Interviewing Cat Hellisen
Hellooo!
A few weeks ago I reviewed the great Cast Long Shadows by Cat Hellisen a tale of a stepmother and their step-daughters eventual conflict in a palace filled with magic and suspicion and yet avoids the traditional tropes for something a lot more fascinating. I was very lucky to get the chance to ask Cat a few questions about how this story came around.
:D HIYA
How do you like to booktempt Cast Long Shadows?
I like to tell people that it’s a retelling of Snow White from the stepmother’s point of view, which is a truth and a lie. I’m not overly fond of retellings that are beat-for-beat copies of the original, and I prefer to use the original folk or fairy tale as a launching point for something new.
Call it a reconstruction rather than a retelling. I pick the bones and the glinting shards from the corpse, and rebuild my own version. So, it’s a story with shades of Snow White from the perspective of the witch – fantastical and dark, filled with nebulous gods, scheming, and witchcraft. (Also a tiny dragon that lives in the hearth.)
What made you want to delve into the idea of the ‘wicked’ stepmother?
I’ve always been a little frustrated (read: very) with the anti-stepmother propaganda of fairy tales. Actually, there are plenty of things that irritate me about fairy tales, which is probably why I keep coming back to them – it’s a love-hate thing.
I love the imagery and the weirdness and the darkness of these tales, have to grit my teeth about things like evil witches and good, clever youngest sons who are better than their siblings.
When did you feel you got to understand who Marjeta herself was?
Right from the first draft I had a pretty clear idea of the kind of person Marjeta was – perhaps in some way because there are aspects of me in there, wanting to be the favourite son when you’re ‘only’ a daughter.
I was doing a lot of thinking at the time about the way women are rarely spoken about as their own people but are instead qualified by their relations to others – sisters, mothers, wives, and daughters. And so, in my usual perverse way, I took that trope and ran with it and wrote a book that was only about sisters, daughters, wives, mothers.
I think if I had to write the book now, I would have developed other aspects, but I had a particular bone to chew on there.
Two equally important characters are Lilika and Areya – how did these two develop into the story?
Marjeta needed a foil – and that was Lilika. I needed her to be the opposite of everything Marjeta was. She was mistress to wife, secret witch to accused (non)witch, she even followed a different, opposing religion.
But sometimes she was a warped reflection of Marjeta -- the mother who was not a mother.
Areya was the closest thing to a friend and confidant to Marjeta – despite the difference in their positions. She’s the only one Marjeta can really trust. I wanted Marjeta to have at least one female friend, even when she felt she was in a den of serpents. Of course, that also sets up the crux of Marjeta’s turning point in how she views her place in the world.
What else can we look forward to you in the future and where can we find out more?
My book Thief Mage, Beggar Mage will be coming out later this year. It’s (once again) a slanted retelling of a fairy tale I love, this time The Tinderbox. This is my big queer epic with thief-mages, clockwork animals, and scheming dragons. I’m currently working on the sequel to that, which is keeping me very busy. You can find out more by following me on twitter https://twitter.com/cat_hellisen or sign up to my occasional newsletter for free stories, what I’m up to, and book/tv recs. By signing up with this link - https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/z6f6d8 - you can get a free novella about alchemist mages who take drugs and solve AI crimes. (kinda.)
If there was one book that you wish you could get everyone to read (not your own) what would it be?
Oh, this is such a tough one, how can you force me to pick only one against my will? If I must choose one, then I’ll go with The Secret books of Paradys: The Complete Paradys Cycle by Tanith Lee which is a collection of short stories and novellas based around an alt-Paris. Gorgeously lush, dark, and genderblurry - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Books-Paradys-Complete-Cycle/dp/1585679879
The collection features one of my all-time favourite fantasy horror stories, Malice in Saffron, which I originally read as part of the three-novella collection The Book of the Damned. Fair warning; it’s not for everyone and has rape, murder, and mutilation.
