Lev Grossman: Seeing Reality Clearly in a Magical World

Lev Grossman is the author of five novels, including the Magicians trilogy, which has been published in 30 countries. A TV adaptation of the trilogy just finished its fifth and final season on Syfy. Grossman is also an award-winning journalist who spent 15 years as the book critic and lead technology writer at Time magazine. He has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Wired, Believer, the Village Voice, NPR, Salon, Slate and Buzzfeed, among many others. He lives in New York City with his wife and three children. Grossman spoke with Shelf Awareness about his debut middle-grade title, The Silver Arrow, available from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers on September 1.

You are best known for your adult fantasy trilogy, the Magicians, and The Silver Arrow is your first children's novel. Why this story, and why now?

I have three children, so I have spent a lot of the past decade either reading aloud to children or making up stories for them out of my head. It's a kind of storytelling I've been exploring a lot in private, to the point where I finally feel ready to try and do it as a book. And I love, love, love the way children read--their immersion in a story is total and absolute. It's deeply thrilling for a writer to imagine being read that way.

How have your previous novels prepared you to write for a younger audience? 

The usual way--novel-writing is like any kind of performance, you have to practice, and I've practiced a lot. Narratively, children's novels aren't as complex, there just aren't as many branches. And, since children are demanding audiences, the thread always has to be taut. And you've got a narrower vocabulary to work with.

There are quite a few nods to classic children's literature--a library, a magic train, giving trees, an all-you-can eat candy car, talking animals. Who were some of your favorite authors when you were a child and how have they influenced your writing? 

As a child I had a lot of the usual favorites. C.S. Lewis, Roald Dahl, A.A. Milne. I also loved a lot of really random writers, too, like Frank Stockton, Daniel Pinkwater and Fritz Leiber. I read a lot, but very chaotically and unsystematically.

Kate's hero is Grace Hopper, the creator of the world's first compiler software. Why did you include her in this story?

She crops up a lot in the history of digital computing, which is something that interests me a lot. And I feel like not enough people know about her. She's somebody who didn't just pioneer a demanding discipline, she did it when no one wanted her to. She persisted. That's a role model!

The Silver Arrow is a magic steam engine that talks. Are you a train aficionado, or did you have to do research about all its bells and whistles?

Oh, both. I love trains, but trains are a rabbit hole and there's always somebody who knows 10 times more than you about them. I certainly didn't know much about actually operating them, but there are marvelous books about how to do it by people who actually drive them. Plus, there are some handy YouTube videos. And I spent some time playing a train simulator game, too.

Let's talk about the tree scene. How did you get into the "head" of a tree?

There have been some wonderful books about the lives and behavior of trees--for example, The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, a German forester. I think my way in was the concept of "crown shyness," which is the way certain trees have of stopping growing just as their branches are about to touch neighboring branches. Plus, I've always loved writing from non-human points of view. I find it a lot easier than writing humans. I don't know what that says about me.

A major theme of The Silver Arrow is animal conservation--is this a passion of yours?

It is. But on another level, it's just reality. Human beings have massively changed the natural world and once you've decided to write about animals, there's no other story to tell. If you went to Narnia now and met Mr. Beaver, that's what the conversation would be about.

You don't sugarcoat the effects of human actions on the animal kingdom, but there is certainly a hopeful message here as well. What do you want to achieve with this story?

What I want to achieve, first and foremost, is to tell a good story. What I don't want to achieve is rubbing people's nose in anything. That's no fun and it also doesn't do anybody any good. For Kate, the story is about seeing reality clearly, accepting the challenges and taking responsibility. If it inspires anybody to do that, this book will have done some good.

Without giving away too much of the ending, Uncle Herbert says there are more adventures to come. Will this be an ongoing series? Can you give us any sneak peeks of what's coming up for Kate and Tom?

It's a series! Kate and Tom aren't frozen in time, they'll keep growing up. Their real lives will get more complicated, as will their feelings about each other, as will the world of the Silver Arrow. They'll meet other drivers, friends and rivals, who have different ideas about what the animals need. Questions will arise about how the animals feel about riding a train run by humans, who they have so little reason to trust. Plus: a submarine!

And, what's next for you?

This and that! I have a few TV shows in development, which are moving at a glacial pace, but they are moving. I wrote a movie that was shot just before the pandemic called The Map of Tiny Perfect Things about two teenagers trapped in a repeating day. It should be out on Amazon Prime by the end of the year. I've just finished a screenplay based on a game I love called Monument Valley, and I've been working on an Arthurian novel since forever, which I'm hoping to finish later this year. Although I said that last year. And the year before that. Anyway, coming soon! --Lana Barnes

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