BookishlyJewish: I’m so excited to have you back! It seems like an eternity has passed since your last interview on the blog, when really I think it’s been about a year. I know that Kalyna the Cutthroat has just made its way into stores. What should readers prepare for when picking it up?
Elijah Kinch Spector: I’m happy to be back! Kalyna the Cutthroat is a queer (and yes, very Jewish) fantasy novel about con artistry, dark magic, and relying on mutual aid when systems fail us.
BookishlyJewish: Do you think people can jump right into Cutthroat, or should they first read Soothsayer if they haven’t already?
Elijah Kinch Spector: People can absolutely start with Cutthroat! Reading the first book will deepen someone’s understanding of certain aspects of the second, but each one is written to be a complete story that can stand on its own.
I wrote it that way in large part for new readers, but also because I would’ve gotten bored writing a sequel that hewed too close to the first one.
BookishlyJewish: In what ways does Cutthroat differ from Soothsayer? In what ways is it similar?
Elijah Kinch Spector: First of all, the narrator is different! The first book was narrated by Kalyna herself, but in the second I wanted to show her from the outside. Show just how overpowering, and even scary, her con artistry can be to an observer. So I went for a Holmes and Watson dynamic. (Or probably more accurately, Raffles the Gentleman-Thief and Bunny.)
I also used the second book to explore locations that are discussed, but never seen, in the first book. Such as the other two fourths of the Tetrarchia: the cobbled-together country where both books are set.
This gave me a different angle on some of the same questions at the heart of Soothsayer, like who gets excluded from a national project. And, just like in the first book, I worked really hard to address those larger issues as part of a fun and exciting story!
BookishlyJewish: I have to know – is Grandmother still as awful?
Elijah Kinch Spector: Well, Kalyna’s grandmother actually isn’t in this book, but you could say she haunts it. Or perhaps looms over it. And I promise you: Grandmother was never the type to grow as a person.
BookishlyJewish: Has your creative process changed on writing a sequel? Any advice for writers feeling a slump on their second book?
Elijah Kinch Spector: It changed a lot! I wrote the first book on and off over ten years, scratching most of the first draft in notebooks on my lunch breaks. The second one, however, had a real timeline, and I soon realized that writing the first draft by hand would be too slow. But I needed a way to write that wouldn’t allow me to spend all day editing myself—would allow me to just barrel forward and get it done.
So I actually went to New York City’s last typewriter store and bought one from 1970 or so. Honestly? Worked great. That’s good advice… if you’re me, specifically.
BookishlyJewish: Now that Cutthroat is safely in the hands of its readers, do you have plans for your next project?
Elijah Kinch Spector: I do! But have to give you the annoying old, “I can’t talk about it yet.”
BookishlyJewish: Kalyna has always managed to surprise me, does she surprise you too when writing?
Elijah Kinch Spector: Honestly, yes. Writing her from an outside perspective for the first time, I was surprised (and a bit delighted) at how scary she could be. To people she’s conning, to people she’s helping, or to people she loves.
BookishlyJewish: If you had the opportunity to see the future, like Kalyna pretends she can, would you take it?
Elijah Kinch Spector: No thanks! My favorite novel in the entire world is Alexandre Dumas’ Count of Monte Cristo, and one of many things I love about it is this line from the end:
“Until the day when God deigns to unveil the future to mankind, all human wisdom is contained in these two words: ‘wait’ and ‘hope.'”
BookishlyJewish: Any really fun or proud moments from your author journey you’d like to share?
Elijah Kinch Spector: The Soothsayer hardcover didn’t have a map (as you may remember). But we got one for Cutthroat, by Virginia Allyn, and it’s beautiful. I sent Erewhon the most amateurish scribble you’ve ever seen in your life, and what I got back was breathtaking. It made this world, which lives mostly in my head, feel real in an all new way.
BookishlyJewish: I always end by asking if you have a favorite Jewish book to recommend to our readers.
Elijah Kinch Spector: Solomon Brager’s Heavyweight: A Family Story of the Holocaust, Empire, and Memory is a smart, painful, funny, and frighteningly well-researched graphic memoir that came out this past summer.
It tells the story of how Brager’s great grandparents—one of whom was a boxer!—escaped Nazi Germany, while interrogating the agreed upon family account and exploring the toll that telling these kinds of stories can take on us now. It’s also darkly funny and wonderfully drawn!