‘Wicked’ author releases new novel, hints at future projects

— WHO CELEBRATED MAJOR BOOK RELEASES THIS MONTH: GREGORY MAGUIRE AND CHRIS BOHJALIAN. THE POPULARITY OF “WICKED” – ONE OF 2024’s BIGGEST MOVIES – IS EXPECTED TO BOOST THE LATEST NOVEL FROM GREGORY MAGUIRE. IT JUST HIT STORE SHELVES. MAGUIRE DOES MUCH OF HIS WRITING AT HIS SECOND HOME IN VERMONT’S ORANGE COUNTY. HIS 30 YEAR OLD NOVEL FOR MATURE READERS, “WICKED,” FLEW TO THE TOP OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERS LIST LAST YEAR AFTER THE RELEASE OF THE áMOVIE VERSION OF THE MUSICAL INSPIRED BY MAGUIRE’S TAKE ON THE WIZARD OF OZ. MAGUIRE’S áNEW BOOK, “ELPHIE: A WICKED CHILDHOOD” IS OUT NOW. IT’S AN áORIGIN STORY – ABOUT THE EARLY YEARS OF THE MISUNDERSTOOD FIGURE LATER LABELED AS THE WICKED WITCH. 00:00:08: It always has seemed to me that we don’t really know who a person is, unless we know something about how they were raised and how they survived the traumas of their childhood. So Elphie is a way to look at Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, as if we didn’t know who she was going to grow up into. We see the indignities that she suffers. We see the the traumas that she witnesses, and we watch how she tries to negotiate through them to get to the other side of her adolescence, which is a hard survival job for any of us. Gregory Maguire says “Elphie: A Wicked Childhood” will provide fans of “Wicked” — whether the movie, the Broadway show, or his whether the movie, the Broadway show, or his popular book series — a rounding of characters close to the life of his central figure, Elphaba. The backstories of her parents, painful The backstories of her parents, painful struggles of her mom, and much more about the fraught relationship with her sister. 00:03:17:03: There are very few families in which there isn’t some sibling rivalry. And even when we see Wicked on the screen, on the stage or in the novel, we see that there’s some push pull between the sisters. They both are compromised, but in different ways. In Elphie we see the beginning of that. We see Elphie’s temptations, and we see the ways in which she actually tries to resist an urge to be worse than she is. Maguire’s new book actually has roots in his 1995 title: he reveals his editor for Wicked told him he had to cut about 10% of the original manuscript, leaving scenes from Elphaba’s early life on the cutting room floor. 00:05:20: But you know what? They never withered away and died. They’re like hyacinth bulbs in the basement. After 30 years, I took them out. I planted them in the soil of my imagination, and they took root within about a day. How do I know they took root? Because my mind begins to invent the sentence that says what must have happened next. And then I just sit back and go along for the ride and follow my imagination. 00:06:05: I knew a couple of plot points in wicked that had been left hanging in the first quarter of the novel, that I felt for my own sense of neatness and fastidiousness I wanted to tie up and tidy up and tell my readers and tell Elphaba, indeed, that I hadn’t forgotten that these were unresolved issues that ought to be resolved. Just as Wicked had clear themes about power in society and the way people treat each other, the novelist says his latest work about a girl ostracized because of her green skin should feel relevant today. 00:01:52 We’re seeing more and more, marginalized populations who are going to have to find the support in their circles and among themselves and in themselves, and not so much in the society that into which they’ve been born. While this is Elphaba’s story, the author hints his other major character, made famous on the big screen by ArianaGrande, will get a little cameo in the new book – before Galinda and Elphaba meet in college. 00:08:10: I did invent a moment in the last pages where they are in the same courtyard. And even though they’re even though Glinda’s head is turned and Elphaba doesn’t quite know what’s all the fuss about somebody arriving on that side of the courtyard. She’s aware that there’s a kind of golden luminescence over there, and she says, well, I will encounter that when I encounter it. And she stomps off to begin her life as an academic. Maguire tells us he has considered retiring but questions about his version of Oz keep coming up- including, will there now be another origin story? 00:08:50:09: Various people have said, well, now, are you going to write a book called Glinda? And the more people ask me that question, the more I ask it of myself, too. Well, I thought I was done, but, you know, writing is mental health for me. Writing is a way that I survive the difficulties of this moment in this life. And so I never say never. THE AUTHOR DEDICATED HIS NEW BOOK TO IDINA MENZEL, CYNTHIA ERIVO AND ALL OTHER PERFORMERS, PAST AND FUTURE, CAST IN THE ROLE OF ELPHABA. áERIVO WILL APPEAR AGAIN I