November 12, 2008Nuts & Bolts resumes with author Cherie Priest, whose EdenMooretrilogy has earned her considerable acclaim. (She also occasionally reviews for PW.) I asked her about her forthcoming standalone novel Fathom, which our reviewer described as "equal parts horror, contemporary fantasy and apocalyptic thriller".
Genreville: Where did you get the idea for the book, and what attracted you to that idea?
Cherie Priest: At the risk of sounding impossibly hokey, I got it from a dream. At spring break of my senior year of college, I went with some friends to Anna Maria Island in Florida, where we stayed in a ramshackle 19th century house called "Coyne Cottage." And down the street, a few blocks away, there was an abandoned house on an enormous lot--right at the edge of high tide. It was a beautiful old place, built sometime in the early 1920s and so far as anyone knew, no one had ever lived there. The record will reflect that I have a deep-seated weakness for empty, abandoned places; and the house stuck with me long after it was torn down (last time I visited the island, it was gone).
But anyway, years ago I had a dream about that house--and about a sentient statue that was pulled from the ocean and left in the courtyard. The dream was very surreal and intense, and I spent ages trying to write a novel around it. The end result, of course, was Fathom.
GV: What challenges did you face while writing, pitching, and promoting it?
CP: Fathom has absolutely been my most challenging project yet. It was actually bought by Tor as part of a two-book unrelated follow-up to the Eden Moore series, but the draft was old and I wasn't content with the story as it stood. As I said, I first got the idea for this book nearly a decade ago--and in the intervening time, Fathom went through seven different drafts. Finally, with the help of a very good editor, Liz Gorinsky, we came up with a story that worked.
However, it's been a difficult book to talk about. There's no quick, ten-words-or-less synopsis that really works for it, so I feel like I can only discuss it in fragments. I could say, "It's a fantasy about a young woman who's turned to stone," or "It's a horror story about an ancient monster who wants to destroy the world." I could even say, "It's a revenge fable about an old god who was treated injustly." And all of that would be true. But I've always had trouble boiling the story down to its essence. I guess if you held a gun to my head I'd say that it's a mythic allegory of reckless self-interest... but that doesn't exactly "pop" for the cover quote, does it?
Even so, the initial reactions to Fathom have been quite positive. In December, Fathom will be the selection for the Barnes & Noble Online Paranormal Fantasy Book Club, thanks to Paul Goat Allen; and the early reviews have been nothing short of glowing. I'm relieved and quite honored, really. I'm glad that people are plugging into this book, because it's absolutely the most difficult thing I've ever written to date.
GV: How did it inspire or discourage you? How is that experience affecting your current and future projects?
CP: Although Fathom hasn't been the easiest project, in the long run it's been a real confidence builder. It took me so long to write it, with so many failed attempts and so much blood, sweat, and tears between the first draft and the finished project, that now I feel like I've climbed a mountain. Despite the fact that I sometimes wanted to throw it against a wall and move on to something easier, I'm glad I didn't. I'm proud of the end result, and I think that if I'd never managed to produce it, this story would've haunted me for the rest of my life.
Next week's Nuts & Bolts will feature illustrator David Palumbo discussing his beautiful cover art for Harry Turtledove's After the Downfall(Night Shade, July 2008).
Genreville: Where did you get the idea for the book, and what attracted you to that idea?