Sadie Montgomery
A frustrated writer in a cold clime, I live with my indulgent
husband and my tolerant son in a small town in Minnesota and
dream of candle light and warm breezes. I’m an avid reader, which
is fortunate because I teach literature at a small college. When not
preparing for classes or grading papers, I write.
Sadie Montgomery, author of The Phoenix of the Opera, Out of the
Darkness: The Phantom's Journey, The Phantom's Opera, and
Phantom Death.
Her Myspace site: CLICK HERE.
Her official web site: CLICK HERE.
Sandra - How did the idea of writing a novel begin?
Sadie - Let me thank you, first of all, for doing this interview with
me about The Phoenix of the Opera four-book series. It’s a great
opportunity for me.
I had gone to see Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the
Opera (2004, Dir. Joel Schumacher) because I love musicals and it
looked gorgeous in the previews. The use of younger actors to
portray the main characters made the tragedy of the Phantom even
more compelling. When the Phantom, unmasked and bereft of his
Christine and potentially even of his music, crashed the mirrors and
stepped over the frame into blackness, I knew that I had to follow
him. I wanted to know, like many who saw the movie and read
Susan Kay and others who have written on the Phantom, more
about the character. It occurred to me that the ending of the 2004
film version of the musical left the door wide open to one’s
imagination. It intrigued me to take the characters and put them
into a somewhat more psychologically realistic plot. I wanted to
explore the dynamic among them and to provide a story for the
Phantom that went beyond the loss of Christine and the destruction
of the opera house. At the same time I wanted to respect the
sacrifice that the Phantom makes, for if we rewrite that moment in
which he gives up Christine for love, then we give up the
possibility of a true transformation of the character. In the first
months of 2005, obsessed with the tragic disappearance of the
Phantom, the arc of a new story emerged. I had to sit down and
write it. I wrote it first for myself. I decided that the novel would be
somewhat unconventional in style. I used techniques such as stream
of consciousness and shifting points of view, strategies associated
with works by some of my favorite authors. In addition to making
the story more textually interesting to me, I found that these
strategies created an intimacy with the characters that I wanted.
Sandra - How did you discover your passion for The Phantom of
the Opera story?
Sadie - I had grown up watching horror versions of the story but
had never really liked them that much. One exception is the earliest
version of The Phantom (1925) with Lon Chaney playing the role.
This silent film version is powerful and evocative. It brings out the
Gothic horror in the story. I had found the portrayal of the Phantom
in subsequent versions more pathetic than moving or simply
grotesque and gory. When I saw Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The
Phantom of the Opera, it was as if I were seeing the story for the
first time. I was overwhelmed by the music and the drama of the
story. The portrayal of the Phantom by Gerry Butler brought out in
the character a power and sensuality that I had never seen in
previous film versions. The first time I saw it I was intrigued. I
rarely go back to see a movie, but I felt compelled to do so in this
case. The second time I saw it I was drawn into the center of the
human tragedy of the Phantom, the irony of a man disfigured who
longed for beauty, the mesmerizing combination of power, deceit,
passion, and despair. In subsequent viewings, for I confess that I
went numerous times over the several months it ran in the area,
other nuances came through that I knew were suggested or implied
in the story but that were not played out in the film. There’s only so
much that can be done in 143 minutes. In my imagination, triggered
by the film, a story began to form, a story that teased out those
aspects that lay dormant in the original story itself. What the movie
provided was a new way to see the characters, but it was also a
hyperbolically romantic version that pit a Byronic Phantom against
a Fairy Prince. Anyway that’s one way of looking at the movie. The
lovely thing about the basic story itself—and here I’m speaking of
the skeletal story that Gaston Leroux fleshes out in his novel—is
that it can be retold a thousand times and something new and
wonderful can be seen. I believe it’s in the telling that we see the
myriad possibilities of the love triangle. In many ways, Leroux’s
novel is a sad version of The Beauty and the Beast. So it’s not a
story that ends but begs to be told again and again.
Sandra - What's your opinion about the main character, Erik?
Sadie - I find the main character fascinating because he’s complex
and driven. He is problematic, dangerous, and yet there is
something so compelling in him that he deserves to survive.
Indeed, two characteristics stand out for me—his ability to survive
all threats and his passion for beauty. The latter is painfully ironic
and represents one of those tropes, like Don Juan and Don Quijote,
that come up again and again. The Phantom is disfigured and
isolated. What he most fervently desires is to create what has been
denied to him—beauty. Like Pygmalion’s obsession for his creation
Galatea, the Phantom’s obsessive passion for Christine is doomed
to failure. There’s a great deal of sadness in the character that
touches us. He’s full of contradictions. He’s proud and egotistical,
yet flawed and wounded. His very disfigurement in the Andrew
Lloyd Webber version underscores this duality. The Phantom is a
mask. The man’s genius is the creation of this mask. But what
intrigued me was the possibility of looking behind the mask and
discovering the man underneath without destroying this magnetic
and extreme persona that is also a part of him. Even though the
story has been read most often as a horror tale, I tried to create a
character whose humanity would eventually redeem him.
Sandra - What do you think about the possible reality/myth of this
story?
Sadie - I have no doubt that Gaston Leroux investigated and
collected many stories and documents about the opera house.
Supposedly he may have been inspired by a novel by George du
Maurier, Trilby, which incorporated real events that had transpired
in the Paris Opera House. Du Maurier’s novel is the source of the
character of Svengali. I think Gaston Leroux did what most writers
do. Piecing together real events and combining them with his own
imagination, Gaston Leroux told a story. It’s a common narrative
ploy in novels to refer to a story as if it were not fiction but real.
Defoe does it in Robinson Crusoe, for example. There may well
have been someone living in the vaults under the opera house. But I
have no way of knowing what is invention and what is real in
Leroux’s story. The prologue reads like many fiction prologues of
the time. The tone and style is not that different from some of
Edgar Allan Poe’s detective stories, for example. I won’t dispute
that there was evidence that Leroux found and that inspired his
story. His setting, for example, seems to be scrupulously faithful.
But I’m not convinced that he was simply documenting what
happened.
Sandra - Including Meg as the main character is really interesting,
can you tell us the origin of this idea?
Sadie - When I decided that my story had to give Erik a second
chance and a chance, in particular, at love, I also knew that it would
not be with Christine. Christine had made her choice. To rewrite
that moment when he released her and showed that he could be
selfless in his love would be a betrayal of the beauty of the original
story. I also believe that we can love more than once and that we
can love more than one person. So although my version of the
Phantom/Erik never forgets his adoration for Christine, he does
find that he is not doomed to pine forever over one lost love. Love
is not governed by destiny; it is something for which we must strive
and work. I also knew that I wanted someone who had also been a
witness to this story and who, like Erik, had stood in the shadows,
watching the story unfold. The irony of someone who was intrigued
and perhaps a bit enamored already of the Phantom, watching the
Phantom as the Phantom had watched over Christine, was a major
factor. When I tried to think of who might be a likely character, it
struck me that Meg provided just the right opportunity. Like
Christine, she is young and beautiful. As Mme. Giry’s daughter,
she would have access to information. I also wanted the character to
be part of the same world in which Erik had been living. The world
of performance and of opera is too fundamental to him to rip him
from it. It made sense that someone from that world would be the
only true companion for him. In Schumacher’s version, Meg is
curious and courageous. In spite of fear, she finds the hidden
corridor behind the mirror and enters. Later she heads the mob in
search of the Phantom, but her motives are not clear. Interestingly
in that scene she is dressed in trousers, which suggests that she is a
very unconventional character. She is also the one who finds the
mask, a nice foreshadowing for my series. It didn’t seem like too
much of a jump to have her follow after the Phantom, to save him
like her mother had years before. Having been raised with
Christine, Meg affords some interesting dramatic possibilities, too.
Is she jealous of Christine? Is Erik’s initial attraction to her just a
pale substitution for his true love? All of these problematic factors
made her an exciting character to include in the mix. In addition, I
felt there was a good deal of development yet to be done with all
the characters, but especially with Meg.
Sandra - Have you read Leroux's book? What's your opinion about it.
Sadie - Yes, I read Leroux’s novel. It’s an amazing blend of humor
and horror and pathos. Great storytelling. Without this novel, we’d
not have so many other versions of the Phantom. I find the
character tremendously sad. Leroux’s interest in telling the strange
events in the opera house, using both the Gothic and yet debunking
it at the same time, lends itself more to detective fiction than
romance. It’s a fascinating blend of mystery and adventure and
Gothic. What most surprised me was the humor. I also love the
trickster aspect to the Phantom.
Sandra - Your novel's story is really original and imaginative, can
you tell us where your inspiration came from?
Sadie - As I’ve already mentioned, the heartbreaking end of
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera, directed by
Joel Schumacher, was the catalyst for my writing The Phoenix of
the Opera. But it was also, in part, how that story resonated with so
many other stories that I have read and even films that I’ve seen. I
couldn’t get out of my head Schumacher’s allusions to Cocteau’s
Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la Bête 1946). But everything—the
Bronte sisters, Frankenstein, Jane Austen (as strange as the latter
might seem), The Crow (Dir. Alex Proyas, 1994)—resonated in the
story.
From the beginning, as I sat down to write The Phoenix of the
Opera, I knew I wanted to accomplish four things: 1) Someone
would go in search of the Phantom and rescue him from despair; 2)
It would take a long time for him to get over his obsession for
Christine; 3) He would come to realize that he loved the woman
who dared to follow him into the vaults to rescue him; and 4) I
wanted the main characters to interact with a degree of social and
psychological realism, which would guarantee contradictions and
solutions that were neither neat or perfect.
I was surprised when I reached the end of The Phoenix of the
Opera that I had not quite accomplished all four of these goals. I
had paved the way for Erik to love again and to find a new life. But
I still needed another novel in which to complete the love story
between him and Meg. That’s when I realized that a major
disruption—the hero’s journey—was necessary for him to grow as a
character, that he would have to face and battle the monster inside
him, and that after this journey he would come back to find his true
heart’s love. There’s a bit of The Wizard of Oz in this and a lot of
the Odyssey. That was the genesis and plan for Out of the
Darkness: The Phantom’s Journey.
After that, I might have stopped writing. But the characters are too
dear to me. So I wrote The Phantom’s Opera in which the focus is
on whether or not our past determines who we are. Phantom Death
is the novel in which I bring together various threads in the series
and suggest a resolution. In each novel there is growth in the
characters, especially in the Phantom, and also in the relationships
among the characters. One aspect that many readers have remarked
on is my treatment of Raoul. The development of the relationship
between Raoul and Erik took me somewhat by surprise myself. But
it’s an aspect of the development of the series that I really enjoy.
Sandra - Writing your book has been a nice experience for you?
Why?
Sadie - It was an amazing experience because the scenes, the
dialogues, the images just flowed. Some days I would wake up with
the first words of the next scene already in my mind. As I wrote,
the scenes unfurled as if I were watching and listening to them. It
was as close to automatic writing as I’ve ever come. I loved the
process of writing these stories because they were what I wanted to
read myself. Only once I was done did it even occur to me to show
it to anyone else. The experience of writing the Phoenix series led
me to try my hand at other novels, too.
Sandra - What do you think about the new Phantom musical sequel?
Sadie - I adore Webber’s music. My other favorite score is the one
for Jesus Christ Superstar. I was surprised that Webber chose The
Phantom of Manhattan as the basis for the sequel. But I imagine it
was exciting to him to think about staging a sequel and to have the
story unfold in New York. I’ve not yet seen the stage version of the
original Phantom of the Opera but plan on doing so soon. I’m sure
that if I get the chance I’ll see the sequel.
Sandra - Tell us about your future projects.
Sadie - I’ve a number of completed manuscripts that I would like to
circulate, including a contemporary vampire romance (Blood and
Satin), a post-apocalyptic romance (Sol’s Weapon), two period
romances (Broken; Love’s Apprentice), and an erotic romance (The
Contract). I also found myself pulled back to the characters in The
Phoenix Series and wrote a possible fifth and sixth novels,
tentatively titled Phantom Madness and Phantom Murder. I’m
currently revising and considering my options.
Thank you for giving me this opportunity to talk about my series of
Phantom novels. They have been a wonderful experience for me.
Please, don't copy this text and photos without my permission.
Copyright by Ladyghost.
husband and my tolerant son in a small town in Minnesota and
dream of candle light and warm breezes. I’m an avid reader, which
is fortunate because I teach literature at a small college. When not
preparing for classes or grading papers, I write.
Sadie Montgomery, author of The Phoenix of the Opera, Out of the
Darkness: The Phantom's Journey, The Phantom's Opera, and
Phantom Death.
Her Myspace site: CLICK HERE.
Her official web site: CLICK HERE.
Sandra - How did the idea of writing a novel begin?
Sadie - Let me thank you, first of all, for doing this interview with
me about The Phoenix of the Opera four-book series. It’s a great
opportunity for me.
I had gone to see Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the
Opera (2004, Dir. Joel Schumacher) because I love musicals and it
looked gorgeous in the previews. The use of younger actors to
portray the main characters made the tragedy of the Phantom even
more compelling. When the Phantom, unmasked and bereft of his
Christine and potentially even of his music, crashed the mirrors and
stepped over the frame into blackness, I knew that I had to follow
him. I wanted to know, like many who saw the movie and read
Susan Kay and others who have written on the Phantom, more
about the character. It occurred to me that the ending of the 2004
film version of the musical left the door wide open to one’s
imagination. It intrigued me to take the characters and put them
into a somewhat more psychologically realistic plot. I wanted to
explore the dynamic among them and to provide a story for the
Phantom that went beyond the loss of Christine and the destruction
of the opera house. At the same time I wanted to respect the
sacrifice that the Phantom makes, for if we rewrite that moment in
which he gives up Christine for love, then we give up the
possibility of a true transformation of the character. In the first
months of 2005, obsessed with the tragic disappearance of the
Phantom, the arc of a new story emerged. I had to sit down and
write it. I wrote it first for myself. I decided that the novel would be
somewhat unconventional in style. I used techniques such as stream
of consciousness and shifting points of view, strategies associated
with works by some of my favorite authors. In addition to making
the story more textually interesting to me, I found that these
strategies created an intimacy with the characters that I wanted.
Sandra - How did you discover your passion for The Phantom of
the Opera story?
Sadie - I had grown up watching horror versions of the story but
had never really liked them that much. One exception is the earliest
version of The Phantom (1925) with Lon Chaney playing the role.
This silent film version is powerful and evocative. It brings out the
Gothic horror in the story. I had found the portrayal of the Phantom
in subsequent versions more pathetic than moving or simply
grotesque and gory. When I saw Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The
Phantom of the Opera, it was as if I were seeing the story for the
first time. I was overwhelmed by the music and the drama of the
story. The portrayal of the Phantom by Gerry Butler brought out in
the character a power and sensuality that I had never seen in
previous film versions. The first time I saw it I was intrigued. I
rarely go back to see a movie, but I felt compelled to do so in this
case. The second time I saw it I was drawn into the center of the
human tragedy of the Phantom, the irony of a man disfigured who
longed for beauty, the mesmerizing combination of power, deceit,
passion, and despair. In subsequent viewings, for I confess that I
went numerous times over the several months it ran in the area,
other nuances came through that I knew were suggested or implied
in the story but that were not played out in the film. There’s only so
much that can be done in 143 minutes. In my imagination, triggered
by the film, a story began to form, a story that teased out those
aspects that lay dormant in the original story itself. What the movie
provided was a new way to see the characters, but it was also a
hyperbolically romantic version that pit a Byronic Phantom against
a Fairy Prince. Anyway that’s one way of looking at the movie. The
lovely thing about the basic story itself—and here I’m speaking of
the skeletal story that Gaston Leroux fleshes out in his novel—is
that it can be retold a thousand times and something new and
wonderful can be seen. I believe it’s in the telling that we see the
myriad possibilities of the love triangle. In many ways, Leroux’s
novel is a sad version of The Beauty and the Beast. So it’s not a
story that ends but begs to be told again and again.
Sandra - What's your opinion about the main character, Erik?
Sadie - I find the main character fascinating because he’s complex
and driven. He is problematic, dangerous, and yet there is
something so compelling in him that he deserves to survive.
Indeed, two characteristics stand out for me—his ability to survive
all threats and his passion for beauty. The latter is painfully ironic
and represents one of those tropes, like Don Juan and Don Quijote,
that come up again and again. The Phantom is disfigured and
isolated. What he most fervently desires is to create what has been
denied to him—beauty. Like Pygmalion’s obsession for his creation
Galatea, the Phantom’s obsessive passion for Christine is doomed
to failure. There’s a great deal of sadness in the character that
touches us. He’s full of contradictions. He’s proud and egotistical,
yet flawed and wounded. His very disfigurement in the Andrew
Lloyd Webber version underscores this duality. The Phantom is a
mask. The man’s genius is the creation of this mask. But what
intrigued me was the possibility of looking behind the mask and
discovering the man underneath without destroying this magnetic
and extreme persona that is also a part of him. Even though the
story has been read most often as a horror tale, I tried to create a
character whose humanity would eventually redeem him.
Sandra - What do you think about the possible reality/myth of this
story?
Sadie - I have no doubt that Gaston Leroux investigated and
collected many stories and documents about the opera house.
Supposedly he may have been inspired by a novel by George du
Maurier, Trilby, which incorporated real events that had transpired
in the Paris Opera House. Du Maurier’s novel is the source of the
character of Svengali. I think Gaston Leroux did what most writers
do. Piecing together real events and combining them with his own
imagination, Gaston Leroux told a story. It’s a common narrative
ploy in novels to refer to a story as if it were not fiction but real.
Defoe does it in Robinson Crusoe, for example. There may well
have been someone living in the vaults under the opera house. But I
have no way of knowing what is invention and what is real in
Leroux’s story. The prologue reads like many fiction prologues of
the time. The tone and style is not that different from some of
Edgar Allan Poe’s detective stories, for example. I won’t dispute
that there was evidence that Leroux found and that inspired his
story. His setting, for example, seems to be scrupulously faithful.
But I’m not convinced that he was simply documenting what
happened.
Sandra - Including Meg as the main character is really interesting,
can you tell us the origin of this idea?
Sadie - When I decided that my story had to give Erik a second
chance and a chance, in particular, at love, I also knew that it would
not be with Christine. Christine had made her choice. To rewrite
that moment when he released her and showed that he could be
selfless in his love would be a betrayal of the beauty of the original
story. I also believe that we can love more than once and that we
can love more than one person. So although my version of the
Phantom/Erik never forgets his adoration for Christine, he does
find that he is not doomed to pine forever over one lost love. Love
is not governed by destiny; it is something for which we must strive
and work. I also knew that I wanted someone who had also been a
witness to this story and who, like Erik, had stood in the shadows,
watching the story unfold. The irony of someone who was intrigued
and perhaps a bit enamored already of the Phantom, watching the
Phantom as the Phantom had watched over Christine, was a major
factor. When I tried to think of who might be a likely character, it
struck me that Meg provided just the right opportunity. Like
Christine, she is young and beautiful. As Mme. Giry’s daughter,
she would have access to information. I also wanted the character to
be part of the same world in which Erik had been living. The world
of performance and of opera is too fundamental to him to rip him
from it. It made sense that someone from that world would be the
only true companion for him. In Schumacher’s version, Meg is
curious and courageous. In spite of fear, she finds the hidden
corridor behind the mirror and enters. Later she heads the mob in
search of the Phantom, but her motives are not clear. Interestingly
in that scene she is dressed in trousers, which suggests that she is a
very unconventional character. She is also the one who finds the
mask, a nice foreshadowing for my series. It didn’t seem like too
much of a jump to have her follow after the Phantom, to save him
like her mother had years before. Having been raised with
Christine, Meg affords some interesting dramatic possibilities, too.
Is she jealous of Christine? Is Erik’s initial attraction to her just a
pale substitution for his true love? All of these problematic factors
made her an exciting character to include in the mix. In addition, I
felt there was a good deal of development yet to be done with all
the characters, but especially with Meg.
Sandra - Have you read Leroux's book? What's your opinion about it.
Sadie - Yes, I read Leroux’s novel. It’s an amazing blend of humor
and horror and pathos. Great storytelling. Without this novel, we’d
not have so many other versions of the Phantom. I find the
character tremendously sad. Leroux’s interest in telling the strange
events in the opera house, using both the Gothic and yet debunking
it at the same time, lends itself more to detective fiction than
romance. It’s a fascinating blend of mystery and adventure and
Gothic. What most surprised me was the humor. I also love the
trickster aspect to the Phantom.
Sandra - Your novel's story is really original and imaginative, can
you tell us where your inspiration came from?
Sadie - As I’ve already mentioned, the heartbreaking end of
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera, directed by
Joel Schumacher, was the catalyst for my writing The Phoenix of
the Opera. But it was also, in part, how that story resonated with so
many other stories that I have read and even films that I’ve seen. I
couldn’t get out of my head Schumacher’s allusions to Cocteau’s
Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la Bête 1946). But everything—the
Bronte sisters, Frankenstein, Jane Austen (as strange as the latter
might seem), The Crow (Dir. Alex Proyas, 1994)—resonated in the
story.
From the beginning, as I sat down to write The Phoenix of the
Opera, I knew I wanted to accomplish four things: 1) Someone
would go in search of the Phantom and rescue him from despair; 2)
It would take a long time for him to get over his obsession for
Christine; 3) He would come to realize that he loved the woman
who dared to follow him into the vaults to rescue him; and 4) I
wanted the main characters to interact with a degree of social and
psychological realism, which would guarantee contradictions and
solutions that were neither neat or perfect.
I was surprised when I reached the end of The Phoenix of the
Opera that I had not quite accomplished all four of these goals. I
had paved the way for Erik to love again and to find a new life. But
I still needed another novel in which to complete the love story
between him and Meg. That’s when I realized that a major
disruption—the hero’s journey—was necessary for him to grow as a
character, that he would have to face and battle the monster inside
him, and that after this journey he would come back to find his true
heart’s love. There’s a bit of The Wizard of Oz in this and a lot of
the Odyssey. That was the genesis and plan for Out of the
Darkness: The Phantom’s Journey.
After that, I might have stopped writing. But the characters are too
dear to me. So I wrote The Phantom’s Opera in which the focus is
on whether or not our past determines who we are. Phantom Death
is the novel in which I bring together various threads in the series
and suggest a resolution. In each novel there is growth in the
characters, especially in the Phantom, and also in the relationships
among the characters. One aspect that many readers have remarked
on is my treatment of Raoul. The development of the relationship
between Raoul and Erik took me somewhat by surprise myself. But
it’s an aspect of the development of the series that I really enjoy.
Sandra - Writing your book has been a nice experience for you?
Why?
Sadie - It was an amazing experience because the scenes, the
dialogues, the images just flowed. Some days I would wake up with
the first words of the next scene already in my mind. As I wrote,
the scenes unfurled as if I were watching and listening to them. It
was as close to automatic writing as I’ve ever come. I loved the
process of writing these stories because they were what I wanted to
read myself. Only once I was done did it even occur to me to show
it to anyone else. The experience of writing the Phoenix series led
me to try my hand at other novels, too.
Sandra - What do you think about the new Phantom musical sequel?
Sadie - I adore Webber’s music. My other favorite score is the one
for Jesus Christ Superstar. I was surprised that Webber chose The
Phantom of Manhattan as the basis for the sequel. But I imagine it
was exciting to him to think about staging a sequel and to have the
story unfold in New York. I’ve not yet seen the stage version of the
original Phantom of the Opera but plan on doing so soon. I’m sure
that if I get the chance I’ll see the sequel.
Sandra - Tell us about your future projects.
Sadie - I’ve a number of completed manuscripts that I would like to
circulate, including a contemporary vampire romance (Blood and
Satin), a post-apocalyptic romance (Sol’s Weapon), two period
romances (Broken; Love’s Apprentice), and an erotic romance (The
Contract). I also found myself pulled back to the characters in The
Phoenix Series and wrote a possible fifth and sixth novels,
tentatively titled Phantom Madness and Phantom Murder. I’m
currently revising and considering my options.
Thank you for giving me this opportunity to talk about my series of
Phantom novels. They have been a wonderful experience for me.
Please, don't copy this text and photos without my permission.
Copyright by Ladyghost.
