I am so incredibly delighted and honored to be a part of the blog tour for
Plus One. I've been yammering on and on about this book since I read it back in November, and I'm so excited that it's release is finally (almost!) here so that you guys can experience this gorgeous book, too! For my stop on the tour, I've got a little Q&A with Elizabeth Fama for your reading pleasure. And don't forget to check out the giveaway at the end of the post, too!
Jen: First off, Beth, I think everyone wants to marry that cover. It's gorgeous and fabulous and will likely draw so many readers to your novel. We've discussed how this cover came to be at length, but for those who weren't privy to that conversation, would you mind sharing how you ended up with this cover? How long it took, covers you submitted yourself for consideration, what you think of the final cover, etc.
Elizabeth: The cover is so riveting, even in tiny thumbnails. Big thanks to Elizabeth H. Clark at Macmillan. I'm hoping that because of her vision the book will fly off shelves (both library and bookstore). It also manages the trick of being a kissing cover that doesn't seem like a kissing cover--and I think that's because it captures the feeling of an illustration.
Speaking of illustration...anyone who knows me knows that I'm a huge fan of illustrated covers. I have no idea why we're putting stock photos on young-adult book jackets when there are phenomenal artists and artsy photographers out there hungry for work. And so, early in the editing process, my daughter submitted a painting to "audition" for the cover. She does this for every book of mine, and someday she'll succeed. (Actually, at the age of twelve she did create the cover for my first novel,
Overboard. But that's a story in itself.) This is the scene Sally chose to paint, when Gigi shows her tattoo to Sol:
Macmillan considered it, but unfortunately this wasn't the direction they wanted to go.
My ARC cover was an early, rejected design, which they used as a placeholder to give the design team time to figure out what their approach would be. My editor said they had several false starts because it's hard to capture the essence of the book in one image: Alternate history? Thriller? Romance? Family drama? Political drama?
As the months dragged on, my son got impatient with how long it was taking, and he came up with his own concept, which I forwarded to my editor. This is a mock-up only, that he threw together in literally an hour (just to show the idea), but I love it that he chose to use the murmuration of starlings--one of my favorite scenes in the book--as the basis for his illustration:
It's a bit like a gentler version of Chuck Wendig's
Blackbirds cover (a fantastic Angry Robot cover). But Eric's idea was also rejected. In the end, the staff at Macmillan agreed that the romance was the most compelling aspect of the story for them--the thing they thought about long after the book was closed--and they decided to go that route.
Jen: The murmuration was one of my favorite scenes, too! I loved both of these ideas when you first showed them to me, and I love them still, but if they couldn't be used, I'm glad for the beautiful cover that they
did end up using. I think it captures what's inside the book
brilliantly.
Speaking of brilliance, what was your inspiration for this story? Is it a sort of retelling? Where did the idea for
Plus One come from? When I hear "plus one", I automatically think of an RSVP, but what importance does the phrase have with regards to your story?
Elizabeth: Some people have mentioned a fairy tale called
The Day Boy and the Night Girl, which I had never heard of before (and I still haven't read). I think of the world of
Plus One as a metaphor--an allegory about separate never being equal.
As with many of my ideas, the inspiration for the story started with a daydream and a lot of questions. My daughter's friend had back surgery late in the day, and she was told she could visit him when he got out of recovery at 10 PM. We flew up Lake Shore Drive--all the lights were timed, the roads were empty--and got there in about thirteen minutes when it would have taken thirty-five during the day. As my daughter popped up to see her friend, I waited in the car outside--it was dark and peaceful and the street was empty--and wondered, "Why do we all try to live on the same schedule? Why don't we stagger the time of day that we live and work, to spread the resources around the clock? Then I thought, "What if we
had to live at alternate times? What would life be like if you lived in the dark? How would it be enforced? Who would choose your assignment? Would one group fare better? Could there be health consequences?" And of course my mind moved to the political and social analogies in our real world, which became the most important focus of the book.
In the book, the phrase "Plus One" refers to the permission some health care workers have to transport patients beyond curfew. And you're right, the phrase is borrowed terminology from an RSVP. But "Plus One" took on a more personal meaning as I wrote. When Sol realizes in the hospital that she can't bring herself to say D'Arcy's name (which really means she refuses to humanize him in her own mind) she blurts out "Day Boy" instead, and D'Arcy understands immediately, in that astute way he has. Out of principle he holds back her name as well, calling her "Plus One." A few early readers have called these phrases "nicknames," which isn't how I think of them. For me they represent an inability to acknowledge the other person fully. Later, when Sol whispers his name in her head, and he uses her name aloud for the first time, I hoped you'd see that they've each grown to respect the other as a person.
Jen: And that's exactly how I understood it, too. They couldn't bring themselves to call each other by name until they could accept each other for who and what they were to each other. And just as your inspiration started with all of those questions, my reading of
Plus One ended with them. Months later, I'm
still thinking about the book and the questions it sparked.
There are some small elements typical of a dystopian novel in your story, but this book is anything but typical. And the cover of the book makes it look like a romance novel. How would you categorize
Plus One? What (sub)genre do you think it falls under? What would you tell people to entice them to read it?
Elizabeth: I'm such a nerd I would tell people "It's an alternate-history thriller exploring issues of civil liberties and social justice," and they'd fall asleep before I finished. I'm sure I would have chosen a much less romantic cover, and it might have been a mistake because this jacket design is so moving and dynamic. A blogger who read this in digital format claimed that the romance doesn't start until 70% in, which is probably technically true. (Although I can't think of a more swoony scenario than two smart people who don't like each other running away from the law together...or am I weird?) Some readers have tagged it as "dystopia" on Goodreads, and I don't know enough to say whether it is or not, though I often think of dystopias as being set in the future (which
Plus One isn't). So instead I challenge people with this question: were our own United States a dystopia before the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Is the growing level of government invasiveness today (for example, monitoring phone calls in the name of protecting us, or detaining people in Guantanamo Bay indefinitely, without trial) dystopic? If your answer is yes to those questions, then I agree that
Plus One is a dystopia.
Jen: Not weird...I, too, thought that was one of the most romantic scenarios I'd ever read. I believe I tagged this one as dystopia on Goodreads, as well, but I think that was before I started an alternate-history shelf. Now I know better. Thanks for the explanation!
How did you settle on Chicago as the setting for your story? It's a pretty popular setting for dystopian novels these days, but you utilize the city in unprecedented ways in your book. What is the importance of the city to you and to your story?
Elizabeth: I was born in Chicago and have lived here my whole life, with the exception of one and a half years in Brussels, Belgium (that's the source of Poppu and the French language), and a year in L.A. So the feeling of Chicago at night is a part of my core. I see this book as a love song to the South Side, which is my favorite part of the city--gritty and slightly unmanicured, but real, and hard working. The steam tunnels and the University of Chicago came up organically, because they're a part of my young-adult life. My brother, er, spent some leisure time in the steam tunnels when he was in high school.
Jen: In your story, there are basically three different groups of people: the Rays, the Smudges, and the Noma. Would you mind elaborating on the differences between these groups and how you came up with their characteristics and different lifestyles?
Elizabeth: I'm interested that readers have talked a lot about the privilege of the Rays, but focus less on how, despite having a political edge over the Smudges (the Federal government is run by Rays),
everyone suffers from the restrictions on their freedom. The two lifestyles were hard for me to master, and I had to do a lot of imagining; there are so many ways in which you and I move fluidly between day and night without even thinking about it. The Noma are a semi-nomadic group who form loosely into tribes and are less rebels than criminals, out for themselves, and who have figured out how to straddle the Day/Night divide. Their way of dressing and talking is inspired somewhat by Alex's delinquent gang in
A Clockwork Orange. As I explored their individual characters, though, I discovered what's true of all people: there are good and bad among the Noma.
Jen: I hate to admit this, but I've never read
A Clockwork Orange. But I loved how you presented the Noma, so I'm interested to see what inspired them.
After reading both
Monstrous Beauty and
Plus One, I'm starting to gather that you're a fan of star-crossed lovers. What pulls you to this type of romance, and what makes you want to write a story about "forbidden" love?
Elizabeth: To me a book is only romantic as long as the two characters are apart! As soon as the couple gets together, you risk boring your readers...unless the lovers are separated again. The tension, the longing for them to be together, is something I like to savor.
But I want to go a level deeper and ask "Why is there love and romance at all in
Plus One if it's about personal freedom?" I wanted to get young readers wrapped up in the romantic elements precisely so that they would internalize the political and social issues. I remember once as a young kid I saw the scan of an auction notice of a slave mother, father, and child, who were sold off to different masters. It was the first time I understood on a visceral level what it meant for someone to be "property" that could be bought and sold. The fact that the simple human right of being with the people you loved--the person you were married to or had given birth to--could be superseded by an owner's property rights (in a system sanctioned by the government) became horrifically violent to me, because of seeing that one family. They made it real in a way textbook words didn't. In
Plus One I wanted to do the same thing on a smaller scale--I wanted teens to root for Sol and D'Arcy to be together, and to see how unjust and arbitrary it was that they couldn't be.
Jen: Forbidden romances like the one in
Plus One are actually my favorite type because you're exactly right: as soon as two characters get together, whether it be on a TV show or in a book, I tend to lose interest, even if the rest of the story is top notch. Keeping them apart is what drives the story for me.
One of my favorite aspects of this novel was all of the contradictions: night and day, light and dark, beauty and roughness, etc. And I loved how Sol and D'Arcy were complete opposites themselves, yet they complement each other well. What do you think each character would say the other brings out in themselves? Why did you write these two characters the way you did, with the characteristics they have?
Elizabeth: Oh, gosh, thank you so much for seeing those opposites. I love how different Sol and D'Arcy are, but how fundamentally similar--loyal to the bone and family-oriented. I love how they slowly discover it. When I began writing, Sol presented herself fully formed to me. She was angry and wounded and
fierce...and already crushing her finger in that machine (although I didn't know the name of it at the time). Some readers can't figure out why D'Arcy--studious and ambitious and rules-oriented--is drawn to helping such a loose cannon (in his own words), when he has so much to lose. For me, even before he met Sol, D'Arcy was already questioning his path--dutifully but not comfortably conforming to a system that had hurt his own family--but his loyalty to his mother and his lack of alternatives had kept him marching along the safe path. (Recall the Spanish flu virion, looming over Sol's first drawing, and how symbolic that is.) It took meeting this enigmatic, totally raw, openly hurt young woman who put one thing (love of family) above anyone's laws to make D'Arcy confront his life decisions.
Jen: Ah, that makes me think of my favorite quote from the book, where D'Arcy's explaining to Sol how her one crazy act of love left him reeling. *sigh*
All three novels you've written so far have been stand-alone stories. In the reading world, it seems like the trend is series with at least two or more books these days, so I wholeheartedly appreciate getting the whole story from you in one book. Do you set out to write stand-alone novels, or do you just see where the story takes you? I know you've contributed short stories to Tor.com set in the
Monstrous Beauty and
Plus One worlds, but would you ever consider continuing the story for those characters in the full-length novels? Would you ever consider writing a trilogy or series, or do you prefer to write only stand-alone novels?
Elizabeth: Looking back, I realize that I write standalone novels that also all have ambiguous, bittersweet endings. I think that's because the real world isn't a neat and tidy place, and I want to leave the reader ruminating about what might happen next. I like to complete a manuscript before I offer it for the first time to an editor--I've never sold on proposal--because I have a phobia about not finishing. That method of writing seems to lead me to standalones. Plus, I have no idea how to write a trilogy--that is, how to write separate stories that share one larger story arc but are complete in themselves, and what the dynamic should be between books one, two, and three. I'm in awe when an author pulls it off.
That said, I'm surprised at how stubbornly Sol and D'Arcy have not left me. And Grady Hastings is frankly pissed as hell that I'm not writing a follow-up novel (because he still has work to do). I daydream a lot about what's happening to them right now.
Jen: I love your bittersweet, open endings, though I know not everyone is a fan of such a realistic conclusion. And I'm happy to hear that Sol and D'Arcy -- and Grady! -- refuse to leave you alone.
What can we expect to see from you next? Any hints as to what you're working on now?
Elizabeth: After I finish the promotion for
Plus One I'll go back to my two current projects. One is a historical fiction novel that requires so much research it'll be years before I finish, and the other is a realistic contemporary featuring four boys, a road trip, and a dead body. I'm trying to divide my time between writing one and researching the other, but I don't multi-task well with writing. (It's true of reading, too. I've only recently trained myself, laboriously, how to read one print novel while I listen to another in audiobook.)
Jen: Those both sound
amazing. And as a fan of historical fiction, I understand that the more research that goes into the novel, the better the story, so I'll try to be patient as you work on that one. :)
Okay, now for a fun question: If you could go out for drinks with any of the characters from
Plus One, who would it be and what would you each order?
Elizabeth: Sol and D'Arcy are too young to drink, and I'm afraid of Fuzz. Ciel and Gigi are too intense. Poppu would order a hot toddy, so I'm rejecting him as a bar buddy. I'd have a margarita made with real lime juice, and I think I'd be sitting with Grady Hastings, who is drinking a beer, shouting his rhetoric at me above the din of the crowd, demanding that we change the world.
Jen: Haha, I think I'd pick Gigi...I just find her character so fascinating, and she'd probably be more so after a few drinks! (If you're curious about Gigi, you can read the
short story Beth wrote from her perspective for Tor.com...for free!)
I am seriously sooo honored to be on this tour, Beth! I just LOVED this book and I adore you, and I'm so excited to be sharing the awesomeness with everyone else!
Elizabeth: OMGosh, Jen, this was so fun!
You're the one I want to drink with at a bar! We'd gab for HOURS! (Hmm, over Prosecco?) But seriously there isn't a single reader who has made it all the way through to the end of this long post! Tell me what I should cut!
Jen: Beth probably didn't intend for me to include that last bit, but I had to because it showcases just exactly why I love her and her books so much. :) And, Beth, I couldn't cut a thing...nor would I want to. Thanks again for indulging me!
About the author:
ELIZABETH FAMA is the YA author most recently of Plus One, an alternate-history thriller set in contemporary Chicago. Her other books include Monstrous Beauty, a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults selection and an Odyssey honor winner, and Overboard, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, a society of Midland Authors honor book, and a nominee for five state awards. A graduate of the University of Chicago, where she earned a B.A. in biology and an M.B.A. and a Ph.D. in economics, she lives with (and cannot live without) her boisterous, creative family in Chicago.
Find Elizabeth:
Website | Twitter | Tumblr | Goodreads
About the book:
Title: Plus One
Author: Elizabeth Fama
Series: n/a
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux BYR
Publication Date: April 8, 2014
Purchase: Amazon |
Barnes & Noble
Divided by day and night and on the run from authorities, star-crossed young lovers unearth a sinister conspiracy in this compelling romantic thriller.
Seventeen-year-old Soleil Le Coeur is a Smudge—a night dweller prohibited by law from going out during the day. When she fakes an injury in order to get access to and kidnap her newborn niece—a day dweller, or Ray—she sets in motion a fast-paced adventure that will bring her into conflict with the powerful lawmakers who order her world, and draw her together with the boy she was destined to fall in love with, but who is also a Ray.
Set in a vivid alternate reality and peopled with complex, deeply human characters on both sides of the day-night divide, Plus One is a brilliantly imagined drama of individual liberty and civil rights, and a fast-paced romantic adventure story.
Check out my review of
Plus One here and you can view the rest of the tour schedule at the end of this post. But first, the giveaway!
finished copy of Plus One by Elizabeth Fama
Rules:
- This giveaway is US/CAN only. The author herself will be providing the prizes for this giveaway. You must confirm that you are comfortable with us sharing your personal info with the author in order for her to ship your prize out.
- One entry per household.
- Entries will be verified. Any entry found to be falsified will result in disqualification of all entries for that participant.
- Winner will be notified via email. Winner will then have 48 hours to respond before another winner will be selected. Please check your SPAM folder!!!
- We are not responsible for lost packages.
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Tour Schedule:
Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you'll check out the rest of the tour! Each stop has its own giveaway for a copy of this amazing book, plus more great content!
Friday, December 4, 2015
EVEN BETTER the Second Time Around - My Review of the PLUS ONE Audiobook by Elizabeth Fama
Author: Elizabeth Fama
Narrator(s): Julia Whelan
Series: n/a
Length: 10 hrs 3 mins
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux BYR
Publication Date: April 8, 2014
Source: gifted by author
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Audible
Disclosure: I'm friends with the author. And when she told me she was planning to have an audiobook produced for Plus One, I was ecstatic. I've been wanting to re-read this phenomenal story pretty much since the moment I first finished the book. Then she told me she was in talks with the incomparable Julia Whalen to narrate, and I was over the moon.
I've listened to many, many novels narrated by Whalen, and she never fails to impress. I've also heard her voice characters with accents, French included, and I knew she was the perfect choice for this endeavor. And I told Beth that I thought so. It's been months in the making, but the audiobook version of Plus One is now available, and when Beth offered me a copy, I couldn't say yes fast enough.
And it was everything I was hoping for and more. If I loved this book the first time I read it, I loved it even more upon my re-read via audio. The story is so lovely and heartbreaking and it can cut you to the core if you let it. But it's also a fabulous story about the human spirit and how hard it is to break.
Julia's narration of Plus One is just so on point. She just has this way of making you forget you're even listening to a book; her narration is so captivating that you can't help but become engrossed in the story. Julia's performance made this story even more beautiful than I could have imagined, most especially because Whelan's French is worlds better than my inadequate attempt to pronounce it in my head. :P But she also just embodied Sol to a degree that I couldn't have expected; she absolutely nailed the character, not that I had any doubts.
Essentially, this audiobook was pretty much perfection. OH! And Beth's own child wrote and performed a song at the conclusion of the audiobook that is just gorgeous and it absolutely captures the spirit of the story. I am just so honored to have been given the chance to listen to this amazing performance of one of my favorite novels.
Below, you'll find my thoughts from the first time I had the pleasure of reading this lovely story.
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
{Blog Tour} Overboard by Elizabeth Fama: Review & Giveaway
Welcome to my stop on the Overboard Blog Tour, hosted by Dianne of Oops! I Read a Book Again. I've got a review and giveaway for you, but be sure to check out the rest of the tour for more awesome content, including reviews from other bloggers and excerpts from the book!
Author: Elizabeth Fama
Series: stand-alone
Publisher: CreateSpace
Publication Date: June 9, 2015 (first published January 1, 2002)
Source: PB provided by author for review
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
I am a huge fan of Elizabeth Fama's after reading her dark and haunting Monstrous Beauty, and I was even further overcome by her beautiful words in Plus One. Plus, she's just an all-around awesome individual. So I was beyond excited to be given the opportunity to read her first book now that it's gone to print again.
I'm not always the biggest fan of survival accounts, but Emily's story had my heart in my throat the entire time. Initially, I found her character a tad immature and more than a little whiney, but then I remembered how I behaved at fourteen, and yeah, I would have loathed having my parents drag me to some developing country where I had no friends and little chance at a more conventional life. Plus, Emily really grows up over the course of the narrative and proves to be much more intelligent and quick-thinking than I ever was at that age.
Emily encounters a lot of situations that require her to pull from her life experience thus far, and it's her ability to think on her feet that ensures she survives to meet the next problem head-on. First and foremost, she has to make it off the sinking ferry, which is no small feat, but then she's thrown into a series of surreal episodes that would change any adult, let alone a kid of fourteen. I think her experience in the sea left her reevaluating everything, and she'll be quite a different person coming out the other side of such a tragedy.
This is not just a book about survival but also one of friendship. When we meet Emily, she feels rather desolate and longs for home. I think Beth so beautifully portrays what Emily's life is like as an American girl in a developing foreign country. After two years, she's learned the language and the customs, but she still feels like an outsider, as if she'll never fit into this life. And yet she does, without even realizing it. It's never more evident than when she meets British tourists on holiday in Sumatra, with their lack of knowledge of the local culture and the fact that they don't seem to care to know. It so obviously rubs Emily the wrong way, but she doesn't mention it.
Despite all of that, friendship presents itself in the most unlikely of scenarios, with Emily tying her life to that of a nine-year-old boy who needs her as much as she needs him to make it out of this situation alive. The fact that there is no language barrier makes it that much easier for Emily to convince Isman to let her help him. I wholeheartedly believe that if Emily was truly as unhappy in Indonesia as she believes she is in the beginning, she never would have made the effort to learn the language and she would have been much less successful out in the open sea -- much less dry land -- especially when it came to communicating with the other survivors.
I had planned to read this with my seven-year-old daughter because it sounded like such an inspirational story, and one with wonderfully diverse characters at that, but after much discussion with the author and after reading through it myself first, I decided that I'd wait a few years before letting Katie experience this fantastic book. Beth believes that this book reads younger, like a middle grade, and I'm inclined to agree, but there are still some situations that would likely give younger children nightmares, or at the very least, have them asking questions that they're maybe not quite ready for the answers to yet. But I have no doubt that when she's ready, my daughter will absolutely love this story of a heroic girl in a strange land as much as I did.
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Be sure to follow the rest of the tour here! Thanks for stopping by & happy reading!
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
{Blog Tour} Plus One by Elizabeth Fama: Interview & Giveaway
I am so incredibly delighted and honored to be a part of the blog tour for Plus One. I've been yammering on and on about this book since I read it back in November, and I'm so excited that it's release is finally (almost!) here so that you guys can experience this gorgeous book, too! For my stop on the tour, I've got a little Q&A with Elizabeth Fama for your reading pleasure. And don't forget to check out the giveaway at the end of the post, too!
Jen: First off, Beth, I think everyone wants to marry that cover. It's gorgeous and fabulous and will likely draw so many readers to your novel. We've discussed how this cover came to be at length, but for those who weren't privy to that conversation, would you mind sharing how you ended up with this cover? How long it took, covers you submitted yourself for consideration, what you think of the final cover, etc.
Elizabeth: The cover is so riveting, even in tiny thumbnails. Big thanks to Elizabeth H. Clark at Macmillan. I'm hoping that because of her vision the book will fly off shelves (both library and bookstore). It also manages the trick of being a kissing cover that doesn't seem like a kissing cover--and I think that's because it captures the feeling of an illustration.
Speaking of illustration...anyone who knows me knows that I'm a huge fan of illustrated covers. I have no idea why we're putting stock photos on young-adult book jackets when there are phenomenal artists and artsy photographers out there hungry for work. And so, early in the editing process, my daughter submitted a painting to "audition" for the cover. She does this for every book of mine, and someday she'll succeed. (Actually, at the age of twelve she did create the cover for my first novel, Overboard. But that's a story in itself.) This is the scene Sally chose to paint, when Gigi shows her tattoo to Sol:
Macmillan considered it, but unfortunately this wasn't the direction they wanted to go.
My ARC cover was an early, rejected design, which they used as a placeholder to give the design team time to figure out what their approach would be. My editor said they had several false starts because it's hard to capture the essence of the book in one image: Alternate history? Thriller? Romance? Family drama? Political drama?
As the months dragged on, my son got impatient with how long it was taking, and he came up with his own concept, which I forwarded to my editor. This is a mock-up only, that he threw together in literally an hour (just to show the idea), but I love it that he chose to use the murmuration of starlings--one of my favorite scenes in the book--as the basis for his illustration:
It's a bit like a gentler version of Chuck Wendig's Blackbirds cover (a fantastic Angry Robot cover). But Eric's idea was also rejected. In the end, the staff at Macmillan agreed that the romance was the most compelling aspect of the story for them--the thing they thought about long after the book was closed--and they decided to go that route.
Jen: The murmuration was one of my favorite scenes, too! I loved both of these ideas when you first showed them to me, and I love them still, but if they couldn't be used, I'm glad for the beautiful cover that they did end up using. I think it captures what's inside the book brilliantly.
Speaking of brilliance, what was your inspiration for this story? Is it a sort of retelling? Where did the idea for Plus One come from? When I hear "plus one", I automatically think of an RSVP, but what importance does the phrase have with regards to your story?
Elizabeth: Some people have mentioned a fairy tale called The Day Boy and the Night Girl, which I had never heard of before (and I still haven't read). I think of the world of Plus One as a metaphor--an allegory about separate never being equal.
As with many of my ideas, the inspiration for the story started with a daydream and a lot of questions. My daughter's friend had back surgery late in the day, and she was told she could visit him when he got out of recovery at 10 PM. We flew up Lake Shore Drive--all the lights were timed, the roads were empty--and got there in about thirteen minutes when it would have taken thirty-five during the day. As my daughter popped up to see her friend, I waited in the car outside--it was dark and peaceful and the street was empty--and wondered, "Why do we all try to live on the same schedule? Why don't we stagger the time of day that we live and work, to spread the resources around the clock? Then I thought, "What if we had to live at alternate times? What would life be like if you lived in the dark? How would it be enforced? Who would choose your assignment? Would one group fare better? Could there be health consequences?" And of course my mind moved to the political and social analogies in our real world, which became the most important focus of the book.
In the book, the phrase "Plus One" refers to the permission some health care workers have to transport patients beyond curfew. And you're right, the phrase is borrowed terminology from an RSVP. But "Plus One" took on a more personal meaning as I wrote. When Sol realizes in the hospital that she can't bring herself to say D'Arcy's name (which really means she refuses to humanize him in her own mind) she blurts out "Day Boy" instead, and D'Arcy understands immediately, in that astute way he has. Out of principle he holds back her name as well, calling her "Plus One." A few early readers have called these phrases "nicknames," which isn't how I think of them. For me they represent an inability to acknowledge the other person fully. Later, when Sol whispers his name in her head, and he uses her name aloud for the first time, I hoped you'd see that they've each grown to respect the other as a person.
Jen: And that's exactly how I understood it, too. They couldn't bring themselves to call each other by name until they could accept each other for who and what they were to each other. And just as your inspiration started with all of those questions, my reading of Plus One ended with them. Months later, I'm still thinking about the book and the questions it sparked.
There are some small elements typical of a dystopian novel in your story, but this book is anything but typical. And the cover of the book makes it look like a romance novel. How would you categorize Plus One? What (sub)genre do you think it falls under? What would you tell people to entice them to read it?
Elizabeth: I'm such a nerd I would tell people "It's an alternate-history thriller exploring issues of civil liberties and social justice," and they'd fall asleep before I finished. I'm sure I would have chosen a much less romantic cover, and it might have been a mistake because this jacket design is so moving and dynamic. A blogger who read this in digital format claimed that the romance doesn't start until 70% in, which is probably technically true. (Although I can't think of a more swoony scenario than two smart people who don't like each other running away from the law together...or am I weird?) Some readers have tagged it as "dystopia" on Goodreads, and I don't know enough to say whether it is or not, though I often think of dystopias as being set in the future (which Plus One isn't). So instead I challenge people with this question: were our own United States a dystopia before the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Is the growing level of government invasiveness today (for example, monitoring phone calls in the name of protecting us, or detaining people in Guantanamo Bay indefinitely, without trial) dystopic? If your answer is yes to those questions, then I agree that Plus One is a dystopia.
Jen: Not weird...I, too, thought that was one of the most romantic scenarios I'd ever read. I believe I tagged this one as dystopia on Goodreads, as well, but I think that was before I started an alternate-history shelf. Now I know better. Thanks for the explanation!
How did you settle on Chicago as the setting for your story? It's a pretty popular setting for dystopian novels these days, but you utilize the city in unprecedented ways in your book. What is the importance of the city to you and to your story?
Elizabeth: I was born in Chicago and have lived here my whole life, with the exception of one and a half years in Brussels, Belgium (that's the source of Poppu and the French language), and a year in L.A. So the feeling of Chicago at night is a part of my core. I see this book as a love song to the South Side, which is my favorite part of the city--gritty and slightly unmanicured, but real, and hard working. The steam tunnels and the University of Chicago came up organically, because they're a part of my young-adult life. My brother, er, spent some leisure time in the steam tunnels when he was in high school.
Jen: In your story, there are basically three different groups of people: the Rays, the Smudges, and the Noma. Would you mind elaborating on the differences between these groups and how you came up with their characteristics and different lifestyles?
Elizabeth: I'm interested that readers have talked a lot about the privilege of the Rays, but focus less on how, despite having a political edge over the Smudges (the Federal government is run by Rays), everyone suffers from the restrictions on their freedom. The two lifestyles were hard for me to master, and I had to do a lot of imagining; there are so many ways in which you and I move fluidly between day and night without even thinking about it. The Noma are a semi-nomadic group who form loosely into tribes and are less rebels than criminals, out for themselves, and who have figured out how to straddle the Day/Night divide. Their way of dressing and talking is inspired somewhat by Alex's delinquent gang in A Clockwork Orange. As I explored their individual characters, though, I discovered what's true of all people: there are good and bad among the Noma.
Jen: I hate to admit this, but I've never read A Clockwork Orange. But I loved how you presented the Noma, so I'm interested to see what inspired them.
After reading both Monstrous Beauty and Plus One, I'm starting to gather that you're a fan of star-crossed lovers. What pulls you to this type of romance, and what makes you want to write a story about "forbidden" love?
Elizabeth: To me a book is only romantic as long as the two characters are apart! As soon as the couple gets together, you risk boring your readers...unless the lovers are separated again. The tension, the longing for them to be together, is something I like to savor.
But I want to go a level deeper and ask "Why is there love and romance at all in Plus One if it's about personal freedom?" I wanted to get young readers wrapped up in the romantic elements precisely so that they would internalize the political and social issues. I remember once as a young kid I saw the scan of an auction notice of a slave mother, father, and child, who were sold off to different masters. It was the first time I understood on a visceral level what it meant for someone to be "property" that could be bought and sold. The fact that the simple human right of being with the people you loved--the person you were married to or had given birth to--could be superseded by an owner's property rights (in a system sanctioned by the government) became horrifically violent to me, because of seeing that one family. They made it real in a way textbook words didn't. In Plus One I wanted to do the same thing on a smaller scale--I wanted teens to root for Sol and D'Arcy to be together, and to see how unjust and arbitrary it was that they couldn't be.
Jen: Forbidden romances like the one in Plus One are actually my favorite type because you're exactly right: as soon as two characters get together, whether it be on a TV show or in a book, I tend to lose interest, even if the rest of the story is top notch. Keeping them apart is what drives the story for me.
One of my favorite aspects of this novel was all of the contradictions: night and day, light and dark, beauty and roughness, etc. And I loved how Sol and D'Arcy were complete opposites themselves, yet they complement each other well. What do you think each character would say the other brings out in themselves? Why did you write these two characters the way you did, with the characteristics they have?
Elizabeth: Oh, gosh, thank you so much for seeing those opposites. I love how different Sol and D'Arcy are, but how fundamentally similar--loyal to the bone and family-oriented. I love how they slowly discover it. When I began writing, Sol presented herself fully formed to me. She was angry and wounded and fierce...and already crushing her finger in that machine (although I didn't know the name of it at the time). Some readers can't figure out why D'Arcy--studious and ambitious and rules-oriented--is drawn to helping such a loose cannon (in his own words), when he has so much to lose. For me, even before he met Sol, D'Arcy was already questioning his path--dutifully but not comfortably conforming to a system that had hurt his own family--but his loyalty to his mother and his lack of alternatives had kept him marching along the safe path. (Recall the Spanish flu virion, looming over Sol's first drawing, and how symbolic that is.) It took meeting this enigmatic, totally raw, openly hurt young woman who put one thing (love of family) above anyone's laws to make D'Arcy confront his life decisions.
Jen: Ah, that makes me think of my favorite quote from the book, where D'Arcy's explaining to Sol how her one crazy act of love left him reeling. *sigh*
All three novels you've written so far have been stand-alone stories. In the reading world, it seems like the trend is series with at least two or more books these days, so I wholeheartedly appreciate getting the whole story from you in one book. Do you set out to write stand-alone novels, or do you just see where the story takes you? I know you've contributed short stories to Tor.com set in the Monstrous Beauty and Plus One worlds, but would you ever consider continuing the story for those characters in the full-length novels? Would you ever consider writing a trilogy or series, or do you prefer to write only stand-alone novels?
Elizabeth: Looking back, I realize that I write standalone novels that also all have ambiguous, bittersweet endings. I think that's because the real world isn't a neat and tidy place, and I want to leave the reader ruminating about what might happen next. I like to complete a manuscript before I offer it for the first time to an editor--I've never sold on proposal--because I have a phobia about not finishing. That method of writing seems to lead me to standalones. Plus, I have no idea how to write a trilogy--that is, how to write separate stories that share one larger story arc but are complete in themselves, and what the dynamic should be between books one, two, and three. I'm in awe when an author pulls it off.
That said, I'm surprised at how stubbornly Sol and D'Arcy have not left me. And Grady Hastings is frankly pissed as hell that I'm not writing a follow-up novel (because he still has work to do). I daydream a lot about what's happening to them right now.
Jen: I love your bittersweet, open endings, though I know not everyone is a fan of such a realistic conclusion. And I'm happy to hear that Sol and D'Arcy -- and Grady! -- refuse to leave you alone.
What can we expect to see from you next? Any hints as to what you're working on now?
Elizabeth: After I finish the promotion for Plus One I'll go back to my two current projects. One is a historical fiction novel that requires so much research it'll be years before I finish, and the other is a realistic contemporary featuring four boys, a road trip, and a dead body. I'm trying to divide my time between writing one and researching the other, but I don't multi-task well with writing. (It's true of reading, too. I've only recently trained myself, laboriously, how to read one print novel while I listen to another in audiobook.)
Jen: Those both sound amazing. And as a fan of historical fiction, I understand that the more research that goes into the novel, the better the story, so I'll try to be patient as you work on that one. :)
Okay, now for a fun question: If you could go out for drinks with any of the characters from Plus One, who would it be and what would you each order?
Elizabeth: Sol and D'Arcy are too young to drink, and I'm afraid of Fuzz. Ciel and Gigi are too intense. Poppu would order a hot toddy, so I'm rejecting him as a bar buddy. I'd have a margarita made with real lime juice, and I think I'd be sitting with Grady Hastings, who is drinking a beer, shouting his rhetoric at me above the din of the crowd, demanding that we change the world.
Jen: Haha, I think I'd pick Gigi...I just find her character so fascinating, and she'd probably be more so after a few drinks! (If you're curious about Gigi, you can read the short story Beth wrote from her perspective for Tor.com...for free!)
I am seriously sooo honored to be on this tour, Beth! I just LOVED this book and I adore you, and I'm so excited to be sharing the awesomeness with everyone else!
Elizabeth: OMGosh, Jen, this was so fun! You're the one I want to drink with at a bar! We'd gab for HOURS! (Hmm, over Prosecco?) But seriously there isn't a single reader who has made it all the way through to the end of this long post! Tell me what I should cut!
Jen: Beth probably didn't intend for me to include that last bit, but I had to because it showcases just exactly why I love her and her books so much. :) And, Beth, I couldn't cut a thing...nor would I want to. Thanks again for indulging me!
About the book:
Author: Elizabeth Fama
Series: n/a
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux BYR
Publication Date: April 8, 2014
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
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3/31 Fiction Fare
Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you'll check out the rest of the tour! Each stop has its own giveaway for a copy of this amazing book, plus more great content!
Friday, March 7, 2014
Review: Plus One by Elizabeth Fama
Author: Elizabeth Fama
Series: n/a
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux BYR
Publication Date: April 8, 2014
Source: from publisher via Netgalley
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
I've been writing this review in my head for days, since I first finished Plus One, and yet I still don't think I can sufficiently portray just how much this book means to me, but that quote comes close to expressing everything I felt for Sol and her situation. I loved Monstrous Beauty when I read it last year, and I've been not-so-patiently awaiting Elizabeth Fama's next novel, so I was elated to receive a review copy. I purposely skimmed the summary for this book because I wanted to be as surprised with it as I was with Monstrous Beauty, but Plus One exceeded any and all expectations I might have had.
Despite the ugliness of Sol's plan and the world she lives in, I found so much unbridled beauty in this book, from the comparisons and contrasts of day and night life, to the desk drawings, to the gorgeous prose used to depict the Maquoketa Caves State Park...I felt like I was living and breathing Sol and D'Arcy's experiences through this book. This world is not far off from our own, just shy of what life could be like for us now, had things gone differently in the past. And not even vastly different...I mean, things in the past that were supposed to be temporary because of war, etc., have long since been made permanent: taxes, daylight savings time, among other things. Having one sector of the population temporarily switch to night in order to circumvent the effects of a devastating epidemic seems somewhat reasonable. But whenever the government intervenes like this, there are sure to be those who object.
So, yeah, this sounds like a dystopian novel, in that the government has made this society undesirable for some. But I don't want that to scare you away because this story definitely doesn't read like the typical dystopian novel. Far from it. Sol isn't trying to change the world...she's just trying to grant a dying man's wish. And I'm not positive, but from what I can tell this is actually sort of a retelling of The Day Boy and the Night Girl by George MacDonald. I haven't read the whole story, but it was referenced a ton in the Razorland Trilogy by Ann Aguirre, which I have also read and loved.
I also love the irony of Sol's parents naming her Soleil, which is French for "sun". Although when we meet Sol, her disposition is anything but sunny, we soon discover that this is an exterior shell she projects. Inside, she's still the young girl she was when her brother Ciel -- French for "sky" -- all but abandoned her and Poppu to live as a Ray, those who live in the daylight hours. Because of that betrayal, Sol doesn't get close to anyone and doesn't let anyone close. Poppu is all she has left, and now she's losing him, so it's understandable that Sol would want to give him the last thing on this earth that he wishes for, even if it means her own incarceration and the end of everything she knows.
What I loved best about Sol, aside from her devotion to her family, was how genuine she was. From her bluntness and non sequiturs to her never-ending diatribes, I really felt like I'd come to know this girl. Usually, I find that I need to relate to a character in some fashion or another in order to fully enjoy a story, but that wasn't the case with Plus One. I could never be as strong or as capable or as self-sacrificing as Sol. Not once did I question her decisions, think that she was making the wrong choice, but neither could I have ever done the same as she did in her circumstances. Sol knows her lot in life, and she's relenquished herself to always living in the dark, but once her heart is set upon its task, she will stop at nothing to see it through. Normally, I'd question the foolhardiness of such a plan, but with Sol, it was unbelievably easy to get on board with such a harebrained scheme.
And that's where D'Arcy comes in. He may not have been named after a character in a famous nineteenth-century novel, but he might as well have been. *sigh* I don't know how to adequately express how much I love the coincidences that brought Sol and D'Arcy together. There is nothing remotely similar about these two characters, but from the onset of their time together, it was clear to me that they were "meant to be". Maybe neither of the pair has actively rebelled against the system until now, but it's obvious that neither accepts it without question. And the fact that D'Arcy just went with his gut when it came to Sol...I think that just speaks volumes about his character and it speaks to Sol's unflappable willingness to see her promise through to the end.
I also love that this book made me feel smarter while I was reading it. I just knew there had to be a real word for that moment when you jerk yourself awake right before you fall into a deep sleep, and now I know there is. =) I love young adult novels; I think that much is obvious. But I love them even more when they're intellectually stimulating and really force me to question morally ambiguous issues, like the ones the characters face in Plus One. Other things that instantly captured my attention: Gigi and the Noma, the murmuration and how it's described, the use of French and how prevalent it is in this novel despite the fact that the setting is in Chicago, and the use of flashbacks to illustrate life for Sol prior to Ciel's absence. I'd love to go into more detail about these things, but I don't want to divulge too much about the story. Also, for brevity's sake, I need to end this review soon, or else it will end up as long as the novel....I really could go on and on about it ad nauseum, that's how much I enjoyed this book.
Sol and D'Arcy, as different as night and day and yet so perfectly matched. Plus One is a love story when all is said and done, but it's also a story of sacrifice and loss and hope. There are moments of unbelievable gut-wrenching pain that brought me to tears, there are chase scenes that could have come straight from your favorite action movie, and there are brief moments of levity that left this reader unexpectedly hopeful, despite the dire circumstances the characters were facing. Suffice it to say, this book is the real deal, the full package...everything I'd hoped it would be and more. I wasn't ready to say goodbye yet, but oh my goodness, did I looooove that ending! I think Gilda says it best:
*It may have taken me two hours to write this review, but I promise no babies (or Premie Gorts) were hurt in the process.
**All quotes were taken from an advanced copy and may not appear in the final book.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Teaser Tuesday #84: Plus One by Elizabeth Fama
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Author: Elizabeth Fama
Series: n/a
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux BYR
Publication Date: April 8, 2014
Source: ATW ARC Tours
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
My teaser:
I lovedlovedloved Elizabeth Fama's Monstrous Beauty for its evocative prose and utter uniqueness, and after having read late into the night last night on Plus One, I know I'm going to enjoy this novel just as much. Is this supposed to be a re-imagining of The Day Boy and the Night Girl by George MacDonald, though? I see nothing mentioning that, but it seems like it, right? Either way, this is a must-read for fans of the author and believable romance. =)
What are you teasing this week? Share it in the comments or leave a link so I can visit!
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Audio Clip: Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama
Author: Elizabeth Fama
Narrator: Katherine Kellgren
Series: Monstrous Beauty
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Publication Date: September 4, 2012
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | no Audible link as of the date of this post
Almost one hundred forty years later, seventeen-year-old Hester meets a mysterious stranger named Ezra and feels overwhelmingly, inexplicably drawn to him. For generations, love has resulted in death for the women in her family. Is it an undiagnosed genetic defect . . . or a curse? With Ezra’s help, Hester investigates her family’s strange, sad history. The answers she seeks are waiting in the graveyard, the crypt, and at the bottom of the ocean—but powerful forces will do anything to keep her from uncovering her connection to Syrenka and to the tragedy of so long ago.
You can find my review of this breath-taking novel here. I hope you enjoy the following clip as much as I enjoyed the book:
The narrator is the same as that of the Ashes audiobook, which I raved about earlier this year. And if you’d like to take a peak at the author’s writing and the world she has created, you can check out her short story, Men Who Wish to Drown, set in the same world as Monstrous Beauty.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Review: Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama
Author: Elizabeth Fama
Series: Monstrous Beauty
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYC)
Publication Date: September 4, 2012
Source: Netgalley
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Almost one hundred forty years later, seventeen-year-old Hester meets a mysterious stranger named Ezra and feels overwhelmingly, inexplicably drawn to him. For generations, love has resulted in death for the women in her family. Is it an undiagnosed genetic defect . . . or a curse? With Ezra’s help, Hester investigates her family’s strange, sad history. The answers she seeks are waiting in the graveyard, the crypt, and at the bottom of the ocean—but powerful forces will do anything to keep her from uncovering her connection to Syrenka and to the tragedy of so long ago.
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starryeyedjen
- I work with numbers by day, and I'm a mommy and avid reader by night. I'm a self-proclaimed Spreadsheet Queen, and I'll read anything you put in front of me. I seriously love all the books! And I adore audiobooks, too!
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