In author V.E. Schwab’s latest release, “Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil,” three lesbian women are turned into vampires and go through different manifestations of desire and longing.
The book follows the women over a 500-year period with alternating perspectives. It begins with Maria in 1500’s Spain stuck as a product of her time; she eventually renames herself Sabine. Alice is introduced next as a college freshman with anxiety in 2019.
Then there is Charlotte, or Lottie, in 1800s England. She ties all the “toxic lesbian vampires” together.
As Schwab’s 25th release, she says this book is for her. The writing of the book helped her take up space in her own story as it represents her coming out journey. She says she wanted to tell a story that would feel like it belonged to her.
“I think these three women specifically represent, in many ways three different stages of my own coming out journey,” Schwab says.
She describes Alice as a character who has no idea who she is or who she wants to be. She says Charlotte knows exactly who she is but is afraid of not being loved for it.
“And then Sabine knows who she is and is unapologetic, and that is the way in which I feel like I have entered my Sabine era … I’m no longer trying to contort or shrink myself to fit other people’s standards and other people’s models,” Schwab explains.
Schwab describes her writing as immensely personal as she draws from past dynamics that she has had with other women. She says she wanted the women to be vastly different.
“I like to say that Alice lives in her head and Charlotte lives in her heart, and Sabine lives in her hunger,” Schwab says.
She wanted to explore the desire for love and authenticity but with the dark side of it all.
The phrase “toxic lesbian vampires” came from Schwab as she thought of what would make a person pick up a book to learn about the tropes. She says the book is about the three women who are struggling with identity, community, love and attachment, while in the cycles of abuse.
“These things exist within queer circles, just as they exist within straight ones,” Schwab explains. “But for so long, those were narratives we were not allowed to have publicly… and one of the reasons it took me so long to write a book like this was because I didn’t want to be perfect or in pain. I wanted to have the freedom to be a hero and a villain and everything in between.”
Tote bags made with the “toxic lesbian vampires” tagline were sold in UK bookstores but were not sold in the U.S. as some of the independent bookstores were afraid that they would be vandalized and targeted.
“It wasn’t the stores that did not want it, it was the stores were afraid for their customers and for their community,” Schwab says. “I think that it really tells you what state we’re at in the United States right now that they did not feel safe doing that. I find it devastating.”
Schwab notes that her book shines perspective on when the prey becomes the predator. The young women are taught to move in fear even though they are from different time periods.
Women who are of color, young or queer move through the real world in danger by being a prey by a predatory society, she adds. Schwab gives an example of her own experience. She is a distance runner but doesn’t run at night due to safety reasons.
“What I wanted to do in this story is invert that and essentially treat vampirism as a kind of liberation, because what it does is it liberates them from the fear of ever being prey again,” she says. “It makes them the predators. I wanted to give them the level of autonomy and aggression and entitlement that comes with being a predator instead of a prey.”
She notes that there aren’t many queer main characters who get to live until the end of their story. She thinks if the character has to become the villain in order to survive then they have a worthwhile trait.
Schwab gave her characters the narrative that survival sometimes includes becoming part of the violence.
“You have to take your life and your future into your own hands, which is they do,” Schwab explains. “I think that you don’t get to the end of those stories unscathed, but you get there, and you get there changed, and you get there empowered, and you don’t have to lose yourself to do it. You have to shed an old version of yourself.”
In the book, after the character Alice has been turned into a vampire, she realizes she has nothing to fear and everyone else fears her. Schwab says that was the greatest power she could give to Alice.
When it comes to her queer character, Schwab points out that those types of characters should be both good and bad.
“When we don’t let queer people and queer characters be at every point of the spectrum, including the toxic end, what essentially we’re saying is that we’re not entitled to the same degrees of nuance and complexity as our straight counterparts,” Schwab says.
When it came to putting the book together, Schwab builds the entire story in narrative order, the way the reader would experience it. She then breaks it out into its chronological order, being the order that each character experiences it.
“Then I write each character’s perspective in its entirety from beginning to end, so that while I’m writing, I am only with one of them,” Schwab explains. “So, I am holding their voice, I am holding their personality. Holding the evolution of their character, especially for the three women in this book whose humanity devolves over time.”
After she completes the individual perspectives, she recombines the storylines. She says her process can be a bit neurotic but that she’s always been that way.
As for Schwab’s upcoming releases, she will release “Victorious,” the third installment of the “Villian” series. She is also working on a fantasy series that is called “The Fragile Threads of Power” and other secret projects.
“ I will say that ‘Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil’ is set in our world, and by the extension, it means it’s set in the same world as ‘The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue,’ and I would say that like I consider this space my little garden in which supernatural things grow in our world and with us,” Schwab says. “I would say that I’m probably not done playing in my garden yet.”
To stay up to date with V.E. Schwab’s upcoming work and tours, visit VESchwab.com.
