As a small child, William Alexander honestly believed that his Cuban family came from the lost island of Atlantis. Now he writes unrealisms for young readers. His work has won the National Book Award, the Eleanor Cameron Award, the Librarian Favorites Award, and two CBC Best Children’s Book of the Year Awards. Sunward, his first novel for grown-ups, is forthcoming soon from Saga Press. “The Golden Tooth: A Solo Show by Orion Cabrera” is his second appearance in Uncanny, a beautifully crafted exploration of the horror that lurks within history.
Uncanny Magazine: “The Golden Tooth: A Solo Show by Orion Cabrera” is structured as the transcript of a theatrical performance, and within that structure it deftly combines elements of history, horror, and mystery. What was your starting point or inspiration for the story?
William Alexander: The very first spark was a real skull in a “real” castle—the Hammond Castle Museum—which really is a gloriously anachronistic wedding venue on the Massachusetts coast. John Hays Hammond, Jr. built it in the 1920s and filled it with historical curios, including the skull of a man who supposedly sailed with Columbus. I visited the place as a wedding guest, and that skull has haunted me ever since.
Uncanny Magazine: What was your favorite part of writing this story? What was the most challenging thing?
William Alexander: The theatrical format was my favorite part, and it was the most challenging. I was a theater kid, and I’ve felt especially nostalgic about it during these plague-ridden years of isolation. So I set out to write the kind of small, shoestring, fringe-festy show that my friends and I might have staged when we were young and able to survive on ramen and espresso…but I also wanted this play to be impossible, unstageable, and uncanny. Theater has deep roots in ritual. We’ve always used it to channel ghosts and gods.
Uncanny Magazine: Research, be it for a thesis or otherwise, features prominently in “The Golden Tooth: A Solo Show by Orion Cabrera.” What research did you do in order to write the story? Did you turn up anything interesting that you weren’t able to include?
William Alexander: I have complicated and messy feelings about Caribbean history. Every few years I’ll fall down that rabbit hole while trying to make sense of my own diasporic Cubanity. This time it brought me to a pair of hagiographic biographies of Christopher Columbus: one by Washington Irving (who practically founded the cult of Columbus in the United States) and the other by Samuel Eliot Morison (who won a Pulitzer for it in 1943). Both try to cast their subject as a mythic hero. Neither can disguise the fact that he was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad man.
I’ve got oodles of details that never made it into the story, like the death of Francisco de Bobadilla. He was a judge sent to investigate Columbus who died by hurricane. A fleet of Spanish ships went down in that storm, but the one vessel carrying the Admiral’s personal share of plundered gold survived. This led to whispered rumors that Columbus was a sorcerer. (Maybe he had already swallowed the zemi of hurricanes.)
Uncanny Magazine: If you were a member of the audience, would you wear the carnation? Which of the nonspeaking roles would you most want to play?
William Alexander: Yes. Absolutely. Villains are fun, and swords are fun, so it would be tempting to play the ghost of the Admiral…but I think I’d rather volunteer as a random wedding guest on the dance floor.
Uncanny Magazine: What are some of your literary influences? What is something you’ve read recently and loved?
William Alexander: The books that we read at eleven change everything. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea, Jane Yolen’s Dragon’s Blood, Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising, and Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain were all transformative.
Recent favorites include The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed, The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera, Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh, and the ongoing podcast Worlds Beyond Number.
Uncanny Magazine: What are you working on next?
William Alexander: I’m wrapping up revisions for Sunward, my first grownup novel (!!!), which is about the adoptive parent of several young robots. The book started out as a short story in The Sunday Morning Transport, but then I couldn’t let it go. Saga Press will publish the longer version in 2025.
Uncanny Magazine: Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us!
© 2024 Uncanny Magazine
