#hot key books
Ivory Key by Akshaya Raman
Thank you @hotkeybooksya for sending me a copy of the book!
I was very excited to read this YA novel, an Indian-inspired story (it’s going to be duology actually), set in a land where magic, a prized resource, is the only thing between peace and war. When magic runs out, four estranged royal siblings must find a new source before their country is swallowed by invading forces.
At a personal level, it is always great to see how the YA community is growing, creating a space for rich and diverse stories from different communities and cultures. To see not only a small ‘italicised’ mention of a familiar word or a phrase, but a whole book (duology eventually) be that immersive, from the characters names, backgrounds, clothing, foods etc. made me very happy.
It’s took me a while to get fully immersed into the story, as all the different characters were introduced and the plot was set up, but once it kicked off, I found myself yelling at the characters, ‘omg please just talk to each other’ and when they did I was cheering for them saying, ‘see this is why communication is key!!’ There we’re a lot of twists and turns, and it was a fun experience to watch it all unfold!
Riya and Kaleb were probably my favourite characters, and I am looking forward to reading the next book to see where they go next!
Forobviousreasons, I think Katie Coyle is effing fabulous. Her debut novel, Vivian Versus the Apocalypse, is unsurprisingly fantastic. A winner of Hot Key Books’ Young Writers Prize, this book is clever, accessible, thrilling, and refreshing.
For those of you who aren’t in-the-know, Vivian Versus the Apocalypse is set in an alternate modern America, where the ultraconservative and super-powerful Church of America predicts that their most hardcore Believers will be raptured in six months. We meet our lead Vivian Apple the night before the Rapture, at a mock pre-Rapture party thrown by her fellow non-Believer best friend Harpreet Janda. The next morning Vivian’s parents are missing and there are two holes in the ceiling and society goes batshit crazy (because we totally would). This leads Vivian to embark on an epic road trip with Harp and a handsome blue-eyed stranger to find out what really happened to Vivian’s parents and the thousands of other Believers who disappeared, while the world around them seizes with panic and zeal.
This book isn’t the end for Vivian either. A US edition, titled Vivian Apple Versus the World, will be released in 2015, and Coyle is working on a sequel. Bless her lovely brain.
1.) First of all, how and when did this marvelous book come about? Was it plot first, character first, imagery first, theme first?
I first started writing Vivian as a short story a few years ago, around the time of the last widely publicized Rapture prediction. I hadn’t paid much attention to it, but the morning after the Rapture didn’t happen, my husband handed me the newspaper article he was reading and said, “This sounds like one of your stories.” The article was a slightly jokey story about a family of about five—the parents believed that the Rapture was coming and the kids, who were all teenagers, didn’t. I don’t really remember much besides that, except that the youngest child noted that the weirdest thing about the situation was that his parents didn’t make him do his homework anymore, because they thought the world was about the end and he was about to end with it. It was a totally bizarre story but I was so struck by that detail—how shocking and strange it would be to force yourself to grow up under those circumstances, where your parents are convinced you’re not going to get the chance to grow up. I had written basically the first chapter of the book under the assumption that it was a short story, and it was only after I got to the final image—of Vivian seeing the holes in her parents’ ceiling, through which they’ve presumably ascended—that I realized it was going to be much bigger than I’d anticipated.
2.) And that’s one of the most marvelous and anxiety-producing realizations a writer can experience haha. So Vivian and Harp are both unquestionable badasses. I LOVE their relationship. They begin from very different places socially and they have such a strong, complex bond. Vivian was somewhat timid, obedient, a “good girl,” while Harp was comparatively wild, “boy-crazy,” disobedient (and hilarious). Their dynamic was so refreshing to me, because Harp was a truly valuable, three-dimensional character, instead of the magical person-of-color sidekick or the comic relief “slutty” girl. Also, Vivian’s love for Harp didn’t stop her from feeling alienated by her lack of Harp-like wildness, and that was intertwined with her lack of desire to be like her former Believer friends. So I have two questions about them. 1: When you were their age, were you more like Vivian or Harp? 2: Can you imagine what the story would be like if Harp was the lead?
I’m so thrilled you love their relationship! The Viv/Harp dynamic is the most important aspect of the book for me. I wanted the central love story to be the love between them, as opposed to their relationships with the boys in their lives.
I was totally Vivian as a teen, and I felt at the time like I was surrounded by Harps—all my friends seemed so much brighter and bolder and more vibrantly alive than I felt, although I have a feeling they probably felt the same way I did. I think I’m still trying to become the person Vivian does over the course of the story—a little closer to Harp’s total lack of fear than she started.
That’s such an interesting puzzle, imagining Harp as the lead and Vivian as the best friend! I don’t know that the arc would change that drastically, although it would go somewhat in reverse—Vivian’s story is about pushing yourself to be a little braver and work a little harder to do what’s right, even when it’s easier to lie down and let life happen to you. Harp’s is more a story about letting yourself be vulnerable, letting the people who love you in when you need them, when you’re in pain. Hopefully both those threads are visible in the novel, but Vivian’s was definitely the one that came across to me as more dynamic, plot-wise.
3.) Vivian goes from being passive to active because she wants the truth, and along the way she learns that being obedient isn’t necessarily being a good person, among other things. In the beginning she prays, “Dear Universe, make me the hero of my own story.” LOVE that line! I was so into how Vivian becomes exactly what the Church of America doesn’t want women to be. They want women to be obedient bit players–supporting characters at best. This is just one aspect of the excellent social commentary in the story. Did you find it difficult to deftly weave so many serious, complicated social critiques in the story, or did they mostly come about organically? I mean, you’re addressing religion, corporate capitalism, sexism, cults and radical political movements, homophobia, and youth politics while retaining some nuance and avoiding overt cynicism. Quite a feat, considering you didn’t let it slow down the pace or pollute the plot.
Well, I’m really glad you think so! When I started writing the book, I definitely never had the conscious thought, “Oh, this will a young adult novel that will also be a radical feminist anti-capitalist tract.” And throughout the writing of the first draft, I was only ever trying to get from Point A to Point B plot-wise. The social commentary is just what seeped in once I started writing around the margins of the things that are important to me. I’m not a particularly nuanced political thinker; mostly I just believe that people are people regardless of gender, race, class, or sexuality, and the authorities that make them feel like less than people—laws, the more archaic bits of the Bible, advertising—are things that need to be aggressively questioned/destroyed. And it was important to me that Vivian be a Girl Who Does Stuff—I’m always annoyed by passive female characters, especially passive female main characters, which I think happens all too often. So for the Church of America to have such a specific idea of what women can and should be capable of, and for that idea to be a limited one—as has historically been the case in many religions, and which persists today—means that Vivian doesn’t just have personal, internal reasons for wanting to become her own person, but external pressures as well.
4.) She is most definitely a Girl Who Does Stuff! So the worldbuilding in VvtA was subtle and truly immersive. I could easily believe that a church of that magnitude run by a couple of charismatic douchebags could gain fame with violently patriarchal messages and spread through various upper echelons of power. Would you consider VvtA to be dystopian fantasy, or literary satire, or do you think labels are meant to make love and have beautiful book babies?
Oh man, Vivian definitely falls into some weird hybrid of genres. I wanted to play around in the realm of dystopia, because I’m a big fan of it as a genre, and very interested in the way it’s surged in popularity for young adults over the last few years. I’ve read a lot of YA dystopia of late and been frustrated by some of it—it always seems to me like the dark future societies a few of these books describe, while interesting, would just never happen. People would never let them happen. So it was sort of a fun challenge to imagine what a feasible dystopia would look like at this point in time.
ButVivian definitely has elements of satire, too, and I tried to plot it as a mystery—I started with the question “Where have Vivian’s parents gone?” and let that lead to a number of additional questions. Plus it’s a road trip novel, plus it’s a romance, plus it’s a radical feminist anti-capitalist tract, plus it’s got that big musical number. (Note: there is no musical number; it is a book.) So I hesitate to label it as anything in particular.
5.) Speaking of dystopians, I have another two-part question. 1: What are your favorite dystopian novels? 2: Have you ever read any utopian fiction? If so, what are you favorites?
Yes! I’ve read a bunch of both at this point—one of my favorite classes in my MFA program was on dystopian and utopian fiction, and that introduced me to a lot of great works. My favorite dystopian novel is, by far, The Handmaid’s Tale, which is just one of the best-written and most chilling books I’ve ever read. I also love The Hunger Games andNever Let Me Go. No one really writes utopian novels anymore, but the one I liked the most was Marge Piercy’s Women at the Edge of Time—it’s sort of like Slaughterhouse-fiveandOne Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest had a feminist utopian baby. I also loved Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland, which among other things, boasts a hilariously accurate early 20th century depiction of dumb bros.
6.) So let’s dish about Peter. SO DREAMY. I almost stopped reading to applaud how you handled Peter’s re-entry into the story. After that faux-Rapture party in the beginning, I knew he’d be back, and I was oh-so satisfied with how and when he did. Did you know he would re-enter Vivian’s life all along or did you figure that out as you got further along? By the way, you have my highest compliments for pulling off a love story without allowing it to get too cheesy or overwhelm the major plot.
Hooray! I knew that Peter would re-enter the book, because I wanted Vivian to have someone to make out with. I don’t think romance is an integral part of YA fiction or even life for a lot of people, but that underlying yearning that Vivian feels for Peter throughout the book is a big part of what I remember about being seventeen. The main difference is that I had no impending apocalypse spurring me to take the lead and make out with boys. It was important to me, also, that the person Vivian makes out with would be a person who is attracted to Vivian when she is at her most outspoken and rebellious, rather than someone who saw her face from across a room and had to have her.
It makes me so glad when readers find Peter dreamy because I basically took all my favorite parts of my husband and constructed a fictional teenage boy out of them. It really feels like anyone responding well to Peter is just validating my own good taste.
7.) Were you ever concerned by conservative Christian reader reactions? Particularly parents, considering that the book is YA. Even though the Church of America is entirely fictional and the situation is dystopian, I can imagine some far-right readers taking offense to the PG-13 content (underage drinking, a little recreational drug use, implied sex, off-page violent deaths, a violent attack) and the various critiques of certain ideals. (Personally I think this book is fine for the 13-and-up crowd, but I’m not a politically-far-right religious parent.)
I was definitely aware in writing the book that it isn’t for everyone—the PG-13 content and the social commentary more or less guarantees that ultra-conservative Christian parents are whatever the opposite of a target group is for me. I was trying to stay true to what would have appealed to me as a cynical, goofy 17-year-old (and as a cynical, goofy 27-year-old), and so I didn’t purposely pull any punches when it came to depicting Vivian and Harp’s lives or beliefs. It is important to me, though, that religious readers don’t take the fact that Vivian’s antagonist is a church as a sweeping condemnation of religion itself. I know and love plenty of very spiritual people, and I fully support their freedom to believe in anything at all. I start to get a little itchy at the point that someone’s beliefs encroaches on someone else’s right to live a reasonable life, and that’s the space in which I hope Vivian makes the points I want it to make.
8.) Movie fantasy time! If you could write and cast a film adaptation of Vivian Versus the Apocalypse/Vivian Apple Versus the World, who would play whom? (If you can’t think of a particular actor for a character, you could suggest a type, like “fresh-faced/well-known” or “someone with a Broadway background,” etc.)
THIS IS MY FAVORITE QUESTION OF ALL TIME. I would love to see Vivian played by Hailee SteinfeldfromTrue Grit, who absolutely blew me away in that movie: she is just the right combination of tough, tender, and uncertain that I think is key to Vivian’s character. I saw the movie Mud last year right around the time I was finishing up revisions, and I could totally see the star of that, Tye Sheridan, as Peter. If Ty Sheridan is busy, I would like Harry Styles to step in. Not because I think he’s particularly right for the part, just because he’s a dreamboat. I can’t, off the top of my head, think of any prominent teenage Indian-American actresses, so Harp would have to be some baller sasscat of an unknown. Also I included a character in the book (Vivian’s favorite teacher, Wambaugh) specifically so that if the book was adapted into a movie, Amy Poehler could play her. I think she’d do a really good job as Wambaugh, but also I’d really just like to hang out with Amy Poehler.
9.) I love all of those answers but especially the incomparable Amy Poehler. She would be the perfect Wambaugh. Finally, I must say that I was tickled pink when I read your post about the pending Vivian sequel. Congratulations! Could you whet our whistles with any more details about that? Primarily, will this sequel be the final Vivian novel or do you suspect this may become a full-on trilogy/series?
I am finally at the point where I’m writing a bit of the sequel every day, and I’m really excited about where it’s headed. I’ve always seen the story as being a duology, which means the sequel will tell the end of Vivian’s story as far as I’m concerned. So far, I would say the second book is about Vivian learning how to come to terms with everything she learned in the first book about her family, her society, and herself—it’s a new world for her, and she’s trying to figure out her own place in it. There is also a lot more Harp, a lot more kissing, and even more biblical puns! I’m very happy with it so far, and I hope fans of Vivian Versus the Apocalypse will like it, too.
Conversation by Dawn WestandKatie Coyle.
