Welcome to this Track of Words Author Interview, where today I’m talking to the fantastic Gabriela Houston about her debut novel The Second Bell, which is out now from Angry Robot Books! If you’re on the lookout for a fantasy fairytale inspired by dark Slavic mythology, this could well be the book for you, so read on to find out more about this story and its characters, its themes and inspirations. To begin with, here’s the publisher’s synopsis:
In an isolated mountain community, sometimes a child is born with two hearts. This child is called a striga and is considered a demon who must be abandoned on the edge of the forest. The child’s mother must then decide to leave with her infant, or stay and try to forget.
Nineteen year-old striga, Salka, and her mother, Miriat, made the choice to leave and live a life of deprivation and squalor in an isolated village. The striga tribe share the human belief that to follow the impulses of their other hearts is dangerous, inviting unspoken horrors and bringing ruin onto them all.
Salka, a headstrong and independent young woman, finds herself in a life threatening situation that forces her to explore the depths of her true nature and test the bonds between mother and child.
And now, let’s get on with the interview!
Track of Words: What would you say is the elevator pitch for your new novel The Second Bell?
Gabriela Houston: In a world which thinks her a monster, a young striga fights to harness the power of her second heart, even as her mother is willing to sacrifice everything to stop her. Themes of social exclusion, taboos, motherhood and sacrifice in a setting of Slavic mythologies and folklore.
ToW: Without spoiling anything, who are the main characters and what do we need to know about them?
GH: This book is really about a mother and daughter, and how they survive in a world determined to first tear them apart, and then change them. Miriat is a woman in her late 40s who years before chose banishment over abandoning her infant daughter, Salka, who is a striga, meaning a child born with two hearts. Now, years later, Salka is a young woman who needs to decide whether survival is worth potentially becoming a monster, while Miriat is desperate to keep her child from harm.
ToW: Where is this set? Is it a real-world story with fairytale/fantasy elements, or rather a fantasy world of its own?
GH: It’s a world of its own, though very close to ours in many ways. It’s preindustrial, and it was important to me to represent this world as realistically as I could. The story is set in a mountain mining town and a very isolated striga village high up in the mountain range. The landscape surrounding those two locations is beautiful, but stark and unforgiving. I wanted to present nature in a way that’s devoid of pastoral sentimentalism, in order to show the choices the characters have to make as realistically as possible.
ToW: This is your debut novel – how does it feel now that the book is (almost) out there in the world for people to read?
GH: Wonderful and frightening in equal measure. This is what I have always wanted, and it’s a dream come true, but of course there is always the fear of people’s judgement. But I’m proud of this book. I have worked hard on it, and it tells the story I wanted it to tell. Anything beyond that is outside of my control. So all I can do is hope the readers like it I guess!
ToW: I read in another interview that you have an internal store of ‘interesting stuff’ that you draw upon for story inspiration – what was it about this particular idea that drew you to it, and inspired you to use it as the basis for a whole novel?
GH: I was thinking about social exclusion and social taboo in the context of how far communities can police their members’ behaviour.
The reason I chose to write about strigas is because in traditional folklore they are monsters with very little nuance. They are monsters with no redeeming qualities. Depending on which stories you go with, they are either cursed humans, who come back as monsters after they die, or humans born with two hearts, and therefore destined to turn evil. So my starting point was, if a child was born with two hearts in a small community, how would such a child be welcomed? Presumably such a child would also have a mother. How would this affect her? The rest of the story grew from that.
This is some of Gabriela’s own artwork representing The Second Bell – click on the image to enlarge it
ToW: For someone unfamiliar with Slavic mythology, could you talk a little about what sort of tone it tends to take, whether there are any key themes and what we can expect from its influence on this book?
GH: Slavic mythology is quite dark. There is an emphasis on danger lurking everywhere. The woods, the fields, the water and the very air you breathe are all home to demons, monsters and guardian spirits. To protect yourself, you have to be aware of the threats and be ever vigilant, ready to protect yourself with ritualistic actions, spells and herb-lore. Many creatures in Slavic folklore have a very transactional attitude to humans, so make sure that if you strike a bargain, you keep your side of it and don’t try to shortchange the, often vengeful, creatures.
ToW: It sounds like you’re exploring themes of belonging, of trying to find a place in a new community and how that can affect someone’s sense of identity. How much of that comes from your own experience as an immigrant in the UK?
GH: That is not something I have thought about when writing The Second Bell, but it’s a very good question!
How people see you and the sense of being an outsider is of course a very strong factor in how you act. How much you play up or down your accent/background depends on who you’re interacting with and the situation. In the UK there is also a strong sense of a hierarchy of immigrants, and my feeling was always that Polish people do not rate as highly with the British as the French or the Italians. A remnant of the Grand Tour traditions, no doubt.
Being made to feel like you have to constantly earn your place and repeatedly prove your worth is something that the strigas in The Second Bell certainly feel very keenly, so perhaps this was a subconscious influence!
ToW: Outside of mythology and folktales, were there any other sources of inspiration that influenced the writing of this book?
GH: Of course! Many inspirations come from the everyday, from what you read in the papers, the interactions you see among friends and strangers! Those are often hard to pinpoint, but all lived experience contributes to the writing process.
ToW: For readers who enjoy The Second Bell and would like to explore more stories inspired by Slavic mythology, can you recommend any other books or sources?
GH: I have some other stories to share, but can’t say much more at this point!
For the readers in English I would definitely recommend Naomi Novik and Katherine Arden’s books. Their novels are very strongly influenced by Russian folklore and culture, and would serve as a wonderful introduction to the world of Slavic myths.
ToW: What do you hope readers will get out of this by the time they’ve finished it?
GH: My first hope is that they are entertained! Reading a novel should bring pleasure, or else it has failed on some every fundamental level, I think.
Of course I would love it if the readers saw and appreciated the themes of social exclusion, and how easy it is to judge ‘other’ people. In the book I wanted to show how easy it is to build your whole identity on false premises and how hard then the process of dismantling those beliefs is, and if people relate to that, that would be wonderful.
ToW: Finally, is this a world that you think you might revisit for future stories, or do you see this as more of a standalone piece?
GH: This book is definitely a stand alone, though its world is mine to explore, I guess!
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Gabriela was born and raised in Poland, brought up on a diet of mythologies and fairy tales. She spent her summers exploring the woods, foraging and animal tracking with her family. At 19, Gabriela moved to London to study English Literature and obtained a Masters degree in Literatures of Modernity. She has worked as an assistant editor and as a freelance writer. Gabriela’s short stories have been selected for the Editor’s Choice Review by Bewildering Stories and have been featured on the Ladies of Horror Fiction podcast. She lives in London with her husband and two children.
You can follow Gabriela on Twitter @GabrielaHouston, and check out Gabriela’s website for more information.
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Thanks so much to Gabriela for taking the time to talk to me, and for providing such great answers! Keep an eye out for a review of The Second Bell coming soon, as well.
If you’re in the UK and would like to support local independent bookshops, you can order The Second Bell from my store on Bookshop.org*
Otherwise, you can order The Second Bell from Amazon* – also available as an audiobook*
*If you buy anything using this link, I will receive a small affiliate commission – see here for more details.
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