Interview 1: Leonardo Shadow's Christopher Grey

I e-mailed Mr. Grey about setting an interview up, and ka-boom! Here we are. Now we offer some very interesting details about Mr. Grey and his future:

A. What influenced you to write a novel about Leonardo da Vinci?

Some years ago I visited Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper at the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan; this was before the recent restoration, and you could only see half the wall, but nonetheless it had a profound effect on me. I went away thinking and hoping that I could write something about it and Leonardo. But I couldn’t get started. Well, that’s not true: actually I started hundreds of times. And stopped the same amount. The whole subject just seemed too big for me to grasp. Then a friend gave me an old copy of Leonardo’s Notebooks; inside were fragments of the great man’s thoughts, hopes, and fears. Suddenly he seemed human—a real human being who was not so different from the rest of us, except that he was a genius. And then he began to talk to me. I just wrote down what he said.

B. Do you see yourself in Giacomo? Why?

Giacomo, at his most basic, is me, aged about fifteen. I wasn’t quite as witty at that age, I’ll grant you, and I also wasn’t as courageous or determined. I did however have his lesser qualities (OK, faults): impatience, obstinacy, pride, and cockiness. And, like my hero, I was desperate for a mentor. I never found one, but Giacomo was more fortunate, thank goodness. He is everything I was, was not, and might have been.

C. Why did you portray Leonardo as a bad guy in the beginning, who is cold and hard and doesn't want anyone to get close to him?

I don’t see Leonardo as a bad guy at all, just someone who is proud, insecure, and vulnerable, in spite of his brilliance (a lot of brilliant people are like this, actually). If he is “cold and hard,” it is because he has set himself incredibly high goals in life, and is always dissatisfied with his progress towards attaining them (again, similar to many brilliant people). I do agree with you that Leonardo “doesn’t want anyone to get close to him,” and that is because of his past—his relationship with his dismissive father, and the unhappy ending to the first important friendship in his life. Based on his own experiences, he fears that all relationships are doomed to failure, perhaps; and people who have suffered in the past tend to be more cautious in the future, don’t you find?

D. Is there a sequel? (This is what most blog readers like to know.)

I hope so. I can see it in my head. Unfortunately, the sales for Leonardo’s Shadow have been very disappointing to my publisher, and I fear that no one will be very interested in another book about Giacomo and Leonardo. A pity.

E. Are you going to write any other children's books about other historical figures (e.g. Einstein?)

At the moment I am in the middle of another book set in the Renaissance, something a little different in style from Leonardo’s Shadow; the hero is a gravedigger with special talents. I hope it will appeal to adults and young people. We’ll see how it comes out (if it comes out at all). I have fifty different ideas for books; the problem is, as always, how to turn an idea into a story. That’s the hard part. A book about Einstein is a great idea, but I am hopeless with mathematics, so he is one genius I would avoid at all costs!