Interview with Ned Vizzini, author of The Other Normals

Sure, The Other Normals is about a 15-year-old late bloomer named Perry Eckert. He’s not just a late bloomer physically (he’s short, with a bad haircut); he’s also socially stunted and he loves to play role-playing games (even though he has no one to play with). But then he goes to summer camp and falls into an actual fantasy world and has a chance to be a hero and come out of his shell. So it’s about summer camp, and friends, and growing up, and self-actualization… and swords.

 

 

One book that really helped inspire The Other Normals was One Thousand and One Nights. You may know it as “Arabian Nights;” it’s the collection of Arabian lore that gave us Aladdin and Scheherazade. 

I loved it because it’s funny and subversive. For example, there’s a story where a genie gets woken from a magic lamp, but instead of granting three wishes, he ties up the person who freed him and throws him into the desert! Why? The genie explains: “For a thousand years I waited to be released from that lamp, and I promised that I would give three wishes to whoever freed me. But today, I got fed up and decided, ‘Whoever frees me, I’m going to tie him up and leave him in the desert!’ And you freed me! So who am I to tempt the gods?”

I used that story in The Other Normals; it’s one of the things that bonds Perry to his best friend Sam.

I love Arabian Nights! Highly recommended reading for everyone, by the way. (I’m looking at you, YABCers!) Are there any The Other Normals contests or giveaways our readers should know about and enter?

Yes, I have THREE Other Normals contests going on right now on my website: www.nedvizzini.com.

Which books or authors have inspired your craft?

In writing The Other Normals, I was really inspired by Brian Jacques, creator of Redwall. When he passed away last year, fantasy lost a giant. A lot of people don’t know that Jacques (pronounced “Jakes”) created the Redwall series to entertain kids at a school for the blind whom he met while delivering milk. That’s why the books are so descriptive, perhaps. 

Jacques wrote 22 Redwall books and his animal accents got more elaborate as he went on. I’m lucky to have had a chance to review The Sable Quean, the last Redwall book published before he passed away.

 

 

 

 

I realized that I wanted to be an author in 2nd grade. Our school did a special class for two weeks called “Writers’ Workshop” where they just gave us a blank book and let us fill it. I was hooked. I thought blank books were very expensive and they were all hoarded by the book companies! I never expected I’d have the chance to write in one.

 

 

Right now I’m reading Year Zero by Rob Reid. It’s a totally insane hilarious book about aliens and music industry in the Hitchhiker’s Guide vein.

 

I recently saw Total Recall (2012). It’s hilarious: at the beginning is a logo for the production company “Original Film“! It’s like, uh, guys… hate to break it to you…

 

 

 

Nirvana. But I’d probably get one of the bad shows where the amps exploded and they played Duran Duran covers.

 

 

 

 

Bilbo Baggins! Because I like tea.

 

 

 

I did a ton of research for The Other Normals — in fantasy literature and early human belief systems and in quantum physics (to explain the existence of an actual fantasy world). A partial bibliography that I used while researching the book is here. I remember at some point I was looking up “bull penis ritual” — that was probably the strangest thing I researched!