1) What was your inspiration for Abandon?
Answer: It was the myth of Hades and Persephone. I came across it in high school. I was hooked right away. It is one of the few Greek myths involving a female character who doesn’t get turned into a plant, tree, or animal after her run-in with a god. Plus, there’s something so compelling about a guy who falls so desperately in love with a girl that he’s willing to allow the earth to be destroyed rather than give her give up, because he’s doomed forever to rule over the dark Underworld, and he can’t stand to be without her.
2) Why did you find the myth of Persephone so compelling?
Answer: Everyone can relate to that scary feeling of falling in love for the first time. You really do think you’d be willing to do anything for that person. And then there’s that sense a lot of teenagers have of never feeling quite like you fit in. I was always longing to find that one special person who would not only understand me, but come and take me away to a place where, not only would I finally belong, but I would be wholly and completely loved.
3) What else about the myth of Persephone do you like so much?
Answer: I think it was the idea that there is someone out there–maybe even living beneath your feet–who adores you just as you are and wants to take you away from the crummy place where you live (and away from your boring school and the bullies who torture you every day). The fact that the guy lives in the Underworld and has the power to smite those bullies is a total bonus. I also liked the fact that love is a very complex emotion in the myth of Persephone. It's overwhelming and scary, but sweet and true at the same time.
4) Do you have a favorite "telling" or version of the Persephone story?
Answer: Well, Edith Hamilton's Mythology was the first one I read, and that is the one that stuck. I loved the illustration that came with it of Hades coming up through a chasm in the earth and carrying Persephone off to the Underworld in his chariot.
There are several versions of the myth in which Persephone clearly eats the pomegranate seeds that force her to stay in the Underworld for 6 months of the year on purpose (in other versions, Hades tricks her into eating them). I could totally relate. Persephone went from being forbidden by her mom from going to Olympus (her mom was always a worrier) to being Queen of the Underworld! Why would she want to leave?
5) Is Isla Huesos, the setting for Abandon, a real island?
Answer: No. But it is based on a real island, Key West, which is the southernmost point in the USA. When the Europeans discovered it, Key West was actually covered in human bones (Cayo Huesos is the original name for Key West).
6) Is Coffin Week real?
Answer: Key West's Coffin Night Night–when the senior class and hides a coffin somewhere on the island, and the junior class has to find it—is a real event. As far as I know, it is the only event like it in the United States.
7) Is it true that in tropical cemeteries the dead have to be buried above ground?
Answer: Yes! Like in Abandon, bodies buried underground can be washed away in hurricanes so they have to be entombed above ground.
8) What made you decide to incorporate the Gulf oil spill into the story?
Answer: So much of the Keys is the rich eco-environment in which it exists, and the people who depend on the water for their livelihood. The oil spill has irreversibly effected that eco-environment—and will continue to effect it—and to ignore that when it is now a part of the day-to-day life of so many people who make their living on the waters there would not be realistic.
