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Isabela Livino - An Immaculate Deception · She’s Smart

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Hey, everybody. Welcome to She's Smart. I'm your host, Maria Robotham.
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Today, we are talking about a book I could not stop thinking about,
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An Immaculate Deception, the debut novel from Isabella Lavino.
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Set in 1877 Brazil, it's a gothic story filled with suspense,
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religion, guilt, obsession, and this constant question of whether what you believe
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or what you've been taught to believe can change the way you see reality.
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At the center of the story is Madalena, a young woman whose world is shaped
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by love, fear, faith, and a very vivid understanding of Dante's Inferno.
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And I'm telling you now, this book gets inside your head.
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Isabella and I talk about why she chose gothic horror, why Brazil is so important
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to this story, the fascinating psychology behind her characters,
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and how philosophy, religion, and the conscious and unconscious mind
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all find their way into the book.
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And guys, we do it without spoilers because this book is a book you need to
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experience for yourself.
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So get cozy as we connect, learn, and laugh together on She's Smart with today's
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guest, Isabella Lavino.
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Hey, thank you so much for joining me today on She's Smart.
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I'm so excited about this book. Thank you for having me. This book,
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An Immaculate Deception, I have so many questions. So before we get into it,
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I will tell everyone there will be zero spoilers in this conversation.
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Issa and I talked about it ahead of time, and we really wanted to keep it more
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of themes that kind of went throughout the book, how you're going to feel,
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what you should be thinking about and get people excited to read it because it's just come out.
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So if people haven't finished it yet or are just kind of in the middle of it,
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we don't want to give anything away.
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So I want to start with you becoming a novelist. This is your debut book. This is very exciting.
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When you first started writing, you had written another book previously that wasn't picked up.
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Yeah. Can you tell us about that experience when you started writing something,
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and then there was all these no's?
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Oh, yeah, definitely. So I wrote my first novel. I started, it was like 2018.
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That was actually the heyday of YA fantasy, at least for me.
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I mean, it was like YA fantasy was having a moment, a huge moment back then more so than today.
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And this so I was reading a lot of it and I think I had so many ideas for fantasy
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so that book was a YA fantasy,
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and I didn't know what I was doing I think the thing like writing a novel is
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that it's it has a really big learning curve a really really big learning curve,
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I'll just take so long and,
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I had no idea how to write a you know I never did an MFA,
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I had written like stories like short fiction never like a full-length novel
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before so this was sort of like the way somebody said like your first novel
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was kind of like your mfa like for people who didn't do it for me that's what it was,
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it really was a learning experience i heard the term like practice novel and
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that's okay to me that feels right although i was really attached to that story
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so it's not like i didn't take it seriously i did and i spent years working on it.
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But it really is an act of learning how to write a novel it's everything at
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once it's learning point of view it's learning characterization and character arc how to plot,
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everything you're new at right and so that was a story that I think,
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was a really good story but I did so many revisions And I think that,
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what I think I learned to do from writing that is to.
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Create a more sophisticated structure, more sophisticated structures.
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That first book was very much a linear one point of view, linear timeline.
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So I think that there's a lot of things that are very difficult to do with your
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first novel that you can do once you've written a novel and you really have
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more sophisticated storytelling skills, which I do think come from just telling
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different stories all over.
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And also, I will say, after I wrote and I shelved that first book because that
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first book didn't get me an agent.
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Although it got me a lot of what's called full requests in the querying world,
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which I'm happy to explain. I don't know if people care who are not writers.
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After that, I actually drafted an adult fantasy. I spent like two months drafting
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an adult fantasy and I actually did draft the entire book.
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But before I could revise it, I had the idea for what became An Immaculate Deception.
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And I was like, oh, this is the one this is the one this is the one and so I actually
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put that aside and never shared with anybody never revised that adult fantasy
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and then I immediately switched because you know when you have the idea like
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this is the one like and I knew when I had the idea that,
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like when I say the idea I mean like I knew even the twist at that point so I knew like if I'm.
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Writing for six like five or six years seriously so i knew enough from like
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taking courses and being in the industry and all that i knew that like this
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idea is an idea that if i can pull it off i will be able to sell this book,
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But I wasn't sure if I could pull it off because I had never sold a book before.
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So I was like, do I have the skills to pull it off? But I knew the idea,
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if I could execute that premise with that twist, I knew that it's a great idea
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that will sell. It will sell if I can pull it off.
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Okay, so do you remember the moment that the idea of an Immaculate Deception
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came to you? Was it the character? Was it the house? Was it Brazil?
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What happened in that moment? it yeah i actually feel like i oversimplified
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it when i say the idea it was more like the first nugget it was like different
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stages the first nugget was
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the characters leandro and madalena and sort of a toxic dynamic between them
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i don't think it's a spoiler to say that they have this dynamic and i didn't
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even know at that point what exactly was their relationship but i knew.
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The way their dynamic was and how it felt and that's all i'll say about that
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and if you think about everything you know about the story after having read
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it think about that right for,
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several weeks actually I started writing some scenes
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and then I was in a coffee shop one day just kind of plotting outlining or something
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and then it occurred to me what the twist would be and how I should change the premise to be able to,
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enable that twist to work so that's when I was like that's it so then I had
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to actually rewrite the scenes basically rewrite everything but I had only written
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like three scenes at that point so it wasn't a lot of rewriting but i knew like okay,
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i know what i need to do now and so then drafting came very,
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easily because i knew where i was going with it and it was exciting because
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as you know a lot of scenes have almost like two different ways of looking at
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it right so when i was writing these scenes i,
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It was actually very fun for me to write it, knowing that you have this like
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double entendre, if that makes sense. Like it makes it more fun for me.
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So drafting was really fun for me because of that.
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Okay. I don't want to give any of that away. I really don't.
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Because it's part of the excitement of this book is actually how you have written it.
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I want everyone to read it so that they can understand that. That's true.
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So let's talk about Brazil, because I feel like a lot of books,
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movies, stories, the location is part of it, right?
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Like when you're watching a movie about that's set in New York,
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New York is like part of the story so much. I feel like Brazil is part of this story.
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So you were born in Pernambuco. Did I pronounce that correctly? Yeah, close enough.
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No, no, no. I've got to say correctly. How do you pronounce it?
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Pernambuco. Pernambuco.
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So you were born there, raised there, right? So you were little.
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And then you chose to set this Gothic story in 1877 in this place.
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Why did you want to return to where you were from?
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So I actually think the idea for setting it in Penabuco, Brazil came to me when
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years actually earlier, which is hard to maybe sounds weird.
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But in 2020, I read a book called Mexican Gothic.
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It's very popular and it's a gothic horror novel, very similar to this book.
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And it's set in Mexico and it's historical as well.
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I don't remember exactly what year, but it's a historical novel set in Mexico,
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and it's a gothic horror. And I loved it so much.
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And I remember thinking, one day I'm going to write a book that is a gothic horror set in Brazil.
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Because I thought when I read Mexican Gothic, like, holy shit,
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like, horror works so well in the context of Latin America. And I can't really
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explain why, but it just does.
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And I've been thinking about it since and I think it's partly because all the
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stereotypes we have about Latin America are like these like,
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superficial happy things or to me it's like people think of Brazil they think
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of like carnival and they think,
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of like soccer and the rainforest and like when I like growing up for me like
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none of those things were really part of my experience I was never into kind
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of those stereotypes are not the real experience and they don't mean anything to me,
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But I think a lot of horror that
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has come out of Latin America and other cultures feels more real to me.
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There's this meme that I saw recently that said, right now, horror captures
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women's experiences better than romance does.
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And there's such a truth in that. And I feel like it's the same with Latin America.
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I think a lot of Latin American horror feels more truthful than a lot of the
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more superficial things and...
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So I just loved that particular combination of the gothic and Latin America.
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And so when I wrote Mexican Gothic 2020, I was like, one day I'm going to do that.
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And so when the idea came to me in 2023 about these characters,
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and I knew that it was like a dark story, I thought about it because I needed
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to place it in a genre because,
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I knew enough by then that in order
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to sell a book as a debut who no one's heard of, you need to be able to,
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explain to agents and publishers like what is the genre how will this be positioned
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so i was thinking from the beginning this time like how will i position this
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what is the story exactly in terms of
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and then i thought about it was like i think this is a gothic and so if this
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is a gothic that means that i can actually set it in brazil because we have
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the tradition of mexican gothic and there have been other books like it like the hacienda,
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by isabel canias there have been enough gothic horror set in Latin America that
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have been successful that I know there's a precedent there that I can pitch this to agents.
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Honestly, if it had come to me before 2020, I would have not had the confidence
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to do that because I would have thought like no one's going to buy it because
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people only want stories set in America
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or England because gothic horror traditionally is like England, right?
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But because we did have those other books that paved the way for it I knew like
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well there's a chance I can sell it because I can tell them hey you know look
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at these other books that also sold so I think it was like that was the reason,
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Did writing it from being here in Connecticut change the way you,
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like, saw where you came from?
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Did that perspective of sitting in, like, you're not in a gothic house,
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you're having to imagine yourself in this place? Because the house is also a
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very big part of this story.
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The house has its own personality part of the story.
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How does that feel to write something like this in, like, Connecticut?
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I mean, we have a lot of haunted houses here. Let's be real.
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Like you have Amityville horror. You've got like a ton of creepy houses that are from Connecticut.
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But I could imagine being in one place and writing this story and I mean to
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kind of put yourself in the world. So how did you do that?
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I, you know, like when I'm writing, I'm not in Connecticut.
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I mean, my story. Before that, I wrote a fantasy that was secondary world.
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It was in a different world entirely.
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Somebody asked me an interesting question. They were like, you know,
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when you're writing, don't your eyes get tired from staring at a computer or
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like the screen all the time?
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And you're just staring at a screen. And I told them when I'm writing,
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my eyes are not seeing the screen. They really are not. My eyes are seeing whatever,
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world is going on in my head. I'm not even aware of the screen,
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which might sound woo-woo, but that's really the answer.
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I don't feel like I'm in Connecticut at all when I'm writing.
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I feel like I'm in wherever the story is. And every other story I've written
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is the same way. I don't feel when I travel and I write from other places.
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I love writing when I travel.
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It's the same thing. I could be in Hawaii. I could be in Brazil. I could be in wherever.
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I don't really look around me and then describe what I see. I just enter another
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world in my head and it does not matter where I'm sitting. I am where my head
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is. That's fascinating.
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This fascination with that makes me think of Madalena, the main character.
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And her brain and how she thinks throughout the novel.
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And that's another one of my questions for you is about her character.
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But I have one more question about writing Gothic novels. So what drew you to
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this genre in particular? Because you know, I don't read, When you handed me
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this book, you were like.
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I read the romanticies and the fluff. And like you said, that meme is so right
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because your book brought up feelings in me of like frustration and anger.
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Oh, yeah. Like you said, the romanticies books are fun and fluff,
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but they're not really how you grow up or are a woman, right?
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You dream about it. And you're like, oh, he turns into a wolf. Fantastic.
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But your book felt emotions that were like, I've had those emotions before.
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So that meme that you heard that you saw is really true. It really like it stuck
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in my head after you said it.
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So what drew you to this gothic genre?
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That's a great question because my first book was fantasy. It was very different.
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It was a very different vibe.
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I think it might have been because that's what I've been reading a lot.
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Over the years, I think when I was younger, like in my 20s, I really liked reading fantasy the best.
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But I don't know why, but as I guess into my 30s, my reading tastes changed.
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And now I like reading thriller and I like reading horror.
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Those are the books that I like the most that call me the most so even before
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I started writing this in 2023 even in the years before that I was reading so
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many thrillers and so many horror books,
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I think that might have been why like something changed in my head and my psyche and,
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because if you look at this book even though it's official it's really a blend
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of thriller and horror but I knew it was a gothic so I tried to stick to the horror conventions
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but a lot of the thriller structure came out this has certain thriller elements
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which was not even on purpose it was more just because I think I read a lot of thrillers
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and I like that yeah I think the reason that I ended up going with like a gothic
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a darker story is because that's what I've been reading so much for the past
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few years like the past like five years.
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So I just really like stories like that and I really like that the stakes are
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really high I like that it's intense and one thing I really love about horror
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specifically that you don't really get almost any other genre or you get more
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in horror than any other genre it's the freedom of horror.
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Because I wrote a YA fantasy before and there's so many rules with YA.
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It's like there's a lot of conventions and a lot of restrictions and like how
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you can write, what you can write about. And every genre has its own kind of
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rules. But horror is the most liberating one that you can actually have taboos in horror.
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In fact, some of the taboos are literally hallmarks of gothic horror.
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Like things that wouldn't be accepted in any other genre, like incest and certain
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ways of trauma and abuse and things like that, that would be really tough to
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write in other genres are actually conventions of gothic horror. They're expected.
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So I really like that because it just felt really liberating to be able to put
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whatever I wanted in, whatever came to me and not worry too much about what's
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allowed and what's not allowed, you know.
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Oh, the freedom to be able to write what you want. I love that.
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So were there pieces of Brazil in the Brazilian history that you really wanted,
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inside this book? So I'll give an example.
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Oh, I hope. Okay. Tell me if I can't give this example and I'll find another one.
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But in the book, they go to a festival and they're all dressed up in outfits,
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right? It's like going to a costume party.
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But the theme is a certain way. So they're all dressed a certain way.
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And when I saw Daniela yesterday and we were talking about it,
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she's like, we actually did that.
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Yeah. Like, I actually would put freckles on my face.
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And I'm like, what? And she's like, and there are actual dances that you do.
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I'm like, this is amazing.
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Were there certain parts like that, that as you were doing your research of
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this time in the world, that you really were like, okay, this has to go in it
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because it makes sense. It's quintessential to the story, things like that.
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I think it was more so that I wanted things that were regional and not,
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I didn't want to put anything in there that was like the things that everybody
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knows already. Like, usually the things that people know are associated with Rio.
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So people know about Rio, they know about Carnival in Rio. That's like what everybody knows.
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I'm from the Northeast, which is a region that is not well known at all.
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And our traditions are not well known. And this festival, São João,
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is very, like, if you're from that region, everyone knows, everyone participates.
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It's, like, a huge part of our lives where, like, nobody outside of Brazil really
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knows about it unless you're from a country that also celebrates it, like Portugal.
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So I definitely, again, it kind of goes back to, like, wanting to capture not
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only my own lived experience, but also avoid those, like, tired stereotypes about Brazil, you know?
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That festival is a really cool,
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way to do that. the other thing in terms of wanting to highlight things,
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because it's a story that takes place mostly in this one house right I mean
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there's one other house that she goes to but there are not a lot of settings
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in this story it's not a story where she's traveling a lot,
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so we don't really have the chance to show a lot of Brazil or show a lot of
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settings really it's just a festival and then she's in,
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one house and there's one other house and that's pretty much it the entire story
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so it's a very the setting is very like very insulated it's just that one place
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which is common in gothic horror because the house is huge,
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but so that means that you know i can't explore that much in terms of like actual
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places in brazil but one thing that i did layer in in many rounds of revision
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was like details about the time the historical context of the time so you know
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that in the in the 1870s brazil was still an empire and you know that there.
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There's a reference to the emperor and there's an reference to the this the
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theft of the crown jewel which was a real
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historical incident those were things i layered in revisions because my agent
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and my editors because i had two editors one from the uk and one thing in the u.s they all were like,
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oh we have more about brazil because i didn't even have most of those things in so,
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there's now references to like the empire and the emperor and even the fact
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like what happened i won't have to be careful not to spoil it but.
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Some other things about brazil at the time that get mentioned later in part
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two and all of that i added because i got that feedback okay but now that i see
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reader reviews what i'm seeing in reviews is people saying that they really
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felt immersed in the setting and the time period and they felt like they were there.
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Like, I haven't seen people complain about it. So I feel like, okay, I put enough in.
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Yeah. No, it worked. It really, you really understood where she was living.
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And also the time you live in and the space, it finds what you're doing in that
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time and who you are in that time, right?
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If you put Madalena in today, that girl would have a very different experience than she did in 1877.
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Right? So it makes a lot of sense to have all of that.
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Yeah, exactly. And it also allows me to play with a point of view.
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Okay, so let's talk about Madelena, our main character, right? Yes.
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So for someone listening who hasn't read the book yet, tell us who Madelena
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is when we first meet her.
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When we first meet her she is 19 and she is like somewhere between middle class
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and upper class almost like her family wants wants to become upper class but is not quite there,
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she is her parents are very traditional her mom is very strict i would say the
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key things about madelina starting out is that she,
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is very almost like a typical teenager where she's full of hopes and dreams
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and has a huge crush on the man who is the father of her baby that she's pregnant
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and she has a huge crush on him, Leandro is his name.
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She has something that is very typical of people of her age,
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which is big dreams, almost like that naivete of youth, right?
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Hopes and dreams and clings to them at all costs, okay?
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But we also see certain, maybe there should be something about her that hints
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that there's certain darkness there.
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And you know that from the first page when you find out that she's kind of,
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she memorized Dante's Inferno, right? Right. That's like the first line.
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So she knows about all the circles of hell and she takes it very literally that
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there is a hell and that the punishment for a sin is mirrored by the sin,
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which you see in Dungeons Inferno.
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So it's almost like poetic justice. Right. So the way you suffer in hell for
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every circle is a mirror to the sin itself.
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The point being that it's not that god is being cruel it's that you chose that
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sin and therefore you deserve and earn
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that punishment that's the idea of contrapasso so she has those images
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vivid in her head so those two things are important on the one hand she's very naive.
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Now i wouldn't say very naive people perceive her as being very naive but i
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think she it's more like big hopes and dreams and believes in them at all costs.
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But there is also this other side of her where she has this like image that
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you see in her, this certain obsession with health. Yes. And dark.
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You read it and you're in it. So that's my other question. In another interview,
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you said that instead of hanging out with Madalena as a person,
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you'd rather hang out inside of her brain, like her head.
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And I get that because the way you write, how she experiences these moments
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with Dante's Inferno, it is vivid.
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Like, I get it. I would be fascinating to be inside of her head and also somewhat terrifying.
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So what fascinated you about Dante enough to make that part of Madalena,
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like the story, her experiences when she talks about it?
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And I read Deltain College. I actually took a course, and I'm so glad I did
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because it's really hard to appreciate it if you just read it by yourself.
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And it really actually made a huge impact on me.
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I think it's the philosophy of it and how...
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It's the philosophical underpinnings of it, which to me felt not much like Catholicism as I grew up.
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But in fact, the Catholic Church denounces Dante's Inferno. So not a perfect
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match to Catholicism for reasons I can talk about later.
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But there is Dante had his own philosophy of like what is good, what is bad.
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And he even also talked about artistic inspiration. That's a huge part of it, too.
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So it's the philosophy was great. I was a philosophy major and I really loved Dante's Inferno.
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I love the philosophy and the poetry of it, but I also really loved the juxtaposition
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of talking about these horrific images of hell and the way that people were punished and suffered.
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It's like descriptions of these souls suffering in hell in various different
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ways, but it was described in really beautiful language.
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I think that if you're using beautiful language to describe something that is
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beautiful, I actually think that's boring and kind of flat.
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But if you use beautiful language to describe something really horrific,
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I think the juxtaposition of that is way more fascinating and way more compelling.
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Oh, I love that. Yeah. But you can see that in your book as you're writing it.
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Oh, great. Yeah. You can see that.
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So Maddalena is a hopeful romantic. Like, we get that. Hopeful.
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Exactly. The beginning, yes. But she's also carrying this enormous amount of fear and guilt.
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Did you always know that those two would coexist for her? Yeah.
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I can tell you about, because you've been kind of almost on the edge of asking,
26:15
about it, and it kind of ties into this question. So the real answer to this
26:20
question ties into how and why I brought in this religious.
26:24
There is a real-life family from the 1800s, so don't worry, it's not nobody that we know of.
26:31
Actually, there's a certain, that family fascinated me.
26:35
One of the people in that family went on to become something close to a serial
26:41
killer. He's very famous.
26:43
And he was one of the inspirations, the serial killer.
26:47
Okay. Even though there's nobody in the book that is quite like that,
26:51
but I became really interested in why a real life guy became the way he did and how was he raised.
26:59
I started to look him up and I was like, what was his upbringing why did it
27:03
become like that and again i can't say the name because i'm a bit of a spoiler so i won't say,
27:08
and they lived in the 1800s as i'm
27:10
looking his family up i became really interested in his mother and then,
27:16
i started reading about her in the way that she raised him was very very strict religious upbringing,
27:24
and it kind of started to make sense to me why he became the way that he did,
27:29
okay so she was extremely strict she used religion as a tool of abuse,
27:35
and then it made sense then i was like wow no that now the psychological profile
27:41
is making sense and so as a character i can write them when i feel like it all
27:45
clicked especially if i understand like oh this is how this person was raised and so,
27:50
that's where now i'm like now i'm able to.
27:55
Have a fuller picture of how the history and the background of the character
28:00
led them to it. And that's part of why you see like Madalena's mother herself is very strict.
28:05
And there's other characters later that you find out as well that fit that profile.
28:10
So that's actually why religion came into the story. Inspiration was actually
28:16
this real life family. It wasn't that I was like, oh, I want to write about
28:18
religion. Actually, it wasn't that. It was more that I was interested in the characters.
28:23
And as I was researching people from history that intrigued me that had similar
28:27
psychological profiles, there was one particular one that really intrigued me.
28:33
And that family was very much a very, very strict family. And it kind of led
28:39
to things in the way that they did.
28:42
That's absolutely fascinating. So you studied philosophy.
28:46
Yeah. And then you wrote a novel filled with questions about sin,
28:51
punishment, morality, religion—,
28:54
what we're taught to believe, right? We're just told to believe something without
28:58
even actually believing it sometimes because it's what we're told to do.
29:02
So how much of this philosophy student in you ended up in the story or just
29:08
how much you've learned? Because you mentioned Dante and how you took a course on that.
29:12
But is there something in philosophy that you brought into this book? Oh my God, yes.
29:19
Absolutely. And it wasn't like, I didn't set out to do that.
29:22
I didn't say, oh, for this novel, I'm going to weave in all the philosophy.
29:25
No, it wasn't like that. It just came to me.
29:27
So I talked about Dante's Inferno, but also in the book, you see references
29:32
to Freud, for example, and the conscious and unconscious mind.
29:36
And this is actually one of the, I think it's okay to talk about this.
29:40
And I think it's not a spoiler because it's actually one of the hallmarks of the Gothic as well.
29:45
It's dealing with those states between like deathless states where you're not
29:50
dead, you're not alive, something like that.
29:52
And in this book, you do see this contrast of like conscious versus unconscious,
29:58
conscious versus unconscious mind. And you see that in different ways.
30:02
There's even like nightmares and dreams and manifestations of repressed desires
30:07
and repressed thoughts and memories.
30:10
That's huge, right? Like I studied philosophy, I also studied cognitive science.
30:14
And so like all of that plays a role. And one of the things that I studied or
30:19
sort of like a thought that I had at the time from studying cognitive science
30:23
and philosophy and a little bit of neuroscience, I really kind of developed this belief that,
30:30
our perspective and unique point of view shapes reality for every individual.
30:36
Like the individual, what reality means is really filtered by and through point of view.
30:43
You see that in this book, right? If I didn't fully believe that,
30:47
I wouldn't have been able to even write it because you have to believe that
30:51
to pull off a story like this.
30:53
Because, and I don't think it's a spoiler, but if it is, you can edit this out.
30:56
No, no, not a spoiler. Part one has one point of view. And then you see part
31:00
two has another point of view.
31:01
And you see how much changes from the same, sometimes the same scenes being
31:07
described from a completely different point of view, changes the reality that we're experiencing.
31:12
There was definitely one of the things that came from philosophy in cognitive
31:16
science, in addition to the stuff about like conscious and unconscious mind,
31:19
Freud, which is all very 19th century, very 1800s. That was like the heyday
31:24
of hypnosis and those kinds of things.
31:26
But also the idea of how reality is framed by our point of view. Yeah.
31:34
Oh, my God, Isabella, I want to be inside your brain.
31:37
I want to be like, where is this world? I need to, and all the things that you're
31:41
thinking about and tying in, I mean, I can imagine your map,
31:47
your map is like this story in your brain.
31:50
I mean, it's not always good in here. At times it's bad.
31:53
Sometimes it's good, but sometimes it's horrible. It makes this great novel, so it's working.
31:59
Yeah, that's true. So let's talk about Leandro for a second.
32:03
So Leandro is our main male character, right? Yes. M.M.C. M.M.C.
32:07
As we like to call them. Do you know that I've read a bajillion of these books now, right?
32:12
And didn't understand what MMC was for a million years. And I'm like, what's an MMC?
32:18
And then they start talking about, you know, whatever character.
32:20
And I'm like, oh, like the, oh, I get it. Like Lightbulb, the male character.
32:24
Get it. Yeah. For those who don't know, MMC is the main male character.
32:30
Yeah. Male main character. Male main character.
32:32
And then you have FMC, which is a female main character. Exactly.
32:36
Everyone is now educated in what's been written. around on BookTok and...
32:40
Yeah, yeah, the bookish online communities. So when we first hear about Leandro,
32:45
he's this dashing, romantic poet.
32:49
And then we meet kind of a different guy, right?
32:52
Yeah. So when you were creating him, were you thinking about a particular individual
32:59
or was he inspired by anyone?
33:02
I know that there was this family that you looked at back in the 1800s of characteristics
33:07
of how he was as a person. But was there anyone else or things that came to
33:11
your mind about this character that you wanted?
33:14
That one that I mentioned about that family from the 1800s was the main one.
33:18
And I can't say exactly who again. That would be a spoiler. Yeah,
33:20
yeah, don't. But the other thing I'll say that's really funny about him is...
33:26
This is, again, this is in the blurb. This is in the description of the plot.
33:29
So I don't think it's a spoiler either.
33:31
But you know that, as you say, you see a change in him, right?
33:34
So he starts off, he's a poet, he's dashing, he's charismatic,
33:38
he's a happy dude. And then when she wakes up, there's a carriage accident.
33:44
And then when she wakes up in the estate...
33:48
Being taken care of by the doctor, Leandro's changed. He's different in that house.
33:55
He's different. We see a different version of him. That version of him was the
34:01
version that I had from the beginning. Like that was in my head.
34:05
Because that was, to me, that's the heart of the story, right?
34:08
So that came to me much more easily from the beginning. In fact,
34:12
it's really funny because I think if there's one piece of feedback I got from
34:15
everybody, I got it from my critique partners. I got it from my mentor.
34:20
I got it from my editor. I got it from my agent. Almost every time.
34:23
We need more about the original Leandro, like the happy ghost.
34:27
Because in the early versions, those two chapters were so short.
34:32
Oh, interesting. The one that's more interesting to me is the post-accident
34:37
one where he's changed. That's the more interesting version of him to me.
34:41
So I was really vivid in bringing that to life. And I barely talked about the
34:47
before Leandro. And so people were all like, can we have more of him?
34:50
And so I would add more. And then somebody was like, I want even more. So I would add more.
34:54
So I feel like the final version, I think it's good that you didn't feel that
34:57
way. That means like I finally got there. You know, I gave you enough of the
35:00
both versions, I guess. Yes.
35:02
But, yeah, I mean, honestly, as a writer, the happy characters are not as fun
35:07
to write. They're really not.
35:09
The darker ones are way more fun. Way more. Way more interesting.
35:13
100%. Okay, so without giving anything away, do you forgive him?
35:19
Oh, yeah. Okay. I do. Okay. It's almost like, yeah, yeah.
35:27
Knowing everything about him, I do.
35:32
I do. Because I could imagine writing a story like this and at the end of it,
35:37
you're like, I really fucking hate him.
35:41
Yes, for sure. Right? For sure. How do you get past that? How do you sleep?
35:45
How do you wrap your head around that you've been in this world with these characters?
35:49
I'm sure they have voices in your head when you're creating them.
35:51
Do you hear them when you're creating them? Like what they would kind of sound
35:54
like when they're speaking?
35:56
Yeah. I have to say the narrator of the audiobook did a great job.
36:01
Did you listen to the audiobook? I did.
36:03
I did. Oh, my God. Both. I like to do both. Me too. I like to do both.
36:07
Because I'm walking and I'm reading. So, yeah, I do both. Spotify has a thing
36:10
now where you can switch back and forth seamlessly between the audiobook and
36:13
the e-book. And the Kindle.
36:14
So I do it all the time because I'm in the car so much and I can't stop listening
36:19
and reading my books. Like, literally, I think for the past,
36:23
I don't know, six months, I have either been listening to a book or reading it.
36:27
Like, you just devour them.
36:30
Like, I don't know what else is happening in the world, but my book.
36:33
I mean, me too. I'm the same way. I love switching back and forth.
36:37
And I think I know what his voice sounded like.
36:42
But yeah, I liked both of the narrators. I really loved, you know what I loved
36:45
about Madalena's narrator is that she, her range was amazing.
36:49
Like one moment she sounded really young and hopeful and naive.
36:53
And then another moment, she would say something in such a way that the scene
36:58
sounded creepy and suspenseful just from her voice change.
37:02
And I was like, wow, you nailed it. Yeah, those voice actors.
37:08
Like, I've listened to so many of them now. And it's funny when I hear certain
37:12
voices, I'm like, wait, that was a different character because they're bright this way.
37:17
All these different characters and you can hear them in the book.
37:19
Yes, that's true. Sometimes they can do two different characters really well. Yes.
37:25
But in this case, they actually had like a male actor doing it.
37:28
And then the female actors doing it. I love it when they do a dual narration.
37:33
I do. I love the dual narration. It's so good.
37:36
Okay, I'm glad you forgave him because I have questions afterwards for you that
37:40
we can't talk about here that we're going to get to.
37:42
So I read that you love horror movies.
37:47
Have you always enjoyed being scared?
37:51
No, because this is the thing. Okay, okay, now you're gonna,
37:54
like, hear my spiel about horror.
37:57
I feel, I think horror right now that we see today is very different than the
38:02
horror we saw in the 90s, in the early 2000s, which was primarily slasher.
38:07
Like, the kind of horror that was big was very, they were very similar to each other.
38:12
It was like some guy running after these innocent people, usually a woman.
38:17
And the women had no agency, no character arc, nothing interesting about them.
38:21
They were just these like victims of their circumstances.
38:24
I don't like slasher that much. I think the last slasher that I enjoyed was,
38:29
Pearl. Pearl was kind of a slasher. That was a movie that I liked.
38:32
But yeah, but that's not like the horror that we see today is so different than that. It's much richer.
38:40
And often you do see a real character arc for the female characters.
38:44
You don't like the best example of that is midsummer and.
38:49
What i'm about to say will spoil the end of midsummer so if you know no warning
38:53
for listeners you can skip 15 seconds,
38:56
but you see that in the beginning from the beginning to the end you see a girl
39:01
like when i was watching that i thought she was gonna be like
39:04
the end was gonna be her was barely surviving coming back home that's not what
39:09
happens she has a complete arc and a complete change from the beginning to the
39:14
end and the way that we see her in the end,
39:18
is very fascinating to me because.
39:22
She is obviously not in traditional happy ending yeah but,
39:29
there's a sort of freedom and liberation from something right because the whole
39:34
time her boyfriend treated her like shit and she didn't see it.
39:38
She didn't see that she was mistreated. And then finally she sees what happened,
39:42
We see what happened to him. She joins the cult. But she's like kind of empowered.
39:47
And the same with The Witch.
39:48
Anyway, I told you I had a whole spiel about horror. Horror today is completely
39:52
different than the way it was in the past.
39:55
So do I love horror? I love it today. I didn't love horror back then.
39:59
But also horror wasn't that good. My opinion wasn't as good back then.
40:03
Now you have Sinners. You have Get Out, Obsession.
40:07
I mean, those movies are excellent in terms of storytelling,
40:12
in terms of the points that they're making and the way they're highlighting.
40:17
Injustices for women, injustices for different kinds of people.
40:22
It's just much richer narratives. I think it's so good. Horror Today,
40:26
I think, is actually really innovative storytelling.
40:28
Probably the genre that I think is innovating the most in terms of both books
40:33
and movies and TV shows. I think that's why it's doing well,
40:36
because it's actually innovating.
40:38
It's telling really good, rich stories. There's still a stigma.
40:41
I'm shocked by how many people I talk to when I tell them my book is horror
40:44
and they're like oh I can't do horror because they're thinking of Scream and
40:48
the slashers from the 90s
40:50
but that is not what it is today if you go look at the horror section of a bookstore
40:55
and you see the books published in the last three to four years the majority
40:58
of those books in the horror section are not slashers anymore
41:01
they're really good and they're they have rich narratives they explore perspectives,
41:08
with much greater care and depth.
41:10
And they're much more fascinating. They tackle taboo subjects.
41:14
They tackle kinds of things that are fascinating, different aspects of the human experience. Yeah.
41:21
I, as you know me, not a fan of horror.
41:25
I want to come back to that woman who first wrote that manuscript and heard No. Okay? Okay.
41:32
You're back there. You now have your debut novel. It is sitting in bookstores.
41:40
You're getting special sprayed edges, right?
41:44
Have you had a moment yet where you can sit there and be like,
41:49
I've done this. I've done this.
41:53
I want to say yes, but I'm trying to remember when it happened that it like
41:57
really, I think sitting.
42:01
Okay so this was the closest I've come to that I think is okay,
42:05
the day that the book came out I me and my husband were at a
42:09
spa in the middle of nowhere in Connecticut and my husband called there was
42:13
like a bookshop an indie bookshop like five minutes away my husband called them
42:17
and I was like there's no way they're gonna have the book like,
42:20
it literally came out today they're like we're in farmland like it's not it's
42:26
it's an indie and they had one copy,
42:29
one copy But I thought that was a cool thing.
42:31
So I went in there to sign that one copy.
42:34
But the lady, the owner of the store, happened to be there. So she came,
42:38
talked to me, and we had a wonderful conversation. She was the sweetest person.
42:43
I'm actually going to plug them.
42:44
It's the Hickory Stick Bookshop.
42:47
And it's a really, really lovely bookshop. And the owner was so sweet.
42:52
And it was actually a really, really lovely moment, honestly.
42:56
And I love that name. I'm going to put this up on Instagram.
42:59
We're going to plug them.
43:00
Okay, final question because I know you have to go.
43:03
Yeah. When somebody closes the book after that final page, what do you hope
43:08
they're still thinking about the next day?
43:12
How the decisions that we make changes over time in ways that we are not even consciously aware of.
43:20
How we change as women also.
43:25
That past in ways that we're not consciously aware of? And who are we really
43:30
becoming? And how have we already changed?
43:34
And what are the ways that we are becoming more like our parents that we may
43:39
not necessarily want, but that have already begun to happen if you're at a certain age?
43:44
Oh, Issa, you have to go. Thank you so much for giving me this hour. I appreciate it.
43:50
Everyone go get an immaculate deception read it listen to it thank you so much
43:56
all right thank you so much maria,
44:01
thank you so much for joining me today on she's smart new episodes drop every
44:06
other thursday don't forget to subscribe like and share stay cozy.