This month’s Author Spotlight is Randi Pink, author of Under the Heron’s Light. Inspired by stories about the real-world Great Dismal Swamp, this acclaimed fantasy explores alternate history, a family’s supernatural connections to the swamp, and the strength that comes in knowing your roots.
There are too few books that delve into the history of the Great Dismal Swamp. Can you tell us why you chose to weave this history into your fourth YA novel?
Randi: I search for my heroes in history and self-liberation is the ultimate form of heroism in my opinion. The strength to walk away from abuse is something we can all grab ahold to, and I often search the historical record for such stories. When I learned about The Great Dismal Swamp, I was blown away.
The Great Dismal Swamp’s layered history includes lore, legend, and the footprints of figures like George Washington and William Byrd. But to me, the most interesting stories of the Swamp belong to the formerly enslaved people who liberated themselves by turning their backs on enslavers and instead choosing the thicket. They found raised islands deep within the Swamp and built treehouse-like-structures behind its protection. Scary stories, some spun and some real, kept hunters away creating brilliant shields. Add in the raw, natural environment of the Great Dismal Swamp and I knew I had to write about it.
Is there anything about your research process that stood out to you when crafting this story?
Randi: When I found out about this incredible place, I immediately booked a flight to the Great Dismal Swamp. I needed to walk the edges of the water for myself. To speak to the folks who live there. To touch the trees and breathe in the air. It’s such a stunning place–quiet, calm, and storied. I could feel the history underneath my feet. Being there was by far the most impactful part of my research.
This is not the first time you’ve written a book that spans generations. How does making the past so present aid in storytelling? What was it like telling a story that spans hundreds of years?
Randi: I enjoy hopscotching generations, researching motives and diaries, and coming to the same conclusion over and over—it was all done for either love or power. Spawning from that is jealously and pride and hatred and kindness and unacceptable behavior and everything else, but it all tends to boil back down to an insatiable longing for love or power. In Under the Heron’s Light, it was unequivocally love! Love of nature. Love of freedom. Love of family.
Without revealing too much about the secrets the family unravels within the bog, can you give readers insight into the family dynamics at play here?
Randi: This family is held together by respect. There’s laughter and joy and bickering and the realness of being annoyed with cousins and sisters, but at the root, is respect. Generationally, the family in Under the Heron’s Light convenes around the hog roast where stories are told. The family dynamics are most evident at the roasts where the respect of elders, newly found friends, and even the hog itself is on full display.
What do you hope will stay with readers after they close Under the Heron’s Light?
Randi: I hope readers research the Great Dismal Swamp for themselves! It’s such a phenomenal place deserving of more books and songs and poems and stories. I sincerely hope that this novel spawns an outpouring of art dedicated to the Swamp.
Can you tell us about a librarian or teacher who had an impact on your life?
Randi: I was a terrible student. In tenth grade, I was a nervous wreck every day because I knew that I was secretly failing mostly all my classes. I bit my nails to the quick and told no one about my predicament. But one day, in English class, a substitute teacher whose name I cannot remember read one of my short stories and told me I could be a writer. She didn’t stay on long as my teacher, but she was the one and only to say that back then. I’ll never forget it and I wish I could remember her name.
What were your favorite books to delve into as a young reader?
Randi: I was a reluctant reader. I stuttered severely when I read aloud, and I had to reread passages multiple times to retain even a small portion of their meaning. I was diagnosed later with ADHD but back then, I went undiagnosed. So, I never read a full-length novel until I was nearly in my twenties! As a small child, I did love The Very Hungry Caterpillar, though.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Randi Pink is the author of Angel of Greenwood, praised by NPR as a story “American kids need to know”; Girls Like Us, a School Library Journal Best Book of 2019, and Into White, also published by Feiwel and Friends. She lives with her family in Birmingham, Alabama.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Under the Heron’s Light
by Randi Pink
Ages 13-18
Inspired by stories about the real-world Great Dismal Swamp, this acclaimed fantasy explores alternate history, a family’s supernatural connections to the swamp, and thestrength that comes in knowing your roots.
“Four thousand six hundred forty-two steps in,” Grannylou interrupted. “You remember that now, Baby. Four-thousand six hundred forty-two steps to paradise.”
On a damp night in 1722, Babylou Mac and her three siblings witness the murder of their mother at the hands of the local preacher’s son—so Babylou kills him in retaliation. With plantation dogs now on their heels, the four siblings breach the treacherous confines of the Great Dismal Swamp. Deeper and deeper into Dismal they delve, amid the biting moccasins and pitch-black waters, toward a refuge where they can live freely within the swamp’s natural—and supernatural—protection.
Three-hundred years later, college student Atlas comes home to North Carolina for the annual Bornday cookout and hog roast: a celebration of the fact that she and her three cousins were all born on the same day nineteen years ago, sharing a birthday with their Grannylou. But this Bornday, Grannylou’s usual riddles and folktales about a marvelous paradise deep in the Great Dismal Swamp start to take on a tangible quality. Change coming.
When Dismal calls, sucking Grannylou in, it’s up to Atlas and her cousins to uncover the history that the black waters hold. Centuries of family tension, with roots all over Virginia and North Carolina, are about to be dug up. Because Babylou and Grannylou are one and the same, and the power she helped cultivate hundreds of years ago—steeped in Black resistance, familial love, and the otherworldly mysteries of the Great Dismal Swamp—is bubbling back up. But so is a bitterness that runs deep as the swamp’s waters. And some are ready to take what they feel they’re owed.
PRAISE FOR UNDER THE HERON’S LIGHT
★ “Poetic language, lush descriptions, and characters so conflicted and nuanced as to feel real anchor the magical elements, while the cousins untangle centuries of heartbreaks and horrors inflicted by cruel white enslavers to learn where they came from and the gifts they’ve inherited. A fierce, loving, and exquisite humanity-centered book.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review
★ “Mesmerizing storytelling brings together myriad backdrops, characters, storylines, and themes. Pulling inspiration from real events and places, Pink imbues this beguiling dark fantasy with striking texture, adding human elements to the eerie setting via fiercely wrought familial relationships.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
★ “The lyrical and ethereal writing alongside the warmth of the dialect, a creative concept extremely well executed, and characters readers can’t help but care about combine with painfully authentic emotions for a one-sitting read.”—School Library Journal, starred review
“This is a gripping tale of ancestry and finding your way home. . . Pink’s use of alternating perspectives and time lines makes this all the more powerful. Under the Heron’s Light is a beautiful story steeped in history and ghosts; it inspires further research and serves as a reminder to honor ancestors’ sacrifices.” —Booklist
“A deeply enjoyable, epic adventure.”—BCCB
