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1-800-1871 (feat. Sara Hinkley) · 1-800-1800

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  ring ring hello hey is this 1871 this is 1871 speaking oh my
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  god hello you've
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  reached 1-800-1800 1-800-1800 I have a burning question
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  1-800-1800 1-800-1800
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  i have a burning question and what is your real name my real
• 0:34
  name is sarah hinkley
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  oh my gosh nice to meet you i guess i already know you um my
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  name is mabel and i'm
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  SPEAKER_02: madeline
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  and this is 1-800-1800 and it's a very special episode because
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  we have a guest
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  which is very rare because we're not usually allowed to talk to
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  people um welcome
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  to the podcast sarah you are a very fascinating person to come
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  on the podcast
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  because you are a writer a thinker a designer of of experiences
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  and you are the
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  SPEAKER_02: author of an upcoming book called the red sacrament
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  and it says on the cover a vampire novel is that like a
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  subtitle to the book should
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  we say that part um I think you can say it or not say it it is
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  a vampire novel but
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  I'm not sure that that subtitle will be on the final cover oh
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  okay interesting
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  that's just to alert the press that's just to alert the press
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  it's a vampire novel
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  that's good that's how I feel when I hear about a vampire novel
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  can you give us a
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  like your elevator pitch for the novel oh I would love to so
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  the Red Sacrament is a
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  gothic historical vampire novel and it's about a theater troupe
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  of vampires living
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  in Paris in 1869 70 71 and it follows a vampire named Arnaud
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  who is the sort of
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  SPEAKER_03: managing director of this theater troupe
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  So it falls on him to design the shows and run them and keep
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  everybody happy and
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  also sort of keep them safe to make sure that they're killing
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  just enough people
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  and in the right way where they don't get noticed and they're
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  able to continue
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  SPEAKER_03: running the troupe.
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  SPEAKER_03: The novel's about the disruption,
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  really the destruction of the status quo by strange visitors
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  and by accelerating
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  political events of Paris as we move into 1871 where this like
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  elaborately
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  constructed troupe that works so well is really going to
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  totally fall apart and be
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  SPEAKER_03: threatened.
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  wow that's a really good elevator pitch and it's amazing it's
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  an amazing read it's
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  like the most kind of like decadent descriptions of that era of
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  Paris I loved um
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  and it follows the history in a really interesting way that I
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  think we'll get into
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  and try to not spoil but you know think about you can follow
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  fun with it the
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  SPEAKER_01: 1-800-1800 way um
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  And I think the novel does so beautifully what we're trying to
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  do which is like
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  making this history tangible and accessible and fun and I love
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  reinvigorating the
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  past through this like gothic vampire this world of sort of
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  supernatural people I
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  thought it was really well done Thank you I really like the
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  gothic as a way to like
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  SPEAKER_03: bring the history home because I think like
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  especially vampires they I think they reappear like culturally
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  when we're in these
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  moments of like flux and and you know our own kind of
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  contradictions becoming
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  heightened the vampires always come back and I one thing I
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  really like about them
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  is that they're kind of extended timeframe because they're
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  immortal lets you take
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  like a longer view of history while still grounding it in a
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  character so that's
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  SPEAKER_03: something that's so fun.
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  so much to say about vampires like we come back to vampires
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  even when we're not
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  trying to talk about vampires they just are really helpful
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  vampires do help a lot
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  they help a lot well I also think something Mabel and I always
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  kind of talk about
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  is like why people who are interested in history and historical
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  fiction and fantasy
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  all kind of there's this weird like nebulous middle ground
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  between them and I do
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  think it's because and I say this as someone who's like in
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  academia doing history
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  it's all made up and so it's kind of this fantasy that you're
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  like making relevant
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  to the current moment and the vampire just helps drive that
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  home and make it like
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  SPEAKER_01: maybe a little bit more
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  fun and accessible but it doesn't like diminish the kind of you
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  know history of it
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  in any way which I think is such a powerful thing about the
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  vampire totally it's
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  like a door you know you can walk through it kind of to
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  whenever you want it's
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  amazing but before we get lost in our vampire conversation and
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  I do have about
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  4,000 questions about that I want to ask you Sarah did you
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  learn anything this week
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  SPEAKER_02: that you enjoyed and want to share
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  oh I absolutely did um so I was reading this book it's called
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  from Vatican to Vegas
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  and it's all about like stagecraft and spectacle um and like
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  the baroque and the
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  modern I don't understand it really but I'm really enjoying it
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  and I learned that
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  there was this production um of this opera in Padua in like the
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  early 1600s and it
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  SPEAKER_01: had 300 stagehands whoa which is crazy I can't think of a
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  SPEAKER_03: How many people were in the opera itself?
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  I love that question,
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  and I wish I had an answer,
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  but there's no way it was 300.
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  SPEAKER_03: There's no way it was even 100.
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  SPEAKER_01: I went to the opera.
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  SPEAKER_01: I saw Innocence yesterday,
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  and I was mesmerized by the possibility of how many people had
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  to be backstage
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  SPEAKER_01: because they kept switching the sets out so quickly.
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  yeah that's at the Met right that's at the Met yeah it's it the
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  set is amazing it's
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  this like so good it's basically a kind of cube that rotates
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  and it's like the
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  architectural plan of the building and so you get these
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  different vantage points of
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  kind of seeing through the walls of the building and it it
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  lights up and changes
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  like where your attention is meant to go based on where they
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  are in the story it's
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  really cool that is so cool and at the Met like their stage
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  it's like a football
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  SPEAKER_03: field back there it's crazy I'm sure it's like
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  it wouldn't surprise me if there's 300 people back there I
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  don't think there are
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  but it would not surprise me I was also I saw Innocence last
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  weekend and I was
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  wondering like where does this where does this all go when
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  they're switching
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  productions I just don't like the vastness of space required to
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  do any aspect of
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  SPEAKER_02: the opera I don't understand
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  yeah it's tremendous it's like even what you see which is so
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  big is is small
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  compared to all the stuff they've got cooking back there yeah
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  and they'll change
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  over like whole productions in like in the same day sometimes
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  oh I think that there
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  was a show that evening I went yesterday to the matinee and I
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  think yes last night
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  they had La Boheme that's crazy and La Boheme has a donkey so
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  there was a donkey
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  somewhere in the vicinity literally where does the donkey go
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  yeah during innocence
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  is the donkey like watching we need a donkey cam to be like
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  where is the donkey at
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  SPEAKER_03: all times
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  if the map wants to save itself we need a donkey camp yeah yeah
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  yeah we so my what
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  I learned this week just changed because of what you just said
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  Sarah because you
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  said the word Vatican I was going to tell you guys something
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  really silly that I
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  learned yesterday which is I'm gonna do both I'm gonna have two
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  can I have two
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  they're really fast one I learned that the etymology of
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  dinosaur is terrible lizard
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  which I didn't know and that was coined in 1842 by Sir Richard
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  Owen so I thought
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  that was that really blew my mind but when you mentioned the
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  Vatican it reminded me
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  of this thing I learned about last week so I'm kind of cheating
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  which is the chrono
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  visor do you know about this I told Madeline about this earlier
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  no not at all
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  I don't fully understand it and it probably deserves its own
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  episode but basically
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  like in the 70s these sort of Catholic bishops thought they
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  discovered a device
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  that allowed them to like watch the past as if it was
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  television and like they
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  shared it with the Pope at the time and he was like this is a
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  huge discovery and
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  SPEAKER_02: it's going to change the like world of science it's so cool yeah so
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  i just had to mention the chronovisor but we'll we'll come back
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  to it and the
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  vatican has one it sounds like and i think they like watch
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  christ tv christ tv like
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  it does it transmit visions of the past did it at any point
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  transmit visions of the
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  past like i i understand that maybe now this thing is not
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  possible but maybe like
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  400 years ago that was possible i don't know yeah maybe yeah we
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  don't know
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  SPEAKER_02: The origins of it began with a sort of broken radio,
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  SPEAKER_02: which of course was being used to transmit messages from beyond.
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  SPEAKER_02: And then it evolved into this type of time travel television.
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  it's so fascinating because it kind of when I was a kid I used
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  to like if something
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  was broken or like I would like you know lie under the table
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  and there would be
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  like a crack or something I'd be like it's a map to you know
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  whatever and it sounds
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  like that it sounds like they're treasure hunting yeah aren't
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  we all um my
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  SPEAKER_01: something I learned this week is that I went to the Mozart
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  show at the morgan library with my grandparents were in town
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  which is why I went to
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  the opera and to the morgan library um and I was there's like a
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  they have I guess
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  like his um it's not a clavichord what is it called it's like
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  an like clavicular
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  and I don't know it's the little piano that he would compose on
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  no oh like the
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  little it's little yeah I I can imagine it in my mind I don't
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  know what it's called
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  it's okay um it had his ink stains on it it was very cool
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  that's really cool yeah
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  um but basically the thing that I learned there is that so his
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  dad I I people
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  probably know this I'm like an idiot about music his dad was a
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  violin teeth
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  his sister was also a prodigy but prodigy used loosely because
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  his dad was
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  basically training them from birth to be able to perform so the
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  idea I mean he was
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  like a gifted composer and maybe more talented than his sister
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  in that regard
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  although I don't know if that's just fostered more in him than
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  her but they were
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  basically there was a craze at the time in Europe for
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  wunderkind for these like
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  SPEAKER_01: prodigious children so the dad was trying to
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  like market them as these prodigies and so that's why they
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  ended up becoming so
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  famous and touring not because of some like innate talent that
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  like you know his
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  dad the shoemaker discovered like when he was you know I don't
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  know pressing the
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  keys it's just like really interesting the way that that story
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  has kind of outlived
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  SPEAKER_01: the reality of what happened he like created them
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  yeah whoa they were like child stars more than like this kind
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  of like the prodigy
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  is like whoa I think that also clarifies for me like his kind
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  of chaotic personal
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  life because that's a very former child star it's a very former
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  child star his dad
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  SPEAKER_01: was like taking them on tour when they were like eight years old and
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  the sister is kind of interesting too because she's she was
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  also she was always
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  performing with him he was never really like performing by
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  himself obviously he's
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  the one that people I never knew about the sister at all and I
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  watched Amadeus
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  Maria Anna I think was her name she was not featured in Amadeus
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  no she's not a
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  character though it was honestly overwhelming as a spectacle so
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  maybe I missed the
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  sister she's in the background playing the violin yeah poor
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  little Maria Anna
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  oh wow i've learned a lot you guys okay 1871 yeah okay so in
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  the united states
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  ulysses s grant is president and he signs into law the first
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  civil service reform
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  legislation and madeline and i have gone into like the grant
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  era civil service
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  SPEAKER_02: reform era actually before
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  and it's just really interesting because the United States was
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  like so corrupt and
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  a lot of what's happening in America I was thinking about was
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  like what is these
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  kind of like convulsions in cities and I think that's like the
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  peak of that is
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  SPEAKER_02: Grant like changing the way that
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  civil service works but also in the cities themselves it's like
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  in new york that
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  year that the committee of 70 was founded to combat the
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  corruption of tammany hall
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  and to finally bring down william m tweed and he's arrested
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  that year for bribery
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  and then also in New York PT Barnum opens his first three ring
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  circus on April 10th
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  and then in Chicago the great Chicago fire breaks out and 300
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  people die and 17,000
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  buildings are destroyed and then in Los Angeles there's a
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  horrible massacre of a
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  bunch of Chinese immigrants who are killed by a mob and so I
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  was just like thinking
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  like cities are changing and I feel like that is my connection
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  to Paris like
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  the way that the people are fighting either the corruption at
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  the top or they're
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  being kind of taken advantage of by like new types of spectacle
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  and display.
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  I also learned that in London in 1871,
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  the first cat show happened at the Crystal Palace.
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  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_02: And everybody's always talking about dog shows, but what about cat shows?
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  And then in England to the Trade Union Act of 1871 became a new
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  law that made
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  SPEAKER_02: unions legal and gave workers the right to strike.
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  um and that's interesting too when I was thinking about it in
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  the French context
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  like I think Napoleon III actually had already given people the
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  legal right to
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  strike and so like the England versus France dynamic I'm always
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  trying to track
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  um and so clearly like labor is also a theme in these different
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  kind of city
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  disasters like people are living in impoverished conditions and
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  burning to death
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  and all these things our births are also very interesting in
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  1871 Rosa Luxemburg
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  SPEAKER_02: was born so there's a little connection and then Proust is an 1871 baby
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  and then there was a whaling disaster of 1871 which sort of
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  marked the end of the
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  American whaling industry when 33 ships were trapped in Arctic
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  ice off the coast of
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  Alaska but all 1200 people on board the ships survived and I
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  was just sort of like
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  interested in that too and like the way that this old form of
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  harvesting fuel is
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  like finally kind of collapsing and we're like entering into a
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  maybe more truly
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  SPEAKER_02: modern era
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  and like you can't keep burning whale blubber when you're
• 14:56
  trying to like produce
• 14:59
  this many industrial goods you know what I mean totally I'm
• 15:04
  always saying that
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  there is something so primitive about that it's like like it's
• 15:11
  unbelievable a
• 15:12
  leviathan of the deep and we're gonna spear it drag it up and
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  then we're gonna like
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  SPEAKER_01: and it worked for so long
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  I know the smell must have been like I think about that a lot
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  the smell must have
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  SPEAKER_02: been unreal I mean nobody should be doing that
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  okay do you is that that's my 1871 okay perfect thank you
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  you're on that note so
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  Sarah you start the book in 1869 and then you go through 1871
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  do you want to talk
• 15:43
  about a little bit about why you chose that specific period and
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  what that means to
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  SPEAKER_01: you as like a kind of moment of the 19th century yeah totally um so I was
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  SPEAKER_03: definitely like inspired the seed of writing the book
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  SPEAKER_03: is obviously like Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire,
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  which is this like century spanning really tremendous story
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  about this vampiric
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  SPEAKER_03: family.
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  There's one little section of it that takes place in Paris at
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  this time that has a
• 16:11
  theater of vampires that really doesn't touch on at all the
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  political situation of
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  SPEAKER_03: that year.
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  SPEAKER_03: It just kind of is in the year and then sort of moves on to other things.
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  So that was really what kind of captured my imagination of the
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  combination of this
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  SPEAKER_03: like year that's almost
• 16:28
  like a fulcrum in history and like the spectacle of the stage
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  and the spectacle of
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  SPEAKER_03: like the city going through this and transforming so violently.
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  SPEAKER_03: And I just had the thought,
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  SPEAKER_03: which is like,
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: okay,
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  I think there's maybe a whole book there just in that little
• 16:41
  missed opportunity,
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  SPEAKER_03: just in that little space.
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  SPEAKER_03: And I was so fascinated by like, maybe the, like the long history
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  SPEAKER_03: and relationship between revolution and the French stage.
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  And then this period where it's like a dictatorship of Napoleon
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  III and the cities
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: like the jewel of Europe and like entertainment,
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  mass entertainments and tourism and like pleasure and all of
• 17:10
  these things are at
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_03: this peak right before totally violent upheaval.
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  SPEAKER_03: I found that just sort of irresistible.
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  SPEAKER_03: And that's how I ended up in like 1869, 70, 71.
• 17:23
  should we give an overview for listeners who are not familiar
• 17:26
  with that with the
• 17:27
  siege of Paris and the commune what happened yes totally we
• 17:31
  should tell them so in
• 17:33
  like 1869 in Paris um the the political regime is the the
• 17:39
  second French empire so
• 17:41
  it's like kind of a restoration of Napoleonic ideas and the
• 17:45
  person of his like
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_03: nephew but it is I I would understand it as like like an
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_03: kind of a ridiculous dictatorship, like a bourgeois dictatorship.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_03: And the physical geography of Paris is transformed during this time,
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  like the big boulevards and the big white buildings that you
• 18:07
  imagine when you think
• 18:07
  of Paris are kind of violently and abruptly created during this
• 18:11
  time where the old
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  SPEAKER_03: medieval city,
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  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_03: Napoleon III is kind of clearing it all out,
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  SPEAKER_03: demolishing whole neighborhoods and being like,
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  SPEAKER_03: no,
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  SPEAKER_03: we're doing we're going to be like a modern
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  triumphal city he's doing this with you know Baron Ostman who's
• 18:25
  like that now known
• 18:25
  as the architect of Paris and in kind of the the dictatorial
• 18:32
  bombast of what he's
• 18:33
  doing one of the things he does is he starts this war with
• 18:37
  Prussia like gets kind
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  SPEAKER_03: of suckered into declaring this war there's like
• 18:43
  a dramatic situation at like a diplomatic conference where
• 18:47
  someone is insulted and
• 18:48
  then someone writes a letter and basically he gets like tricked
• 18:52
  into declaring this
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  SPEAKER_03: war on Prussia that he has no hope of winning.
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  SPEAKER_03: So the war begins,
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_03: everyone believes,
• 19:00
  certainly Napoleon three believes that they're going to wrap it
• 19:02
  up really quickly,
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  SPEAKER_03: but it is a disaster.
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  SPEAKER_03: They are like getting dog walked by the Prussians by like their superior
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_03: organization,
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_03: certainly by their like ability to move their troops using rail.
• 19:13
  their weaponry is better like everything is better so Paris is
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  encircled and put
• 19:19
  under siege by the Prussian army and the city is under siege
• 19:23
  for like a very long
• 19:24
  and difficult winter like people are eating the zoo animals
• 19:27
  it's like a total
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_03: disruption of ordinary urban life but it's also one that like
• 19:32
  Madeline Porsella Madeline Porsella Madeline Porsella Madeline
• 19:35
  Porsella Madeline
• 19:36
  Porsella Madeline Porsella Madeline Porsella Madeline Porsella
• 19:38
  Madeline Porsella
• 19:38
  Madeline Porsella Madeline Porsella Madeline Porsella Madeline
• 19:40
  Porsella Madeline
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_03: Porsella Madeline Porsella Madeline
• 19:51
  Paris and you know the government of France surrenders like the
• 19:55
  emperor is captured
• 19:57
  and they have just fully lost the war so they surrender and the
• 20:00
  surrender is really
• 20:00
  not popular with the people of Paris who want to continue
• 20:02
  fighting because they've
• 20:04
  been like toughing it out all winter and they think that they
• 20:07
  can hold out forever
• 20:08
  so it's around this kind of siege and then the surrender that
• 20:13
  Paris begins to like
• 20:15
  the working people of Paris who have been by the way in like in
• 20:17
  their political
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_03: clubs all the siege with nothing else to do
• 20:21
  Mandylionpress begin to like threaten to take control of the
• 20:24
  city and that is what
• 20:25
  happens yeah and you have like this very unique situation
• 20:29
  because the government
• 20:31
  goes to Versailles right and so yeah the government flees so
• 20:34
  like yeah uprising in
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_03: the city
• 20:36
  um the kind of National Guard of Paris outnumbers briefly the
• 20:40
  army of France so
• 20:43
  like the French government that's being overthrown just like
• 20:45
  retreats and like kind
• 20:46
  of seeds the whole city which is so interesting in terms of
• 20:50
  like the relationship
• 20:51
  of Paris and Versailles and the history of France over the last
• 20:54
  couple of centuries
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: before this point like Louis XIV moves
• 20:58
  the center of government and culture to Versailles as a way to
• 21:01
  sort of balance out
• 21:02
  the cultural power of Paris and to like change the seat of
• 21:06
  power and I was
• 21:07
  interesting like reading and thinking about this period in
• 21:10
  France where like Paris
• 21:12
  has so much cultural domination but and the peasantry in the
• 21:16
  countryside is so
• 21:17
  disconnected um but ultimately is like weaponized kind of
• 21:21
  against Paris in the
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: bloody week um
• 21:25
  And I think something else I was thinking about when you were
• 21:27
  talking too is like
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Napoleon III,
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: he comes to power,
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: he takes power,
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: right,
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: like in the wake of 1848.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 21:36
  And so there's this like revolutionary context both to the
• 21:38
  beginning and to the end
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: of his reign.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:43
  and i kind of wanted to talk about like your the way that you
• 21:46
  were thinking about
• 21:46
  that in the book because i feel like the you know like the
• 21:52
  Paris of Ausman becomes
• 21:55
  almost a character like Arnaud is strolling through the city
• 21:58
  when the um when the
• 22:00
  army comes from Versailles he talks about the boulevards like
• 22:04
  carrying them through
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: more easily and
• 22:08
  you know he's there's sort of there's like a very amazing
• 22:11
  description of the
• 22:13
  Garnier opera house that kind of is you know this excessive
• 22:17
  teeming space that is
• 22:19
  kind of this false hope because it's never finished and then it
• 22:23
  sits in this like a
• 22:24
  pigeon roost and so and then I think so that's like in Paris
• 22:28
  itself that's sort of
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: you see the holes in the second empire in these moments and um
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then you also have sort of the connection to the provinces,
• 22:39
  this like invisible barrier between Paris and the provinces
• 22:42
  that the train has
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: broken is kind of like part of the inciting action of the book.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, I would say so.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_03: One thing I was thinking about was like the vampire has a longer view,
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_03: which is why they're so like dramatically interesting and useful.
• 22:58
  And thinking about how significantly like the city transformed
• 23:02
  during this time,
• 23:03
  I
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_03: Madeline Porsella Madeline Porsella Madeline Porsella
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember when it first came out, I was like, oh, fuck this.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_03: I'm never tapping the pay.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_03: I love my metric card.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_03: And then it just happens and you just get used to it.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:37
  And I love there's so many great moments where Arno talks about
• 23:40
  the changes that
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: he's seeing,
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: like the boulevards are a huge part.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then also like the light,
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: the way if you're a vampire and you live and you're awake all night.
• 23:50
  it's so transformative in ways that are probably really great
• 23:52
  and also really
• 23:53
  challenging that there's now just all of this light everywhere
• 23:57
  and like the
• 23:57
  medieval city is broken open by Osman and like there's no dark
• 24:03
  corners anymore and
• 24:04
  then also everybody has to live like we're lurking there's no
• 24:09
  shadows anymore you
• 24:10
  know and I was just thinking about this like industrial
• 24:12
  transformation what it must
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_03: feel like to go through it um just to literally be disoriented
• 24:19
  by the same place you know yeah and like that is his if you're
• 24:26
  a vampire that is
• 24:27
  your outlook on history and time because it's like everything
• 24:30
  stays the same and
• 24:31
  then everything is also wildly changing and I and there's like
• 24:34
  this great moment
• 24:35
  that Madeline and I were talking about earlier where someone is
• 24:37
  like I think Alex
• 24:39
  is like what was it like during the revolution and he's like
• 24:43
  which one yeah I don't
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_03: know
• 24:45
  like I probably wasn't I was probably here like I was probably
• 24:48
  inside yeah yeah
• 24:52
  what do you miss when you can't go outside during the day yeah
• 24:55
  and a lot actually
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_03: like especially the earlier before artificial light like before you know
• 25:01
  electricity changes so much about like our days and our nights
• 25:04
  people are really
• 25:05
  not doing so much at night they are largely home and inside so
• 25:09
  it's like a totally
• 25:10
  quieter world or it's like a world that kind of belongs to
• 25:13
  entertainment or like
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_03: the demimonde
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_03: rather than ordinary or like institutional goings on.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:22
  There's also something in Arnaud kind of like taking the
• 25:27
  theater as the place where
• 25:28
  they're going to sort of have their nest and have people come
• 25:33
  and be sort of doled
• 25:34
  by spectacle that echoes Louis Napoleon in this strange way
• 25:38
  because he was so canny
• 25:40
  about using spectacle and using these kind of entertainments
• 25:44
  and pleasures and
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: comforts to quell dissent.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: That was really interesting to me.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's like the glamour
• 25:53
  that's kind of laid over just the essential extraction that's
• 25:56
  going on and I think
• 25:59
  it's repeated also in like even like on the vampires the
• 26:04
  members of the troop that
• 26:05
  they like love what they do and they're performers and that's
• 26:09
  you know their
• 26:10
  calling and that's the glamour but like their labor is being
• 26:13
  exploited forever it's
• 26:15
  like no you actually have a job and you have it forever but to
• 26:17
  them maybe it
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_03: doesn't feel like a job it feels like
• 26:20
  you know something they're meant to to do and and that the
• 26:23
  spectacle also works on
• 26:24
  them like the mystification of the like the bones of the
• 26:30
  relation which is one of
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_03: extraction yeah
• 26:33
  yeah and you see that in that like the vampires are feeding off
• 26:37
  of the people who
• 26:37
  are there to take in the entertainment like they live on people
• 26:41
  coming to see the
• 26:42
  show and also those people who come to see the show like
• 26:45
  they're living to play
• 26:46
  like yeah that's that's where they really come alive because
• 26:49
  presumably all day at
• 26:50
  work like they're there's something already kind of like soul
• 26:53
  sucking about the new
• 26:54
  forms of labor and things like that yeah and that this is where
• 26:58
  like you know
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_03: excitement and like uniqueness can be found mm-hmm
• 27:05
  um do you want we had pulled out uh obviously the commune is
• 27:10
  sort of something that
• 27:11
  is Marx talks about a lot as like for him it's he sort of
• 27:16
  romanticized it is it as
• 27:17
  the sort of ideal of what a revolution could be despite the
• 27:20
  fact that it ended not
• 27:22
  so good um but Marx also uses the vampire metaphor a lot and I
• 27:28
  was wondering if
• 27:29
  that was something you were thinking about when you were sort
• 27:31
  of choosing vampires
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: as your
• 27:34
  oh yeah i mean my man loved like a vivid metaphor like i think
• 27:40
  he was probably
• 27:41
  conscious that what's going on is pretty dry so it's like we
• 27:44
  got to juice it up we
• 27:45
  got to give them like you know the gothic and the extreme and
• 27:49
  like like like vivid
• 27:50
  imagery and i think like since since marx vampires are this
• 27:56
  really potent metaphor
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: for like for extraction um and
• 28:02
  you know in in times of like of of societal rupture they do
• 28:09
  like always kind of
• 28:10
  come back like whether in you know our stories like you know
• 28:15
  vampires going out of
• 28:16
  fashion always coming back but I also think like the the sort
• 28:21
  of vampiric myths of
• 28:23
  like our own anxieties about like elites and extraction
• 28:26
  extraction like like
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_03: they're kind of always they just never really stay away you know
• 28:32
  and like yeah and I love the idea that the if the vampire is
• 28:39
  like a metaphor for
• 28:40
  capitalist extraction I wanted to put the actual vampire kind
• 28:43
  of in conversation
• 28:44
  with that metaphor like what does it feel like to be a metaphor
• 28:46
  especially when the
• 28:48
  capitalist may be arriving and making you redundant like
• 28:51
  there's something so sort
• 28:53
  of old-fashioned about these vampires and they're ill-equipped
• 28:55
  to live in the new
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_03: industrial world with all of its
• 28:58
  kind of almost perfecting of what they do so it's like what's
• 29:01
  the point of them
• 29:02
  anymore when now we have like the factory we have all of these
• 29:05
  structures yeah
• 29:06
  which like literally make people taste worse yeah and that's
• 29:12
  what it comes down to
• 29:14
  there's wait go ahead Madeline oh I was gonna say I mean that's
• 29:17
  like a fascinating
• 29:18
  thing because as I was kind of putting together the notes for
• 29:21
  talking to you today
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was like
• 29:23
  are the vampires living in a sort of commune where they have
• 29:26
  this like you know
• 29:27
  everybody has shares and there's like some sort of collectivism
• 29:29
  or is it extractive
• 29:30
  and like Leopold and then Arnaud are like actually the person
• 29:33
  or the people
• 29:34
  benefiting from it and it is kind of this in between that like
• 29:37
  straddles those two
• 29:40
  like modes and I think that makes sense when you have you know
• 29:44
  kind of from a
• 29:45
  feudal system what they're doing versus from a industrial
• 29:49
  capitalist system what
• 29:50
  they're doing which makes it goes from seeming sort of
• 29:53
  extractive and taking
• 29:54
  advantage of the people participating to seeming kind of quaint
• 29:57
  in comparison to
• 29:58
  the exploitation of industrial and colonial capitalism which
• 30:01
  you also talk about I
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: think in interesting ways in the novel yeah like they have meetings
• 30:07
  you know and like and and it's also actually very important
• 30:09
  that he keeps them all
• 30:10
  kind of happy like I think the the share and seniority system I
• 30:14
  took directly from
• 30:15
  the the Comédie Française which is like the national theater of
• 30:17
  France which has
• 30:18
  been which has existed in the same form since the 1600s like it
• 30:23
  is the same
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_03: institution and it has some of the same rules which is pretty cool and
• 30:27
  the way that that worked is it was a seniority based system and
• 30:30
  you would like rise
• 30:30
  in the ranks by the number of years that you were in it and
• 30:33
  they had obviously
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_03: changing over hundreds of years but they had these ways of running it and
• 30:39
  distributing the money and it was like it reminds me almost of
• 30:43
  like pirate ships
• 30:45
  from the golden age of piracy how they would also have this
• 30:47
  share system and it was
• 30:48
  like the little guy on the ship would have one share and the
• 30:50
  caption would have
• 30:51
  more but it was sort of organized and it had some democratic
• 30:55
  elements to it
• 30:57
  um so I just kind of stole that directly and and I liked also
• 31:01
  the idea that um that
• 31:04
  the predatory nature of these vampires both done to people and
• 31:07
  also especially to
• 31:08
  each other because they are in this kind of pyramid shape you
• 31:11
  know it's almost a
• 31:12
  pyramid scheme like we think that Arno's running it and he sort
• 31:15
  of behaves like
• 31:16
  he's running it but there is a tier higher than him and that's
• 31:18
  Leopold who doesn't
• 31:19
  have to do literally anything like he is just hanging out in
• 31:22
  his bathrobe like
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_03: reading books um
• 31:25
  but that the extraction there i know he's like he's living so
• 31:28
  lucky you know wow um
• 31:32
  but that that extraction is sort of outpaced and made
• 31:36
  irrelevant by the the
• 31:38
  industrial extraction which is just like totally blowing them
• 31:41
  away and kicking
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: their asses you know yeah and it is so interesting like
• 31:46
  not just in this novel but also in a lot of vampire things that
• 31:50
  I've consumed over
• 31:51
  the years like the the sire higher or the sire sort of ancestry
• 31:56
  is so important and
• 31:57
  people like want to know who made you and so there's a way that
• 32:00
  vampires like exist
• 32:02
  in a family unit like what you're talking about Madeline like
• 32:04
  it is so much more
• 32:05
  futile than in sort of industrial Paris everybody is anonymous
• 32:09
  and they've like
• 32:10
  they're not tied to their family which is also what makes it
• 32:13
  possible for them to
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: be like
• 32:15
  Sucked dry and thrown in an oven in yeah at a theater and maybe
• 32:18
  no one knows
• 32:19
  because there's all these ways that people are just sort of
• 32:21
  disappearing into the
• 32:22
  darkness of the city it doesn't just have to be like an act of
• 32:25
  violence inflicted
• 32:26
  by a supernatural creature yeah they're changing their name and
• 32:29
  they're starting a
• 32:30
  new family somewhere else or they're moving or they're just
• 32:32
  disappear and you never
• 32:33
  see them again at work and it's just not marked on yeah and
• 32:37
  like in the 19th
• 32:38
  century and for most of human history if you move to the other
• 32:40
  side of the world
• 32:42
  no one would ever hear from you ever again yeah probably like
• 32:45
  you people were lost
• 32:46
  to their families in all sorts of ways um which also makes like
• 32:51
  the vampire
• 32:51
  connection across time even more remarkable yeah I liked the
• 32:56
  idea that it would be
• 32:56
  like kind of a pyramid scheme like because they have these
• 32:59
  built-in hierarchies
• 33:00
  because one makes another and then they have all these like
• 33:03
  rules and it goes back
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_03: like thousands of years
• 33:06
  which Victor and Francois are kind of breaking because they
• 33:09
  have no connection to
• 33:09
  their sire and they're just kind of free agents floating around
• 33:11
  doing whatever they
• 33:12
  want so they're sort of representing this new way of doing
• 33:14
  things yeah and I was a
• 33:18
  better way of doing things it's more successful ultimately way
• 33:21
  of doing things yeah
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: they're they're
• 33:25
  origin story was so interesting to me also because and maybe
• 33:29
  you'll talk about this
• 33:30
  a little bit more but they're coming from the colonies they're
• 33:33
  they're slaveholders
• 33:35
  and there's some sort of mysterious illness that is going
• 33:39
  around and uh Victor is
• 33:41
  dying of it Francoise you know in order to save him uh finds
• 33:46
  this vampire and has
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: they have this anonymous kind of conversion but then
• 33:51
  he says that the first thing that they do is feed on the their
• 33:55
  nurse who's an
• 33:55
  enslaved woman who had raised them yeah so I was can you talk a
• 33:59
  little bit about
• 34:00
  that as a decision and kind of like that this sort of colonial
• 34:03
  element which comes
• 34:04
  in in various ways throughout the book yeah I I just knew that
• 34:08
  like everything
• 34:09
  about them would have to come down from where they came from
• 34:11
  and where they were
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_03: raised and I wanted it to not just be a setting but like
• 34:18
  like a total through line for both of their characters so and I
• 34:23
  also knew that I
• 34:23
  wanted them to be kind of isolated with only each other not
• 34:27
  separated to other
• 34:27
  vampires and not separated to people so they are orphans and
• 34:30
  their parents are gone
• 34:31
  they're raised by an enslaved woman and absolutely the very
• 34:34
  first thing they do
• 34:34
  when they become vampires is they kill her and this is someone
• 34:36
  who like took care
• 34:38
  of them probably literally physically fed them and breastfed
• 34:41
  them with her body and
• 34:44
  for Victor it's just part of the story of his origin and he
• 34:47
  really doesn't think
• 34:48
  about it at all and that was like not dwelt on in a way that's
• 34:51
  really interesting
• 34:51
  not at all we just drop it and go on for him it's just like
• 34:55
  another step in his big
• 34:56
  story of all these things that happened to him and you know
• 35:01
  while we are getting to
• 35:02
  know Victor and I think we do like him and he has these good
• 35:05
  qualities and he shows
• 35:06
  signs of separating from the world view that he was growing up
• 35:09
  with I'm kind of
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_03: posing the question like is it possible
• 35:13
  you know is it possible morally to separate yourself from where
• 35:16
  you grew up that's
• 35:17
  the question I'm posing with Victor but I was very conscious
• 35:22
  with that choice of
• 35:23
  kind of showing you who they are even if they it's not evident
• 35:28
  to Arno or even to
• 35:29
  themselves yeah I think it was such an amazing detail for that
• 35:33
  reason because it
• 35:33
  really like as the reader you're sort of jolted by it but it's
• 35:37
  moved away from so
• 35:38
  quickly that you're like you're you're immediately aware that
• 35:41
  it's nothing to him
• 35:44
  and uh that was so interesting and the other place that the
• 35:48
  colonial element really
• 35:49
  came in that was interesting to me was um when not the vampires
• 35:53
  but the army
• 35:54
  returns to Paris from Versailles and you you say that they're
• 35:58
  tan from you know
• 35:59
  their trips to Indochina and I think yeah also in this period
• 36:04
  thinking about the
• 36:05
  way that racial and colonial violence has like comes home to
• 36:08
  roost in the metropole
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: is something that Mabel and I are always talking about and yeah
• 36:12
  it's like such an interesting way to bring it into the story
• 36:15
  yeah that it's like
• 36:16
  well here it is you know and I think especially for Arnaud
• 36:19
  who's living in Paris
• 36:20
  who isn't really thinking about these things even though he
• 36:24
  does kind of think
• 36:25
  about them sometimes and then avoid them because it's got
• 36:27
  nothing to do with him I
• 36:30
  think he is you know even despite his best efforts he's aware
• 36:35
  that there's
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_03: something going on on the periphery and that it's not great
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_03: And then when it comes home to him,
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_03: I think he is able to recognize that to see it for what it is.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:45
  when his whole experience of the world is so limited by being a
• 36:50
  vampire and I loved
• 36:51
  all the parts about like travel the challenges of traveling as
• 36:54
  a vampire and like
• 36:57
  because horses know horses know that horses know good so
• 37:00
  they're kind of like the
• 37:01
  eternal gaze who can't drive you know what I mean it's like
• 37:05
  you're walking and
• 37:06
  that's it yeah I did want to explore a lot of just problems
• 37:11
  like logistical
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_03: problems like okay you need to be invited inside somewhere
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_03: That's difficult.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_03: What if you need to go into a store and they don't see you at the window?
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_03: How long are you going to wait there for them to let you in?
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_03: Do you knock?
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_03: Do you knock again?
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_03: If you need to get somewhere fast, you're walking.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's what made the book so rich of that period for me.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: There were all these logistical problems that illustrated the world more
• 37:37
  I don't know I feel like a lot of times in fantasy novels no
• 37:40
  shade but like it's
• 37:41
  kind of it's about the plot and the sort of details of those
• 37:45
  things get lost and as
• 37:47
  someone who is frustrated by that kind of thing it frustrates
• 37:50
  me but this one it
• 37:51
  was just like there was so many moments like that where I was
• 37:55
  sort of taken aback
• 37:56
  myself as the reader with being confronted with these
• 37:59
  difficulties in a way that
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: was like really satisfying actually and like
• 38:03
  I find that so satisfying too so thanks for saying that I love
• 38:06
  a problem you know
• 38:07
  what I mean like exactly yeah it's not so easy being a vampire
• 38:12
  no it kind of sucks
• 38:14
  yeah I I hope it doesn't happen to me well yeah the other thing
• 38:18
  I've talked about
• 38:18
  repeatedly is how it's it's actually when we were younger we
• 38:21
  would have wanted to
• 38:22
  become vampires and now that we're older we realize that it's
• 38:25
  actually like the
• 38:26
  whole point of the vampire genre is that it's this horrible
• 38:29
  curse obviously yeah
• 38:31
  I don't know I think a lot of vampire stories especially like
• 38:35
  since kind of the
• 38:36
  ricey in turn where it's about the interiority now the vampire
• 38:39
  it's like it's
• 38:40
  tragic but isn't it so sexy and fun also you know yeah there's
• 38:44
  an appeal I think
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: should we talk just quickly about the um
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: The sort of Petra Luz and the gendered violence too.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about that.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: The Petra Luz are obviously something mythologically that I've always,
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: since I was little,
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: thought was the most amazing thing.
• 39:01
  It's the story that the working class women of Paris started
• 39:04
  setting these fires
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: during the commune and there was a huge turn against them.
• 39:08
  And the myth became so big that they almost were considered
• 39:11
  villains like vampires
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: or zombies or specters in and of themselves.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like creatures.
• 39:17
  yeah you know and and the way that they're talked about like in
• 39:20
  the French they're
• 39:21
  referred to as like females rather than women or people like
• 39:25
  like the language of
• 39:27
  of farm animals or monsters is used to refer to them they like
• 39:30
  they are really
• 39:31
  intensely othered and that of course is just part of the
• 39:35
  psychological preparation
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_03: to massacre them you know
• 39:37
  yeah exactly and so I think that's like captured so well in the
• 39:42
  book I mean
• 39:42
  obviously as like it's there's always a kind of frustration in
• 39:47
  mainstream histories
• 39:48
  with talking about things like the commune where it's so
• 39:52
  dehumanized because it's
• 39:54
  you know from the sort of one from the perspective of like this
• 39:57
  this was a sort of
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: fluke in this global yeah game of war and
• 40:04
  you know there are the there are these working class people
• 40:06
  setting fires but
• 40:07
  they're historically insignificant in these broader histories
• 40:09
  and so I think taking
• 40:11
  the time to kind of sit with the violence that was involved in
• 40:16
  suppressing the
• 40:17
  commune which is so horrific and also thinking about the
• 40:21
  integral role that women
• 40:22
  and women's unions played not just in 71 but also in 48 and how
• 40:27
  quickly they were
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: cast aside was really interesting.
• 40:32
  yeah and I think this is where like Arno as a protagonist is
• 40:36
  useful because he's a
• 40:37
  little weird about women and always kind of notices them
• 40:41
  because he grew up largely
• 40:42
  without them and I think through him I was hoping to express
• 40:50
  this like just real
• 40:53
  lie at the heart of like the 19th century like idea of chivalry
• 41:00
  right that like
• 41:01
  you know it's the angel in the house and that women are
• 41:03
  different and that they are
• 41:04
  higher and better when nobody believed that they certainly
• 41:08
  didn't behave that way
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_03: and if there's like women who are working class or who are presenting any
• 41:14
  difficulties we can exclude them from that category and we can
• 41:17
  subject them to
• 41:18
  absolutely horrific violence and then just move on like nothing
• 41:20
  happened yeah well
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: it's also interesting
• 41:25
  when you were saying that I was thinking about like one of the
• 41:26
  things that started
• 41:27
  happening during the Paris Commune was like in those in that
• 41:31
  brief period people
• 41:32
  the citizens of Paris stopped referring to each other as Madame
• 41:35
  and Monsieur they
• 41:36
  were like they were adopting a new use of the French language
• 41:40
  that wasn't as
• 41:41
  hierarchical and also but in in that there are all these things
• 41:44
  about gender too
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_02: because like people
• 41:47
  are no longer women are no longer necessarily these like
• 41:50
  special creatures that
• 41:51
  need to be referred to as such um and like another interesting
• 41:56
  metaphor too for
• 41:58
  your work and Paris communism that I was thinking about was
• 42:00
  like the banning of
• 42:02
  nighttime bakery work yeah and like the other things that are
• 42:06
  happening at night
• 42:08
  other than vampires trolling the streets are like there's a lot
• 42:10
  of work that has to
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_02: happen so that people have fresh bread on their
• 42:14
  Yeah that the bakers have to go to work at 2 in the morning and
• 42:17
  that's when they
• 42:17
  start their work so if you happen to be a vampire and you're
• 42:20
  out around and you're
• 42:21
  hungry and you don't really know what to do you can scoop up a
• 42:24
  baker pretty much at
• 42:24
  any time so it's like so I definitely add a little bit of an
• 42:30
  extra workplace hazard
• 42:31
  for these people like the bakers had very good IRL reasons to
• 42:36
  not want to have to
• 42:37
  wake up in the middle of the night and go to work and I was
• 42:39
  like one of the first
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_03: things that they did was like no we can go to work at a normal time
• 42:43
  um people will be okay i turn that up just a little bit yeah
• 42:47
  they'll eat still
• 42:47
  bread in the morning it's fine and like one of the sources i
• 42:50
  use in my research was
• 42:51
  the diaries of the john corp brothers do you know these guys
• 42:54
  yeah i was gonna ask
• 42:55
  about that oh my god who it's like they're such weird little
• 43:01
  twerps i know i i
• 43:03
  can't even we can't even get into it i mean you want to talk
• 43:05
  about like epic
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: misogynists
• 43:07
  truly and and it's so insane that they are brothers and they
• 43:11
  have one diary and
• 43:12
  that there is erotic stuff in the diary like they shared
• 43:16
  mistresses like what was
• 43:18
  going on with my god that was something I actually stole for
• 43:21
  Victor and Francoise
• 43:22
  at one point she says we keep the same diary and I'm just like
• 43:25
  what is wrong with
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_03: you keeping the same diary you don't have private thoughts like
• 43:29
  it's so deranged so they had all of this like sort of color
• 43:32
  commentary during you
• 43:33
  know most of it insanely misogynistic and they would complain
• 43:37
  that the bread would
• 43:37
  be stale like that was like one of their little remarks and
• 43:40
  asides that they would
• 43:41
  make yeah I think that I I've read the their descriptions of
• 43:46
  the siege of Paris and
• 43:47
  also Manet stayed in Paris during the siege and he he's writing
• 43:52
  home being like
• 43:54
  I mean he's miserable the whole time he regrets it every single
• 43:57
  second that he
• 43:58
  stayed and you can tell it's just kind of amazing these sort of
• 44:02
  like dandy figures
• 44:03
  that are at the beginning so like willing to sort of stick it
• 44:06
  out and stay for the
• 44:08
  on the principle of the thing they have the opportunity to
• 44:10
  leave you know when the
• 44:11
  sort of more genteel population leaves and they stay and yeah I
• 44:15
  by the end of six
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: months they're like
• 44:17
  get me out of here yeah yeah I am a celebrity get me out of
• 44:21
  here the bread is stale
• 44:23
  it's noisy all the time like I'm afraid and I'm hungry yeah
• 44:26
  they're eating the zoo
• 44:27
  animals yeah I miss the theater like I can't even go to a show
• 44:31
  like I have to walk
• 44:32
  to the restaurant because there's no horses left like this is
• 44:35
  bullshit yeah
• 44:40
  I guess one thing I did want to ask you about is you just
• 44:42
  mentioned reading the
• 44:43
  Concord journals there did you there's also a scene where
• 44:47
  Francoise is shoplifting
• 44:49
  which I was really obviously reminding me of Zola and yeah and
• 44:53
  the sort of like
• 44:54
  orgasmic like scenes in O Bonheur de Dame where the women are
• 44:58
  shoplifting I was
• 44:59
  wondering what you were reading and what you were thinking
• 45:02
  about while you were
• 45:02
  writing the book did you travel what was the process like so I
• 45:06
  wrote the book
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_03: completely
• 45:09
  full first draft and almost all of the edits during the COVID
• 45:12
  pandemic lockdown so
• 45:13
  I wrote it in my house being like wow how can I recreate this
• 45:17
  experience inside of
• 45:18
  my leisure time I know I'm gonna write about a siege um that's
• 45:22
  a good use of that
• 45:23
  energy it you know I got it done there wasn't a lot else to do
• 45:27
  at the time so it
• 45:28
  did it did work um but I just went on abooks.com and bought
• 45:32
  like every single
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_03: fucking thing I could find but most of what I read was like
• 45:37
  various diaries of personal experiences like the brothers in
• 45:42
  their diary like
• 45:44
  Washburn's letters he's like the American ambassador to Paris
• 45:49
  and he stayed in
• 45:49
  Paris for the whole siege so he wrote about that stuff from
• 45:52
  like an interesting
• 45:54
  point of view where like he was living in the ambassador's
• 45:57
  residence so he was
• 45:58
  having probably the best physical time that you could have but
• 46:01
  it was also really
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_03: challenging because like even he was hungry like even his very very
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_03: well-resourced home and kitchen was still struggling.
• 46:09
  And he also had to concern himself with helping all of the
• 46:12
  American citizens who
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_03: were stuck there.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_03: There were like 13,000 of them.
• 46:16
  And a lot of them just like didn't have work and didn't have
• 46:18
  any food and like kept
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_03: asking him,
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_03: hey,
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_03: can you get me out of here?
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_03: And he had to be like, so there is a siege and no one can actually leave.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_03: So his letters are really good.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_03: I read like,
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_03: the big,
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_03: big history book,
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_03: Alistair Horn,
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_03: The Fall of Paris,
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_03: who is very unsympathetic to the commune,
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_03: but
• 46:36
  has this great like really comprehensive and kind of gossipy
• 46:40
  view on everything.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_03: So I use that like as a big resource.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_03: And I absolutely like read my Zola and copied him outrageously.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_03: He was so useful to me because he is there, you know, like
• 46:53
  it's not fiction it is fiction but he is there so it's like it
• 46:58
  has a combination of
• 46:59
  like texture and like literary inspiration while also just
• 47:05
  literally being there
• 47:06
  He's also so interested in like the Demi Mondin and like all of
• 47:10
  that kind of the
• 47:11
  underworld of Paris in a way that is so I imagine like it was
• 47:15
  helping so helpful in
• 47:16
  fleshing out the story Absolutely and he writes so much about
• 47:19
  just like the
• 47:19
  material realities of life and like objects and I'm a big
• 47:22
  objects and things writer
• 47:23
  too so You're talking to the right girls Yeah I love it I love
• 47:27
  an object and I love
• 47:28
  the whole history of how that object was made like I would just
• 47:31
  write about that if
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_03: I could get away with it Yeah you should do a PhD Yeah
• 47:36
  I can you can do a phd at any time yeah it's always there it's
• 47:40
  the other door it's
• 47:41
  the other door yeah I mean yeah Zola's so I was thinking about
• 47:46
  Zola a lot through
• 47:46
  this because also uh I I don't know how far you got in the like
• 47:51
  Renegon core
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: whatever the like series of but in La Bette Humaine did you read that
• 47:58
  okay so that's the one about the train and the last scene of
• 48:01
  that book is so
• 48:03
  bizarre I'm spoiling this sorry if anybody's upset about that
• 48:07
  at least that one's
• 48:08
  been out for a while it's been out for like almost 200 years so
• 48:12
  it's not my fault
• 48:13
  um but the last scene of that is you know kind of un like
• 48:17
  unrelated to the plot the
• 48:19
  train there's this group of soldiers going to fight in Prussia
• 48:22
  and they're on a
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: train and the the
• 48:25
  um you know for some reason it's a runaway train like the
• 48:28
  switch has been broken or
• 48:29
  something but they don't know it yet and so they're hurtling
• 48:32
  into this kind of
• 48:33
  unknown on this train that is destined to crash and they're all
• 48:38
  just drunk and
• 48:39
  singing and they don't know like what what's in store for them
• 48:42
  oh my god and it's
• 48:43
  supposed to be like on the eve of 1870 like of the siege so
• 48:48
  it's this amazing like
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: kind of
• 48:50
  set up of like they don't even know what like Paris doesn't
• 48:53
  know what it's in for
• 48:54
  which I think also like you do a good job of that like tipping
• 48:57
  point in the
• 48:57
  beginning when you have these like lush descriptions and this
• 49:00
  kind of like you know
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: it's so decadent it's so excessive and there's just no everything's fun
• 49:05
  everything's fine like don't worry about it yeah don't think
• 49:08
  about it like oh you
• 49:10
  heard about a war like don't worry about that don't worry about
• 49:12
  it like we've had
• 49:13
  them before we're gonna have them again you know yeah it feels
• 49:16
  unfortunately
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_03: familiar but yeah I remember reading that like part of the
• 49:20
  the overconfidence of Napoleon III and like the French army in
• 49:25
  declaring this war
• 49:25
  that they just assumed that they would win was that like this
• 49:30
  hangover from like
• 49:31
  the Napoleonic period where they were just they were just
• 49:35
  really knocking them down
• 49:37
  like they were doing so so so good so there was this like
• 49:40
  general idea and this was
• 49:42
  also true in some ways of like the military strategy of the
• 49:45
  Communards because like
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_03: during the
• 49:48
  what is it the three glorious days in the 1830s they had a lot
• 49:52
  of like Napoleonic
• 49:55
  like Napoleon trained military people on their side and that's
• 50:00
  part of why they
• 50:00
  were able to take the city so quickly and efficiently and so
• 50:03
  bloodlessly and why
• 50:03
  they like why they were successful and why they won so that
• 50:07
  they're on all sides
• 50:09
  there's this slightly inflated sense of like military capacity
• 50:12
  while meanwhile the
• 50:13
  Prussians have been like laying their rail lines for 50 years
• 50:16
  like getting ready to
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_03: fight you
• 50:19
  yeah I also I study Art Nouveau and I like one of the my
• 50:23
  revanchism and kind of
• 50:25
  like the like Alsace-Lorraine like that is the result of 1871
• 50:29
  one of my favorite
• 50:30
  sort of attitudes of the French is like we lost this war and we
• 50:35
  hate you for it
• 50:36
  forever and we're gonna get you back so bad you don't even know
• 50:38
  yeah you don't even
• 50:39
  know it's coming yeah it's funny too it's like how much begins
• 50:45
  like how much of the
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_03: seed 1870-71 is it's like
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, World War I is like, I mean, they're just copying that.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: They're cooking it up.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_03: They're cooking up World War I right there.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's also interesting.
• 50:59
  I was reading how because the transatlantic telegraph cable had
• 51:04
  just been laid in
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_02: 1866,
• 51:06
  people in the US were actually able to like follow what was
• 51:08
  going on pretty rapidly
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_02: and like in time with it.
• 51:12
  And so the New York Times coverage in the New York Times was
• 51:14
  still pretty young.
• 51:15
  the new york times coverage of the siege is really interesting
• 51:18
  and it was and i'm
• 51:21
  was puzzled too by like the lack of clarity about how many
• 51:24
  people died like
• 51:25
  everybody's figure is really different like i've read as low as
• 51:29
  6 000 and then as
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_02: many as like 30 000.
• 51:32
  yeah and in the new york times in 1871 i think they report it
• 51:35
  to be like 60 000.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_02: yeah
• 51:39
  wild really really crazy and just like that will the world is
• 51:43
  also shrinking and at
• 51:44
  the same time that it's getting bigger and bigger through like
• 51:46
  colonial and
• 51:47
  imperial expansion like to be able to know what's happening in
• 51:50
  Paris while you're
• 51:51
  in New York yeah pretty interesting and maybe even knowing more
• 51:55
  than the people in
• 51:56
  Paris do it reminds me of that like murder case on the ship
• 51:58
  with the with the it
• 52:01
  was like this guy who this is in the 19th century when the when
• 52:05
  the telegraph is
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_03: new and he like
• 52:07
  killed his wife and him and his mistress like fled I don't
• 52:09
  remember his name but
• 52:10
  they fled on a ship and then they're on the ship and the people
• 52:14
  on the ship are
• 52:14
  like not aware that it's him this fugitive this famous fugitive
• 52:17
  but like everyone
• 52:18
  else knows that it's them because they were seen boarding it so
• 52:21
  like it's almost
• 52:22
  like it has Justine landed yet situation where all these people
• 52:25
  are reading these
• 52:26
  newspapers being like as soon as they land they'll be arrested
• 52:28
  because it's them
• 52:29
  but they're just on the ship thinking they've gotten away with
• 52:31
  it like yeah oh
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_02: that's poor poor murderer
• 52:41
  we've all been there um well talking about the historical
• 52:46
  richness and detail of
• 52:47
  the book I wanted to talk about the clothes and give some time
• 52:50
  to the clothes and
• 52:51
  think about how your other work informed how you described the
• 52:56
  the fashion and the
• 52:57
  style of the characters yeah so I haven't said this yet but I'm
• 53:01
  a costume designer
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_03: for film and tv now but I have a big background in theater um
• 53:07
  and it's funny because I had not written any fiction at all
• 53:09
  before writing this
• 53:11
  novel but I have been coming up with guys professionally like
• 53:17
  creating characters
• 53:17
  professionally for a long time so there is a little bit of
• 53:20
  crossover and I've been
• 53:24
  like communicating character and developing character for the
• 53:27
  whole time because
• 53:27
  that's what costume work is it's like you know you ask yourself
• 53:30
  questions like
• 53:32
  what color is the dirt on the shoes of pig farmers and you also
• 53:35
  ask yourself
• 53:35
  questions like what is the royal regalia of this house and so
• 53:40
  that like mode of
• 53:40
  storytelling is one that I have a lot of experience with and I
• 53:43
  did really enjoy
• 53:44
  that putting the clothes in the book like there's some there's
• 53:46
  a pet peeve I have
• 53:47
  about clothes in books where it's like just describing an
• 53:49
  outfit kind of head to
• 53:50
  toe trying to like communicate a picture directly into the view
• 53:55
  like the mind of
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_03: the reader
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_03: But that's not usually how we perceive each other's clothes.
• 54:00
  We get just like an impression of like two things at once and
• 54:03
  then move on.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_03: So I had a lot of fun in like creating those impressions.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 54:07
  Someone noticing someone else's clothes because it's always
• 54:09
  through the character.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, what are you noticing of someone else's clothes?
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_03: And what is that telling you about them?
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_03: It was so much fun.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_02: There was one moment where I was like,
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_02: oh,
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_02: she's a costume designer where Francois gives Alex her fan,
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_02: her white lace fan,
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_02: and Alex is wearing black
• 54:26
  the chapter ends and you're like i i don't know if i think it's
• 54:28
  like our nose kind
• 54:29
  of like you can really see the like white lace detail against
• 54:32
  her black dress i was
• 54:33
  like okay she's yeah i'm in the moment with her yeah we're in
• 54:38
  the moment together
• 54:39
  yeah it's like why she's not gonna she's not gonna she's not
• 54:43
  gonna do anything with
• 54:44
  that like and the other thing i thought was so interesting
• 54:48
  about the victor and
• 54:48
  francois characters is just like the slight ways that they're
• 54:51
  more fashionable
• 54:53
  then the theater vampires and like Arnaud's like I guess it
• 54:57
  seems like being skinny
• 54:59
  is cool she's kind of like she's doing it so probably yeah and
• 55:05
  that they're very
• 55:05
  like of the moment they don't really live like vampires in the
• 55:10
  same way like
• 55:11
  there's obviously a big class difference between the vampires
• 55:14
  in theater and Victor
• 55:15
  and Francoise but there's also these ways where they almost
• 55:18
  kind of reject their
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_03: vampirism like they hang out with living people they don't wear black
• 55:23
  I don't think we see them their coffins we don't know if they
• 55:25
  sleep in coffins or
• 55:26
  not but I suspect not like they like don't do all these kind of
• 55:30
  traditions yeah and
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_03: they and they don't wear and I think that they don't wear black is really
• 55:36
  surprising to the troop because that's like the color for
• 55:38
  vampires like right
• 55:39
  because you don't see blood on it because you don't see blood
• 55:42
  on it and it's like
• 55:42
  you know the goth of it all and they kind of ID is being dead
• 55:46
  and they have the
• 55:46
  coffins and it's like part of their vibe but make sure
• 55:49
  Francoise don't do that
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_03: they're like
• 55:51
  going out buying new clothes every single day and they're just
• 55:53
  the same clothes
• 55:53
  that any other fashionable person might wear I mean it's a
• 55:56
  dream yeah I know that's
• 55:58
  living the dream they just go shopping and getting to
• 56:01
  experience every trend across
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_02: time
• 56:05
  Oh yeah I think there's something so interesting about having
• 56:07
  because they're also
• 56:08
  meant to be like younger so there's something so interesting
• 56:11
  about like Arnaud not
• 56:12
  sort of being able to keep up with the fashion as kind of just
• 56:15
  someone who's like
• 56:16
  seen them come and go and been like I don't know what they're
• 56:19
  doing now like yeah
• 56:21
  he's pretty out of touch like he's out of step and things are
• 56:23
  accelerating I think
• 56:25
  like you know people in like from where he came from which is a
• 56:30
  pretty rural milieu
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_03: it's like people kind of look the same 100 years and 100 years later
• 56:35
  but now in the city with the industrialized everything the
• 56:38
  looks are changing
• 56:38
  really fast and he's just like I have no idea I don't know yeah
• 56:41
  and there's the
• 56:42
  scene where he goes to sort of stalk the where the witch had
• 56:45
  been and he goes and
• 56:46
  sees the fabric that she had bought and he's like that I know
• 56:49
  like these other
• 56:50
  fabrics I don't know about but that one I'm familiar with like
• 56:53
  you know and she's
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_01: kind of holding it down in terms of this more like um
• 57:00
  provincial like rural yeah she's very old-fashioned yeah she's
• 57:04
  very old-fashioned
• 57:05
  and and this is something that they have in common and i also
• 57:08
  loved when he goes to
• 57:09
  the photography studio too oh yeah and like what his his sort
• 57:15
  of ramblings of like
• 57:16
  what does it mean when your photograph is taken yeah like what
• 57:20
  is that exactly like
• 57:20
  he's never gonna get it no i think that's kind of but he's like
• 57:24
  aware that
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_02: something
• 57:26
  is being taken from the sitter of the photograph like in the
• 57:30
  big flash of light I
• 57:31
  was just obsessed with all the technology part and even we've
• 57:34
  been talking about
• 57:35
  the train like he calls it the iron rail and I think Victor and
• 57:37
  Francois are like
• 57:38
  you mean the train yeah are you talking about the train you're
• 57:41
  so fucking old yeah
• 57:43
  yes yeah it was fun to have a protagonist who is just from the
• 57:46
  beginning like
• 57:47
  washed yeah he's dad core which is good yeah he just doesn't
• 57:52
  know what's going on
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_02: And he's even dad core in the his like investment strategy.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, low risk, long term investments are best.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_02: Like I'm not speculating.
• 58:03
  Yeah,
• 58:03
  like that was like,
• 58:04
  put 15% in your 401k every single year and everything will be
• 58:07
  fine.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yes, it's very dad core.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_03: So sweet.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and good advice, honestly.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_03: And they have time, you know, they, it's true that they have time.
• 58:20
  But it is funny that despite all the work that they do,
• 58:22
  they are not rich.
• 58:25
  but they're just kind of doing good you know yeah yeah no it's
• 58:30
  I think also like
• 58:30
  thinking about kind of sorry this is maybe tangential but the
• 58:36
  like how you
• 58:36
  structured the book as kind of you know it's in acts and then
• 58:41
  in the beginning you
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_01: have a list of the characters and they're given like
• 58:47
  I don't know what I'm again idiot about music but they're given
• 58:50
  like their range
• 58:52
  how do you yeah yeah everybody has like a in the like dramatic
• 58:55
  person everyone has
• 58:56
  their job kind of and then for them it's like yeah it's like
• 58:59
  their vocal type yeah
• 59:00
  vocal type that's their job I think there's a German word for
• 59:03
  it but I don't
• 59:04
  remember what it is but it's like their vocal range I don't
• 59:06
  doubt that for a second
• 59:07
  yeah
• 59:12
  Will you talk about that decision and how you were thinking
• 59:14
  about in building these
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_01: characters with your theatrical background,
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_01: with your costuming background,
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_01: what you were thinking when you were doing that?
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_03: Totally.
• 59:23
  I loved building out the troupe and creating them because I
• 59:27
  knew I needed them to
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_03: be instruments to tell the story I wanted,
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_03: but I also wanted them to be able to work as a troupe,
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_03: that the shows would be able to work,
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_03: that I could cast from them as I needed to,
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_03: and that I'd have my different types.
• 59:40
  um and it was fun also because I've worked in show business for
• 59:43
  so long and I've
• 59:44
  met a lot of people in show business and and I love and hate
• 59:50
  everyone I've ever met
• 59:51
  in show business so it was really fun getting to like kind of
• 59:54
  make my own versions
• 59:55
  of all these different people that I've worked with and to kind
• 59:57
  of create their
• 59:58
  interrelationships with each other and then there was kind of a
• 1:00:01
  costume design
• 1:00:02
  element of it too or like related to costume design where it's
• 1:00:05
  fun to like make a
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_03: team and it's not always easy because
• 1:00:10
  when you have a team not everybody gets all that much
• 1:00:13
  individual time and they
• 1:00:15
  don't necessarily have a lot of like visibility or things that
• 1:00:18
  they're doing so
• 1:00:19
  it's about how do I you know create maybe two details about
• 1:00:22
  this person that can
• 1:00:24
  help them stick in the mind of the reader through the story
• 1:00:26
  while they're kind of
• 1:00:27
  in the background like I think about The Matrix which is a
• 1:00:30
  movie that does a really
• 1:00:32
  good job with like its team of guys where it's like okay we
• 1:00:35
  know about like
• 1:00:37
  you know neo and trinity and morpheus are really important and
• 1:00:40
  their characters and
• 1:00:40
  we know them but then there's all these other people that they
• 1:00:42
  need so it's like
• 1:00:43
  there's the young one who's the baby like the little guy mouse
• 1:00:46
  and then there's
• 1:00:47
  like two who are related to each other who are brother who are
• 1:00:51
  two brothers and
• 1:00:51
  that helps us pad it out more without having to remember too
• 1:00:54
  many things and then
• 1:00:55
  there's like the lesbian who's all in white where everyone else
• 1:00:57
  is in black and
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_03: that helps us remember her because she's different
• 1:01:00
  so it's just using all those tricks like for the troop to be
• 1:01:03
  like okay there's my
• 1:01:04
  redhead and she's a bitch and we'll remember that and like all
• 1:01:07
  that other stuff and
• 1:01:08
  then these two I don't have time to devote so they're just
• 1:01:10
  going to be together all
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_01: the time you know yeah totally um I loved the I also like sort of the the
• 1:01:19
  descriptions of them performing as these kind of extensions of
• 1:01:22
  I forget the name of
• 1:01:23
  the one who was always kind of like veering into grotesqueness
• 1:01:25
  with her like desire
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_01: to push herself to the limit of
• 1:01:29
  oh yeah that's uh Clotilde the dancer yeah I love dancers and
• 1:01:35
  Clotilde is a
• 1:01:36
  favorite of mine because working with dancers is really cool
• 1:01:38
  they're like they're
• 1:01:39
  intense you know yeah and it came across yeah she's always like
• 1:01:44
  I can do even more
• 1:01:44
  of a split than last time and it's like who asked you to do
• 1:01:46
  that nobody asked you
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_01: to do it yeah it's scaring people that's very dancer uh
• 1:01:53
  and I also loved like the challenge for Arnaud of maintaining a
• 1:01:57
  theater across so
• 1:01:58
  many years like when he's painting and repainting a mask I
• 1:02:02
  think at one point he's
• 1:02:03
  like well this will last another couple of years like the way
• 1:02:06
  that entropy must
• 1:02:08
  factor so much into the like industry of putting on shows and
• 1:02:12
  then having to like
• 1:02:14
  do that across centuries rather than across decades of a
• 1:02:17
  regular theater um
• 1:02:20
  I found really moving like just the collapse of time and space
• 1:02:24
  around you like how
• 1:02:25
  many times am I gonna have to get these seats redone I also
• 1:02:28
  love that they they
• 1:02:29
  have to rehearse I was I really love the fact the vampires
• 1:02:33
  who've done the show so
• 1:02:34
  many times have to rehearse but it makes I mean there's
• 1:02:37
  something so humbling and
• 1:02:38
  sweet about that like even if I was a vampire and I was perfect
• 1:02:41
  at everything like
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_02: I would still have to practice and that was nice
• 1:02:45
  yeah and and the show is like created by all these people so
• 1:02:47
  even if everybody
• 1:02:48
  knows their parts you still have to rehearse to get it all
• 1:02:50
  together and I like that
• 1:02:51
  stuff I like I really like stories about work and about people
• 1:02:54
  at work so I got to
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_03: really throw elbows and do a lot of that stuff which I enjoyed so much
• 1:03:01
  how do these characters live on in your mind I'm curious that's
• 1:03:07
  that's such an
• 1:03:08
  interesting question I feel about them so differently like
• 1:03:11
  Arnaud I feel like is my
• 1:03:12
  stupid son and that's how I relate to him like that's my son
• 1:03:14
  and he's stupid
• 1:03:16
  Beatrice is my wife and the rest of them are kind of my friends
• 1:03:21
  slash children like
• 1:03:22
  that's like that's how I kind of respond to them which is kind
• 1:03:26
  of how Arnaud
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_01: relates to them
• 1:03:28
  yeah that doesn't make sense these are my friends but also
• 1:03:30
  they're my kids and I
• 1:03:31
  hate them and I love them and they're annoying yeah yeah can I
• 1:03:34
  ask an annoying
• 1:03:35
  question please I feel like we were set up for Red Sacrament
• 1:03:38
  too um it's it is sold
• 1:03:42
  and published as a standalone but the thing about vampires is
• 1:03:45
  that you can just
• 1:03:47
  they never they never stop coming back so I am very open
• 1:03:50
  characters I would like to
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_03: know more about I am very open to the possibility of more
• 1:03:54
  who knows you know who knows I have my favorites and I'm sure
• 1:03:57
  you can tell who they
• 1:03:57
  are um and I don't know life is long you know life is long I
• 1:04:03
  mean not as long for
• 1:04:05
  some as for others but yeah that's true that's true what are
• 1:04:08
  you most excited about
• 1:04:09
  with the book coming out like because I do know I feel like
• 1:04:13
  well I was googling the
• 1:04:14
  book yeah and I feel like I don't remember when we talked about
• 1:04:17
  this but like
• 1:04:18
  the vampire community is ready for you or they have opinions
• 1:04:22
  right so the vampire
• 1:04:23
  community is ready for me um I was on reddit I saw yeah the
• 1:04:27
  people on reddit yes so
• 1:04:30
  it's funny I didn't necessarily expect that so much so the book
• 1:04:34
  obviously is in
• 1:04:35
  like conversation with Anne Rice's interview with the vampire
• 1:04:38
  which turns 50 this
• 1:04:39
  year and has redefined the genre 50 years old I think the
• 1:04:42
  anniversary just passed
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_03: it was like last week oh my god wow
• 1:04:45
  early April yeah I grew up my mom is a huge Anne Rice head I'm
• 1:04:49
  gonna oh my god when
• 1:04:49
  this comes out she's she's getting a copy for her maybe she
• 1:04:52
  knows about it maybe
• 1:04:53
  she's on the reddit you know maybe she's on the reddit it would
• 1:04:56
  like shock me to my
• 1:04:57
  very core if my mom had ever been on reddit but you never know
• 1:05:00
  I don't think you
• 1:05:01
  want her to get on there actually I was at lunch with my
• 1:05:03
  grandma the other day and
• 1:05:04
  she looks at me and she goes what's reddit like out of
• 1:05:07
  absolutely nowhere and I was
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_01: like why do you know about that like don't worry about
• 1:05:12
  like you like don't follow that rabbit hole please you don't
• 1:05:17
  want you don't want
• 1:05:17
  you this is not a place of honor it has been funny I think that
• 1:05:27
  like some corners
• 1:05:28
  of the of the like Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles fandom have
• 1:05:31
  responded with like
• 1:05:32
  real like vitriol or just maybe skepticism I guess to be more
• 1:05:37
  polite about the
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_03: prospect of the book but I do understand why because I think
• 1:05:42
  we're in this kind of like post fanfiction era of publishing
• 1:05:45
  where just out and out
• 1:05:46
  fanfictions are being acquired and reworked into books and like
• 1:05:50
  and like every
• 1:05:51
  single dark romanticy has a picture of Draco Malfoy on the
• 1:05:54
  cover and you can just
• 1:05:55
  look at it and be like I know what that is I know what that is
• 1:05:58
  I know what that is
• 1:05:59
  so I think there is this like skepticism of being offered
• 1:06:01
  fraudulent works so I got
• 1:06:04
  a little flack for like well I know that the theater of
• 1:06:07
  vampires is the theater of
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_03: vampires from Anne Rice and
• 1:06:10
  you named him something actually very similar to that other
• 1:06:12
  character and I'm like
• 1:06:13
  yes I know I'm talking to you I did it on purpose I am inviting
• 1:06:17
  you in you know
• 1:06:18
  yeah I have a feeling they'll be pleasantly surprised when the
• 1:06:21
  book comes out but
• 1:06:22
  that is scary to have to kind of go into this yeah I have
• 1:06:26
  people being like
• 1:06:27
  Christopher Rice do something and sue her and I'm like please
• 1:06:30
  don't ask Christopher
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_03: Rice to sue me
• 1:06:36
  We live in such a gotcha culture that like actually purposeful
• 1:06:39
  and tasteful
• 1:06:40
  referencing has lost all place in our dialogue but I love too
• 1:06:45
  the idea that like
• 1:06:46
  you're talking about reading Zola or something and like you can
• 1:06:49
  steal from Zola
• 1:06:50
  like I love this book and this topic as a dialogue with the
• 1:06:53
  work that we're doing
• 1:06:54
  which is all this republishing of things that are in the public
• 1:06:58
  domain because
• 1:06:59
  they're 19th century novels and all of that is inviting us to
• 1:07:02
  repurpose it and
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_02: reuse it
• 1:07:05
  and you're doing that with both the history itself and also
• 1:07:08
  with like a more recent
• 1:07:09
  culture but at some point Anne Rice will probably be free for
• 1:07:13
  us to make a
• 1:07:14
  Mandylion edition of you know yeah and and I think it's also
• 1:07:17
  like it's such it's
• 1:07:20
  hard to overstate like the impact of that book Interview with
• 1:07:23
  the Vampire like I
• 1:07:24
  think it has sold 150 million copies that's crazy like to me it
• 1:07:28
  is she is as
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_03: influential to vampires as Stoker like yeah yeah
• 1:07:33
  definitely and you think about since the you know 76 when it
• 1:07:38
  came out every vampire
• 1:07:40
  story is different like it's all about the interiority of the
• 1:07:43
  vampire it's all
• 1:07:44
  about like you know the relations between vampires which was
• 1:07:50
  not really the case
• 1:07:51
  before and as a way to talk about like human relationships
• 1:07:54
  human betrayals like
• 1:07:56
  Buffy comes from Anne Rice I mean Buffy like reimagines Louis
• 1:08:00
  and Lestat as like
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_03: two rivals for
• 1:08:03
  the heart of an american teenage girl it's like it's like they
• 1:08:07
  were really cooking
• 1:08:08
  when they came up with that shit yeah but yeah vampire diaries
• 1:08:11
  hannibal comes from
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_03: anne rice like it like we're all we're all her gay children
• 1:08:16
  yeah I'm obsessed that she's on the same anniversary cycle as
• 1:08:19
  the United States of
• 1:08:20
  America yes it's not only the semi-quincentennial this year it
• 1:08:26
  is also the 15th
• 1:08:27
  anniversary that's so true a lot of important things coming out
• 1:08:31
  in 76 yeah it's
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_02: true huge year yeah
• 1:08:35
  I think I mean I'm also just like thinking about like since the
• 1:08:37
  mid 70s it's not
• 1:08:38
  just a vampire novels it's like the entire genre of fantasy
• 1:08:42
  like if you think about
• 1:08:43
  all of those like as I said I grew up in an Anne Rice house but
• 1:08:46
  I also grew up in a
• 1:08:47
  house that was very into like any sort of like feminist
• 1:08:49
  reinterpretation of the
• 1:08:51
  Arthurian legend like that was huge in my household like all of
• 1:08:56
  that I think can be
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_01: traced back to the lineage of Anne Rice in some way
• 1:09:00
  yeah yes and I think now like the divide between genre and
• 1:09:04
  literary is not even a
• 1:09:06
  divide it's like a whole region that lots of authors and whole
• 1:09:09
  imprints are playing
• 1:09:10
  around in but back then I think the divide was real and yeah
• 1:09:14
  especially early in
• 1:09:15
  her career and I mean also later when she became really big
• 1:09:18
  there was there was a
• 1:09:20
  fight to be like for the works to be taken seriously despite
• 1:09:24
  their subject matter
• 1:09:26
  but they are taken seriously because every single book comes
• 1:09:28
  from that and I think
• 1:09:31
  like reference and even like even like a loving political
• 1:09:36
  critique because I love
• 1:09:36
  Anne Rice so much and grew up with her but I have some bones to
• 1:09:40
  pick with her that
• 1:09:40
  I'm kind of working out in the book right um but I think all
• 1:09:43
  that is like a sign
• 1:09:45
  that you know your work is really important like that that like
• 1:09:50
  your work has kind
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_03: of created the genre as it is now
• 1:09:54
  I also love that your 19th century is different than Anne
• 1:09:56
  Rice's like you cannot be
• 1:09:59
  like for I'm imagining for you like it's impossible to talk
• 1:10:02
  about the early 1870s
• 1:10:04
  in Paris without thinking about the broader political context
• 1:10:07
  and the way that that
• 1:10:08
  moment in time would like reverberate across yeah yes just
• 1:10:12
  politics and I imagine
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_02: that
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe in the 70s, you would think about it a little bit differently.
• 1:10:17
  And I think I was reading that like Paris wasn't actually given
• 1:10:21
  the right to have
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_02: its own municipal government until the 1970s.
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like they were being punished for the Paris Commune for 100 years.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_03: It's like very much still in the air, you know.
• 1:10:36
  yeah I think also just like a final sort of or I don't I we
• 1:10:39
  don't I don't need to
• 1:10:40
  cut us off if we're not done but I feel like we're sort of
• 1:10:42
  we're getting there but
• 1:10:43
  like to think about kind of Marx using the vampire metaphor as
• 1:10:46
  a way to make I mean
• 1:10:47
  he's he's trying to write for a broader audience than you know
• 1:10:50
  some of the sort of
• 1:10:51
  denser parts of his work might allude to and people think it's
• 1:10:56
  really hard to read
• 1:10:56
  Marx and it is really hard to read Marx sometimes but sometimes
• 1:10:59
  it's really
• 1:10:59
  SPEAKER_01: readable and kind of funny and fun and like
• 1:11:02
  that kind of use of the vampire to reach the masses like I
• 1:11:07
  think also this is sort
• 1:11:09
  SPEAKER_01: of a winding road of thought but you know we talk so much about kind of
• 1:11:13
  republishing popular fiction that you know was something people
• 1:11:16
  were actually
• 1:11:17
  engaging with and just thinking differently about the kinds of
• 1:11:21
  works that people
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_01: actually read and what makes something approachable
• 1:11:24
  readable versus what makes something kind of like literature as
• 1:11:27
  such or theory as
• 1:11:29
  such I think those lines like are a bit more fluid historically
• 1:11:33
  than people give
• 1:11:34
  them credit for and like bringing that into contemporary
• 1:11:38
  romanticy vampire genre
• 1:11:41
  fiction is like it's it's a necessary step to kind of reclaim
• 1:11:46
  that genre as
• 1:11:47
  SPEAKER_01: something that is like not just these you know
• 1:11:51
  I'm gonna get like murdered by bots for saying this but like a
• 1:11:54
  formulaic or like AI
• 1:11:56
  generated like a book that you can't even tell if it was
• 1:11:59
  written by one person or
• 1:12:00
  the other you know there's all these stories like yeah these
• 1:12:03
  things are what will
• 1:12:04
  make these more lasting and more valuable contributions and get
• 1:12:08
  those genres taken
• 1:12:10
  seriously you know yeah and I think Marx understood that if you
• 1:12:13
  want somebody to
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_03: pay attention like put a really gross vampire in there totally
• 1:12:17
  like wake them up get them get them get them into it you know
• 1:12:21
  wake up people wake
• 1:12:23
  up well Sarah Hinckley thank you so much for coming on
• 1:12:28
  1-800-1800 and everyone must
• 1:12:31
  buy the Red Sacrament and you can pre-order it right now so do
• 1:12:35
  it you know what you
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_03: should you really should you won't regret it
• 1:12:39
  imagine your delight and surprise come July 7th I believe July
• 1:12:43
  7th I really can't
• 1:12:44
  stress enough in all seriousness how much I enjoyed it um do
• 1:12:49
  you want to so sorry
• 1:12:50
  you'll be on the same now you'll also be on the same
• 1:12:52
  anniversary cycle as the semi
• 1:12:54
  quintentennial holy shit and and rice oh my god me and rice in
• 1:12:58
  the United States of
• 1:12:59
  America I just thought about it oh my god the three the three
• 1:13:02
  pillars um is there
• 1:13:05
  SPEAKER_01: anything else you want to plug or where can people find you or
• 1:13:09
  SPEAKER_03: I may be found on sarahinkley.com and I yap all the time on x twitter the
• 1:13:13
  everything app where I'm at bony soups which is not my name so
• 1:13:16
  sorry I figured out
• 1:13:17
  they'll find you bony spelled b-o-n-e-y that's right okay bony
• 1:13:23
  soups what can I say
• 1:13:24
  I love soups thank you so much for having me on this has been
• 1:13:27
  so much fun thank you
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_01: we loved every second of it hello you've reached 1-800-1800
• 1:13:39
  SPEAKER_00: 1-800-1800 I have a burning question