Hellooo!!

Last week I reviewed the great Wendy, Darling by A C Wise a fascinating tale exploring what happened to Wendy after the events of Peter Pan taking us into the 1920s and now seeing Neverland through the eyes of an adult. AC Wise very kindly agreed to talk to me about the book including the best booktempting idea I’ve read!

How would you booktempt Wendy, Darling?

The somewhat goofy, but also true elevator pitch for Wendy, Darling is “What if the movie Taken was also Peter Pan?” Wendy Darling has a very particular set of skills (much like Liam Neeson’s character in Taken) that allow her to return to Neverland and rescue her daughter when Peter kidnaps her after years of being absent from Wendy’s life.

Hopefully that premise is enough to tempt people into checking it out, but to go further, I’d also say if you like dark, queer, feminist re-tellings of classic stories, then this just might be the book for you!

This story has had an interesting journey to its final form as a novel; what started it all?

Wendy, Darling started life as a flash fiction story published at Daily Science Fiction in 2017. The original is about 1,200 words – not necessarily the most obvious place to start a novel. The story grew from the above-mentioned seed of “what if Taken but also Peter Pan”, which amused me enough to dash off the flash piece, and that’s as far as I thought it would go. The original story ends with Wendy about to set off to rescue her daughter, and I realized I wanted to see her actually go on that adventure, especially as mothers don’t often get to go on adventures, particularly in portal fantasy stories. On top of that I wanted to know more about the characters and their lives. I wanted to expand the story into a novella, but somehow it kept growing and now there’s a sequel in the works – all from that one little flash fiction story!

Peter and Wendy have a big role in many people’s childhood what led you to this slightly different take?

There’s a lot of darkness inherent in the original story, mostly all tucked away around the edges. I wanted to delve into that darkness and bring it to the forefront. I also wanted to look at the story from Wendy’s perspective. What would a paradise built for boys, and one boy in particular, look like to one of the only girls there? What would that same paradise look like to a woman coming back to it as a mother and an adult? What happens after you’ve been to a magical world as a child, and then you’re expected to return to the mundane one and no one believes you when you tell them where you’ve been?

Is Peter Pan the original manchild?

Absolutely! If I recall correctly, even in Barrie’s original the distinction is made between Peter being unable to grow up and Peter refusing to grow up. It’s an active choice. Part of what I wanted to do with Wendy, Darling is look at the other side of that idealization of childhood innocence. Who actually gets to experience and benefit from “innocence” and who has to bear the responsibility of that “innocent” child’s actions? Wendy is stuck playing mother to Peter and the Lost Boys, cleaning up after them and doing all the work while they play endlessly. In the real world, we see the phrase “boys will be boys” used to explain all kinds of terrible behaviour. The world makes allowances for straight, white, cis, able-bodied boys and men in a way it doesn’t for other people. As just one example, when a woman is assaulted you immediately see a flurry of questions around whether she was drinking, what she was wearing, was she in the wrong place, did she lead her attacker on, and so on. She is not allowed to be innocent. Only certain people get the benefit of innocence in the public narrative.

I may have digressed slightly from your original question there, but yes, I definitely used the character of Peter in Wendy, Darling to look at ideas of innocence, responsibility, toxic masculinity, and who gets to live their truth and tell their own story versus who gets a narrative and identity forced upon them.

What else can we look forward to from you next and where can we hear more from you?

I’m currently working on the as-yet untitled (titles are hard!) sequel to Wendy, Darling. As soon as more details are available, you can be sure I’ll be shouting about it on social media and maybe on random street corners. I also have a new short story collection, The Ghost Sequences, coming out on October 19 from Undertow Books. It’s more horror-focused than my other collections, with most of the stories having to do with ghosts and/or hauntings – just in time for Halloween! I can also generally be found at www.acwise.net and on twitter as @ac_wise.

If there was one book (not your own) that you wish you could get everyone to read, what would it be and why?

Argh! One book?!? One?!? At least ten titles immediately spring to mind! What a cruel and terrible thing to ask! Okay, I’m going to cheat and just go with the book I’m reading currently, which I’m really enjoying – The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo. It’s a take on The Great Gatsby, but with queerness and magic. The language is absolutely beautiful; it sweeps you up. The new spin put on the characters, and on the questions of class, race, access, and interpersonal relationships are all wonderful. I would definitely recommend picking up a copy!