaleidoscope of story—I’ll leave out the ones I’ve already mentioned.

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. The first story I ever read that showed sympathy for the monster, and let us see what we only got glimpses of before in Carmilla or Frankenstein, what the monster feels about their situation. ‘Evil is a point of view’ is a quote from that book that I used to have on my wall. It also introduced me to the concept of the unreliable narrator—the sequel makes the antagonist of the first book the star of the show, and reflects so well that our truth isn’t the truth those around us believe in. What more can you ask of a book than to let us empathise with others, and accept and forgive the dark parts of ourselves?

Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett. A fantasy author who was both hilarious and sincere, wanting to entertain and wanting to share their thoughts and rage about an unjust world. Wyrd Sisters wasn’t the first book of his I read and it’s not my favourite, but it was the first I loved. And it was the first book I read where I saw the writer consciously weave another story (Shakespeare’s Macbeth) into the tapestry of his own, so both stories were changed. As I always want to be in conversation with other stories, and I always want to be doing something different than anybody has ever done before, that was an inspiration.

I truly can’t pick just one more. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. Vanity Fair by William Thackeray. The Princess Bride by William Goldman. She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan. The Once and Future King by T.H. White, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab. I know this is cheating, but hey, I didn’t write a book called Long Live Playing Fair.

What is your most prized possession – book-wise or otherwise?

Book-wise, I have a set of first edition Charles Dickens my grandma left me, because I was the reader! I was pretty young when she died, so I just went ‘sweet, books’ and tried to read A Tale of Two Cities in the bath. The absolute horror of my parents!

Do you read reviews?

If I’m feeling mentally and emotionally prepared to do so, which isn’t always! I don’t read 1 or 2 star reviews ever, because I think they’re always either ‘whoa, this writer is not for me’ or ‘whoa, I thought I’d be reading an entirely different book, this sucks!’ and there’s nothing you can do about either of those. I remember reading one 3-star review that said ‘Honestly, not her best’ and I went, ‘Honestly, that’s fair.’ I recently read a review that talked about something I hadn’t done consciously, and it let me think about doing it consciously next time, and I hope to do it better. I’m so pleased they noticed because it meant I noticed too! Reviewers are people invested in story, so they’re my kind of people.

But! Any help the content of reviews might give me are incidental: the content of reviews aren’t for writers, they’re for readers to tell them what’s up. The fact the reviews exist at all are a benefit to and a favour for writers. Even the 1 and 2 stars are a favour, even though I know I won’t think so if I read them!

What is your favourite genre to read? Is it the same one you write?

I like to read all genres… I do love fantasy, obviously, and the classics, and books that should be classics. I love romance—I was sniffy about it until I read Loretta Chase’s historical romance Lord of Scoundrels and Jenny Crusie’s contemporary romance Bet Me (both funny and sincere, which is always my jam, both obviously on the Amnesia List). I love horror always, Stephen King inspires me to make others feel things as much as his work terrifies me!

Reading non-fiction is a great brain-reset, reminding you of how odd the real world actually is, and how we’re all fictional characters to each other really—so much of what we think about other people is just our imagination. So much of what we think about ourselves is, too. Carmen Maria Machado’s In The Dream House is a remarkable memoir that reflects this, but every autobiography and biography does. I remember watching the musical Hamilton with friends, then we met up the next week, and I said, ‘Of course as soon as I went home I read the biography by Ron Chernow, and there was a whole bit where Hamilton’s rival Burr’s daughter was kidnapped by pirates and he tried to become King of Mexico they left out! Imagine having such an exciting life that pirates gets left out of the musical. What was your favourite part?’ And they all went… okay Sarah, nobody else rushed home and read the 800-page biography, what is wrong with you? I just love stories, is all! Reading makes you a better writer – it gives you more material to put in the crucible of your mind, and then inside the crucible it’s transformed and comes out as art.

Where do you get your inspiration?

Luckily Ireland is a land of scholars, so if you go through Sally Rooney or Louise O’Neill’s bins, you’re set for life! No, I’m just kidding. There are actually loads of Irish writers bins to go through… Ruth Long, Sarah Maria Griffin, Deirdre Sullivan, Liz Nugent, Peadar O’Guilin, Oisin McGann, Eoin Colfer, Roddy Doyle, Sam Blake, the list is endless, an embarrassment of riches situation really…

There are so many ways to get material to put in the crucible for art. I love to travel: I went to visit my best friend who lives in Italy and we visited Ischia, and Castle Aragonese, the castle up on high there with its horrifying secrets underground inspired the Palace on the Edge in my new novel. I love to hear a stray comment from someone and have it transform my life and work forever.

Inspiration is in everything around us. Especially other writers’ bins.

Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan is out now

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