Photo by Mary Beth DeLucia
Melissa Pace is the author of the new novel The Once and Future Me. She lives in Los Angeles.
Q: What inspired you to write The Once and Future Me, and how did you create your protagonist?
A: This book grew out of an idea that came to me of a woman waking with no memory, just a menacing voice in her head and a gut feeling she’s there, in that particular place and time for a reason.
But the only clues she has about who she is or why she’s there are the curious scars on her body, her tendency to react violently when threatened, and the kickass martial arts skills she possesses…and that steely voice in her head.
And I thought, what would be the worst time, worst place, worst situation possible for this particular character to find herself in.
That’s when the opening image came to me: of her waking on a mental patient transfer bus arriving at a state mental hospital in 1954, a time famous for its conformity and strict gender roles, not to mention being the peak year of institutionalization, electroshock, and lobotomies in America (600,000 people were living in mental institutions in 1955).
So this woman, Dorothy/Bix, is instantly labeled as mentally ill, her thoughts and desires now irrelevant to those in control around her. I was so captivated by the idea of this woman with such a potentially vital job to do, being made to play small.
Even though the events that have landed my heroine in Hanover State Psychiatric Hospital are quite possibly speculative, I wanted to tell the story of a woman who could be any of us under the same desperate circumstances.
She’s struggling to find her footing, learn the truth of who she is—and was—absent any memories of the often damaging experiences that shaped her. Without those memories, who is she now? And what is her purpose in 1954?
How Dorothy/Bix obtains answers in the alien, hostile world of 1954 forms the heart of the narrative, with the reader getting to know Bix as she’s getting to know herself, gradually learning how and why she’s there—even as she’s broken down by the protocol and becomes, for a time, an unreliable narrator of her own story.
Q: The writer Amy Tintera called the novel a “thrilling, genre-bending, and addictive read!” What do you think of that description, especially the idea of the novel bending genres?
A: I love what she said about it, maybe most especially the genre-bending aspect, because the novel truly is a genre turducken: a psychological thriller, steeped in historical fiction, wrapped in a crunchy layer of sci-fi, and dusted with some fourth wave feminism. Exactly the weird book I set out to write!
Q: Did you know how the story would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: Yes, I knew the ending and, hmmm, I don’t think I can say more without giving too much away!!
Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: This project has had several names along the way!! Originally, when it was an unsold TV pilot, it was called Bix In Time. Once I began turning it into a novel, I changed its title to Untethered, which it remained until right before it was submitted by my agent to editors.
That title was not popular among some of the editors considering acquiring it, so in a hotel room in London where my husband and I were on vacation, I sat in bed, spitballing new titles till I had a list of about thirty, one of which I loved—The Once and Future Me.
I think the reason I liked it so much was that it perfectly summed up my heroine’s internal struggle during the novel: her past self at war with her present self.
Maybe it was being in England…or the ghost of T. H. White that made it pop into my head in that hotel room!! It turns out my agent loved that one as well and so The Once and Future Me was born!
Q: What are you working on now?
A: The project that has me fired up right now is another thriller with more than a touch of the speculative.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Just how thrilled I am to be included in your blog! Thank you, Deborah.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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