A MerMay Conversation with Ann Claycomb

 For our next MerMay interview, we had the opportunity to talk to Ann Claycomb, author of The Mermaid’s Daughter. This book is a well thought out, modern look at the story of the Little Mermaid- and there’s opera! Of course, this is one of Remy’s favorite books, so talking to Ann was an exceptional experience for them.

VQ- The Little Mermaid has a long history of being a queer metaphor, from the theories about Hans Christian Andersen to the deliberate references to queerness in the Disney movie. How did that influence your decision to make this a sapphic love story?

Ann- I definitely did research Andersen’s personal life as I put this book together.  He only appears as a character in the related short story that you can read at the end of the book, but that story was written first, as I sorted out how I wanted to mess with the idea of Andersen having created the Little Mermaid.  Because from the first stages of the book, that was a relationship that bothered me. He gets credit for creating this character, but I really question the ways he constrains her, from the loss of her tongue to the constant agonizing pain she lives with to the terrible choice she has to make.  (As a lover of fairy tales, I really struggle with Andersen and what I think is some undeniable misogyny in all his stories.) Yet as you note, he’s also a pretty tragic figure himself, from the loss of his beautiful singing voice as a teenager to his painful awareness of being physically “ugly” by conventional standards, to being possibly queer during a time when that wasn’t accepted.  In the end, I took the mermaid’s story away from Andersen and gave it back her—and to the sea witches, whose first person “we” voice appears throughout the book.

As you note, in Disney’s “Little Mermaid,” there’s some queer coding—especially around Ursula, who is as self-consciously fabulous as any drag performer.  She’s the villain, sure, but she’s the BEST villain.  The witches in my story are not villains at all, and that was another very deliberate choice I made early on.  Women with power(s) of their own, who don’t need/want men, have historically been suspect for all kinds of reasons, and I wanted it 100% clear that the sea witches are not evil.

As for the central romantic relationship in the novel, I didn’t set out to write Kathleen and Harry as a queer couple!  Kathleen was fully formed as a character for a while but I was really struggling to bring her boyfriend to life on the page.  When I realized that her boyfriend wasn’t a boyfriend at all but was Harry (Harriet) instead, their whole love story felt inevitable—which maybe it was!!

VQ- How did your personal relationship with music shape your choices in writing this? Why opera?

Ann- Whew.  This was an enormous challenge, and one I created for myself!  I knew early on that Kathleen had to be an artist of some kind, and I was totally willing to lean into the idea of her being a singer like Ariel, because why not??  The irony of a woman with a beautiful voice losing it—giving it away, actually —for a man is unfortunately easy to believe and also metaphorically pretty potent.

I was still in early stages when two things happened: I became good friends with a professional opera singer and my mother got season tickets to the local opera.  Between my new exposure to the genre and my access to someone who understood the specific demands of this kind of vocal music, I realized that of course Kathleen (and Harry) had to be in this world.  The problem was that I knew nothing about opera!!  I spent a year teaching myself to appreciate opera and another trying to find ways to write about operatic singing (and composing) that would hopefully resonate for readers.  And yes, I listened to a LOT of opera while writing.

VQ- What is it about this story that made you want to explore it further? Why do you think so many people continue to be drawn to this story?

Ann- My own fascination with “The Little Mermaid” is directly related to the original Andersen story, which is SUPER weird and dark, with allusions to a pretty troubling sexual relationship between the prince and the Little Mermaid, then an ending that I found deeply unsatisfying even as a small child.  Spoiler for those who don’t know: the mermaid is given the option to get her tail back if she kills the prince after he betrays her.  But she can’t do it because she loves him too much and instead allows herself to turn into a nebulous spirit who might someday get a soul—but only if enough children are good to their parents.  (Insert retching noises here!!) I HATE this ending. I hate a lot of the story, even though it’s gorgeously written and imagined.  And having read a number of fairytale retellings that essentially focus on “fixing” the problematic elements of the source stories, that was what I was determined to do here: give the mermaid back her voice and her power!

I think this is what many people find compelling about the story, whether because they see themselves as having given up their voice the way the mermaid does or they know that they’ve sacrificed a lot and experienced a lot of pain to pursue a dream, which she also does.  And frankly, I think the Disney film is itself also just a great movie, one that does fix many elements of the story in its own way. I get why people are huge fans of that version. (FWIW, I know all the words to the soundtrack by heart.)

You can learn more about The Mermaid’s Daughter here, and follow Ann on instagram at @ann.claycomb