The Fairest of Them All

with the dashing prince, and also all those older women who are evil stepmothers or queens or witches. And it occurred to me that these are the same women, grown up. How else are those gorgeous young girls going to turn out, especially in worlds that value them for their youth and beauty above anything else? And when I fit Rapunzel and the evil stepmother from Snow White together, it made sense. They’re both beautiful, they’re both witches (Rapunzel is raised by a witch, so how could she not be one herself?), and presumably the stepmother was once young and in love and the fairest in all the kingdom. And what we don’t see in the original Rapunzel story is what happens later, when she gets older and is a little less dazzling than she was before.

What do you think is so compelling about these stories, that they can be returned to and reworked again and again? Why are they such a rich mine of inspiration for you?

I don’t know what it is about them, honestly. I mean, some of the stories we tell and re-tell are awfully strange; look at some of the old versions of Snow White and you’ll see what I mean! But these are stories that people have told and retold for centuries, as moral lessons, as escapism, as a way of making sense of the universe. These stories often contain situations that are exaggerated versions of everyday ones so we can escape reality while also shining a light on it, and on our own hearts.

I really like going into these old tales to explore the psychology in them, make these characters flesh and blood and bone. I feel like these stories are part of who I am, stories that helped shaped my view of the world, and so there’s something very powerful to me about going in and rethinking them.

What challenges did you face in expanding these fairy tales into a novel?

A novel gives you room to explore all the emotions and thoughts and motivations that inform the extreme behavior you see in these old tales. Like asking for the heart of Snow White. It’s shocking, but when you think about and explore the stepmother’s motivation, you realize that she’s playing out very commonplace emotions and insecurities. She’s getting older, she wants to be loved and admired, and attention is shifting from her to this gorgeous young girl. The original tales are all so short, you don’t really have time to explore all the complicated emotions you know are at play. And of course, there’s all kinds of backstory and setting and detail that you have to figure out and fill in. It’s a challenge, but it’s also the fun part.

The Fairest of Them All is full of strong, powerful women, and generally has a feminist undercurrent. Was that intentional? Do you feel there’s anything like that in the original fairy-tale versions?

I think all my fairy-tale books have a feminist undercurrent. I’m interested in looking at the roles of women in these stories, and especially the relationships these women have with each other. The fairy godmother and Cinderella, for example, the mermaid and her princess rival from the Hans Christian Andersen story, Rapunzel and the witch, Snow White and the evil stepmother . . . There’s a lot of rivalry and anger and unhappiness in these tales, and I like to explore that and then see if there’s some way for these women to transcend their roles a bit and form alliances with each other. Female friendship is important to me, and there’s typically not a lot of room for it in the original stories, and certainly not in the Disney movies!

In The Fairest of Them All, the main characters are witches, too, so of course they’re powerful. How can the castle-bound prince compare with women who understand the earth and its magic?

Mathena is a very unconventional witch—where did your inspiration for her character come from?

I wanted her to be sympathetic and warm and powerful, not the evil hag from the original Rapunzel stories. I don’t like that witches, and older women generally in fairy tales, are typically one-dimensional and evil, though of course Mathena is . . . complicated. But I viewed her as deeply haunted and intensely charismatic and stunning and large-hearted, someone I would love to know in real life. She’s really a darker version of the sexy ex-circus- star gypsy-like librarian Mary Finn from my first novel, Rain Village. In that book, I needed a mentor figure who would help a young misfit girl grow up to become a famous, beloved trapeze star. And so this woman emerged—this black-haired witchy librarian who keeps an herb garden, brews magic teas, counsels the lovelorn (in addition to performing her librarian duties!), and does whatever she pleases. And she’s the only one in the town who can look at this misfit girl and see the beauty and magic within her.

Much of the magic that Mathena and Rapunzel practice is actually just an understanding of nature, and the uses of herbs. Do you see a connection between magic and nature?

Oh, yes. I see magic in birth, and in growing things, and in walking into a forest and knowing what each plant is and what it does, and in being deeply connected to your own body and the bodies of others. Knowing what plant someone should bite down on to relieve a toothache, what herb to put under your pillow to affect your dreams . . . I myself do not know the first thing about plants and gardens and very rarely spend time in forests, but it means that the world is even more full of mystery to me, and the natural world full of secrets and hidden attributes.

What led you to work Greek mythology into the story? Do you see a connection between Greek myth and the fairy tales you’ve rewritten?

I loved Greek myths as much as I loved fairy tales when I was a kid, and they’re a bit mixed together in my head. I love the idea of a world filled with gods and mortals, where gods interfered in the lives of humans and changed them into trees or beasts or constellations. I knew that Mathena needed a system of belief different from the Christianity of the kingdom, and it made sense to me that she’d worship Artemis rather than a male deity, and that she’d tell Rapunzel stories about the gods. Both Mathena and her counterpart, Mary Finn, are storytellers, because to me that’s a pure kind of magic, using words to make the world appear brand-new. So of course Mathena tells Rapunzel these wonderful tales full of beauty and transformation; it’s a part of her character to do so, and it also helps orient the reader to her very different point of view. Probably the main reason I’ve focused on fairy tales rather than Greek mythology generally is Disney. Fairy tales were just more ingrained in the culture I grew up in because of those films, and so maneuvering within them feels like a more powerful thing to do.

You have a master’s degree in comparative literature—did you study fairy tales in your academic career? What do you make of the extensive academic literature on fairy tales such as Snow White? Is it something you find interesting?

I actually didn’t study fairy tales while in school. I studied Italian literature (and English literature) as an undergrad and then went on to focus on medieval Italian poetry in graduate school. Part of my Italian studies, though, involved looking at story cycles, these old stories that were in One Thousand and One Nights and made their way into Latin and then old Italian story collections like The Novellino and The Decameron, etc. I started what became my first novel the same week I was writing a paper that traced one of these stories and talked about how it changed over time. I guess that really stuck with me. The power of old stories, the power of refashioning them over and over again into something new, illuminating their hidden parts, giving them meanings and dimensions that weren’t there before. All storytelling is really just that—we’re telling the same stories over and over again in (hopefully) new ways—but with fairy tales you’re doing it more transparently.

In terms of Snow White, I have read multiple versions of the tale, which you can find online. The Disney version is weird enough, but the further back you go, the weirder it all gets. Which I love!

One of the prominent themes of The Fairest of Them All is the relationship between infatuation, magic, and love—you describe wonderfully the confusion that surrounds Rapunzel in the evolution of her relationship with Josef. What do you think of the way “love” is used in fairy tales? Do you think there is more “magic” in real love, or infatuation?

Oh, I definitely think that infatuation feels like magic. Imagine being Rapunzel, out in the forest, seeing Josef for the first time with all his riches and glamour and that big gleaming horse. Of course she would imagine that that stricken, dazzled feeling was true love, combined with her excitement, her fantasy about what he represents, the way he could change her life in an instant. I think we often see this kind of instant love in fairy tales, especially in the Disney versions, not to mention in countless romantic comedies and shows like The Bachelor. In Mermaid and The Fairest of Them All, there are moments of instant love like this, but of course this kind of love will probably lead, eventually, to disappointment. We all know the idea that one person can swoop in and save and complete you is a bit flawed, and that the real magic comes with deep, lasting love.

What are you working on next? Do you have more thoughts about reimagining fairy tales?