I stumbled on Erik Sanko‘s work during my research, and was immediately taken not only by the dark, cunning beauty of his marionettes, but by their sense of handmade, fully organic life. Looking at them, it seems obvious that to touch one would be to touch a creature capable of a certain response; and at your own risk.

I tried to suggest that quality in the puppets I constructed, that sense of wild-card possibility, of unpredictability. “Wonder” is one of those words that, like “puppet,” has been culturally adulterated with artificial sweetener, in an attempt to make it totally safe, harmless fun for all ages: but a wonder can be a mystery, it can astonish with its ferocity as well as its loveliness. You can wonder why the puppet went and bit your finger off, say. . . .Possibility is a two-edged sword. Some of the human characters in the book are quite unpredictable, too. That’s what made it all so fun to write.

What would it be like, for a woman to be desired so possessively by a man that she is turned. in fact, into a possession? a “man-made woman“?

Let’s leave the real Alma Mahler out of it (and lord knows she took more than her share of heat for having so many famous and creative men fall in love with her: as if this is A) a bad thing and B) her sole “fault”). Consider instead the obsessive desire that led to the commissioning, the creation, of this literal love object, the buying of sweet Parisian underthings, the maid engaged to care for (and launder) the doll — and think of Oscar Kokoschka writing to the dollmaker, asking her to “carry out this task as I would wish, to deceive me with such magic that when I see it and touch it I imagine that I have the woman of my dreams in front of me” — the power of the object to become in his arms the authentic woman, if only for brief and heady moments — who deceives whom, and with what magic? Thus a performing object (for surely this doll was that) comes alive.

I wonder how many other dolls she made, and of whom.

I always listen to music (delivered via iPod) when I write, both as insulation and, primarily, inspiration. What inspired me for this book was a lush, idiosyncratic palette of sound: Faun Fables’ melancholy menace, some Dylan and Elvis Costello, a lot of Rufus Wainwright– like “Baby,” and “Do I Disappoint You,” and “Coeur de Parisienne — Reprise d’Arletty” — and, later, on a tip from my very musical friend (and literary accompanist) Chris Schelling, Shearwater, whose “Red Sea Black Sea,” “White Waves,” “Well, Benjamin,” and especially “La Dame Et La Licorne” I must have played a million times.

The music is so deeply interwoven, now, in my experience of this novel, that every time I hear those songs, or the others on my “Recently Played” playlist, a part of the book comes back to me instantly: Oh, that’s when Istvan did this, or That was in Prague or That’s when the war started. What a beautiful shortcut!

Kukolnost: the state of puppetness. Interesting that to call someone a puppet, if you are human, is a slur, pejorative, meaning that one is weak, without personal power. But to be a puppet: that’s to be unpredictable, humorous, dangerous: a born insurrectionist.

In John Bell’s terrific Puppets, Masks and Performing Objects, Peter Schumann, of Bread and Puppet Theater, speaks of the puppets’ nature as insurrectionists, who are “therefore shunned by correct citizens — unless they pretend to be something other than what they are, like: fluffy, lovely, or digestible.” Digestible! I loved that.

Needless to say – or maybe it isn’t – the puppets of the Poppy are not in the least digestible. They partake fully of their kukolnost; one might say they revel in it.

How I’d love to see this — “Frankenstein (Mortal Toys),” a mix of puppets, film, and shadow puppets, combined with Mary Shelley’s heartbreak meditation on what makes a (human) being come alive. Is there something mythic/archetypal, I wonder, that speaks especially to the use of puppets as actors and characters, or do they bear that in themselves?

It reminds me of the ways we use fairy tales: think of Angela Carter’s amazing, dark, erotic stories – especially The Bloody Chamber. I’ve written some reimagined fairy tales, for younger readers and for adults, and have found it a freeing template. You can say a lot when you use the voice of dream.

We often think of masks, costumes, and other theatrical devices as concealing, but as Oscar Wilde reminds us, “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” Now recall the last Halloween costume you gleefully chose and wore. Is Wilde correct?

One of the greatest satisfactions of the theater must be the opportunity to be simultaneously the self and more than the self: the true self, displayed and yet safely bulwarked behind the costume and the role, so we may later defang whatever secrets we’ve revealed by saying, “Oh, that wasn’t me, that was Hamlet/Little Nell/the Big Bad Wolf,” whoever. And whatever damage we’ve caused, light we’ve shed, hearts we’ve broken, lies — or truths — that we have told…not me, but the Wolf. Not me, but that irresponsible creature speaking the playwright’s words: she’s the one who frightened you, he’s the one who made you melt. And with puppets involved, the mask is doubled.

For a novelist, fiction is the mask. Not me, but my characters. Not me, but the words. It’s all make-believe, all the passion, the danger, and the louche, irresistible puppets…right? The pleasure, though — the pleasure is always real.

This poem, “Mercury Dressing,” by J.D. McClatchy, has pride of place among my research, sticky notes, scraps, etc.; a mysterious, melancholy, beautiful thing. If I reach out and touch his wing,/What harm, what help might he then bring?

Read it all for yourself here.

Hands-down the most useful of the reference books I consulted – and so utterly enjoyable just for browsing, for its witty, saucy tone as well as its sheer depth – was Eileen Blumenthal‘s Puppetry: A World History. Julie Taymor? She’s there. Parasite puppets, worn on the head? Yes. Alma Mahler sex puppet? She’s there, too. And Avenue Q, Inuit finger puppets, Philippe Genty…You can get so happily, deliriously lost here, among the puppets and performing objects, and I did, and do. I wish this book was twenty times longer. And I wish I knew Eileen Blumenthal so I could take her out for a thank you dinner.

I can never point to the genesis of any of my novels, can never remember the specific eureka moment – if there is one. Some books grow as slowly and secretly as seeds in the dark.

But I do remember scribbling a sticky note – les mecs – the name, the collective identity of the performing troupe of puppets I was accumulating, for this most theatrical novel. There were four, and I saw them immediately in my mind: the Chevalier, half-man, half-horse. The skeleton Bishop. Lovely, dancing Miss Lucinda. And the antic, icy provocateur Pan Loudermilk. All of them bound for the brothel called Under the Poppy.