Saturday 18th October, a late Edinburgh night dipped in darkness, my hands freezing cold as I bundled myself down a very spooky cobbled pathway into St Cuthbert’s Church on Lothian Road, the venue for the night’s event.
When I saw the pitch to go to this event, where Mona Awad would be speaking about her newest book release, We Love You, Bunny, I immediately seized the chance to go along and write about it. Though I was familiar with her first novel, Bunny, a terrifyingly glamorous tale of fantasy, horror and desire, I had not yet touched her new book, the sequel to the series, and a precursor to the lives of the group of ‘Bunnies’ and their obsession with the novel’s protagonist, Sam. I really had no idea what to expect as I walked into the room where Awad would be in conversation, a gorgeously lit church hall coloured in a light Della Robbia blue, with frames of stained-glass windows lining the walls.
However, with her Dorothy-style glittery red pumps and deep purple velvet dress, Awad struck me immediately as someone very aware of the fantasy world she was creating both inside her novels, and in her own persona—as what Margaret Atwood termed her own “literary heiress.” Fantasy stories and fairytales form a major part of Awad’s inspiration—from the influence of Snow White in her novel Rouge, to the view she had of The Little Mermaid as the epitome of fairytale writing. She revealed how fairytales possess a feeling of futility and powerlessness in the face of the supernatural—a feeling which she is able to harness into literary genius.
When asked about her relation with her first book, Awad articulated that she had a close relationship with the novel because she had brought her own experiences of being what she deemed an ‘outsider’ student at college to her writing of Sam’s experience. The sequel, however, can be seen as her moving past this characterisation and finally finding power in the voices of her literary creations. She likened her process of literary character construction to that of Mary Shelley’s in her infamous Frankenstein. Awad found herself revisiting the world of the Bunnies, she explained, for she was left missing the world on the page when finished. It was the first time she was able to depict and give language to her own experiences and explore ‘the myth of the hyperfeminine’ that many of her novels are concerned with. We Love You, Bunny offers not only a wider understanding of the events of the first book, but an understanding of Awad’s own psyche and being as a female author.
Being able to witness Awad talk about her work with such passion (and to be one of the first to learn of the promise of a third book in the series!) was a true pleasure, for— in the words of Atwood herself—“Oh, ‘We Love You, Bunny,’ you are sooo genius!”
Photo by Maxim Makarov on Unsplash