Author Interview With Ivy Pochoda (+ Giveaway)

Ivy Pochoda is the talented young author behind The Art of Disappearing, a novel which delves into romance, magic, and humanity with absolute beauty. See my review here. After falling in love with The Art of Disappearing I had a few questions for Ivy which she was kind enough to answer.

1. One of the main characters in The Art of Disappearing, Toby, is a magician without the illusions- what made you decide to include magic in your story? Did you ever dabble in magic tricks as a kid?
   
   No, I wasn't all that interested in magic as a kid. But thinking back on it, I did go to see Penn & Teller a lot. But their brand of magic is more cerebral. In high school I became interested in a sort of misogeny I detected in magic, as in all those cutting women in half trick and some sick part of me began to wonder whether there might be magicians out there who harbored secret wishes to do these things.
   
   
2. You clearly capture the sensation of the two main locations the book takes place in, Las Vegas and Amsterdam. I have read that you lived in Amsterdam for many years but grew up in Brooklyn, where did you get your realistic description of the desert from? How important do you think setting is in writing?
   
   I made up most of my descriptions of the desert. I've been to Vegas a number of times and was perversely enchanted by it. I also was enchanted by the desert on the occasions I drove cross country. Setting is seminal to me. If I can't visualize where characters are, I'm lost.
   
   
3. You were an extremely successful squash player. Do you think any of the skills you learned from being a competitive athlete translated into writing a book?
   
   Sure. Becoming a successful athlete is a long term goal. You say to yourself, this year I'm going to rise this many levels in the rankings, the next year, I climb so many more. It requires patience and the ability to see the larger picture, which is precisely what writing a novel is like.
   
   
4. Is there any advice you have for other young aspiring authors that you learned on your quest to publish The Art of Disappearing?
   
   Never give up. Don't listen to others who say your work is too weird, to non-commercial. There is an audience out there.
   
   
5. I absolutely loved The Art of Disappearing and I have to ask, what do you have planned next?
   
   I'm writing a novel set in Brooklyn. The world is short on those! (I kid.) But I love Brooklyn and have my own take on it. It's weird though, since writing this second novel, I've moved to Los Angeles, so I have to conjure places I know by heart from memory.

St. Martins Publisher was kind enough to donate a copy of The Art of Disappearing to one lucky winner (Canada/US Only). There are three ways you can enter: 
1) Leave a comment letting me know about a book that you fell in love with
2) Subscribe to In The Next Room by Google Friend Connect
3) Spread the word of this giveaway on your own blog and leave a link for me to check

Please leave a separate comment for each entry as well as your e-mail address so I can contact you if you win. The contest will run until November 12th at midnight MST.

CONTEST CLOSED. 

Congrats Ruthie!

The Art of Disappearing by Ivy Pochoda

After finishing a few disappointing books lately, I was waiting to fall in love and The Art of Disappearing by Ivy Pochoda was the perfect novel to do that. In The Art of Disappearing Mel Snow meets the magician Toby at an out of the way roadside bar, and the two connect immediately and decide to marry in Las Vegas. Mel knows Toby's magic is different, that it isn't about illusion but that he has a gift and that his magic is real. They move to Las Vegas where Mel works as a textile consultant as the fabric sings to her and Toby works on pursuing his dream of having a Vegas show. As Toby's success grows, Mel learns that his magic may be more dangerous than she ever could have anticipated. When things go wrong, the couple flees Vegas for Amsterdam and move in with a bunch of old real magicians who may be able to teach Toby powers beyond his imagination just as Mel begins to doubt whether or not their love is real- or if Toby conjured her too.

The setting in The Art of Disappearing almost becomes its own character, the desert heat of Vegas and the rainy streets of Amsterdam, Pochoda uses location as a powerful tool in telling her story. However my favourite skill of Pochoda's is her haunting, enchanting, lyrical use of language. The description in the book was velvety beautiful from the very beginning, and her word choice was the perfect way to tell a story that is part magic, part human truth. The Art of Disappearing is what I wanted My Name is Memory to be, it is the perfect blend of the real and the unreal, magic and reality. It is full of unique and powerful characters, and I felt a connection to each of them. I especially loved the way Pochoda described Mel's relationship with her water-loving older brother Max, and the complexity of having to both love somebody and let them go, a theme which dominated the novel. It is a romance without resorting to the cliches of the genre, a love story without being predictable, a look into the human heart with touching and remarkable skill- The Art of Disappearing is a book I did not want to put down and a book I will be picking up again. I am eagerly awaiting whatever Pochoda writes next. *****

Number of Pages: 320 pages
Published: September 2009 
Source: 

This review was a part of TLC Book Tours. Click here to read what other tour hosts thought. For the purpose of this review I was provided with a copy of the book which did not require a positive review. The opinions expressed in this post are completely my own. 

Come back tomorrow for an interview with Ivy Pochoda and a giveaway of the book!