On June 1, 2010, the Editor of The Host, Asya Muchnick, did an interview on BlogTalkRadio where she discussed the editing process as well as the book.
You can listen to the entire thirty minute interview here:
We here at The Host Fan have also transcribed the interview for those of you who don’t feel like listening to the whole thing. The transcript is not exact because we removed the “um”s and “so”s and “you know”s to make the interview more readable. You are welcome to link to this page, but please do not take this transcript and place it on your own site!
With that out of the way, on to the interview…
Host Name: LittleBrown
Live Chat with Asya Muchnick, Editor of THE HOST by Stephenie Meyer
Date / Length: 6/1/2010 2:30 PM – 30 min
Valerie Russo: Hi, and welcome to BlogTalkRadio. This is your host Valerie Russo and today we have with us Asya Muchnick, who is senior editor at Little Brown and Company, and we’ll be discussing The Host by Stephenie Meyer. Welcome, Asya.
Asya Muchnick: Hi! Thank you for having me.
VR: How are you today?
AM: I’m fine. I’m very excited to be on BlogTalkRadio. I hope we have lots of questions.
VR: So Asya, why don’t you tell us a little bit about what you do at Hachette Book Group? What kinds of books you work on, and how you would define The Host. You know, it’s been called sci-fi. Why don’t you give us the background on your daily work here?
AM: Sure. I’m a senior editor. I work on both literary fiction and non-fiction. I’ve been here for 9 and a half years, and I’ve done a wide variety of different kinds of books while I’ve been here. But I would say that The Host is probably the first book I ever worked on that could possibly be defined as non-fiction. And it was really exciting to do it. And I think that, you know, it’s an interesting book because it kinda transcends genre. I think that it can appeal to sci-fi readers, but I think that it also really has an appeal for people who—Oh, I’m sorry, did I say non-fiction? I should have said sci-fi. Wouldn’t it be great if The Host was non-fiction? We’d all be in a really scary place right now. I think that even people who don’t normally enjoy reading sci-fi can find a lot of enjoyment in reading The Host because it takes you so deeply into the psychology of characters that they feel really real even though it’s describing a world that is, you know, hopefully a dystopia that we will never have to experience.
VR: Great. Now, I think a lot of people have this perception that the editors most of their work is reading books, reading manuscripts in the office, so one of the questions I had for you was while you were working on The Host, where was the editing process being done and also how long, you know? And what was the mood? I always ask the authors where do they like to write? Do they like to write outdoors? So I just want to hear a little bit about that.
AM: Well, you know most editing processes go through several stages, and I mean it would be great if my work was just confined to reading and editing and unfortunately, there’s so much that goes on in the office over the course of the day that a lot of times, you have to take your work home. So I would say that probably the editing for The Host happened much as the editing for most of my books in that it was being done in my living room, late at night when my kids were in bed. I remembered that there was a part of it that I took on vacation with me, and it goes in several rounds. So a manuscript comes in and an editor makes comments and suggestions and asks questions in the margins and sends it back to the author, the author makes whatever changes they make, then it comes back to the editor, and the editor does further, you know, comments/queries/changes, until both parties are satisfied that we’ve kinda come to the point where the book is as strong as it can possibly be. So it takes place over the course of some weeks, but then there’s sort of downtime in between. You send it back to the author; you wait them to finish it. So I honestly don’t remember how long the total process took, but as I said the editing definitely happened mostly in my living room.
VR: Did you feel a lot of pressure in editing this novel seeing as how Stephenie’s fanbase is so huge?
AM: You know, I’m happy to say I didn’t and I think that that was for a number of reasons. One is that I hadn’t been aware. It was partly my own cluelessness. I knew that Stephenie’s fanbase was big, and I was aware of the Twilight series as a series, but I didn’t know how big it was actually until after The Host came out. And I went to one of Stephenie’s readings and there was so much love and excitement in the audience and I thought, “Wow, this is really a phenomenon,” that you feel like sometimes you have to be there to witness it. I think the other part of it too is that every book sorta stands on its own… it’s own entity, and when you’re editing there’s a really wonderful process that happens when you just get totally immersed. I mean, I think it’s just like being a reader. You get totally immersed in the world and you’re not aware, thinking, “What do other people think about this?” or “What are other people going to expect from this?” You’re just kinda with the story. And I felt that very strongly here because I think she does such wonderful job of bringing you into this world and creating this sort of alternate reality that you totally believe in that you’re not conscious of the pressures of the rest of the world.
VR: Let’s talk about The Host. Let’s delve into that reality. So Melanie and The Wanderer are really different. You know, one is a human being and one is an extra terrestrial. How does that speak—the their relationship—speak to getting along with others that are different from us and coming together for a common goal? The human difficulty of getting along and accepting others who are different; how does that speak to empathy?
AM: I think it is really interesting to see how different these two characters are. In fact, I feel like some of the differences are that they’re different species. A lot of their differences are just because they’re such different personalities. And I guess part of Wanderer’s personality is shaped by the fact that she is a soul, and the souls kinda by definition are sorta these peaceable, you know, it’s a species that doesn’t really have conflict and they feel very uncomfortable around conflict and their whole purpose is to sort of make a more just and egalitarian society where everybody can get along where you don’t really need rules because everybody is being considerate of each other. And then Melanie is sorta a more traditional, from a society that we recognize where there is conflict and there is violence and there are extremely strong emotions that often cause people to do things that they later regret. And I think that what Stephenie does so beautifully here is that these two people are inhabiting one body and yet they are always so distinct, and you hear their voices very differently and I think that part of the resolution of the conflict that goes on is will Melanie and Wanda learn to live peaceably together within this one body? But another part of it is within the society that they live in, in the caves. You have these different factions of humans what have very different opinions of what should be done with Wanda when she’s there. In some ways that becomes the biggest conflict. The lines don’t split along species lines. They split along the lines of, I guess, ideology or just personal feeling. I think that’s actually very realistic, in the sense that I guess part of what makes us human is the right to have different opinions, but those opinions naturally create the situations of conflict.
VR: So one of the questions sent into us is when does The Host take place and if it is a universal allegory for the future or the present?
AM: Hmm. Well I think it’s supposed to take place in a near future. Many of the elements of our lives are very recognizable. The stoves, the cars, and phones, …for the most part it looks just like our world. And I think in a sense, for me as a reader, I found that even creepier than something that was set in the far future where there’s crazy technology and a new landscape to get used to because it starts to make you think …I was talking about the editing process earlier and about getting totally immersed. I would come out of editing and sort of look around at the cashier at my local grocery store and be thinking, “Is she being taken over by aliens?” That’s what makes it so eerie. Everything looks the same, but everything is completely different. I know know, I’m not sure if it’s an allegory for our future. I think only in the sense that it causes us to examine what it really means to be human and I think that’s a very exciting thing for any book to do.
VR: So what is it about The Host that makes so many readers cry? I’ve read people commenting on their blogs and online that they dream about this story. And also did you have the same experience? I know I cried when I was reading it.
AM: Definitely. I definitely cried. I’m absolutely a push over for emotional stories and for love stories and Stephenie is so good at writing both and about getting you right in there in the character’s emotional landscape. I cried plenty of times, actually. I think that, again, it’s one of those experiences of when you read any of Stephenie’s novel where you live inside the characters so vividly. You feel what they’re feeling. And then also she’s incredibly good at creating situations, setting up conflicts within the plot that mean that inevitably there’s going to be drama, there’s going to be problems, there’s going to be people clashing, there’s going to be misunderstandings, there’s going to be lovers who are separated by terrible circumstances. And all of those things make for great dramatic reading, but they also …you know, you have to keep your hankies handy.
VR: So the paperback, which was just released in April, includes a bonus chapter and an annotated playlist, as well as a Reading Book Guide. So why don’t we take a look at some of the questions from the Reading Group Guide, then we’ll take any questions from any callers who are listening and who are in the chatroom, as well.
So the poem “The Question” by May Swenson which appears at the epigraph in the beginning of the novel. How does it relate to some of the important themes in The Host?
AM: I think it’s a really fascinating epigraph for Stephenie to have chosen and unfortunately due to permission’s reasons I can’t read it, so you have to have your copy handy and look at it. I think what’s really interesting is that it addresses the relationship of body and soul and whether the two can survive independently of one another. I think in a very direct way and in a literal way this is also a poem about death and about well, “What happens to the body when the soul is no longer around?” But in the context of this book it has this added layer of “What will happen to my body? Can I be separated from my body?” And of course, the really interesting question that I always had in my mind when I was reading was, you know, Stephenie is—I’m sorry, Melanie, is one of the few humans who manages to stay present inside her body even after a soul is implanted, but for most of the humans who are implanted with the soul, their minds go somewhere else. And I think Stephenie is very sneaky and clever in the way that she never really answers the question of where those minds go. But I think it’s the question that all of us kinda have I think metaphysically is “Can our mind be a separate thing from our body?” I think it’s such a great poem and it kinda addresses that in a very different way.
VR: With Stephenie Meyer’s playlist we get to see the relationship that she has with music. When you compare The Host and the world inside of The Host, it’s a world without music. Can you speak to that a little bit?
AM: Yeah, it’s so interesting because I had never thought about it, the presence of music or the absence of music in the book. But I think what’s been really interesting about Stephenie’s playlist—and she’s made a playlist of every book that she’s written and posted them on her website—and we were lucky to have her be able to expand on it a little bit. So in the back of the paperback edition of The Host is her playlist, but it’s also annotated and it tells you what part of the book each song on her playlist relates to. I think what’s great about the way that she does that is that these are the songs that inspired her as she was writing, but for readers, not only do they introduce you to these great new bands, but it also gives you a sense of an added layer of meaning and maybe emotion as you’re reading the book that if you actually listen to the words of the song that inspired her, there’s a real emotional parallel to what’s going on in the scene. And I don’t know, I’ve never asked her whether she intended for the book not to have music in it or that’s how it happened. For a big part of the book, they’re living in a world without electricity, so that might have something to do with it.
VR: Do you want to say anything about the special edition e-book, because I believe it’s linked to the playlist.
AM: Exactly. So that’s a really nice thing. You have this annotated playlist in the back of the trade paperback edition, but if you’re holding the physical book you have to leap back and forth in it. It tells you what page to go to; it’s not that hard to do. The really cool thing with the special edition e-book is that you just if you click on the playlist it’ll take you to the place in the text that the song refers to and vice versa. If you click, you’ll find little links throughout the text and if you click on that link it’ll take you to the song. And then you can go online and find songs and play it for yourself. I think it’s pretty fun.
VR: Yeah I thought that was super cool, so that’s why I wanted you to talk about it a little bit. So in terms of this being a book club pick, it’s been referred to as a perfect “mother and daughter” book group pick/selection. Stephenie Meyer, her work has appeal for everyone, young and old. Why do you think that is as related to The Host?
AM: I think this is such a layered story. There’s so many things going on here. That definitely makes its appeal wide. In general, her books have a very broad appeal. There’s a powerful love story at the center of it and this love story is a very complicated one. It involves three, and then eventually four, people. And I think everyone can relate to a good love story. Young or old, that’s a part of the experience that we love to throw ourselves into. And whether you’re young and experiencing your first love or you’re hoping to experience your first love and you want to find it on paper or you’re older and you kinda want to relive that vicariously, it’s a fun experience.
I think there’s another layer that Melanie, even though she’s not a mother, she has a very parental relationship to her younger brother, Jamie. She has essentially become his guardian at a very young age. He’s only a little younger than her, but she’s taken on this huge responsibility of having to essentially keep him alive in a hostile environment. Her feelings towards him are very parental and she is really willing to sacrifice a great deal of herself in order to make sure that he’s okay. And I think that that is something that obviously a lot of mothers can relate to. I think in a mother/daughter book club it would be a really interesting thing to talk about
And then also, this is a book in which the two main characters are struggling with the idea of identity and kind of defining themselves and that is obviously something not limited by age at all, that people of all ages have to think about who they are and what that means and what their principles are. Also, it makes for great mother/daughter discussion.
VR: Speaking of Melanie and Wanda a little bit or “The Wanderer”…their relationship. Melanie is the one who retells her important memories from her life. How are those differences in their personalities reflected in Melanie being the person who gets to tell the story?
AM: Well, Melanie tells the story in very specific parts in the book, in these sorta flashbacks, where she’s letting Wanderer, or Wanda, back into her memories and teaching her a little bit about her history, and she does it for very specific purposes because she’s very careful with the information that she allows Wanderer to have about her. But I think what’s interesting is there’s a very distinct difference in their tone, too. Wanderer is the narrator for almost the whole book, and then you have these just these little pieces that are in Melanie’s voice. And then, talking about the trade paperback edition, there’s the bonus chapter that Stephenie wrote just for the trade paperback edition that is completely in Melanie’s voice. I think that it’s really exciting to be able to see the differences in their personalities in that way, that I think that Wanderer’s voice is much more measured and much more reasonable and considered. She really tries to take everybody else’s perspective into account, and think about what’s best for everybody else and put herself last. Whereas Melanie is a much more assertive character. She’s much more direct in the way that she talks. She doesn’t beat around the bush. And she knows what she wants and she wants what she wants and she’s not apologetic about it. I think it makes it fun. It adds a layer of excitement to the reading when you get a chance to experience two different characters that way.
VR: The souls believe that they are transforming our vicious human world into a utopia. Do you think that the society that the souls construct is better than human society?
AM: You know, it’s funny. I definitely felt that way at times. I think there’s a place in the book where Wanderer and Melanie are wandering in the desert and they find a little abandoned cabin and there are old tabloid newspapers there and reading about murders and just regular crime, things that are everyday run of the mill for us and it’s so shocking to Wanderer that we as humans allow this kind of thing to take place in our world. And when you see it through that lens, it really does seem kinda shocking. How is it that we are able to take as routine so much violence and so many bad things? And there’s also a kind of an amazing medical breakthroughs that the souls bring. Being able to heal people is something that can happen in an out patient clinic with a little ointment and that sounds really great! But I think that the really difficult question that this book poses is what would you rather have? Would you rather have a society that there’s no violence and there’s no disease, but people don’t have any free will anymore and that humans have essentially lost themselves and been taken over. Or would you rather have free will and choice and very powerful emotions …the most positive and the most negative emotions, but then with all of the negative things: all of the conflict, all of the war. There isn’t a clear answer to that. I think that in all honestly, a good case can be made for both.
VR: I think most readers are very taken with Jared’s reaction to The Wanderer. What did you imagine that was going on in his head in the firsts day after her arrival? Did his reaction to her surprise you?
AM: I thought that was one of the most exciting and dramatic parts of the book. Wanderer has been led by Melanie’s memories to come to the place where Jared is and both of them, all they want is to see this man that they’re so deeply in love with. The first thing that happens is that when they see him, he is just consumed by rage. And for a long time we see a very angry picture of this character who up until then all of Melanie’s memories have been of him being a very gentle, a very loving person. And so I think that for me that was a really exciting part of the book, as a reader. I think that he loves Melanie. He’s is in love with her and to him when he sees Wanderer show up, he thinks that he is looking at the face of Melanie’s killer. And it’s probably all the more painful for him because this person is wearing the face of the person he loves. So I think that his reaction is absolutely understandable, but it’s also obviously very, very painful to behold because he doesn’t know that Melanie’s in there, but she is and she’s watching him react to her with utter revulsion.
VR: I think the humans in the cave are in a tough spot when she shows up, when The Wanderer shows up. In your opinion, is it reasonable for them to extend kindness to The Wanderer and her kind? Was it more reasonable to ostracize her?
AM: You know, it’s funny because I think that it’s a very reasonable response to say this person, this being who has just walked into our secret lair, is one of the enemy. As far as all of these people hiding out in the caves are concerned, the aliens have taken away from them everything they’ve ever held dear, they’ve probably been responsible for colonizing loved ones of these people. I think that a hostile reaction is absolutely understandable and in a strange way that’s the most reasonable reaction. I think the people who open up their hearts to Wanderer are the anomaly. It’s like, how would you possibly be able to entertain the idea that one of these aliens is a good person? It takes a long time for that to happen with most of the people, but there are some people from the very beginning who are actually quite ready to hear her side of the story. I can’t tell for sure what I would do in that situation, but I think personally I would be one of the people who would consider her an enemy and do everything in my power to get rid of her.
VR: I felt the same way. My instinct, my gut reaction, would have been, “That’s the enemy, get rid of them.” I think it comes from a place of self-preservation. But then of course after getting to know them and seeing what their desires were, it’s quite a different story.
So we actually have a question in the chatroom and it comes to use from shadyb. The question is, “Stephenie mentioned that during the writing process, Ian was a character that ‘refused to be ignored.’ Can you share any insight about how he started off as a minor character but eventually emerged as one of the major figures in the book?”
AM: Yeah, I have to confess that by the time I read a full draft of The Host, Ian was the character very much as you see him in the final book, in the sense that he was a strong character who transforms over the course of the book and goes in a direction that is very different from what you expect. So I think that I’ve also talked to Stephenie about the fact that he wasn’t always such an important character in the book, but I think probably most of that process of developing him happened in drafts before the ones that were delivered to me.
But I do have to say that I thought that he was one of the most interesting characters in the book because of the way he transforms because I think a lot of the characters who come on the scene in the book sorta played a type that you know what to expect from them or you kinda get a sense of what to expect from them, and they carry out their roles, often in dramatic ways. There’s obviously surprises in store for them and challenges for them but very few characters transform as drastically as Ian does. And yet it’s completely believable that he does transform in this way, so I think he’s a fun character to watch evolve.
VR: I think we’re down to our last question. Who was your favorite character in The Host and why?
AM: Oooh! Well I guess I would have to say Ian is definitely one of my favorites. And I would have to say that Melanie is actually my favorite character. I think that even though Wanderer is holding the reigns of the narration, I love seeing what happens to Melanie over the course of the relationship with Wanda. Even though she is very much herself. She knows who she is. She is, as I said before, unapologetic about what she wants. She also is a character who transforms over the course of the book, and has to go through probably the most stunning transformation that any one of us could imagine. Your body has been taken over by someone else; you have no control over anything except to be a tiny little voice in their head, and yet she is always a powerful presence in the book. She’s always asserting her desires. And in the end of the book, that she’s in a very different place than when she started, without giving too much away. I also think the fact that she’s a human, and she shares our flaws and foilbes, she gets angry, she has violent impulses, that she is moved to do unreasonable things by love and hate is something that’s very recognizable, whereas I think that Wanda in some ways represents a personality that many of us aspire to, but I think very few of us could actually carry out.
VR: Well thank you Asya for joining us today. If you would like to learn more about The Host you can find us at hachettebookgroup.com and we are also on twitter @hatchettebooks and @littlebrown and if you have any questions that you want to send through twitter or link your reviews, we really appreciate that. Thank you for joining us today.
