Literature is littered with rabbits and mice with H.G. Parry

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Adam Sockel:

You are listening to Passions & Prologues, a literary podcast. For each week, I interview an author about a thing they love and how it inspires their work.

I'm your host Adam Sockel, and today's guest is H.G. Parry, author of The Magician's Daughter that came out earlier this year.

The Magician's Daughter is a good old fashioned, old school coming of age fantasy that mixes family, and magic, and all sorts of wonderful characters like a mercurial magician. There is just delightful things happening left and right.

There is a setting that takes place on like a hidden legendary island off the coast of Ireland. So much is going on in this book. There are magical animals that you are going to come to love, and that is part of what we discussed today on our episode.

H.G. and I discuss her fascination and deep research into not just mice and rabbits, but the history of mice and rabbits in literature. It's a really fascinating conversation. It's something that she has dug deep into, into her own research.

I think you're really, really going to enjoy this conversation. I learned just a whole bunch about things that I, A, didn't know and B, hadn't really thought about in a while. Like all of these different books and stories that I experienced growing up that really did have a lot more mice and rabbits in them than I came to realize.

So, I think you're going to appreciate this. And if you are a listener of a certain age, I think you'll get just a little bit nostalgic for some of the stories we discussed.

Before I get to that conversation, I want to offer you a book recommendation. I just finished Honor by Thrity Umrigar. It is an incredible novel. I told someone else earlier this week that if you're a fan of Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, I think you'll really enjoy Honor.

It is the story of an Indian American journalist named Smita who returns to India to cover an extremely tragic and horrifying story.

She was originally raised in India, and you don't find out until much later in the book why her family ended up leaving. But the story of a Hindu and a Muslim getting married and then eventually, the tragedy that happens because of the woman's family seeing that as a sign of disrespect.

All of these horrible events that happen kind of conjure up and dig up all the things that Smita had gone through in her own life.

And what you discover throughout this book is this depiction of India as this land that contains multitudes. It's this place where there is yes, a lot of violence between different religions and there is different caste systems, but there's also, this unrelenting beauty and kindness and willingness to sacrifice for other people even if you have never met them before.

It's a little tragic, but it's tender and like I said, it's beautiful. There's a lot of love and hope, but there's also, betrayal and sacrifice and just so much going on.

It really is the story of not just Smita, but two different women that you come to learn about and peel back the layers of their story as you read on and on.

It was a very popular book when it came out last year. I believe it was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick. That is Honor by Thrity Umrigar. A phenomenal book, I think you're really going to love it.

If you ever want to get more book recommendations from me, you can always email me at [email protected]. There you can send me your own passions or what you've been reading lately and I'll be happy to give some book recommendations based on the things you're interested in.

And as always, if you have a few minutes, if you could leave a quick recommendation or review on my podcast pages, wherever you listen, whether it's on Apple, or Spotify, or iHeartRadio, it just helps people find me just a little bit more easily and it really makes my day when I get to see those messages.

Okay, that is all the housekeeping. I am so excited for you all to listen to this conversation with H.G. Parry, author of The Magician's Daughter on Passions & Prologues.

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Adam Sockel:

Okay. Hannah, what is the thing you are super passionate about that we're going to be discussing today?

H.G. Parry:

Ah, I mean, a lot of things, but today, I think we're talking about rabbits, and mice, and how I've just let them take over my house.

Adam Sockel:

Oh, this is very exciting. Okay, so, how did this start? How did this fascination begin?

H.G. Parry:

I mean, it's a very geeky start, but it was back probably 2015 or so, when I was doing my doctoral thesis and I was doing it on children's fantasy and epic tradition and basically arguing that children's books had taken up the mantle of classical ethic and so forth.

Which doesn't sound like an ought to have a lot to do with it, but it does because I read Watership Down, which was basically pitched in the straight retelling battle with rabbit.

Which it was, and I fell in love with it completely. It immediately became about 50% of my personality. And sort of through that, even though obviously, they're not exactly totally realistic rabbits in Watership Down, but I started getting interested in actual real rabbit.

And then about that time, my sister got a job teaching out at the Carpi coast and we kind of decided that we'd rent a flat together out there. And I sort of thought, “Well, if I'm leaving the inner city and I'm getting a house by the beach and we've got room, then I'm going to try and adopt a couple of rabbits.”

So, we did pretty much almost before I'd unpacked. And I went about it in obviously, because I hadn't done enough research, even though I thought I had, though I made all the mistakes that first time rabbit people always made.

So, I mean, we tried to go to a rescue, but we didn't actually have our own transport at the time. So, we couldn't get out there. So, we ended up stopping by a pet shop and they had a big sign up saying, “Two rabbits for the price of one included with the hutch.”

So, we just thought, “Hey, yay. This sounds great.” So, first of all, they came from a pet shop and you should not get rabbit from a pet shop for a lot of reasons. I don't even think you can here.

Fortunately, the biggest reason is that usually they aren't very good at telling if they're male or female and you end up with a whole bunch more in a month. That one we didn't fall into.

But yeah, just in general, you don't get them from pet shops because it sort of support unethical breeding practices usually. You don't really know what you're getting, all those reasons.

So, we got them from the pet shop anyway. They were both boys, which again, it's not recommended that you keep rabbit … generally, rabbit pets, if they're both boys, as soon as they hit puberty, they start fighting. So, not good.

They weren't neutered, which you need to neuter a spay rabbit straight away. They came with a tiny, stupid Pichel hutch. We kept them outdoors, which you now, wouldn't do.

So, yeah, we did everything wrong and they were extremely … yeah, it was a huge learning curve because I mean, they were wonderful. They immediately became the other 50% of my personality.

I don’t know rabbits, how familiar people are with them generally, but I sort of thought of them as they would be fairly tiny and just stay outside, but they're actually extremely complicated little animals. Especially during the teenage phase, which these two are in. They're very complicated.

They've got a very complicated hierarchy. They've got a very complicated language to learn, which I feel like we grow up kind of more or less picking up how to speak to dog and cat, but rabbit, we don't. And it doesn't help that they're non-vocal animals, so they don't actually have any vocal cords.

So, if they want to make a noise, they can only growl, thump, or very occasionally grin, which is horrible. And those aren't good noises, so you don't want to hear any of those. So, they're very subtle in how they communicate and that's a hard thing to work out.

So, it was a lot of learning curves. But we kind of got to know them really well. We improved the rabbit care a lot. We kind of learned how to do everything and I found that really interesting in itself.

And I also, kind of got really interested in, well, if we didn't know all the stuff going in, then chances are most people wouldn't know all this stuff going in, which turns out there are a lot of rabbits out there that aren't being kept properly, or there are a lot of people that take them on and then take them to shelters when they don't know a lot about them.

So, I sort of got in touch with the local animal shelter and was like, “Can I help out there?” So, I started out volunteering there mostly with the rabbit, but also, kind of with the cats and stuff.

And that kind of led to one then another. We've still only got the two rabbits, but then I eventually got into the mice as well. And we've now, got seven of those currently, which are mostly coming from the rescues and so forth. And that's kind of where it all got started. Yeah.

Adam Sockel:

So, okay, I want to ask a lot of questions, but one, before I get into some of my more specific questions, you mentioned like the communication of rabbits and that's something … can you like maybe explain a little bit more about that?

Because you're right, I'm literally sitting next to my 12 and a half year old dog as we speak, and like you said, over the years I've learned how to kind of read his mannerisms. But also, like you said, he's very vocal.

So, can you sort of talk about that a little bit? Like how you learned to read their non-verbal communication and sort of how you interact with them?

H.G. Parry:

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting too, like you said about dogs. I feel like dogs and cats also, we know how to talk to them. But you're right, I feel like they know how to talk to us a lot more as well and they know how to get their message across a lot more.

Whereas rabbit haven't been domesticated that long and they haven't usually got the same way of talking to us, I thought it's interesting.

With rabbits, let’s say, it's mostly body language. So, a lot of it is their ears, which is why lobs are really hard because their ears don't move. And I don’t know how they talk to other rabbits frankly.

So, a lot of it is what their ears are doing. If their ears are up, if their ears are down. A lot of it is just straight up body language. Like if they're fairly aggressive, their ears will go back and their tail will go up and that's fairly recognizable.

The cutest thing they do is if they're happy they do something called a binky, which is basically they just kind of jump in midair and do a little twist the midair and often they’ll flick their ears as well. Yeah, it's kind of dance really, and that's really cute. So, that's if they're happy.

They're very good, if they want your attention, they … Like I said, they stay more than one, like I've got two at the moment. Connell and Fleischman, who are named after Northern Exposure, which was the … yeah. If you know that show when they started to fight, parents were just like, “Well, why did you name them that?” I know, but yes.

So, Connell's very straightforward bunny. If he wants something, he'll usually come and nudge you with his nose or he'll do things like that.

Fleischman's a very complicated, neurotic little rabbit and like … yeah, he is. We named him well. So, I mean, also, I should say, generally if they want attention, they'll do stuff like hit flat on the ground and that means they want you to pat them and stuff like that.

Yeah, Fleischman's a very neurotic little bunny, and he's very worried about his place in the hierarchy all the time. So, it took us ages to work out that when he wanted attention paid to him, his way of letting us know that would be a stare at us for a while and then run away. And we are supposed to follow him.

And it took us ages to work out because we would just go, “Oh, he's clearly running away.” And then he'd get extremely upset and he'd thump for no reason.

And it turned out that what he was wanting was reassured that we really wanted to come and pay attention to him, but he was getting this by running off into a corner, which is relatable, I guess. Running away and seeing if we'd follow.

So, it's stuff like that. They have body language, but also, because they're extremely hierarchical animals, they don't always ask the things straightforwardly. They're often looking for reassurance about where they sit in that placement.

And they're very jealous of each other all the time, so you've always got to try and find ways to reassure them that they're special and valued. They're like teenagers.

Adam Sockel:

That is so fascinating. And I'm curious, when you first said that you kind of studied like almost the history of like the literature of them. At first I was like, “Oh, that's interesting.”

But then as you were talking, the more I thought about it, it's like there's all of the Beatrix Potter stories, there's the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, the March Hare. In His Dark Materials, one of the main demons is a rabbit.

There's all these different stories. There's obviously, Watership Down, Velveteen Rabbit. And I was like, “Oh my God, they're so …” As you were talking I was like, “There’s so many of them.”

In your studies, like did you come across like why they are such an like enduring … I mean, obviously, like you said, they're cute and they're adorable, but like did you come across any like writing as to why they're so prevalent in literature?

H.G. Parry:

No, and I'm not really sure why, because it's interesting. Because that's also, when I came about, when I started keeping Mice, there are a lot of books about mice and a lot about rabbit.

And yet, I don't know, but generally, mice people put out traps for them. And at least in New Zealand rabbits, they kind of pets that we try to keep down usually. So, it is a funny thing.

I mean, I can only assume that it perfectly … I mean, the one thing I'll say which is I think, I don’t know why it's rabbit specifically, but one of the things that really interests me about Watership Down, and I think it applies to a lot of other …

The reason why Richard Adams, when he wrote Watership Down was telling a story about rabbits was because he said he wanted to write an epic, like a heroic story for his kids, but he thought that like human beings don't feel epic anymore because our world's so safe.

Like we could get the plane and we could travel to the other side of the world, but there wouldn't be an epic journey, that would just be a holiday or a business trip.

Whereas like with a rabbit, he said they still feel epic because they're down on the ground and everything is dangerous. And if they're crossing a field, there's foxes, and there's skunks, and everything is still in that dangerous kind of adventurous space that children kind of still are in. And obviously, people back in the days of adventure stories were still in.

So, I think that's part of it. But I think just wild animals in general are something that children see in their daily lives, but they're also, living in the world, but everything they experience is still at that heightened dangerous adventure kind of level. Yeah.

Adam Sockel:

You're absolutely right. And like when we're talking about mice as well, you're right, it is the same thing. Like I don't think it's based off of a book, but I don't know if you remember actually the year I was born in 1986, a movie came out called An American Tale. It's all about five old Mousekewitz.

And it's like this story of this … it's absolutely supposed to be an allegory, but it's this small Jewish mouse family that basically travels from Russia to America.

And then there's a second one called Fievel Goes West. Much like any cartoon movie from the 1980s and early ‘90s, it is like brutal and haunting and terrifying. Not unlike [crosstalk 00:18:59].

H.G. Parry:

Oh my God, yes. Yeah.

Adam Sockel:

But you're right. Like I remember watching it and there is like an epicness of it too. Because like you said, there's one thing of, “Oh, these people crossed the Atlantic.” It's another thing entirely like this mouse family found a way to get from Russia to the United States. I think you're absolutely right. That's so interesting.

H.G. Parry:

And I do think too, there is something that with kids’ books particularly, you can have these big dark, scary things happen to animals in the animal world that you wouldn't want depict necessarily happening in a kid's book.

And that's what strikes when I read stuff like Watership Down and Robin Hood and even Beatrix Potter, there's such a lot of death and threat of death and terror and like big scary things that I feel like that's something that we can show a kid via animals, but you don't necessarily want to affect.

Adam Sockel:

So, before you started studying this, was this something that you were always fascinated by? Or was it as you were doing your studies, like you just kind of noticed something in Watership Down that stuck with you?

Like was this an area of literature and then by extension an area of nature which now, are pets for you that you had an interest in like your whole life? Or was it a little bit later in life?

H.G. Parry:

A bit of both. I mean, I think I grew up on all the animal stories and we partially grew up … I grew up in a few different places, but sort of our formative years, we were out in the country where we had some pet there and we had like a lifestyle block on a horse stable. So, we're sort of surrounded by that kind of thing, and I loved it.

But then we sort of moved to the city and then eventually I moved to Wellington to study. And my literary interests, so to speak, were always in epic and adventure stories and classical. Particularly, I did a classics degree, that's where it came from, was sort of like classical myth and epic.

And it’s basically, where I got to was I started out doing a lot of work on Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings. And via The Lord of the Rings, I got interested in the Hobbit and how those children's book things were functioning in those kind of epic environment.

But that kind of got me into Watership Down, which again, was the children's book and the epic. So, that was how I got there.

But then once I got there, I started getting also, interested in the animal story element. Which again, I was something I'd loved when I was a little kid, but I hadn't looked at faith my entire adolescent when I was studying. So, it kind of reminded me of that.

And that's when I sort of got interested in the animal story side. And that was when I got interested in the real animal side, which I mean, I love for a lot of reasons, but I think also, what was interesting about that was that just because everything else I was doing was related to either writing.

I mean, stuff I love doing, it's like writing, and I love history, and I love all that kind of thing, but they were all very similar. Whereas like stuff I was doing with animals, I think it's using a different part of your brain and it puts you on a different mindset because it's not about sitting at a computer.

There's a research involved sometimes, but it's not about sitting at a computer and typing things or even going to places and researching things. But you have to actually specifically get out there and interact and do all that. And it was really great.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. So, what are some things about keeping rabbit and mice as pets that people might not realize? You mentioned the fact with rabbits that they're nonverbal, but they have a very kind of complicated communication structure and hierarchy.

What are some things that people might not realize if they were interested in having these types of pets?

H.G. Parry:

Yeah. I think, I mean, the big one just in terms of pet care, is that both of them, mice as well … we're talking specifically about rabbit. So, the biggest thing is the amount of space they need is enormous.

Whereas say you go to a pet shop and they give you a tiny little hutch and they say, “Oh yeah, they can just stay in here for the most part.” And they can't.

If you're getting an actual hutch or an area for rabbits, the recommended is sort of minimum two by three meters if you're keeping them in a hutch.

Generally, ours is sort of, is what I say I've taken over the house. Like they have their own room in the house and they have a big pen in the yard that basically we let them out in the morning and they put themselves into it. They know how to do that. And that's why I close up to be safe during the day.

And then in the evening when we get home or if we've got time, we just open the door and they have the whole run of the property.

So, and I think a lot of people just have them … we have them living in their houses full-time, which is great, except that they do tend to be quite destructive. So, things get eaten, but don't … So, that's a big thing.

And same with cages you get at pet shop are cruel, basically. You need a much bigger one than that. But I think, I don't know what really … so, there's all the kind of pet care elements.

Rabbits are tricky too because generally, you need more than one, unless you have a rabbit that really hates other rabbit, or you can be with them 24 hours a day somehow, but generally, you can't. They generally, need to be together.

As we sort of found out with ours, can be easy if you match two and they like each other their whole lives, they're great. But they're very, very picky about who they want to spend their lives with.

And that's why it can be a really complicated process finding two that work together and bonding them can take months. And it can be a lot of fight, a lot of heartbreak at times.

But that's the hard stuff. The good stuff, I think with both of them, and I think it really struck me with mice as well. Especially with mice, when you say you've got mice, people tend to think of them just as kind of like insects or something. Like they just kind of run around and do things.

But everyone I've ever met actually has every bit as much of a personality and every bit as much of a … take your pick as a dog or a cat person. Like I've had dogs and cats as well.

And they are really fully formed individuals and because both of them have very complicated social structures, they're very loving with each other. Once you've won them over, they treat you as part of that social structure. So, that's both very interesting, but very, very nice as well.

Say, they're very, very smart. They do work … as I've said, they don't necessarily know how to communicate with humans in such a way, but you do kind of work out a language.

Like my oldest mouse who's the alpha mouse, most mouse communications are ultrasonic, so you can't really hear it, but she's managed to work out the exact pitch I can hear. And she'll come up to me and she'll use it to ask me for things and she can do all the … yeah, so, no.

So, I think what's interesting about them is say the social structure, how smart they are, just how … and I think it's quite humbling in a way, just the way that I feel like human beings though, I should say, tend to kind of assign intelligence to animals that we want to interact with like dogs or cats.

Whereas the animals that we don't want to interact with like cows, or chickens, or mice called the pests, or whatever. We tend to just go over, “They're not very smart. Whereas my dog is incredibly smart.”

And the thing is, generally from interacting with a lot, I haven't really noticed any difference in intelligence between different species. It's just how willing we are to get to know what's going on with them.

Adam Sockel:

So, this may be an interesting question, but how, slash if, I suppose, does like your interaction with the rabbits and mice you have as pets — like is there any connection between how you take care of them and interact with them and then how you write out your stories? Like I know sometimes this is an easier question for people to answer.

H.G. Parry:

I mean, the book I've got coming out now, yes, has rabbits in it. But in general, I mean, and say part, not a great deal in some ways. I think it definitely … this sounds a bit weird and abstract, but I feel like a lot of interacting with them …

Because they're prey animals, both rabbits and mice, they have this very interesting way of reacting to the world that they're obviously, programmed to be very weary of it, but they're also, incredibly curious about it.

And incredibly, they're very driven by wanting to find out what new things are and investigating and so forth. And what's interesting about that is when you're with them, it kind of keys you into really noticing things about the world.

Because when I'm writing, I tend to be very dialogue driven and very research driven.

So, I think the nice thing about being outside and doing things with them and having to be very aware of the natural environment the way they're seeing it kind of really keys you into being better at thinking about the actual physical setting that you are living in, the actual world you're living in.

And I guess, just in a more abstract sense, what I was just saying, I think that the fact that how full of personality they are help you kind of counter your prejudices a little.

Just remember that there's this whole world going on that you're not necessarily … that you've got a lot of preconceptions about, but when you get to research it a bit more, things are actually quite different, if that makes any sense.

Adam Sockel:

It does, yeah. And what about like your history of studying and interacting with like say, Watership Down? I'm thinking of the books you've written, like a lot of them are obviously, very like fantasy and magic centric.

But do you see a through line whether it's the emotions or like the politics of that type of story? Like I think of one of your previous books we're talking about before we started recording, A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians, which I love.

There's so much in there about like revolution, and war, and power, and all these different like clashing things. Like do you think there's any connection between the types of stories you are studying and the types of stories you now write?

H.G. Parry:

Oh, definitely. Yeah. No, I mean, when I was studying, when I was an academic, my interest was always classical epic, basically and a bit of old English epic, and that kind of thing. So, that definitely came through.

I mean, I'm very interested in heroic codes. I'm very interested in … and specifically, like I say, with stuff like that, with changing heroic codes, like I love writing about worlds that are on the cusp of moving from one kind of heroic code to another.

So, that was very much what I was trying to do with Declaration of the Rights of Magicians. And that the idea that dramatizing that moment, where you go — of the enlightenment.

You are moving from this kind of older way of looking at the world into a sort of newer, hopefully, kinder way of looking at the world with all those social changes that were taking place. But at the same time, all the conflict that brings up and so forth. So, a lot of that came over from it.

And I learned a lot of stuff like that. And obviously, the book, The Magician's Daughter was very more directly, it was very much wanting to be in the vein of a lot of those children's books.

Which I mean, it's an adult book, but it's a book about a young woman who's kind of moving into the adult world and finding out about all its complications and what those mean as she's drawing on her own knowledge of basically the book she's grown up with or she's got to draw on. So, she's trying to use those to navigate the world.

And I was very interested in trying to capture that kind of children's book coming of age thing where with all its kind darknesses and the changes, I guess.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. And you know what, that's such an interesting way of looking at it. And you're right. Like you absolutely hit that perfectly with this book because you're right. Like there's all of these stories that we all read as children, whether it is like melting rabbit, Watership Down, or like anything like Chronicles of Narnia, His Dark Materials, you mentioned Lord of the Rings.

Like we read, as children, these very magical, expansive stories. Obviously, some of those are also, for adults, but like what you've done with The Magician's Daughter is integrated those childlike magical feelings into an adult book.

And I think it's such an interesting thing to be able to do because I feel like the genre of fantasy sometimes gets like a bad rap for adults. Which is so weird to me because we all adore these books as kids, and then it's like for some reason when you transition into adult, you shouldn't read them anymore. I hate that idea.

So, I love that done here is it's like a perfect combination of both of those ideas.

H.G. Parry:

Ah, thank you. Yeah. I mean, I think you're right.

I mean, and I think what's interesting is when I was studying children's literature like Watership Down is that you have a lot of books like His Dark Materials and like Watership Down and all that, which are sort of categorized as children's books, but I thought at the time, in some ways, they're adult books as well. And those books that are on the cup I think are very interesting.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. I mean, I always joke with people like we call His Dark Materials children's book, but it grapples with the idea of trying to kill God itself. It's like I don't know that's really for a child.

H.G. Parry:

Definitely, yeah. But for kids. Yeah.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah, exactly. Trying to murder a demon, for children. Yeah, exactly.

So, for my listeners, can you kind of give a little bit of an explanation of what happens in The Magician's Daughter? I never want to be the one to do that, because I don't want to give away too much of the plot.

H.G. Parry:

Okay. So, The Magician's Daughter, it's in the 1912. It about a young girl named Biddy, and she's grown up on a magical island called Hy-Brasil, which is a real, real mythical island. Which is supposedly just off the coast of Ireland.

There's a lot of myths about it. It only appears at once every seven years. And up until quite recently, it used to actually appear on Crawford cartographers maps. And they believed it was a real place, but no one knows where it came from.

But so, she's grown up there being raised by a mage and his rabbit familiar. She's never left. He leaves the island every night, but she's never allowed to ask where he’s gone.

One day, he fails to come back and she sets out to look for him. And she ends up getting drawn into an adventure where she'll leave the mainland for the first time. Magic strained out of the world, there's a quest to bring it back.

And over the course of it, she learns a whole lot of things about herself, a whole lot of secrets. She learns that her guardian might not be think she thinks he is, that the world's not necessarily what she thinks it is. And it's a story about growing up and facing those kind of things for the first time. Yeah.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. And I will say for people who this episode will come out like right around the time when the book comes out, so people listening probably haven't got the chance that I did to read already.

And I'll just say like you've done something really, really wonderful with this book, which is you've written like a holy original fantasy novel that feels like a fantasy novel that I would've read when I was younger. Like it feels like familiar in the best possible way, but it's wholly original.

And I feel like people are going to love this book from page one. I think you've absolutely done such a wonderful job with it.

H.G. Parry:

Oh, thank you so much.

Adam Sockel:

You're very welcome. Before you go, my last question for authors is always like if you could give a recommendation to my listeners. It could be a book or it could be something wholly different.

I've had people recommend just like going for a walk or a specific television show that they like. Just one recommendation that you think more people should know about.

H.G. Parry:

Oh God. Read Watership Down. That's where I'll go. I'm good with that. Yeah.

Adam Sockel:

Honestly, yeah, I agree. That's a perfect one.

H.G. Parry:

Yeah, yeah, I've already talked about that. But more people should read it. And you probably already have, but if you haven't, you should. And then you could horrify yourself by watching the ‘70s movie, which is the horror film.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. Honestly, like that's a very good point. Read the book and then if you're going to watch the movie, just be prepared to be absolutely crushed. It is going to break your spirit and soul a little bit.

H.G. Parry:

Yeah.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. That is so perfect. Hannah, this was so much fun. Thank you for joining me today.

H.G. Parry:

No, thank you so much for inviting me.

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Adam Sockel:

Passions & Prologues is proud to be an Evergreen podcast and was created by Adam Sockel. It was produced by Adam Sockel and Sean Rule-Hoffman.

And if you are interested in this podcast and any other Evergreen podcast, you can go to evergreenpodcasts.com to discover all the different stories we have to tell.