“We [me and husband ] had been learning about the Khazars, and I had read Michael Chabon's novel [Gentlemen of the Road] the year before, so all these things are kind of roiling around in my brain, and then I slipped on the ice and I broke my wrist, and it had to be surgically repaired.” YearsKindBrainNovelHusbandIceBrokeGentlemanWrists Author:Emily Barton
“There are as many different ways to write a novel as there are varieties of human consciousness, so I am totally delighted if people want to use words that come from genres to describe how this book functions because those words are accurate.” PeopleIfsWayWantWritingHumansBookDifferentUseConsciousnessNovelFunctionVarietyGenreDifferent WaysAccurateDelightedHuman Consciousness Author:Emily Barton
“One of the things that's exciting for me about this novel is that, to me, Brookland and The Testament of Yves Gundron were both, in certain regards, crypto-steampunk. They're both books that are interested in an alternate technological past that in fact didn't historically come to pass. If you were to ask me what my novels were about, I would say, well, these are novels about technology and how we relate to technology and what technology means.” IfsWellsMeanBookFactsPastCertainAsksTechnologyNovelExcitingRegardRelateAsk MeTechnologicalTestamentSteampunk Author:Emily Barton
“I'm not for it [Brookland and The Testament of Yves Gundron ], I'm not against it, I'm just interested in it and how it functions, but I think that, in some senses, in those two novels, that was difficult for people to see.” PeopleThinkingTwoDifficultNovelFunctionSensesTestament Author:Emily Barton
“I think that novels are one of the best means that we have to communicate both with the past and with the future.” ThinkingMeanPastNovelCommunicate Author:Emily Barton
“A novel is a way to rethink and rewrite and re-envision the past, and also a way to speak to people who haven't been born yet about what we think about right now.” PeopleThinkingWayPastSpeakBornNovelHavensRight Now Author:Emily Barton
“The development of the plot of the novel leads to a single point, and it's my opinion that the ending that the novel has, which is a somewhat ambiguous ending, is the only logical ending given the structure of the book as a whole.” BookWholeGivenOpinionNovelDevelopmentStructurePlotLogicalAmbiguous Author:Emily Barton
“I feel that there is an alternate ending that leaps off too far into fantasy and there is an alternate ending that leaps off too far into pessimism, but that, in fact, the novel as it has developed should, if it's functioning correctly, have equipped you as the reader to make your own decision about where you want to go with that, about where you're going to fall on that continuum. So, the novel is taking you directly up to the point that you have to choose, and it's letting you do that.” IfsWantFeelsShouldFactsFallDecisionFantasyNovelReaderLeapPessimismContinuum Author:Emily Barton
“Because I think of novels as collaborative enterprises between the writer and the reader, all of my novels so far have ending with endings that maybe point in more than one direction, and that seems important to me because it seems important to me that after you've invested twenty or thirty hours of your imaginative life into this narrative that you have some stake in how it ends.” ThinkingImportantEndsSeemsHoursNovelReaderTwentiesNarrativeThirtyEnterpriseStakesImaginativeOne Direction Author:Emily Barton
“A lot of people have come up after Brookland and asked, "What happens to her at the end of the novel?" and I will very politely say, well, here are the two possibilities.” PeopleWellsTwoEndsHappensNovelPossibilityCome Up Author:Emily Barton
