Crystal King is the author of the new novel In the Garden of Monsters. Her other books include the novel The Chef's Secret. She lives in Boston.
Q: What inspired you to write In the Garden of Monsters, and how does the story reinterpret the myth of Hades and Persephone?
A: On the heels of the pandemic and publishing was in a strange place, I was struggling to sell a historical fiction novel set in the Renaissance. “Renaissance isn’t selling,” I was told, just a few weeks before Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait hit the bestseller list.
I was lamenting my situation (how I wanted to write a book that would sell) to an author friend, Kris Waldherr, who mentioned casually, “Well, gothics are hot right now.”
I thought to myself, if I were to write a gothic, what would I write? And immediately I thought of the garden in Bomarzo, the Sacro Bosco, a strange Renaissance garden full of statues of gods and monsters. And that’s where it began.
The garden has all the elements of the myth—a statue of Persephone that also serves as a bench, and a monstrous statue of Demeter which faces the mouth of hell—a wide open ogre’s mouth. This mouth is depicted on the cover of the book. And then when I learned that Salvador Dalí had visited the garden in 1948, well, it all came together.
There are a lot of people who don’t really know what the original myth is, so let me explain that.
The story begins with Hades, the god of the underworld, falling in love with Persephone, the beautiful daughter of Demeter, the goddess of agriculture and fertility (who is also the sister to Zeus and Hades). Hades decides to abduct Persephone and takes her to the underworld to be his wife.
Demeter, heartbroken and enraged by the loss of her daughter, scours the earth searching for her, and in her grief, she neglects her duties, causing the world to fall into famine as plants wither and die.
Eventually, Zeus, the king of the gods, intervenes to resolve the crisis. He sends Hermes to the underworld to negotiate Persephone's release. Hades agrees to let her go but she had eaten a few seeds of a pomegranate, the food of the dead.
According to ancient belief, anyone who consumed food in the underworld was bound to it. Because Persephone had eaten the pomegranate seeds, she was obligated to return to the underworld—a month for each seed eaten.
Subsequently, Persephone spends part of the year with her mother on earth, where her return brings spring and summer as Demeter rejoices. However, when Persephone returns to Hades in the underworld, Demeter grieves, and her sorrow brings autumn and winter.
This myth is often seen as an allegory for the changing seasons, particularly the agricultural cycle, where the earth "dies" in the winter and is "reborn" in the spring. Additionally, it has deeper themes of life, death, and rebirth, as well as the power of love and loss.
In my novel, In The Garden of Monsters, there are a few ways that the myth differs. First of all, it’s set in 1948, in post-war Italy. The entire book takes place in one week, in the garden and in the creepy palazzo on the hill above.
The story is told from the point-of-view of a model that Dalí brings to the garden. She quickly realizes, however, that both Dalí and their mysterious host in Bomarzo, Ignazio, both think she might be something different than a simple artist’s model. So right there, it’s a very different story.
But there is another very significant way in which I subvert the myth, which you’ll just have to read the book to find out about. It’s also more of a love story than many of the myths.
Q: How did you research the novel, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: I visited the garden multiple times, and in addition to reading every book on the place, I also spoke with a few historians who helped me understand a lot about the history of the garden.
One thing that was surprising to me was the content of some of the letters that Vicino Orsini—the creator of the garden—left behind. The garden is dedicated to his wife, but he wasn’t particularly faithful to her memory. There were some vulgar, bawdy stories of women he related to friends in his letters. That wasn’t important to my story, so I didn’t include it, but it was surprising.
Also, when Dalí went to the Sacro Bosco, he filmed a tiny movie (which you can view on my website). In it, there is a white cat that he carries on his shoulders into the little temple that represents Elysium, or heaven.
The cat is the inspiration for Orpheus in my book. But it wasn’t until after I had already written it that I learned they had scoured the medieval village of Bomarzo looking for someone who would lend them their white cat for the film. I had assumed it was a stray that he had found in the garden.
Q: The Publishers Weekly review of the novel says, “King makes the familiar tale feel fresh with her unusual and enthralling setting, which eerily blurs the real and the surreal. This is an exciting reinterpretation.” What do you think of that description?
A: Of course, I loved it! I think it’s apt. The characters are always grappling between what is real and what isn’t in the garden and in the palazzo.
I also think that there are a lot of traditional retellings in the marketplace right now, all set in ancient Greece. In the Garden of Monsters is genre-crossing. It’s gothic, it’s mythic, it’s romance, it’s fantasy, it’s historical fiction. In other words, it’s nothing like any of the myth stories you’ve read before.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?
A: I hope they have a rollicking good time. It’s a ghosty, romantic, surreal tale. It’s also heavily laden with food (I even have recipes in the back of the book!) so don’t dive in on an empty stomach.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I have a novel coming out next year (title TBD) that is a contemporary fantasy about some rather obscure ancient Greek gods who are trying to steal happiness from the world. A reverse Pandora’s box, if you will.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I have a few goodies on my website that might be of interest to readers. There are pages dedicated to the Sacro Bosco garden, and to Salvador Dalí, and I also have a free downloadable companion cookbook to In the Garden of Monsters. It has 24 recipes from food bloggers, chefs, food historians, and of course, me.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Crystal King.
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