On Inspiration: Interview with Crystal King

I’m delighted Crystal King has joined me again to share her journey in writing her latest novel, In The Garden of Monsters, a retelling of the Hades and Persephone myth, told from the point of view of a model Salvador Dali brings to Italy’s Sacro Bosco garden in 1948. She is also the author of The Chef’s Secret and Feast of Sorrow, which was long-listed at the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and designated as a MassBook Awards Must Read. Crystal’s writing is fueled by a love of history and a passion for the food, language, and culture of Italy.

You can connect with Crystal via her website, Instagram, Threads @crystallin14, Substack, Youtube and Facebook. Follow her at Bookbub, Goodreads and Amazon.

You can purchase all Crystal’s books here.

What is the inspiration for In the Garden of Monsters? Is there a particular theme you wished to explore?

During the pandemic, I was trying to sell a historical novel about a meat carver to a Renaissance cardinal, and it wasn’t selling. I was talking to a friend of mine and lamenting this, and she suggested that gothics are hot. I thought, if I were going to write a gothic, where would I set it? I first thought of this garden I had visited in Italy a couple of years before: the Sacro Bosco, a garden in Bomarzo, Italy, filled with stone monsters. There is a castle on the hill that overlooks this garden. Inside the garden are statues of ancient gods and goddesses, and that was the beginning of my story.

Why were you attracted to write about the Persephone myth?

Persephone has been written about so many times, including some popular books about her that are out now. I don’t think I would have written about Persephone if I hadn’t been inspired by the statues in the garden. There is a Mouth of Hell, a statue of Demeter, another of Persephone, and many other mythological gods and creatures. It made sense to explore the story from there. I included Salvador Dalí because he visited the garden in 1948, and the garden is very surrealistic. I thought it would be perfect to include him to play upon some of that strangeness in this story. The Sacro Bosco is a wonderfully unusual place. You can learn more about the garden on my website.

What challenges did you face in researching In the Garden of Monsters?

My biggest challenge was getting access to Palazzo Orsini during the pandemic. I could visit the garden, but the Palazzo, where much of the book is set, was closed when visited during the time I was working on the novel. It wasn’t until I was finished that I could finally see the inside. Fortunately, there’s a lot of good information online, including many images and videos I could access.

While it wasn’t a research challenge, I also faced an interesting dilemma about how to include Salvador Dalí because he was a very problematic figure. If he lived today, he’d be canceled in a hot minute. I needed to figure out how to strike a balance between his charismatic and interesting side and his less savory aspects.

Is there a particular photo or piece of art by Salvador Dalí that strikes a chord with you? Why?

I wasn’t a big fan of Dalí before I began researching him. He has a lot of paintings that are very unattractive in my mind or depict things that I find disgusting and strange. But there are many paintings that are quite beautiful and inspire you to use your imagination. I appreciate the side of him when he is trying less to shock and more to awe. He has a couple of paintings with pomegranates in them, the most famous being ‘Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second before Waking’. But there is also a painting that has come to be very special to me, and it’s one that is very rarely referenced. I discovered it when I was looking to see what he painted in 1948, potentially after he might have visited the garden. While the painting that I’m thinking of, which is untitled, does not include any real elements of the garden, there is a monstrous pomegranate floating in midair with an interesting frame around it against a landscape background. There’s a little tiny man playing a trumpet, and he’s sitting on the top of the frame. I included that man sitting on top of the building in the garden, and that painting features prominently at the end of the book. You can see both of these images on my page about Dalí .

One of my favorite images, though, is one my husband bought for me as a lithograph for a recent milestone birthday. It’s part of a series that he did for Dante’s Inferno, and it’s of Cerberus rearing back in front of Dante.

Your first two books were about culinary figures, and there was a lot of food in their pages. Does this book have any food?

I think this book has more food in it than my previous two combined. Because much of the myth of Persephone centers around her eating pomegranate seeds, that gave me incredible creativity to play with. The book takes place over the course of a week, and every day, the characters partake in incredible feasts. I explore several different Italian eras in the food they eat, and I also highlight some of the recipes that are in the Dalí cookbook that came out much later, in 1978. I tease the idea that Dalí had been thinking of the food long before. Like my previous novels, I have a free companion cookbook for In The Garden of Monsters, which features recreations of the dishes in the novel, made by food book bloggers, chefs, food historians, and me.

All your books have been set in Italy across different eras. Why does Italy and the Eternal City appeal to you?

I didn’t expect to fall in love with Italy in the way that I did. I had just finished writing Feast of Sorrow, my first novel, and I thought I probably should visit Rome, considering so much of it is set there. So I went with my husband, who is a third-generation Italian. We fell in love from the moment we stepped foot in the city of Rome. I knew it was somewhere I was meant to be; it was like I had come home. There’s no way to describe that sensation. I don’t know if I believe in past lives or anything like that, but I felt like this was a place where I inherently belonged. Rome is truly where my heart is. I love Italy, I love the people, I love the culture. I just passed the language test to be able to apply for my citizenship, and I’m just passionately in love with the country.

What advice would you give an aspiring author?

The best advice is the simplest: put your butt in the chair. It’s better if you can do it consistently. I wrote my whole first novel on weekends over the course of three or four years, but now I write every day for an hour. I can tell you that when you do that, there is a very, very big difference in how the stories live in your head. I think you become a more thoughtful writer, a better plotter, and more in tune with your characters when you are consistent about working on your story.

Tell us about your next book.

My new novel is not historical fiction, and it doesn’t have any food in it, which doesn’t sound like a Crystal King novel, I realize! But it is still set in Italy, at least partially. It’s a story about some lesser-known nefarious Greek gods that are stealing happiness from the world. You might think of it as a reverse Pandora’s box. More to come on that in the coming months.

Julia Lombardi is a mystery even to herself. The beautiful model can’t remember where she’s from, where she’s been, or how she came to live in Rome. When she receives an offer to accompany celebrated eccentric artist Salvador Dalí to the Sacro Bosco—Italy’s Garden of Monsters—as his muse, she’s strangely compelled to accept. It could be a chance to unlock the truth about her past…

In The Garden of Monsters is a retelling of the myth of Hades and Persephone, inspired by Salvador Dalí’s 1948 visit to the Sacro Bosco Mannerist statue garden. 

Thanks so much, Crystal. I also love Rome and Italy. It’s fantastic you are going to become an Italian citizen! And congrats on the release of In the Garden of Monsters. Brava!

You can buy In the Garden of Monsters and Crystal’s backlist here.

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