Rampant: An Interview with Diana Peterfreund: Part 2

[Denise, Coalition Overlord]

Here's the second installment of my interview with Diana Peterfreund. Obviously, SPOILERS involved. If you have any follow-up questions please post in the comments, Diana has agreed to stay in touch if anyone else has any questions. Enjoy!

• You dealt with the difficult subject of date rape. Can you explain why you thought this would be a crucial event to include in the story line?

That’s an interesting way to phrase that question! It’s actually something my editor and I discussed in detail—something we were very conscious of being a hot button issue for some readers, and something that, according to online book debates I read while writing, something a lot of readers felt was not handled well in fiction. To the point that they didn’t want to see it at all, ever again, under any circumstances.
As I came to know Phil’s character, I realized that none of the other proposed ideas would be true to the young woman I’d written (like getting “caught up in the heat of the moment” or thinking that she made the right decision and then later regretting it – think Buffy and Angel). She’s not in love with Seth, and even if she were, I believe it's inconsistent to her character to make a choice that she would certainly view as abandoning Astrid. Phil is so clearly drawn throughout the book as someone who loves Astrid most (and that is something that Astrid, with her crazy, selfish mother, desperately needs), I didn’t see it happening.
But neither did I want to write a clichéd storyline. Those of you who have read my secret society books know that modern women’s issues are a recurring theme in my work. I’ve explored the topic of rape on several occasions, most recently in Tap & Gown. It bothers me that some are reticent to call these types of experiences rape because it’s not the excruciatingly violent one more often depicted and thought of as rape. The whole idea of “date rape” vs. “rape rape” is an abhorrent one. Whenever I see an online discussion about whether Phil (or the character in Tap & Gown) was “really” raped, I know it was the right thing to put in the book. It was rape. The end. It’s normal and okay for Phil to be really confused about her feelings for Seth after it happens, but that doesn’t change matters. If that speaks to any teen reading the book, then I’m glad.

• There is quite a bit of discussion about virginity and burgeoning sexuality in this book, not to mention some pretty violent unicorn-slaying action. Did you think that this was a gamble considering this is a Young Adult novel?

All “young adult” is, is a marketing term, meaning books that are about and will be marketed to teens. There are many books previously published as “adult novels” which are now being repackaged because “young adult” as a section of the bookstore is doing so well now. There are “adult” books that would likely be published as a young adult novels if sold today (perhaps Prep or The Lovely Bones). Often, the same books are sold as adult in one territory and teen in another. My Secret Society Girl books are published as adult novels here, but YA in Brazil. Graceling is YA in the US and adult in the UK. The Curious Incident is YA in the UK but adult in the US. The list goes on and on.
I wrote Rampant with the intention of selling it to the young adult market. It’s a mistaken impression that YA is for 8 year olds. Young adult books are books primarily targeted to teenagers, not young children. They are about young ADULTS.
The target market for YA novels are sitting right this minute in their high school English classes reading the greatest works of literature the world is ever known. Shakespeare and Arthur Miller and Hemingway and Nabokov: stories about rape and murder and incest and wars and all kinds of atrocities. They spend hours every day being graded on their ability to analyze these challenging stories, so their literary criticism muscles are in top shape. When I speak to aspiring writers of YA, I’m always quick to explode the myth that YA fiction should be dumbed down or somehow less complex. Teens can spot being pandered to, preached to, or protected a mile away, and they don’t appreciate it.
I am writing the book in the way that’s most truthful to the subject matter. What kind of book about killer unicorns and hunters would include no unicorn attacks? And would I be properly conveying the intensity and the horror of these young women’s lives if you never saw them actually have to make the decision to kill a unicorn?
Regarding the content of my book, I don’t feel it’s even at the edge of what one sees in many of the most popular and well-read YA. It’s certainly more innocent than the books I was reading (both YA and adult) when I was in high school. Look at Go Ask Alice or Forever.
Violence? Try the fantastic, bestselling The Hunger Games, where it’s not animals, but children being killed in gruesome and violent ways (including a scene with mutant wasps). Sex? How about Tricks, by NYT bestseller Ellen Hopkins, about teen prostitutes. The National Book Award finalist Skin Hunger, by Kathleen Duey; Valiant, by NYT bestseller Holly Black; National Book Award finalist AND Printz Honor book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (also a great movie starring Twilight’s Kristen Stewart), the Gossip Girl series… I can think of dozens of critically acclaimed and bestselling YA novels that contain mature subject matter. Of course, the great thing about YA now is that there's a little bit of everything, and if you want something that's sweeter you can find it as well (like the books of Ally Carter or Meg Cabot).
Madeleine L’Engle once said: “You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”

• Are any of the characters based on people you know?

You’re right, I really need to make friends with some unicorn hunters. Safety first!

o Can you comment on the fact that Astrid’s mom Lillith is very unlikeable?

Yeah, and that Lord Voldemort’s kind of a meanie, too, don’t you think? :-)
Astrid’s mother is insane. Just because it turns out that there actually are such things as unicorns doesn’t change that. She’s unstable, mercurial, a terrible mother, a famewhore, a coward, and a woman who is willing to torture her own daughter to achieve her selfish goals. Astrid herself doesn’t like Lilith very much, and the woman put food in her mouth and a roof over her head for 16 years.

o Cory is also hard to like at first because she flings Bonegrinder off a balcony! Can you talk about her development throughout the book?

So here’s something not many people know: originally, the book was written from three points of view: Cory, Astrid, and Phil. But when it became apparent that the book was really Astrid’s story, I went back and rewrote it. It’s a much stronger novel for having done that, however, I was forced to lose some incredibly cool scenes, such as Cory first coming to the Cloisters. She’s an amazingly strong character with a fabulous story of her own: a fifteen year old girl who almost single handedly creates an army to avenge the death of her mother. Without Cory, there would be no Order of the Lioness. Her hatred for Bonegrinder runs deep, and I didn’t know she was going to throw her off the balcony until she did! The challenges she faces in coming to terms with Bonegrinder, in Rampant, and unicorns in general, in the larger arc of the books, is one of my favorite themes in the series. I have great plans for all three of them, though right now the entire story is told only from Astrid’s perspective.

o Who were your influences in creating a strong, young teenage heroine like Astrid? I’m sure she has been compared to Buffy…

Buffy, definitely. I’m a huge Buffy fan. If you look in the acknowledgments of Rampant, you can see some of the others. Aravis Tarkheena of Narnia, Eowyn of Rohan in Tolkien, Alanna Tebold from Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness Quartet, Trinity from the Matrix, Ripley from Aliens… I was always searching for strong, smart females in my fiction. You can thank my parents for that. I was weaned on Star Wars, and named after Diana Rigg, who played a the smart and savvy spy Mrs. Emma Peel in the Avengers. If you were to ask Astrid who her heroes were, she’d probably say Princess Leia and Marie Curie. Astrid’s unicorn magic is probably the least of her abilities.
Strength, of course, comes in many flavors, but I specifically wanted to write a book about female warriors this time around. Though they aren’t just brawn, these girls. They have strength of mind, of character, of spirit.

• Are there sequels in the works?

Absolutely! I just turned in the manuscript for the second killer unicorn book, which will be published in the fall of 2010. There’s also not one, but two short stories set in the killer unicorn world in anthologies coming out in 2010.