Naomi asked Scott Hawkins:

Hey. i firstly just wanted to say how much I loved your book. I read it months ago and I still can't get it out of my head. Thank you for creating an epic, completely original, fascinating story. I'm waiting impatiently for any other writing by you. Also, were you ever nervous about how some aspects (the more brutal and gruesome bits) of the book would be received by the readers?

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)[Hi Naomi,

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!

As far as "were you ever nervous about how some aspects (the more brutal and gruesome bits) of the book would be received by the readers?" Answer follows, but I'm going to mark this one as very spoiler-y. Reader beware.

The short answer is "mostly no, with one exception." Keep in mind, this was the first novel I actually published (at the time I'd written 3.5 unpublished ones). I was of course hoping that it would sell, but I wasn't really holding my breath. It was mostly just for myself, and violence in books just doesn't bother me much. I don't seek it out, but it doesn't bother me. (I read a lot of Stephen King as a kid.)

The main exception to this was the scene where David came to Carolyn's room. That one I really wrestled with.

The main point of my internal debate was a blog entry I read by a fairly big-name fantasy writer. (I think it might have been Elizabeth Bear, but I wouldn't swear to it.) She made the point that scenes of sexualized violence are overdone in the genre, in addition to being offensive and cliche. These are reasonable points and I mostly agree.

On the other hand, I was counterbalancing that with the need to get the reader stoked up to Maximum Righteous Fury in preparation for the big showdown between Carolyn and David in the next chapter. So I tried a lot of different approaches. There's actually about five versions of that scene, ranging in ghastliness from "something else happened" to "very ghastly indeed." For instance, as originally composed that scene was told in first person, rather than having Carolyn recount it to Jennifer after the fact. Abstracting it back a step softened the horror a bit. The "something else happened" scenes just didn't work as well.

That was also the biggest chunk of back-and-forth editing after I signed with my agent. She and I ultimately decided that the version you saw was about the right balance. Honestly, though, I do still get an occasional twinge.

The other biggie was the bull scene. That one, while arguably more horrifying, was never really in serious danger of being cut. In a lot of ways it ended up being the anchor of the book, I think. We did cut one (1) paragraph prior to publication to tone down the horror a notch.

The rest of it, the stuff like Margaret killed at dinner and all that...I'm at peace with those bits. Yeah, it was over the top, but that was sort of the point. Everything was supposed to be a notch or two louder than life for these guys.

That being said, I probably didn't worry about these sorts of things enough. I was sincerely surprised the first time I saw Mount Char described as "horror." I myself think of it as kinda-dark fantasy.

Scott (hide spoiler)]

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