An August 2005 interview with Libba Bray, author of 'A Great and Terrible Beauty' and owner of a great sense of humor.

Oh, wow. People ask me this all the time and I really need to come up with a better answer than, “Uh, dude, I don’t really know.” Please feel free to help me out. If you have a better answer (and really, how could you not?) submit them to me at www.libbabray.com. Operators standing by.

What kind of research did you do for the novel?

CRUSHING TONS OF RESEARCH! WATCH CLOSELY AS THE PUNY AUTHOR WRESTLES WITH HUGE GOBS OF ARCANE FACTOIDS! SEE PEOPLE MOVE AWAY FROM HER AT PARTIES WHEN SHE MAKES THE MISTAKE OF THINKING THIS KNOWLEDGE IS SOMEHOW INTERESTING TO THE GREATER PUBLIC! WHAT FUN!

Yeah, sorry. My doctor thinks that’s probably some residual Research Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Give me a second and the facial tic will go away. Okay. Better.

I read what felt like a mind-numbing array of books: The Victorian Lady by Barbara Rees; What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Daniel Pool; The New Girl by Sally Mitchell, Ph.D.; Short Description of Gods, Goddesses and Ritual Objects of Buddhism and Hinduism in Nepal; Manners for Women by Mrs. Humphrey “Madge of Truth”; Moving Millions: A Pictorial History of London Transport by Theo Barker; Victorian London Street Life in Historic Photographs by John Thomson; A World of Girls by L.T. Meade (famous Victorian novelist); Dickens’s Dictionary of London 1888: An Unconventional Handbook; The Queen’s London: A Descriptive and Pictorial History; Daily Life in Victorian England by Sally Mitchell, Ph.D. (she rocks); The Etiquette of Dress compiled by Madeleine Brant; Penguin Classics Early Irish Myths and Sagas; Fodor’s Exploring India; Lonely Planet India; How Young Ladies Became Girls: The Victorian Origins of American Girlhood by Jane H. Hunter; The Great Mother by Erich Neumann; The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell; The Writers Guide to Everyday Life in Regency and Victorian England From 1811-1901 by Kristine Hughes.

I also poked through Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung and The Victorians by A.N. Wilson.

The Internet was a valuable source of information. I honestly lost count of how many websites—from history to translation to folklore—that I trolled for info. There’s a killer Victorian website run by my bud Lee Jackson over in England: www.victorianlondon.org. (If you drop by, tell him I sent you.) His book, Victorian London, was a real help to me in writing the sequel, Rebel Angels. He is a god among men, and he likes the Clash, so we are officially bonded.

And I went to London where I took a tour of The London Transport Museum and then went to the British Library to see old maps and other tidbits, much of which didn’t make it into the final book. (Ditto that trip to the British Museum.)

Whew. Man, I am tired just looking at this entry. Pass the M&M’s.

What was your favorite book growing up?

No can do on the favorite book. It’s like picking a favorite child. Can’t deal with the trauma. So here are some books that held deep meaning for me and that I continue to have mad love for:

Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban (My mom read this to me when I was little probably because I was as bizarre and stubborn as Frances the badger. Last year, I read it to my own son and fell in love with it all over again.)

Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White (I read this while I had the chicken pox. It was the first time I remember feeling like I was completely “in” the book and would do anything—ANYTHING—to save Wilbur. I cried. Oh, how I cried. Charlotte! *sob*)

Winnie the Pooh by A.E. Milne (Love Pooh. Loooooove him. Pooh rules.)

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. (A perfect book. Just gorgeous.)

Animal Farm/1984 by George Orwell (The more things change, the more they stay the same.)

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (Snort. Giggle. Guffaw. Read ‘em all. Loved this one best.)

Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (I read this for a term paper along with A Separate Peace and The Bell Jar when I was a sophomore in high school, and oh my god, I went through an INSUFFERABLE Holden Caufield period later. I totally identified with him. I am embarrassed to say that I think I even started calling people and things “phony” as if this gave me some kind of exclusive The Cheese Stands Alone cred. Did I mention I was the kind of kid who played a lot of air guitar in her room and then later had to explain the resulting bumps and bruises as wounds received “while changing the oil in my car”? Yeah. I don’t blame you if you never want to have anything to do with me ever again.)

Lord of the Flies by William Golding/Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (Dark and creepy and lined with some terrible truths about human nature.)

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (What can I say? I’m still hung up on Heathcliff.)

I also read a lot of National Lampoon and Mad magazine, which explains so much about me, really.

What are you reading now?

The last rites….

Okay (deep breath). In the research for book #3 department, I’m looking through: Myths of the Norsemen From the Eddas to the Sagas by H.A. Guerber; Lonely Planet Trekking in the Indian Himalaya; Mandalas for Power and Energy by Marian and Werner Küstenmacher; Customs & Etiquette of India by Venika Kingsland; A Witch’s Guide to Faery Folk by Edain McCoy; Insight Guides Iceland; Lonely Planet Iceland; Teach Yourself Eastern Philosophy by Mel Thompson (‘cause when you think Taoism, you think of a guy named Mel, right?); The Temple and the Lodge by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh; The Templars and the Assassins: The Militia of Heaven by James Wasserman; and Clean Your Colon the Easy Way.

(Okay, I was lying about the Colon Care. Just wanted to see if you were still reading.)

I just finished A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl by Tanya Lee Stone (January 2006). Next on my list is Stained by Jennifer Richard Jacobsen, which I’ve been dying to get to, and Looking for Alaska by John Green. Oh, and I’m reading a lot of Teen Titans comic books with my kid.

And People magazine. (Oh, the shame. The burning shame…) But honestly, if I didn’t stop once in a while to check the thin-o-meter on Lindsay Lohan or find out what state of engaged-broken up Paris Hilton was in, my brain might explode.

Are you working on anything now?

Please choose from the following answers:

A. A nervous breakdown
B. The formula for non-streak deodorant
C. World domination—Bwahahahahahaha!!!!
D. Literary interpretive dance
E. Revisions on a new novel, Going Bovine, and the beginning stages of book #3 in the Beauty/Rebel Angels trilogy

All answers must be submitted in the form of chocolate and postmarked by midnight tonight. Gummi Bears are not acceptable. Don’t even think about licorice.

Do you have any advice for young writers?

DON’T DO IT!!!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD—SAVE YOURSELVES, SAVE YOURSELVES, OHHHHH!!!!

Um, golly. Yes. How about read, first of all. Read, read, read. It helps you discover what you like, what you don’t like. It shows you what’s possible, shows you the delicious glory of language used in the service of discovering some truth. So that’s first. And second? Don’t b.s. yourself or anyone else. Keep digging until you hit the bone and then put a little of your marrow on the page. Be willing to take risks. It’s like my friend Maureen Leary, a great writer, says: A book should cost you something to write. I think everything else can be taught—form, narrative structure, figurative language—but that willingness to go deep inside yourself and pull out the scary stuff, to get comfortable with hearing your own voice on the page, that’s all you.

Do you have a favorite fan story?

I once cut my head open on a ceiling fan while performing my Tap Dance of Death during a particularly wacky party. Oh, you didn’t mean that kind of fan. Right. Got it.

I am truly thrilled and humbled anytime someone comes up to me, emails me or drops by my live journal to tell me they liked my book. It’s like taking a cab over the Manhattan Bridge at night and seeing the NYC skyline: I just feel lucky to be alive then.

What’s the one question you wish someone would ask you, but they never do? (And the answer, of course)

Q: Why do not the people worship you for your brain-boggling voluptuous beauty, mi Tito? A: Ay Dios Mio, Tito does not know. And Tito es muy sad.