Interview with Rachel Vincent, author of Menagerie

MENAGERIE is the first in my new trilogy. It’s a very dark, very gritty look the worst and best aspects of human nature, set behind the scenes of a traveling menagerie in which many of the acts are sentient mythological creatures kept in cages and forced to perform in town after town. Delilah Marlow receives tickets to Metzger’s Menagerie for her twenty-fifth birthday, and while she’s in attendance, she (and the rest of the world) discovers that she’s not human. That very night, she’s sold into the menagerie she just attended as a customer and it is through her eyes, in part, that we see what life is like for an entire subclass denied even the most basic of civil rights. Delilah’s determination to free herself and her fellow captives is the light at the end of the tunnel, and I hope you find it to be a journey worth making!

Which book from your childhood or teenage years has stuck with you as an adult?

Many, many books have stuck with me. Little Women. Heidi. Nancy Drew. The Stand. Swan Song.

If you could have dinner with anyone, alive or dead, who would you choose and why?

Shakespeare. I’d love to put the conspiracy theories to rest.

What’s on your writing desk?

I actually only use a desk for web videos. The only thing noteworthy on my desk is dust. 😉

What is the one movie that you can quote the most?

Beaches. Clerks 2. Star Wars: A New Hope. (Couldn’t narrow it down.)

If you had to pick one place to vacation for the rest of your life, where would you choose?

I can’t know that until I’ve been everywhere!

What’s your favorite quote from Menagerie?

“People think they are masters of the universe because they’ve conquered the skies, and the seas, and the heavens. Because they can kill with the press of a button and speak to anyone else on the planet, any time they like. But there are things older and wiser than humanity. Things more powerful and significant. Love, and loss, and birth. Pain, and bliss. Vengeance. They’re more than just words, Delilah.”

Do you have a motto, quote or philosophy you live by?

I assume that everyone means well. That when people are rude to me, or cut me off in traffic, they’re probably having a really bad day or an emergency. I’ve been burned by that philosophy–it turns out some people really are just mean. But I like to think that the rest of us vastly outnumber them. 😉

Rachel Vincent is the author of the new book Menagerie

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