The Nerd Daily recently had the chance to catch up with Andrew Joseph White about his recently released sophomore novel The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, a powerful, unhinged historical paranormal featuring a trans autistic protagonist. We got to ask Andrew about his new novel, his fictional influences and so much more!
Hi Andrew! Thanks for joining us once more. How are you doing? How has 2023 been treating you?
It’s my pleasure! This year has been exceptionally kind to me. In order, I’ve started a day job I love, sold my first adult project, bought a house, jettisoned off on my first book tours, and released my second book, all with a few months left to go. What more could I ask for? I know I’m twenty-five, but this feels like my first successful year as an adult. Maybe my prefrontal cortex finally finished developing.
Lightning round: Share a happy memory from your author journey, one author you’d love to meet and one thing readers might not know about you!
I have so many happy memories, but I think the most recent would have to be watching The Spirit Bares Its Teeth rack up five starred reviews from literary organizations; it made all the tears and frustration worthwhile to see how much both fancy outlets and everyday readers love it. As for an author, I’d love to meet Courtney Summers—we’ve spoken once or twice, but I need to chatter about Sadie for an hour. And something readers might not know about me is that, despite what my books would imply, I’m squeamish and bad with horror movies! It’s true! I watch them through my fingers!
Tell us about The Spirit Bares Its Teeth! What can readers expect?
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth (which I affectonally call Spirit) is a historical fantasy-horror about Silas, an autistic trans boy and aspiring surgeon in Victorian London, who is sent to a cruel boarding school meant to turn him into a perfect wife. There’s a lot of pissed-off ghosts, several surgeries, and a content warning list like a CVS receipt. It’s a book that uses the past abuses of queer and disabled individuals as a way to illuminate their treatment in the present, and to show how much, or rather how little, things have actually changed. It’s also about being trans and autistic when you don’t have access to any knowledge of your identity, and the importance of community in the face of terror.
In short, readers can expect a whole lot of nasty transphobia and ableism, some of the gnarliest surgeries I’ve ever put to paper, and a gentle romance between a trans boy and a trans girl that might be the only respite you get from the horrors. Don’t read while eating!
You once described your stories “weird, feral, unhinged trans kid with sharp objects and a homicidal streak” which definitely hits the nail on the head. What draws you to this raw, unbridled combination of characters and settings and can readers expect more of it in the future?
Being trans right now is, ah, not fun, to say the least. I live in a relatively progressive area where I feel safe wearing pride merch out and about, but there are always reminders that I’m not fully welcome in the world—the pharmacy that threw wrenches in my HRT prescription, the transphobic articles on the front page of the browser on my work computer, the news as a whole. And I’m a grown adult! Imagine how it feels to be a kid, facing down all of this. I write books as a way to reach out to those kids and say that they have every right to be scared and angry. Plus, there’s no better catharsis than watching a kid chew an eyeball out of the corrupt politician that ruined his life. And of course you can expect more of it! My 2024 book takes this to a whole new level; I think the protagonist is, technically, a seventeen-year-old spree killer.
Talk us through the process of writing The Spirit Bares Its Teeth. How did you come up with the concept, the fantastical aspect and the historical setting – and how did you make all of it work in one single novel?
I almost didn’t! My first edit letter gently explained that I was trying to write too many stories at once, and revising this thing was devastatingly difficult.
Spirit was originally a vague idea I’d gotten from the video game Dishonored, but I didn’t have much besides a trans boy at an abusive all-girls school—there was so much potential for horror there, and with Dishonored being pseudo-Victorian, the time period stuck. When Peachtree Teen asked me to pitch my next book to them, though, I had to brainstorm with my team. Bringing in Victorian spiritualism to tie into the gothic vibe, introducing surgery as a nod to James Barry…to tell the truth, it was less an organic creation than something cobbled together to play to my strengths.
Perhaps that’s why I struggled with it. Usually when I write a book, I’ve sat with the idea for at least a year. I’ve worked out most of the issues, found a solid footing, decided what story I want to tell. I didn’t have that luxury with Spirit. I was still looking for why I was writing it. I had to find that through two incomprehensible drafts, four rounds of edits, and some of the hardest revision work I’ve ever done. While I’m proud of how tight this final version turned out to be, the process was grueling.
Silas is obsessed with medicine and surgeries. Do you share his fascination or did you have to do a lot of research into the medical thoughts and actions Silas goes through in the book?
We can credit this aspect of the book to my dad! While he’s not a surgeon, he works in the medical field, and discussing procedures at the dinner table was common growing up. This, combined with my general fascination with all things gory, meant that Silas’ special interest in surgery came easily. If I ever had medical questions, all I had to do was text my father. By the end of the day, I’d have an in-depth answer, diagrams, and maybe even a surgical video from YouTube. It also provided a great lens for Silas to see the world through! His medical approach to the world gives him a distinctive voice that I worked hard to nail.
I have quite a few favorite scenes (one being perhaps the most badass, gory excerpt I’ve ever read in a book) and I’m curious. Did you have a favorite scene while writing The Spirit Bares Its Teeth or one where you’re antsy to hear the readers’ reactions?
Ah, yes, I know exactly the scene you’re talking about; when people talk about the scene in Spirit, they’re either talking about the c-section or the enucleation (removal of the eye). Both of them are beautifully disgusting, and I’m so grateful my editor let me keep them. However, as a counter to that, some of my favorite scenes in Spirit are the ones where Silas is simply speaking to another person. No guts, no gore, just a moment of quiet discussion. I don’t want to spoil anything, but for those of you who have read the book already, the moment where Mary finally talks about her relationship with Frances choked me up every time I worked on it. Admist all the horrors, two devastated queers sit in front of a fire to reach out to each other, angry and scared and cornered, trying to find a way out of hell. I hope readers love that moment as much as I do.
There’s something truly cathartic about reading Silas’s story and I can only imagine writing it must have felt like exorcising ghosts in a way. What do you hope readers take away from it?
That exact catharsis! I used that word earlier in this interview, and it’s my go-to description whenever I’m facing down this question, just because it’s so true. My main goal is always to provide a mirror for queer, autistic teens and their struggles. When I was younger, empty platitudes like “it gets better” always fell flat for me. Horror was far more comforting. Horror takes your fear seriously. It acknowledges that the world is terrifying, and making it a better place can hurt. That’s what Spirit is for.
To be honest, I’m not sure how much I think about less marginalized readers, especially cis and/or allistic adults. I don’t write my books for them! However, if someone reads my books and comes away with more understanding of trans and autistic people, well, I can’t exactly be upset. I’m glad they did so.
A two-part question: What and how have fictional works influenced you and your writing and what do you hope to inspire in readers picking up your works?
I’m a big video game guy; the vibes of whatever game I fixate on will inevitably crop up further down the line. My previous and current projects took inspiration from Dead Space, Far Cry 5, Rule of Rose, Silent Hill, and Outlast 2—future books might pull from SOMA, Pathologic, and Baldur’s Gate 3, the last of which I’m going to miss desperately when I leave for my book tour. As for what I want to inspire in others? I want other queer and disabled people to make art that is ugly, violent, messy! I want us to be able to write the full bredth of our experiences without being held back. I’ve had a few young writers admit to me that my work inspired them to do just that, and I’m delighted that I get to be that person.
With The Spirit Bares Its Teeth freshly released, what’s next for you?
I’m nothing if not busy these days. My 2024 YA thriller, currently titled Compound Fracture, should be returning for the first round of edits soon; I can’t wait to delve back into this tangle of contemporary politics, West Virginia history, and violence. I’m also currently drafting my 2025 adult debut, You Weren’t Meant to be Human, which is an unhinged look into pregnancy as body horror. They both center queer, autistic trans guys in West Virginia—I’m proud to be representing Appalachia!—but are wildly different in audience. I can’t wait to start making my mark in adult fiction.
Last but not least, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
If you loved the vibe of The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, you can’t go wrong with She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran. Unhinged trans rep? Godly Heathens by H.E. Edgmon comes out Nov 11. High-stakes queer and trans fantasy? Infinity Alchemist by Kacen Callender drops next February. And if you’re looking for an adult book that matches Spirit’s love of medical gore, The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw will scratch that itch.
Thank you so much for having me!
You can find Andrew on Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok, and at his website.
