Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their process for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Terese Svoboda writes about Roxy and Coco from West Virginia University Press.

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Roxy and Coco is a novel about two harpies – nearly immortal winged women – who are employed as social workers but sometimes lose patience and drop abusive parents off cliffs. Although I’m pretty sure the visages of winged women will someday be found scrawled in cave art, Ramses III  had Nephthys , a winged funerary goddess, carved in stone, as did the Greeks in 1156 B.C.E.  Greek legend provided the bones for Roxy and Coco‘s plot. Soothsayer Phineas’s gift of prophecy went to his head and Zeus punished him with lingering old age and blindness. Food became his only pleasure. Harpies were assigned to punish him further by stealing or contaminating every meal. But this version always felt psychologically incomplete to me; Zeus had plenty of vain soothsayers hustling him. An equally renowned story reveals a more believable motive for his deprivation. Jealous of Phineus’ children, his second wife insists that he blind his sons, or, according to another myth, expose them to be devoured by wild beasts, or half-bury them in the earth and then scourge them. All of this is child abuse, and quite worthy of Zeus’ siccing the harpies on him. When Jason and the Argonauts (they always sound like a boy band to me!) visit Phineus, he makes a deal: he will foretell their fate if they promise to kill the harpies. All they manage to do, however,  is drive them into a cave. My story starts several millennia later.

With regard to researching Roxy and Coco jobs as social workers, twenty years ago, I had a babysitter who did respite care in Seattle, which is essentially court-ordered child care for the domestically-challenged where social workers pick up the abused children from their parents and return them to be abused at night. It’s mostly out of fashion now, but other similar practices have been tried in a valiant effort to keep dysfunctional families together. I did quite a bit of research to understand foster care and similar situations, and the challenges of social work that the harpies in the novel face. Several experienced social workers reviewed the manuscript, especially for what could happen to children with psychological problems in really disastrous situations. All the child abuse cases mentioned in the book are gleaned from case studies on the internet. Those stories of babies being left on radiators, and babies being tossed to the ceiling so hard they left bloodstains are true. I had to omit a number of even more devastating cases. Truth is always stranger or harsher than we want to imagine.

I interviewed a security specialist for details on what goes on inside those surveillance trucks. This information was very helpful imagining Robinson, the slouch who occupies the white van that’s parked across from Roxy and Coco’s apartment trying to unravel the mystery of Coco’s various acts of vengeance in Europe. I also spoke with a photographer who had a fancy camera trained on the Kardashians staying in a hotel across a Hawaiian lagoon. So much for “bird” watching. 

The only time I went out into the field to watch big birds was in Sudan while translating Nuer song. I couldn’t avoid them: marabou and ostriches and secretary birds are ignored at one’s peril. I read many stories of widespread and increasing species extinction, particularly of the extinct passenger pigeon, Ishi, the last known Yahi in California, and the last aboriginals in Tasmania, Truganini and Fanny Smith. The character of Reagan, the evil conservationist, was inspired by “Operation Easter,” a New Yorker article by Julian Rubinstein about oology – the study of bird eggs –  and its thieves, published in 2013. To get the proper veneer for the negotiations between Reagan and Tim, the private investigator stalking Roxy, I visited several of New York’s private clubs, including the Explorers Club. Who knew they display a whale’s penis on the top floor? 

I have a good friend whose bipolar stepchild kicked out a windshield, and I also read a lot of material about early onset bipolar disorder for the character of Chris, the boy whose manic state is both useful and disastrous for the harpies. Stewie’s bravura character as Coco’s sidekick is collaged from the doings of my late good friend, the Black Arts novelist William Melvin Kelley. I also researched a number of bird fairs both European and American. They are flighty affairs. My writing group groaned when I told them I’d thought up more bird puns. 

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Author of more than twenty books of poetry, fiction, memoir, biography, and translations from the Nuer, Terese Svoboda has received the Guggenheim, Bobst Prize in fiction, Iowa Poetry Prize, National Endowment for the Humanities translation grant, Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, Jerome Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts media grants, O. Henry Award, Pushcart Prize for the essay, and three New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships.