Q&A with A.R. Vishny

Photo by Lauren Maxwell

 

 

 

A.R. Vishny is the author of the new young adult novel Night Owls. She lives in New York City.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Night Owls, and how did you create your characters Clara, Molly, and Boaz?

 

A: This book started with place for me. I lived in the East Village in law school, about a block over from Village East by Angelika, the real-life cinema that inspired The Grand Dame.

 

That neighborhood has a lot of very interesting history that’s hiding in plain sight and has lived many lives, it makes a great haunt for ghosts and supernatural creatures.

 

The setting then gave me a way to incorporate a lot of the history that I find interesting, and from there I was able to then introduce the kinds of Jewish supernatural creatures that I thought could best exist in that setting, which meant it was the perfect opportunity to write Estries, and thereby write, very specifically, the kind of Jewish paranormal romance my vampire-obsessed high school self would have loved.

 

I usually know I've landed on the right idea when I know it’s something teenaged me would have loved to read.

 

Clara and Molly were originally characters I had written for a historical fiction set in the world of early 20th Yiddish theater. I quickly scrapped the project, but I loved those characters and they lived rent free in my head for a long time.

 

Realizing I could bring them into the present day if they were vampires was one of the early "Aha!" moments for this project.

 

Clara's backstory is in part inspired by Fiddler on the Roof. I wanted to write essentially a Tzeitl-type character who wants, but does not get, a Motel, and Yiddish folksong enthusiasts might recognize that her interstitial chapter is also heavily inspired by the plot of "Dona, Dona."

 

The inspirations for Molly's backstory are a little more explicit on the page, some of the details of her backstory comes from the lives of Bessie Thomashefksy and Molly Picon, and some of it is inspired by the Yiddish play Got Fun Nekome/God of Vengeance.    

 

For Boaz, I knew I needed a love interest for Clara, and I knew I wanted him to be specifically Syrian because I wanted to include the legacy of the Damascus Affair, which is one of the major Blood Libel incidents and also set a number of important precedents for the way Jewish community works in the modern era.

 

What sealed the deal though was that the Brooklyn neighborhood "Gravesend" was just too good of a name not to be the home of a kid who can talk to dead people, and is also historically home to a large Syrian Jewish enclave.  

 

Boaz is Israeli-American because I am, it became a natural pathway into his voice for me, and his sense of humor and nerdiness are also my own. 

 

Q: The Booklist review of the novel said, “An intense, immersive quest full of deeply woven traditional and cultural lore, with emphasis on the value of Jewish faith and culture to the development of the characters.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: It's very flattering! It was very important to me that the book felt deeply Jewish on all levels, that the historical and cultural elements were substantive and integral to the text.

 

I've felt very fortunate for all the enthusiasm for the book from the trade publications. You never really know how they'll respond, and a real concern of mine was that the book would feel "too Jewish" to resonate with reviewers and readers.

 

When I was on submission with the book a few of the rejections we received essentially said just that, so those reviews and the other recognition the book has received has been extremely satisfying. 

 

Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?

 

A: Hah, as my editor could tell you, the ending was the thing that changed the most dramatically between revisions. Even before I sold the book, it was the hardest thing for me to figure out. I wanted a big battle that would draw together all the historical and magical threads of the text and that was hard with so many threads.

 

At one point the book had a completely different villain, in another draft Ashmodai was eaten by a Leviathan in the pipes (seriously).

 

As soon as I knew that this book would be a standalone, I knew I wanted a happy ending, but that was basically the only thing that stayed the same! I hope where the ending landed feels like the natural conclusion to the story.

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic among your three protagonists?

 

A: Clara and Molly are sisters, but they also represent two different generations of that late 19th/early 20th century Ashkenazi experience. That is the source of some of the tension between them, and explains the difference in their outlooks.

 

Boaz is the human of the trio, and part of the fun of writing him was reversing some of the tropes that were common in early 2000s YA vampire books by having a boy be the slightly-clueless mortal who has a knack for walking face-first into trouble. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I don't have anything under contract at the moment so I'm in my writing cave working on a new YA. Whatever I publish next it'll be fun, a little dark, very Jewish, and for fans of Night Owls. 

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I think that's it! Thank you so much for having me chat about Night Owls. 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb