I’m very happy to share this interview with you. It is special, because Gregg Zimmerman is certainly a unique author. Here we talk about “The Queen of Bones” which we can, absolutely, not sort it only as an apocalyptic book.
A humanity’s psychology dissertation takes place in those pages. Novelty and cruelty taken to the limit, Zimmerman drags your conscience to a level where you doubt what you feel, what you felt.
You will enjoy these lines, since this author has a lot to say, a lot to teach.
Thank you so much, Gregg, for being here with us.
Mar, thank you for the opportunity of this author interview for The Queen of Bones!
Who is Sara for you? Sara Hill is the viewpoint character of The Queen of Bones. Since the book is written in the first person present tense, everything is seen through her eyes, and all of the thoughts, observations, reflections, and contemplations are hers. This approach makes it essential that Sara be a vital character who engages the interest of the reader. If Sara is dull, the book will be dull. Sara is the most important ingredient in the novel.
However, I had higher purposes for Sara than just being the focal point in an action story. Besides being a post apocalyptic horror story, The Queen of Bones is a Horatio Alger – type tale, meaning one in which the main character goes from rags to riches in difficult circumstances by virtue of her intelligence, resourcefulness, tenacity, vitality, and inner strength and goodness. Like the Goodyear Energizer Bunny, Sara takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’.
I am impatient with the typical mass media role models for heroines that send the message that to succeed, a woman must out-testosterone the men around her: be a more aggressive attorney, a tougher cop, a more skillful sword fighter. In other words, she must succeed on strictly male terms. Or worse, a woman must be a femme fatale, succeeding by her wiles, seductiveness, use of manipulation, ruthlessness, and deception to maneuver her way to the top. Or alternatively, she must be a self-sacrificing martyr, a care taker, the silent strength behind her man, the glue that keeps things together.
Hogwash! In the real world, women succeed the same way men do, by quality of mind and strength of character. This is the way I wanted Sara to succeed. If Sara is to be a role model, I wanted her to be a real-world role model, not a creature of pernicious mass media hype.
I had another goal for Sara. Stubbornly sticking to our founding roots, the United States remains Puritanical in our values. Yes, there is far less censorship than there was in the past. But beneath it all, we are still uneasy about sexuality, particularly woman’s sexuality. There is this lingering prejudice that a woman who is candid about enjoying sex is morally and ethically flawed, disreputable, a person of low standards. Hogwash again! This is a glaring double-standard: men are expected to enjoy sex and are given a pass, a nod and a wink. In reality, there is nothing at all incompatible with a good, principled, highly ethical woman enjoying sex and being up front and honest about it. I wanted to challenge the readers a bit by presenting a young woman with many admirable qualities being at the same time sexually hedonistic. I enjoy books that make readers explore their own values and question their personal prejudices, and I wish to accomplish that with Sara.
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This is also a coming-of-age story. It’s no accident that in one scene Sara comes across as a terrified, insecure teenager with low self-esteem, while in another she rises to the challenge and provides charismatic leadership, and while yet in another she is a flirt and a tease. Sara is all of these things at once. Welcome to 17!
One of my favorite traits in Sara is her self-effacing sense of humor. She gets it that human nature is hilarious, and finds her own quirks, beliefs and mannerisms the most comical of all.
Your book has many messages. Are any of them especially important to you?
Yes, these are the most important messages:
- The key to a fulfilling life is to love and be loved.
- To succeed, you must persevere.
- The most important trait in heroes and heroines is to have good character and to use it.
- Henry Ford said this better than I can: ‘Whether you think you can do it, or you think you can’t, you’re right.’
- Liking sex is no more an ethical flaw in women than it is in men.
- Be able to laugh at yourself, and be able to accept blame. These are endearing traits.
You underline nobility and humanity in Sara’s internal dialogues in a way the reader even loses vision of the apocalyptic background. Was that your objective, or did it happen naturally?
Thank you, I am gratified by this question! We are all journeying through the apocalypse, so to speak. All of us, in our daily lives, face setbacks, difficult people, injustice, crappy situations. These problems are of course exaggerated in Sara’s world, but in essence they are the daily struggles we all face.
Our challenge is to not let them defeat or embitter us. Yes, life is filled with pain, yes, sometimes it feels like we are wandering through the Vale of Tears, but it remains a beautiful world. There is a lot to love in it, and I believe most people are basically good. With all the horrific experiences Sara goes through, she manages to retain her empathy, her desire to help people and make a positive mark in the world.
These are universal truths, and they transcend the apocalypse. To answer your question, Sara’s internal dialogues are intended mainly to provide windows into her character and personality. Since the character and personality of the viewpoint character are the most important elements of this book, I would say that this effect was intentional.
When do you write? What do you need to do it?
Writing is a very selfish activity. It brooks no interruptions – I can’t split my attention between writing and other things that are going on without seriously reducing the quality of the work. I can’t even listen to music while I’m writing – if music is playing, I don’t hear it. For me, writing requires total focus. I write in the later afternoon, evening, and at night. I’m not much of a morning person. My writing requires endless patience from my family members and pets. My best writing is autonomous – meaning the words just sort of come to me through some sort of subconscious process. Robert E. Howard said of his Conan stories that he felt more like a scribe than a writer – it was as if he was sitting around a camp fire jotting down the narrative as Conan himself recited it.
I had that same experience with The Queen of Bones. Sara was narrating, and I was taking down her words. She hasn’t spoken to me since I placed the last period on the last sentence. I sort of miss her. Maybe some day she will narrate the rest of her story to me. I truly don’t know what will happen next.
When I’m working on a book, my family can feel abandoned for long stretches of time. Tensions can run high sometimes. They kind of get it, but to fully get it, you have to be a writer.
Evil people with a double blade who end up being just misunderstood souls. What are your thoughts?
In The Queen of Bones there are truly evil people (Richard, who is psychotic, Irene who is violently possessive, Michael who is Narcissistic, and the degenerates, who have allowed harsh circumstances to de-humanize them). There are other characters whose appearance of evil is mostly a pretense to have a desired effect on people (Mariel, who will violently protect her privacy, Xavier, who poses as a ruthless autocrat to intimidate his subjects and secure his power base).
Just as in real life, the people who are truly evil often have a pleasant veneer to intentionally mislead people. It takes time to understand the blackness that lies within. Conversely, for those intending to appear more evil than they are in fact, it takes time to penetrate their façade and come to understand their inherent goodness. It is good to trust your instinct or intuition when appraising the motives and characters of new acquaintances, but in cases in which deception is intentional, instinct doesn’t always work.
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About the author
A licensed professional engineer, G. ZIMMERMAN has been writing stories since he was ten years old. He has released five short stories in literary magazines and e-zines, and writes primarily supernatural fiction and psychological horror.
A graduate of the University of Illinois, Zimmerman is married with three children, a dog, and three cats, and lives in the Seattle area. Verdure is his first published novel.
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