Featured Interview With D. G. D. Davidson
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I grew up on the east side, the dry side, of Oregon. Because of where I lived, I got used to always having mountains on the horizon, and it’s a little challenging to live without them. For a long time, I worked as an archaeologist and roved around the Midwest. I “retired” from that work by getting a master’s degree in library science and settling down as an academic librarian at a small university. I have no pets at the moment, but that’s probably for the best since my wife and I just had a daughter. Pets should come after children, or they’re liable to get jealous.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
In kindergarten, I dictated a swashbuckling pirate story to my teacher, who gamely wrote it down. My mother still has it and cherishes it. That was my first effort.
In elementary school, I grew disenchanted with books. Most of the children’s works that were popular at the time were “realistic” stories. Beverly Cleary, in particular, was widely read, but I didn’t like her work because I wanted something more imaginative. What fired up my love for reading was CITY BEYOND THE CLOUDS, one of the volumes in Great Marvel, an old-school boys’ adventure series from the first half of the twentieth century. Until I read that, I didn’t know books could be so fantastical and action-oriented.
I attempted writing throughout my childhood. I loved Ray Bradbury in middle and high school, so my writing at that time was extremely purple in a poor attempt to imitate his style. It’s a truism of the craft that you have to produce a lot of bad work before finally creating something good.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Ray Bradbury remains one of my all-time favorites, though I prefer his older works. The greatest influence on my new novel is Talbot Mundy, who wrote pulp adventures set in the British Raj. I have reached a point in my reading in which I am, admittedly, almost wholly uninterested in contemporary fiction writers because I still have so many classics and nonfiction works to get under my belt. That may change again soon.
Recently, I dived into H. Rider Haggard, one of the all-time great adventure writers. And at the moment, I am starting Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. I just finished H. G. Wells’s SHORT HISTORY OF THE WORLD, which is still one of the best short treatments of the subject. Alexander Pope’s translation of the Iliad so enthralled me that reading it felt like an out-of-body experience, and it remains one of my favorite works.
In addition to already-famous novels and nonfiction, I consume quite a lot of Japanese manga. It’s usually easy to read on the side while I’m also reading more demanding works. Witch Hat Atelier and One Punch Man currently have my interest, but I also have a weakness for silly bubblegum love stories. I like magical girls quite a bit, but that genre has been going through its emo phase ever since 2011 and has become less appealing as a result.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My new novel, RAGS AND MUFFIN, is in a sense my first novel. They say the first novel is the one that takes the longest to produce, and I had been working on this one for quite a while, even before I wrote the other books I have published.
RAGS AND MUFFIN is an urban fantasy with elements of horror. Its setting draws heavily on the kaleidoscopic culture of India and on adventure stories of the Raj, particularly Talbot Mundy’s works and Rudyard Kipling’s KIM. I spent time in India before writing it; that helped me with some of the descriptions of the megalopolis temple city in which the story takes place.
The basic concept draws heavily on the Nepalese worship of kumaris, or young girls who serve as living goddesses. I combined elements of this fascinating practice with some of the magical-girl tropes from Japanese pop culture to create the character of Rags, a living goddess who is also a dangerous vigilante.
Although I don’t like the term, the book is a “deconstruction” of the trope of the child hero who goes to school during the day and saves the world at night. Although almost invulnerable both physically and emotionally, Rags has surrounded herself with other children who aid her crime-fighting efforts. Unlike Rags, those children get the full brunt of their enemies’ brutality. In most stories of child heroes, the villains are buffoons, foolish adults who are so silly that even children can beat them. I wanted to change that formula by pitting kids against genuinely evil and ruthless adults who are perfectly willing to do the most atrocious things to children. For that reason, RAGS AND MUFFIN is not only a story with a lot of action and excitement but also a tale of horrifying abuse. Balancing those elements, being careful about what is shown and what is not, and being tasteful, was extremely difficult. The reader will decide if I succeeded.
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