Days, Decades, Centuries: An Interview with V.E. Schwab

V.E. Schwab’s latest novel is a wickedly luxurious tale of three women’s stories tangled in centuries of bloody immortality. What is life without love and love without hunger? This is a sapphic vampire love story like you’ve never experienced before. We’ll be discussing it at our Fantasy Readers Guild meetings on Sunday, July 27th at 11:00am and 5:30pm. All are welcome! In the meantime, please enjoy bookseller Jennifer’s interview with V.E. Schwab.

Jennifer Murray: One of the trademark qualities of your books is how different they are from each other. You never seem to be afraid to allow the book to be itself, free from the constraints of its successful predecessors. When you were in the beginning stages of Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, what surprised you most about the project that stood out to you amongst your earlier novels?

V.E. Schwab: I set out each time with a certain narrative ambition, a desire to not only tell a new story, but to tell it in a new way. I immediately knew that, for Bury Our Bones, I wanted to tell not one story but three, in three very distinct voices. I jokingly call Bones three novellas in a trench coat, not because I wanted it to feel like that for the reader, but because I wrote each of the women’s stories in its entirety before twisting them together.

JM: In Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, we spend a lot of time with each character, really getting to know them, their backstories, and the stories that they tell themselves. Time is also a major theme in the book, with readers moving through whole eras. How do you approach constructing characters who grow over multiple life spans versus characters who are currently living in their first one?

VES: The primary reason I wrote each character’s arc in its entirety was to preserve the distinct voices. But the secondary reason was so that I could explore the nuances of growth and change in each woman over time. Alice’s story takes place over roughly 3 days (9 years if you include her flashbacks), while Sabine’s is set over nearly 500. There’s obviously a chasm between those two, but I approach each one the same. Sabine has simply had a lot longer to become and be who she is, but Alice is going through some very radical personal crossroads that could impact her future the way Sabine’s impacted her past.

JM: Continuing with the discussion of time and immortality, what do you think your book says about humanity’s relationship with time?

VES: I may technically be writing about supernatural creations, but whenever I write fantasy, it’s really just another way to explore a facet of human nature. There is a theory at the crux of this book that my vampires lose their humanity over time, but that it happens at different rates depending on their attachment to it in the first place. That allows for a wide spectrum of experience—for some, their humanity dies off in days, for others decades, for others centuries. But it’s inevitable: all things wither over time. They may get to take life itself for granted, but what gives life its meaning?

JM: As someone who feels like it took me a while to grow into my own skin and understand myself and what I want, I’m curious about how you think that evolution of self plays into the development of your characters?

VES: Self—identity and acceptance—are crucial to this story and the women in it. Alice doesn’t know who she is or who she wants to be. Charlotte knows who she is, and is terrified of not being loved for it. Sabine knows who she is, and embraces it, without apology or fear. I would say I’m finally in my Sabine era, but god knows I went through my Alice and Charlotte years, too. Of course, Sabine is in many ways the villain of the book, but in this, she is my hero. She believes she is deserving of what she wants, as well as what she needs, and that’s a model I wish more of us could follow (perhaps without the serial killing).

JM: I worked your last event at Parnassus when you were releasing The Fragile Threads of Power, and you mentioned the different books and TV shows that inspire you to write. What is a surprising muse for this book?

VES: This book is a love letter to so many things, from Only Lovers Left Alive and The Vampire Lestat, to Killing Eve, but perhaps the most surprising is Florence Welch, from Florence + the Machine. I saw her in concert in 2019 and she was mythic, larger than life. I thought, that’s how I want Sabine to feel, to Charlotte by the time they meet. Otherworldly.

JM: Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil features a ton of different cultures and countries. What was the process of exploring the nuance of how place impacts a person?

VES: Setting is a character in most of my work. We are so much a product of our places—the ones we’re born into, the ones we make home, the ones we love and the ones we escape. While writing Addie LaRue, which is also set across centuries and countries, I would challenge myself to capture the essence of a city or a village in only a handful of sentences, at most a single scene. Addie belonged to none of them, a visitor, a voyeur, a ghost. But each of the three women at the center of Bones is escaping their original place, and laying claim to new ones. I knew where they would each begin—16th century Spain, 18th century England, 20th century Scotland—and where they would all end up: 21st century Boston—but the fun is figuring out the roads they take, and how each one informs or changes them along the way.

JM: In the book, intimacy and vulnerability is explored through not only romantic relationships, but also through family– both the people we are related to and the people we choose. What inspires the family dynamics in the book?

VES: I often shy away from writing romance, not because I don’t enjoy it, but because too often the mere existence of a romantic storyline seems to downgrade the presence and importance of other relationship dynamics, and to be honest, those tend to interest me more. Siblings, parents and children, friends, adversaries, and all the complicated permutations, are my favorite part. Here, family—the kind you’re born into and the kind you create for yourself—is vital to the story. Sabine has no love for hers. Charlotte has a great deal, but has to escape. Alice has even more, but it’s complicated by grief.

JM: Through your newsletters, you have developed a community around writing and the process of writing. I personally loved learning about your thoughts on this book before it was published. How do you feel like this kind of writing impacts your fiction writing?

VES: For better or worse, I am an extremely self-aware writer, so I often stop to explore the why behind my storytelling decisions, which I suppose helps me turn both my strengths and weaknesses into teaching moments. Writing is so often a lonely pursuit, so I love the opportunity to find more universal throughlines or advice that might make someone else’s process a little smoother, or simply let them know they’re not alone. Plus, finding ways to articulate my experiences helps me gain enough psychic distances to talk about the work once it’s done. But alas, so far, it hasn’t made my own writing process less fraught, I think in part because there’s no way to anticipate the specific struggles of a specific story. The only way out, each and every time, is through.

JM: What is your favorite memory inside of an indie bookstore?

VES: I remember when Parnassus first opened. I’d grown up with Davis Kidd, reading books and eating chocolate cake in their café. When it closed, I was bereft. My debut novel had just come out, and I didn’t even have an indie store to dream of being shelved in. For years, Nashville didn’t have one. And then, when Parnassus opened, it felt like oxygen rushing back into my lungs. A new and precious chapter. Watching Parnassus grow into such a landmark, knowing it’s there for new generations of readers and writers—what a gift.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is on our shelves now! Grab a copy and join us for our discussion of the book at Fantasy Readers Guild. Meetings are on Sunday, July 27 at 11am and 5:30pm.