Q&A with Tom Llewellyn

 

 

Tom Llewellyn is the author of The Five Impossible Tasks of Eden Smith, a new novel for older kids. His other books include The Bottle Imp of Bright House. He lives in Tacoma, Washington.

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Five Impossible Tasks of Eden Smith, and how did you create your character Eden?

A: What inspired me? I don’t have a neat-and-tidy answer. I remember once hearing J.K. Rowling claim that Harry Potter “just strolled into my head, fully formed,” or something like that.

 

I always assumed that was a lie created for marketing purposes, as I feel like I have to wrench my stories and characters from my skull tiny piece by piece, as if they were splinters I was extracting with a pair of Vice Grips. Then I have to slowly glue all those splinters together into some sort of rough-hewn beast.

 

Nothing I’ve ever written has ever strolled into my head or anything else, fully formed. How is that even possible?

So maybe it’s appropriate that my original idea for the story was to create a sort of anti-Hogwarts.

 

If Hogwarts is the hoity-toity private boarding school of the fantasy world, the Guildhall of Smiths Local 292 is its blue-collar, industrial stepsister, where the magicians are replaced by crusty old metalworkers and the magical meals that appear on the tables are replaced with creamed ham and plain vanilla pudding and other foods easy for old people to chew and digest.

 

Magic wands and flying broomsticks are replaced by forges, blowtorches, hammers, and swords.

 

I sat down to the challenge of intentionally choosing this unappealing locale—an old folks’ home for metalworkers—and then making it a remarkable, lovable, crave-able world for a reader to visit and hopefully long to revisit.

 

I think I succeeded. Or perhaps I should say that I succeeded for myself. I love spending time in the Guildhall, as both a writer and a reader.

 

But there are many other messy inspirations jammed in. The impossible tasks come from five of the 12 labors of Hercules. The story arc of Vulcan, Eden’s grandfather, is based on the myth of Hephaestus, the Greek god of smithing.

 

And the beginning of the story, where Eden gains hope by finding a supportive grandfather, only to have him imprisoned on the day they meet, comes from the colonial American short story of Washington Irving, "My Kinsman, Major Molineux."

Where did Eden come from? Eden is inspired by my youngest daughter, Genet, who was born in Ethiopia. In fact, nearly all of the characters in the story are based on family members. Lots of beloved aunties and uncles appear in the pages, including my great aunts, Nellie and Irma.

 

This inclusion of family members did not happen right from the beginning of my writing process. It probably took me six months of banging my head against the wall until I sort of found the characters within my own family tree.

 

Once I did that, the writing became so much easier, as I wanted to spend time with the characters. It was sort of like attending a family reunion, except that all the family members in attendance had to do whatever I wanted them to.

 

I recommend you try this next Thanksgiving with your own family. Especially during an election year.

 

Q: How would you describe the relationship between Eden and her grandfather?

A: I always saw that relationship as the collision of two very strong wills. Eden and Vulcan are cut from the same cloth. There’s a good and a bad to that.

 

The bad is that they both want to be in charge, are both stuck in their ways, both struggle with showing emotion or even admitting they need help from anyone, and both are unwilling to give in on anything.

 

The good is that when they finally do manage to come together, they feel a very deep kinship—a level of connection that each was longing for, even if they were unwilling to admit it.

 

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.

By that, I mean I had a very basic idea of how the story would end, in that I knew it would be either happy or sad, tragic or triumphant. But oh my lord, did I ever make changes along the way. I can’t imagine a writing process where I knew everything that would happen before I began. That sounds more like dictation than writing.

 

I’m a firm believer that writing, done correctly, is an act of discovery—that the author’s job is to grind and grind and grind and grind away at the basic idea of a story until all the surprising nuances and twists emerge.

Editing and rewriting—that is writing. The basic first-draft plot is step one in a 20-step process for me. I probably had that first draft done in 10 months—by the summer of 2018—but the final story wasn’t done until the summer of 2023, five years later.

 

And major surprises were created right up until the end, surprising (and hopefully delighting) even me.

It's also important to realize that writing is not nearly as solitary of a sport as most people believe it to be. I had two amazing editors on this book.

 

The first is my agent, the esteemed Abigail Samoun, from Red Fox Literary. Abi has been editing my stuff for more than 15 years.

 

The second was my editor from Holiday House, Kelly Loughman. Kelly is annoyingly right. I mean, she tells me to do something I don’t want to do, like remove an entire key chapter, rewrite a character, or make other major moves like that. And when I finally give in and do it, the book is always better. She’s annoying. And priceless. Luckily, Kelly is a lovely human, so it’s bearable.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?

A: I hope they are swept away in the adventure. That’s really my main goal—to delight. I hope they laugh. I hope they turn the pages with nervous anticipation at what’s going to happen to characters that I hope they love.

 

As far as a deeper meaning, it’s all about family, in the broader sense of the term. The book opens with a strange little chapter of genealogy, which traces generations of Eden’s family tree. That little chapter is meant to set up the challenge, as many of Eden’s ancestors died attempting the Impossible Tasks.

 

But it is also there to establish that theme of family. Of connection. Of the fact that none of us accomplish anything meaningful all on our own. I believe strongly that family comes in many shapes and sizes. It’s more than genetics or biology.

 

In Eden’s case, she longs for that sense of belonging, to love and be loved in return.

 

I think that’s probably the most universal need there is—to belong. I hope readers relate to that idea and maybe look around and think about how they can work on building that larger family for themselves. Because it takes work. Family is precious, which means it’s worth fighting for.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Do I have to tell you? Works in process are so fragile. Most of mine perish. And their fragility seems to increase the more I discuss them. I need to get them to a meaningful tipping point before they can survive on their own.

 

Let me say that I have a few things in the works. The one I’m most excited about involves a dead parent who may also be a crow.

 

I’m unwilling to say more, as I have a tenuous relationship with my muse. If I keep talking, she may flee. If that happens, and you see her, please tell her I’m sorry and to please come home. Tell her I’ll make tacos.

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: You should know how much I personally love this book. I don’t say this as any sort of promotional gimmick. I love the world and I love the characters. I really long for this book to do well enough to justify sequels.

 

I don’t care that much about book sales—I really don’t. I’m sure I should care more. But I love these characters so much that the thought of getting to spend more time with them—writing about them—that idea sort of thrills me. Is that weird? It probably is. I’d better stop talking now.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb