Alwyn Hamilton pits the members of a family against one another in The Notorious Virtues, a YA fantasy thriller set in the 1930s. Nora Holtzfall has been primed her entire life to compete against her siblings and win her family’s inheritance, but when her charming, estranged cousin Lotte appears, Nora’s chances of winning take a major hit. Still grappling with the suspicious death of her mother, and sudden shifts in alliances, Nora relies on unexpected friendships to find her mother’s killer and come out on top. We spoke with Hamilton, the author behind the Rebel of Sands fantasy series, about the inspirations behind this new series, grappling with complex family dynamics, and the importance of showcasing found family throughout her work.
Where did the concept for a deadly game for inheritance originate?
It came from a few different places. One of the first things was the concept of the family. One of my friends is a social worker, and she pointed out to me one day just how [the idea of family shows up in] fantasy stories—how there are many stories that glorify the birth family at the expense of the adoptive family, kind of the Harry Potter effect. It’ll be that your dead parents were wonderful, and it turns out you’re secretly a princess or a wizard, and the people who raised you are terrible. And she was like, there need to be more things to give to foster kids and kids who are not growing up with their biological parents. And apparently, what I heard was “write a family that’s awful.” Write a birth family that’s just the worst family that you’ve ever encountered.
So for the Holtzfalls, the concept of being a family is very different for them, because they grow up knowing they’re going to have to compete eventually, if they want money and power. I studied art history, and there’s a huge part of the late 19th century and early 20th century when money was so prevalent, and people were buying art and building the Guggenheim. There’s just less wealth of that kind [today]. These wealthy families of the 1920s have dispersed, in a way. And I was thinking, what if it didn’t disperse? What if it was all still condensed?
The Holtzfall family reminds me of that Anna Karenina quote, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” How does wealth and the impending competition impact their ability to bond?
I think, as you say, families are complicated because you don’t choose them and I think that’s very emphasized in this family. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have some kind of drama in their family, whether it’s that they don’t speak to a sibling anymore, or their parents don’t speak to a sibling, or other situations. We certainly have drama in my family and some of that has been down to inheritance issues. I’ve seen how that can rip people apart in real life, and it wasn’t even that much money. I think it seemed almost impossible that if you were putting siblings at odds with each other from birth, and knowing only one of you gets to have everything you grew up with, that resentments wouldn’t grow naturally, even after one of you has won the prize pot. The other thing that I thought about is, how do you know if your relationships are genuine? Because the person who wins the trials wins all the money of the family. It’s up to them how much they want to give to their siblings. And so how do you know whether your relationship with your siblings is transactional or genuine? I think that would make for a very difficult family relationship.
A theme in this book is the concept of found family vs. biological family. What does that concept mean to you, and how did you want to showcase it here?
I think there is also a lot of found family in Rebel of the Sands, and a lesser amount of biological family. I think found family is great, and I think choosing your own family is a powerful thing, but I think we would be foolish to not acknowledge that you can’t ever quite get rid of your blood family, even if you were to not speak to them ever again. They’re still part of you, and they’re still there. I’m lucky I’ve got great parents, but I know that’s not the case for everyone. So I wanted to juxtapose these different families and the things that we inherit and feel like we have to take on—and not just the money. The Holtzfalls inherit the [idea of] “this is your place in the world.” And without being able to break away from that biological family, I don’t think that they can make their own choices in the world.
How did you develop the dynamic between Nora, someone who is well established and respected in her family, and Lotte, an illegitimate cousin?
Nora has been there her whole life, proving herself. And the press plays a huge part in this story, so there’s an element of nastiness around the way people speak about her. Lotte comes in as the new shiny thing with no baggage, no backstory. She’s the ingenue. And talking about resentments, it seems natural that if you were being picked apart for every single thing you did—especially after you’ve just gone through a huge trauma—while someone else was appearing to get no flack and no feedback, that would be quite miserable for you. The other part that I wanted to tease out was that Lotte looks the part. She looks like everyone in her family. She’s blonde and has blue eyes. She’s got these big deer in the headlight eyes that everyone’s like, “Oh, bless her heart!” kind of thing. Whereas, Nora, because her father is from another country, doesn’t look like the rest of her family, even though she most embodies the Holtzfalls at her core. I wanted to play with that dynamic but ultimately have them come to the realization that the bitterness that’s been building in the cousins towards Nora doesn’t actually exist in Lotte the same way because she wants different things. She doesn’t care about the money as much as anyone else. She just wants to be to be loved.
The Notorious Virtues by Alwyn Hamilton. Viking, $21.99 Apr. 1 ISBN 978-0-451-47966-2
