Today I’m happy to welcome Elana K. Arnold, author of Damsel and the upcoming Red Hood (out tomorrow!) to the blog to share more about a woman that inspired her and her books. Keep on reading to learn more!
An Inspirational Woman
by Elana K. Arnold
If you have read Red Hood, you will not be surprised to learn that my grandmother was hugely important in my life. Her name was Frieda Kuczynski, née Teitler. Let me tell you about her.
My Nana emigrated to the USA after enduring the Holocaust. She was a woman of breathtaking contradictions; though much of her early life had been suffering and sickness, she was tremendously hilarious. Though she had seen and experienced terrible things at the hands of people, still, she loved humanity. Though she had nearly starved, she heaped more food on my plate than I could ever eat.
Perhaps these things weren’t contradictions. Perhaps each was a reaction to the other. Nana fed me so much because she understood hunger in a way I hope never to understand it. She loved people, perhaps, as a defiant reaction to being abused by so many. She developed and maintained such a keen, sharp sense of wit because it was one thing no one could take from her.
Or, perhaps none of this is true. Maybe Nana was just so incredibly rad… because she was. In any case, what I do know for certain is that she was a steadfast benefactress all my life, until she died three years ago. And, though I don’t believe in such things, I still feel her presence, her pride in my accomplishments, her thrill in every plate of food I consume.
We can be more than one thing at once. Each of us is a mass of contradictions, a web of complications. Each of us—my Nana, me, you—contains multitudes.
Red Hood’s protagonist Bisou Martel contains multitudes. So does her grandmother, whom she calls Mémé. Could I have dreamt them up, had I not been so shaped by my Nana? Even if I had, would I have had the courage to write this tremendously bloody, intense, sexy, bold book, had I not had Nana been my benefactress, had she not been so tremendously proud of me, had she not read the books I wrote before this one, each one building on the one before?
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
I miss her every single day.
About the Book
by Elana K. Arnold
Published on February 25, 2020 by Balzer + Bray
ISBN: 9780062742377
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 368
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
You are alone in the woods, seen only by the unblinking yellow moon. Your hands are empty. You are nearly naked.
And the wolf is angry.
Since her grandmother became her caretaker when she was four years old, Bisou Martel has lived a quiet life in a little house in Seattle. She’s kept mostly to herself. She’s been good. But then comes the night of homecoming, when she finds herself running for her life over roots and between trees, a fury of claws and teeth behind her. A wolf attacks. Bisou fights back. A new moon rises. And with it, questions. About the blood in Bisou’s past and on her hands as she stumbles home. About broken boys and vicious wolves. About girls lost in the woods—frightened, but not alone.
About Austine
I'm a 20-something research proposal developer with a background in the life sciences and education. Reviewer of books since 2011, amateur photographer by day, and aspiring author by night. I believe animals (and books) are better than people.
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