Telling the Truth About What It Means to Be Human (Or Lizard): A Q& A with Patrick Ness on Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody

I cannot overstate how excited I am about the book we’ll be discussing today.

Now about two weeks ago I had the delight and privilege of sitting in a parade on a float beside artist David Small. In the course of our conversation the topic turned to the current state of children’s publishing today. This allowed me to launch into one of my soapbox speeches. It has always been my belief that one of the delights that comes with the sheer number of books coming out each season is the fact that sometimes, even at the larger publishers, weirdness gets through. The modern publishing cycle is set up to iron out oddities in all their forms, so if I happen to find a book that has somehow made it through the process with its peculiarities intact, I consider that a win.

It was in this spirit that I attempted to explain to David the plot of one of my favorite new books, Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody by Patrick Ness.

“Well, they’re monitor lizards that are upset that they have to be hall monitors (though the principal assures them that that’s just a coincidence) and one of them has France on his knee. Like, the actual country of France. And there’s this pony who is just evil, and a pelican named Pelicarnassus, and…”

I do not think I made myself clear.

So on that note, here is an actual publisher explanation of the plot of this book:

“When Principal Wombat makes monitor lizards Zeke, Daniel, and Alicia hall monitors, Zeke gives up on popularity at his new school. Brought in as part of a district blending program, the monitor lizards were mostly ignored before. Reptiles aren’t bullied any more than other students, but they do stick out among zebras, ostriches, and elk. Why would Principal Wombat make them hall monitors? Alicia explains that it’s because mammals are afraid of being yelled (hissed) at by reptiles. The principal’s just a good general, deploying her resources. Zeke balks, until he gets on the wrong side of Pelicarnassus. More than a bully, the pelican is a famed international supervillain—at least when his mother isn’t looking. Maybe the halls are a war zone, and the school needs a hero. Too bad it isn’t . . . Zeke. Smart, relatable, and densely illustrated in black and white for graphic appeal, this middle-grade series debut by a revered author returns to his themes of grief, bullying, and negotiating differences—but with zeal and comic relief to spare.”

Clear as mud? Good!

With two starred reviews so far and praise from every corner, you can imagine my delight when I was given the chance to talk to none other than the author, Patrick Ness himself. Finally, I had a chance to get answers to the burning questions that had gnawed at my soul:

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Betsy Bird: Patrick! Thank you so much for answering some of my questions. And after reading Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody I’ve a slew. It may strike folks as a bit of a gear shift to go from young adult titles like The Knife of Never Letting Go to early chapter books featuring monitor lizards. I’m not the first, and I won’t be the last, when I ask, where did this book come from? What’s its origin story?

Patrick Ness: Genuinely – and I truly mean this – it’s all about the idea.  I remember getting the idea for Knife and realizing it was probably YA.  I thought, okay, great!  Let’s follow that where that needs to go.  Same here.  I never planned to write MG, but I had this very silly idea (based on a the very silly pun of monitor lizards being hall monitors).  It made me laugh, and then I realized what sweetness there was in the characters and how funny they could be.  It really is, for me, following where the idea goes and – probably more importantly – not being a snob about what an idea needs.

BB: Well said. I’m a librarian by trade myself, and librarians like to categorize things. We particularly like it when books slot neatly into categories that already exist. This book defeats that instinct. The best I can describe it is as a magical realism funny school story. There are some fairly surreal moments in the story (I’m looking at you, France). Were they baked into the book from the start or did they surprise you in the course of your writing?

Patrick: All I can really say is:  it makes perfect sense to me.  I’ve got this theory that there’s no such thing as “realistic” fiction.  It’s all fantasy, even if it looks like our lives almost exactly.  It’s still created, it’s still a fantastical imagining.  So I figure, if I embrace that, if all a story needs is a world where it can logically take place, then why not go way out?  Why not make a world where animals get bused in to school and have fears and arguments and friends?  And why not do the surreal thing with France?  Because the challenge is not doing the surreal thing with France, it’s making the surreal thing with France 1) make a kind of perfect sense and 2) getting real human, emotional and funny reactions to it as if it did make perfect sense.  So, yes, for me they were baked in from the beginning.  I knew there’d be a giant robot pelican suit and I knew that France would live on my main character’s knee.  In fact, I got so used to the idea as normal that I keep on being surprised when people find it strange.  What can I say?  It makes perfect sense to me!

BB: Well, as you’ve alluded to here, the book does a deft job of both being funny and having more serious moments on the page. Zeke’s mom’s depression is typified as a black dog that will feel very familiar to anyone that has ever encountered a “black dog” of their own. Mind you, you could have just kept everything light and airy if you’d wanted to. How do you best balance the silliness and the seriousness in a book written at this age range?

Patrick: Mostly it’s just trying to tell the truth about Zeke’s life.  I always trust (and trusted) a book more when it showed me hard things I knew to be true alongside the light and laughter.  Plus, I just love Zeke so much.  He deserves a richness to his life and a depth.  He’s a very serious lizard (which is very funny), but then we realize he’s got some things to actually be serious about.  It makes me love him even more.  It really is all about just trying to tell the truth about what it means to be human (or a lizard).

BB: I’ve been wondering this since for quite a while, so I’m very happy I can ask it now. Why is the villain named Pelicarnassus? My instinct is to think that it’s an Aristotle Onassis reference but that doesn’t seem quite right.

Patrick: Ha!  No, he’s named after the ancient Greek city of Helicarnassus in what’s now Turkey.  It’s literally only because Helicarnassus has always sounded like such a powerful word to me since I first heard it, so Pelicarnassus seemed the natural fit for an upstart super-villain pelican.

BB: How much personal affection or dislike came into the personalities of the animals you put on these pages? For example, what are your thoughts on ponies, exactly? 

Patrick: Actually, I was wanting more to be surprising, because I think animals are funnier when they go against their stereotypes.  The pandas all like heavy metal, for example, but are also quite nice.  And for Miss Pfister the pony, well, we always think ponies are so cute, but have you met a pony?  There’s something haughty about them.  All the inexplicable arbitrary attitude of a horse but half the size, which is sort of adorable.  I thought what if that person were in charge of a very small kingdom of school supplies.  It just made me laugh.  I truly have nothing against ponies, but I bet Regina George would’ve been a pony.

BB: Oh, 100% Regina is pure pony. So I didn’t actually like this book ending at all and would be very happy to see more monitor lizards in my future reading piles. Any chance of a sequel?

Patrick: Thank you!  It’s definitely standalone and meant to be.  But there are more stories to tell, so yes, there’s another story already finished and being illustrated by the amazing Tim Miller again.  I can’t reveal the title yet, but I can say that the main plot is that Daniel, Zeke’s little lizard friend, starts wearing a hat.  And sometimes that’s all it takes for big drama when you’re in the fourth grade.

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Patrick Ness is the New York Times best-selling author of A Monster Calls(inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd), which won both the Carnegie Medal and the Kate Greenaway Medal, was a Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist, and was made into a major motion picture for which he wrote the screenplay. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed and best-selling Chaos Walking trilogy, More Than This, Release, Different for Boys, The Rest of Us Just Live Here,and Burn. His many accolades include two Carnegie Medals, an Olivier Award, the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, the Book Trust Teenage Prize, and the Costa Children’s Book Award. Patrick Ness lives in Los Angeles.

I’d like to thank Sara DiSalvo and the team at Candlewick Press for helping to put this interview together. Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody is on library and bookstore shelves September 3rd. I guarantee that if you seek it out and find it, you won’t regret it a jot. A pure absurd delight.

Filed under: Best Books, Best Books of 2024, Interviews