I was lucky enough to read Medusa’s Sisters last month, which was a stunning debut that published in August with Ace/Berkley. I want to thank the publisher for granting me an early copy for review and for setting up an interview with Lauren J. A. Bear! A review will be coming for it shortly, but I wanted to get the interview up first. I’ll drop a quick synopsis of Medusa’s Sisters below and then it’s onward to the interview.
Synopsis:
A vivid and moving reimagining of the myth of Medusa and the sisters who loved her.
The end of the story is only the beginning…
Even before they were transformed into Gorgons, Medusa, Stheno, and Euryale were unique among their immortal family. Curious about mortals and their lives, Medusa and her sisters entered the human world in search of a place to belong, yet quickly found themselves at the perilous center of a dangerous Olympian rivalry and learned—too late—that a god’s love is a violent one.
Forgotten by history and diminished by poets, the other two Gorgons have never been more than horrifying hags, damned and doomed. But they were sisters first, and their journey from lowly sea-born origins to the outskirts of the pantheon is a journey that rests, hidden, underneath their scales.
Monsters, but not monstrous, Stheno and Euryale will step into the light for the first time to tell the story of how all three sisters lived and were changed by each other, as they struggle against the inherent conflict between sisterhood and individuality, myth and truth, vengeance and peace.
Interview:
Q. Hello, Lauren! My name is Cassidee and I am a book blogger for FanFiAddict, as well as some other outlets. Thank you so much for taking the time to answer some questions for the blog. Your book Medusa’s Sisters came out recently and I’d love to know a bit about you. Please feel free to give us some background info about you!
A. Hi Cassidee! So, I’m Lauren (obviously). I was born in Boston but I grew up in Long Beach, California. I live in Seattle now with my husband and three Bear cubs. Before working as a full-time writer, I taught middle school Humanities. I worked closely with the Holocaust Center for Humanity as a teaching fellow, specifically crafting lessons and experience that teach kids about genocide and the need for compassion + action. I’m a Bravo-loving cruciverbalist. I eat Taco Bell with Veuve. Total high-low girlie.
Q. Have you always been passionate about mythology? How did you decide who you were going to focus on for this first novel?
A. When I was in third grade, my dad bought me a copy of Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. (I still have it!) Those stories became a part of my DNA and clearly I’m not alone. These stories are nearly three THOUSAND years old and we still read them with fervor. Why? Because they entertain, because they connect us to the past and tell us something about ourselves in the present. And they provide endless opportunities for imagination.
I believe we are storytelling animals. Our love – our hunger – for narrative is part of what makes us human. If it’s not human nature by now, revising and revisiting the stories we’ve been told is certainly an ingrained human habit. It’s hardly a new trend; it’s how we bring the past with us into the future, amending and translating old tales for a modern audience. We change, add, delete, pivot, and reinterpret, both to answer old questions and ask new ones. I think stories must adapt as humans do to survive.
Q. I love the wave of mythological retellings that center around women. I have always been majorly interested in mythology and remember spending my childhood looking up myths as soon as we got a computer. There was always an subconscious uncomfortable feeling toward the way women were often portrayed and the way their stories usually ended but at a young age, I didn’t know how to vocalize that feeling. All this to say, did you feel a calling to add to the humanization and empowerment of the women in mythology? Was there ever a point in your life that you felt the injustice of the way women in mythology were presented?
A. YES, CASSIDEE, YES! We were two kids of a kindred spirit! I remember my favorite myth as a girl was Atalanta, but the fact that she’s tricked into marriage by her desire for a golden apple felt completely unfair and incongruous. I hated her ending. And the rest of the female characters are such flat, stale archetypes – the woman scorned (Medea), the faithful wife (Penelope), the powerless beauty (Helen), the virgin sacrifice (Iphigenia). These are so inauthentic. Real women are all complicated; we are ALL the things. But this is what happens when the narrative is controlled by men. By rewriting these old tales, we take back power. By challenging the authoritative voice, we give agency to characters that are misunderstood, misrepresented, muted.
Q. I want to share one of my favorite quotes from the book:
“One day, sooner than you realize, the humans will know you for what you are. And all the many, many things you are not. The altars will run dry with dust; the fires will die. Your temples will empty and fall to ruin.”
I love the way that this quote ties in that thread of justice, the idea that one day the powerful and the corrupt will lose all that makes them powerful.
Do you have a quote that you’re particularly proud or fond of from Medusa’s Sisters?
A. Oh, this quote is from one of my favorite scenes in the whole novel! Excellent choice! For Stheno and Euryale, justice is not always accessible to them. They have to find it in their own ways (through acts of revenge, through unconditional love, through personal redemption and acceptance, etc…).
I also love this quote from a conversation between Mistress Charmion and Euryale: “The mothers must survive in a world where men and god — and men who think they’re gods — limit their choices … To have choices is to have power. Most women have neither.”
In Athens, the sisters encounter three different types of female mentors: the musician, the priestess, the madam. I had a lot of fun playing with their similarities and differences – how they use their influence, how they make space for themselves in a limited world.
Q. Did you have a favorite POV while writing? One that came easier or one that was more challenging?
A. I’m an older sister. Stheno’s sense of responsibility, her tendency to stymie her own emotions to protect and preserve the family, are something I really relate to. But Euryale is messy. She has “unlikable” thoughts and feelings. She resonates with me, as well. Overall, I think I’m Stheno on the outside, Euryale on the inside. (Do I make a ‘Stheno on the streets, Euryale in the sheets’ joke? Damn, I guess I just did.)
Q. As a mother, I feel internally squeamish whenever I read about a mother losing a child, even when I know it is coming. Did you find it at all emotionally taxing to write the loss of Orion, not only for Euryale but for Stheno? Those passages were some of my favorite to read despite the subject matter.
A. 100%. I gave birth to my third child (a boy) as I was writing the novel so Orion is very much based on him – the curls, the wildness. Stheno’s anxiety for Orion is so real; her fears are ones I’ve articulated or I’ve heard from the people around me.
Orion was always intended to be the actual love of Euryale’s life, and I knew she would not survive his loss, so from the second he was born on the page it was bittersweet. He’s only in a small portion of the book but he’s essential for Euryale’s “villain redemption arc” and her reconnection with Stheno.
Q. Are there any mythological misconceptions or discrepancies across different accounts that really get you heated?
A. The one that made me most angry – and inspired my novel – was a quote from classical scholar Jane Ellen Harrison calling Stheno and Euryale “mere appendages” of their famous sister, Medusa. That assertion, that the other Gorgons don’t matter, is what whipped me into a research frenzy. Honestly, the book is my response; I’m just a troll on a lengthy rant!
Q. Do you have a specific regimen for your writing process? What about any rituals/traditions either during or after your novel is finished?
A. Call me Jane Austen; I handwrite most of the first draft. I started this way because my kids were home during Covid and I couldn’t be on a laptop all day. A notebook is much more portable – it can do tummy time and the playground and Lego! Now, it’s become my preferred method of drafting. There’s something about long hand that forces a pause. My writing is more thoughtful, more lyrical when I write this way. On my computer I think I rush.
Every now and then I do like writing with a glass of wine. What did Hemingway say? Write drunk and edit sober? And when the draft is done, I sleep. I am so, so good at napping.
Q. What are you working on next? Do you have interest in writing other genres or are you content to stick with mythology?
A. Mother of Rome is my next novel with Ace/Berkley. It’s the story of Rhea Silvia, mythical mother of Romulus and Remus, and Rome before it was Rome. I’ve had a lot of fun deconstructing this foundational legend and creating a wildhearted woman for modern readers. Right now I’m pretty obsessed with women in antiquity, but I could see myself in the speculative fiction space one day.
I always like to finish interviews with a rapid fire Q&A to get to know our author in a fun way.
Favorite book (all-time): The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.
Favorite book read this year: It’s from 2019 but I was late to the party. This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone was brilliant.
Favorite show and/or movie: Currently, Only Murders in the Building because it makes me giggle. And literally any single Below Deckfranchise.
Coke or Pepsi: Diet Coke, aspartame and all. (I’m so ashamed.)
Wine, liquor, or beer: Martini (Tito’s, slightly dirty)
Tea or coffee: Coffee, all day long.
Sword or bow & arrow: I’m pretty tall so bow & arrow feels more appropriately elfin.
Would you be a mage, Queen/King, or knight: Queen, Cersei Lannister style.
Favorite Hobby: Horseback riding.
Dream vacation: Super yacht through the Med with all my best friends.
Favorite animal: Octopus. They are incredible.
Favorite musical artist: ABBA or Fleetwood Mac or Beyonce or Rihanna.
I want to thank you again for being so kind as to take the time to answer some questions. Wishing you the best of luck on the rest of your endeavors!
Thank you so much! This was a blast.
Where to find Lauren:
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