Interview: Victoria Costello On Her New Novel, ‘Orchid Child’

Earlier this week, Victoria Costello released her debut novel, Orchid Child. It’s a fascinating story of intergenerational trauma, epigenetics, and schizophrenia, as well as Irish history and family relationships. I was honored to have the chance to interview Victoria about the central themes within Orchid Child, how the novel relates to her own family history, and what readers can look forward to next.

Interview

In this interview, Victoria discusses:

1. What Orchid Child is about
2. The inspiration behind Orchid Child
3. What it was like to switch from nonfiction to fiction
4. What made her want to talk about—and draw parallels between—the themes of schizophrenia and other mental disorders, “second sight,” epigenetics, and intergenerational trauma in Orchid Child
5. The difference between orchids and dandelions and why she included that as a central theme in Orchid Child
6. What readers can look forward to next

It was a fascinating and thought-provoking conversation, and I hope you enjoy the interview as much as I did! Be sure to pick up Orchid Child – it’s available as a paperback, ebook, and audiobook. You can also read my full review of it here.

Official Summary

Kate is a neuroscientist who covets logic and order, unless she’s sleeping with her married lab director, and then logic goes out the window. So does her orderly life in Manhattan when she’s fired over the affair and Kate’s mother presses her to accept responsibility for her fifteen-year-old nephew, Teague, an orchid child who hears voices and talks to trees but rarely people.

To salvage her career, Kate agrees to conduct a study in West Ireland where hostile townsfolk rebuff her study of their historically high rate of schizophrenia and a local chief Druid identifies Teague’s odd perceptions as the gift of second sight, thrusting a bewildered Kate on a trail of madness, magic, and armed rebellion that leads to her own grandparents, who were banished as traitors from the same town.

When a confrontation with the chief Druid endangers Teague’s life, Kate lands at the intersection of ancient Celtic mysticism and 21st century neurodiversity, where the act of witnessing old wounds can heal suffering in both past and present – even hers, if she can accept the limits of science and the power of ancestral ties.