of two historical novels set in Italy and the coauthor of two comic thrillers set in Prague and Vienna. Lynch teaches at College of the Sequoias and lives in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.
My Q&A with the author:
How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?Visit Christina Lynch's website.
Quite a bit, and I can’t take any credit except recognizing a great title when I heard it. The project was originally called Christmas Pony and it was only after it had floated around for a while without any nibbles that my agent asked if I would retitle it. I happened to be in a house full of writers on a freezing island when her email arrived. I read it aloud and my pal Anna Kovel looked at me and said “Pony Confidential.” Boom! It was a genius title that sold the book and shaped its future. Christmas Pony was the story of a pony looking for the one little girl he really loved, twenty-five years after he last saw her. Pony Confidential suggested a mysterious crime as well as a tell-all about pony life. It became not just three-foot-tall Pony’s hilarious critique of everything wrong about humans, but also the story of Penny, his long-lost human, who stands accused of a murder only he can solve.
What's in a name?
A lot of Easter eggs (hidden surprises), because Pony Confidential is based on The Odyssey, so many of the names are derived from that ancient Greek epic. I’m not going to give them all away here and spoil your fun, but Penny/Penelope is pretty obvious, for the woman that Pony (who is at one point named “O”) is trying to get back to. Penny is sent to a prison called “Sticks River,” and see if you can spot the Cyclops, Circe, Calypso and Telemachus.
How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?
Ha! Not in the least. I can actually hear her saying “Why didn’t you write this as your first novel, not your fifth, you idiot?” I’ve always been horse and pony-obsessed—I think some of us just have that gene, because it doesn’t feel like a choice. I never had my own pony as a child, which only intensified the longing. I managed to get a job working with polo ponies when I was eleven, and, in defiance of financial logic, I’ve owned horses since my mid-twenties, so I’ve always been an up-close observer of equine moods and behaviors. Pony Confidential is actually (as far as I can determine) the first-ever book written for adults from apony’s point of view, which my teenage self is cheering. They're the cute-yet-mean animal we all long for as children, but who never get any respect... until now.
Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?
The pony’s first chapter sprang from my fingers as if they were on a Ouija board, so clearly there was a pent-up pony in me desperate to be heard! Though it got a bit trimmed and tightened, it stayed pretty much unchanged through many, many, many drafts of the novel. The ending did change quite a bit—I don’t want to give it away, but it was harder to write as it’s a very emotionally intense scene.
Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?
I think the secret to good writing is to become all of your characters, and put some of your own emotional truth in them, even if they are abhorrent to you. There is no one character in this or any of my books who is me, but parts of me are in all of them. Circe the goat’s cynicism, Caya the dog’s optimism—both me.
What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?
In the case of this book, actual animals. I have a large pony I ride named Floraa who was the pandemic muse of this book, freely sharing her many moods with me as we traveled up and down the mountains where I live. I now also have a small pony named Bill, who I adopted after finishing the book but who seems to have sprung fully formed from its pages—grumpy, food-obsessed, and not above a nip when service is slow. He’s proof that I got it right.
My Book, The Movie: The Italian Party.
The Page 69 Test: The Italian Party.
Writers Read: Christina Lynch (April 2018).
My Book, The Movie: Sally Brady's Italian Adventure.
Writers Read: Christina Lynch (June 2023).
The Page 69 Test: Sally Brady's Italian Adventure.
The Page 69 Test: Pony Confidential.
--Marshal Zeringue