Q & A with Clarissa Pattern and Akiva Hersh about The Magus and The Fool
CP: I'd love to know at what point in your creative process you came upon your title?
AH: The title was immediate for me. I knew Jacobi was going to be far more an illusionist than Gatsby and Carry would follow him off the cliff if it meant getting close to him. I have a little background in tarot so the Magus (magician) and Fool archetypes begged for a title right on the nose.
CP: You mention in your blog about The Great Gatsby coming into the public domain, was it a novel you were drawn to retelling before then, or were you considering several options? Also what were your thoughts on approaching the anti-Semitism some people see in The Great Gatsby?
AH: I was not initially drawn to Gatsby as a retelling. I liked the novel, the movie was just fine but I was considering other works. As I wrote out a few sample chapters for several books in the public domain, I fell in love with the characters I had conceived of for a Gatsby retelling and they just inhabited my mind like a hermit crab in a shell.
Regarding antisemitism, I am a Jew and I wanted to portray flawed characters of all types and narrow down the racism to Fallon, leaving the other characters presenting as “woke.” I felt that Fallon had the internal capacity to carry this burden more than the other characters. She is not brittle. She is not ashamed of her opinions and while they may not be in vogue, she is true to herself up to a point.
CP: I was very interested in the character of Fallon, her racism automatically aligns her with far-right beliefs, but she surprised me at one point by making a comment that sounded like she was against the conservatives’ anti-Global Warming stance? And also I was interested whether she is not interested in Donovan's bisexuality and Levi's transness or if it is something she reluctantly tolerates but she does have homophobic feelings underneath?
AH: On the surface, her racism and rants against conservatives seem to conflict. However, I wanted to show that people are complex and that human beings are reliably inconsistent.
Donovan’s bisexuality and Levi being trans is something Fallon chooses to overlook—especially in Donovan’s case. Why? Because Fallon struggles with gray areas. She prefers the stark black and white sorting when it comes to morals, business, and relationships.
CP: When you were writing how consciously close did you aim to stay to the originals?
AH: I was not interested in carbon copying them and merely swapping gender or sexuality. Each one has a different personality and different motivations from Fitzgerald’s characters. While there are similarities to their character arcs, I think that is where the resemblance ends.
CP: Another question I wanted to ask is actually about the significance of changing location? Did you move it to a place you knew better or is it a comment on how the USA social scene of the rich and famous is different now?
AH: I felt Long Island has changed so much since the 1920s but was no longer “fresh.” I lived in Austin for over half of my life. It’s a liberal, “blue” oasis amidst the “red” state of Texas, and yet the issues of social class, race, inequality are played out there in so many interesting ways.
