Author Interview: Hell or High Winter by Andrew Rubin
- Fiction Fans
- 1 day ago
- 38 min read
Episode 229
Release Date: Mar 11, 2026
Your hosts are joined by Andrew Rubin to discuss his novel Hell or High Winter. They talk about Greek (and Mormon, and more) mythology, the highs and lows of retellings, and sibling dynamics. They are also, briefly, interrupted by pugs.
Find more from Andrew here.
Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:
- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris”
- Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
Episode Transcript*
*this transcript is generated by Descript, please excuse the mess.
Lilly 0:04
Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lily.
Sara 0:09
And I'm Sarah, and I'm very pleased to welcome Andrew Rubin onto the podcast today to talk about hell or high winter.
Andrew 0:16
Thank you. I'm really excited to be talking with you both.
Sara 0:19
Thanks for joining us.
Lilly 0:21
We have a lot of fun conversation ahead, but first our quick five minute introduction, starting with something great that happened recently.
Andrew 0:30
Oh yeah. I know this is not the first time one of your guests have said, that's kind of a hard thing to say with the world these days. So I guess maybe I'll just go like personal. I've, I committed to trekking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.
Sara 0:46
Oh,
Lilly 0:46
Oh shit. That's cool.
Andrew 0:48
yeah. Cut to me with an oxygen tank. But we'll see. We'll see.
Lilly 0:55
It's good to challenge yourself though. That's exciting.
Andrew 0:57
Yeah. That's exactly the point.
Sara 0:59
That's, that's an awesome goal, even if it is difficult.
Andrew 1:03
Yes. And nursing injuries and yes, but I, I, I've gotten into the habit of doing things that I'm not, maybe, that are outta my comfort zone. I'll just put it that way. I love to hike and I love to travel, especially solo. So I was like, you know what? I'm gonna go for it. I'm not gonna wait for the big four zero milestone trip. I'm just gonna do it now. Why not?
Sara 1:26
Nice.
Andrew 1:27
Um,
Sara 1:27
My good thing is a little difficult today because I got the very unfortunate news that my entire team was being laid off of work. But this does have a silver lining. And the silver lining is that one of my coworkers, who is actually a friend from college that I hadn't talked to recently because we were on slightly different teams and they'd just been, been MIA for whatever reason. It turns out that she has transitioned. And she told me that today. So I was very pleased for her. that was really exciting news to learn even if it was precipitated by the knowledge that we are now all out of, out of work.
Lilly 2:08
Technically you broke the rules and hit a bummer in your good thing.
Sara 2:12
I know, but, but it's, it's such a.
Lilly 2:14
It is. It is.
Andrew 2:15
Yeah. It's nice that also that she finds you someone that she can lean on as, or be supportive enough to, to bring you into that moment in her life. So that's a, that's a beautiful thing.
Sara 2:26
Yeah, I was, I was very pleased that she felt comfortable to tell me as well. And it's, I'm, I'm very happy for her.
Lilly 2:33
Andrew, you mentioned how hard it can be sometimes to find a good thing no matter what, no matter how small something good has happened. And my good thing this week is that I made applesauce.
Andrew 2:44
Ooh. All right. That sounds delicious.
Lilly 2:47
it was, it's really good and it was much easier than I expected. I used a slow cooker and an immersion blender, and now I have too many jars of applesauce in the fridge
Andrew 2:57
That's, that's not possible. You can't have too many. So,
Lilly 3:00
so that was cool.
Andrew 3:02
and then cue all the recipes that you can do from that as well. Get the apple pies going, get the ice cream out.
Lilly 3:10
It's always the best thing about using a slow cooker is when you walk back into the house and you just get hit with all the smells.
Andrew 3:17
Hmm, that's, oh, yes, exactly.
Lilly 3:19
Yeah.
Andrew 3:20
And also just, I don't, it's, it's, we're, we're heading into the spring, so it's not fall, apple season, but I will say that is always like my favorite, my, some family on the east coast, they have all the apple trees and then, oh, that's, that's just, I don't know. It always apples, applesauce, apple pie, like the fall weather just goes with books so perfectly.
Lilly 3:40
It really does. Continuing the theme, my answer for what I'm drinking tonight is apple cider. My excuse is it's very tenuously related, but there, there's Greek mythology in the book we'll be discussing tonight, and it doesn't really involve the myth of the golden apple at all in any way, shape or form. But that is also a Greek myth, and that's my excuse.
Andrew 4:07
I was gonna say it's almost adjacent to pomegranates, which would've been like the perfect tie in for tonight.
Lilly 4:12
it would have.
Andrew 4:14
I need, I need an endorsement deal from po. Wonderful. Is what?
Lilly 4:17
Yes.
Sara 4:18
Funnily enough, I was actually going to be drinking pomegranate juice today, but then I got laid off and decided I was gonna drink whiskey instead. So
Andrew 4:26
Oh, it's, yeah. I, unfortunately, I don't, I don't usually use being laid off as an excuse to drink whiskey.
Sara 4:33
I don't, I don't either. To be fair, I, I will drink whiskey any day. But,
Andrew 4:38
What, what type of whiskey?
Sara 4:40
This is a lagavulin 8-year-old
Andrew 4:41
Ooh, okay.
Sara 4:43
I think that the younger lags actually are better than the old ones, is a controversial statement. I know. But.
Andrew 4:50
I'm, I'm a fellow whiskey scotch bourbon drinker, so I've got, I've got a bourbon. Devil's Creek, which maybe is sort of adjacent to tonight. Although it's not brewed or brewed distilled, it's not distilled anywhere close to the underworld, but in in Mammoth Lakes, which is like another perfect like location to go to for, with a book and also for a hike. So for Devil's Creek, that's what I've got tonight.
Lilly 5:16
Wonderful. And other than the book we're about to discuss, anyone read anything Good lately? I've been reading this book, so that's my answer.
Andrew 5:26
I, I'll take that one, that's for sure. I'll say I've been reading, I've been, I'm juggling way too many books, but I'm reading the, the Bga Bava Gita actually, which is research for the second book, which I'm doing, but I also just find it. Incredibly insightful and beautiful and poetic and powerful. And I'm like, why didn't I ever read this just for pleasure? And I'm having trouble. Just, I'm, I'm taking notations in all the margins and it's more, I'm finding that I'm doing it for personal reasons rather than for the, for research purposes And it made me inspired to get the UADs and I'm reading a wonderful translation of it. And I'm also doing speaking of visits to hell, I'm also doing Caba. So I'm working my way through her versions of the levels of the underworld. So
Sara 6:17
Nice that has been on my TBR, but I've not had a chance to get to it.
Andrew 6:21
how, how about yourself, Sarah?
Sara 6:23
I actually have read something unusually because normally, recently my answer has been the same as Lily. But I read the sorcerer next door, which is like a 10,000 word. Um. not novella short story that Jesse Alack posted on her website about a sorcerer who lives in next to a witch. It's very cute. it's a, wintry, fluffy romance. It was delightful and I really enjoyed it. It's on her website so you can read it easily.
Andrew 6:53
you just, you just stole the question outta my head, which was like, where, where do we find this?
Sara 6:58
Yes, it is available for free on her website.
Lilly 7:01
Andrew, you jumped to our third question, but I'm just gonna go straight to it. you mentioned your research process or that you are researching for another book in this series, and we see a lot of details from other mythologies and cultures in hell or high winter. I'm thinking particularly of the spirit journey that Hermes participates in with the Blackfoot Nation. What is your research process like?
Andrew 7:26
Oh it is. First of all, I just wanna state the ging was, was not me. That was just for the listeners out there. There's a very feisty pug in Sarah's home, research. I do a lot of it. My research process is really just devouring things online and books and buying a lot of books and also visiting places in the cultures, which is I wanna be upfront. I did not visit the Black Fe Nation, but I'm someone that loves world mythologies and I love the intersection of them and I love the cultures. I've been very lucky to visit with other and stay with another tribe up in Alaska and Alaska Native tribe. But as far as like this research in particular, I do a lot of deep dives. I will pull from whatever academic papers I can and, and just do a lot of whether it's primary source, like going back to in this Hindu mythology that I'm diving into at the moment. Or just, just finding different tech books. And my Amazon, I, I basically, I think I have my own Amazon delivery driver that just arrives constantly with different books. And it, it definitely slows things down. I, I wish I could tell you the specific ones that I read. Just my head is very much in the ones that I'm reading at the moment. And then when I wrote this book, it was many, many years ago. But usually that's my process is, and, and this is my kind of cheat for finding interesting sources, this is gonna make everyone like maybe please hold off firing the arrows. But I go to Wikipedia and I scroll down to the citations, and that's my first foray amongst whatever titles that I know are very well known. And I get those and I read them, but I like to go down and see what they cite. And then I go to those original citations. And that's just like a really great jumping off point to finding whether it's old journal articles and, and maybe books that are wr not quite well known or out a print. And yeah, so that's what I do research wise.
Sara 9:24
I, I do think that Wikipedia is a legitimate source for finding source material. I don't think that's too controversial to say.
Andrew 9:34
I don't, I don't know. I'm just making sure, because I'm sure it's not like the, doesn't hold up to the rigors of academia, of, of maybe, I'm not publishing a, a research paper, that's for sure. So, the other one for Greek mythology that I love is the oi. It's this wonderful source online and that is fantastic. Especially it's, it's all, it's everything. Greek mythology and concluding all the obscure gods. And it not just goes into the myths, but it goes into all the variations of the myths. And you can read through all bringing in all the quotes from the O Ovid and from Homer and just, it's fantastic because you get to see all the different interpretations of the myths and it gives you where they appear in different, ancient tellings of them. And, and it's that, that source, I live off of that site. It's great, especially when you wanna find the obscure
Sara 10:29
So before we get too far into our questioning of you, this is something we like to ask most of the authors who come onto the podcast genre definitions can be such a personal thing and, and they vary greatly from person to person. What would you consider hell or high winter and why?
Andrew 10:48
oh, good one. This, that is hard. As a writer, I like to call myself genre agnostic. I spent, this book, it's been hard because you cannot pigeonhole it into one specific, so I like to say it's contemporary fantasy, mythological retelling. But it's modern. I, I like to think it's, has a lot of satirical elements. I had one review in a paper called it a mythological parody, which I thought was fun, but it's not. But I, I definitely go for more deeper thematic it's not just, it's not just pure parody or satire. to me it, it very much lives in the contemporary fantasy next to Lev Grossman's, the Magicians, which was deeply ins inspired me in writing this one. Well as even, you know, elements of Dan Brown, I would say, where I think he very much brings in a lot of research, a lot of historical research, and then brings in some of the fantastical sometimes a bit like scientifically weird and wild. But terms of like, which the second part of your question was like, why do I choose those genres? Is that kind of, or how does it come forward? I mean, it's just what I love. I, it's, I know that's a very overly simplistic answer, but I'm someone I really like to sort of reimagine myths and I like to bring things into our world or take our modern world or, or historical world and push it into fantasy. So while I do enjoy Tolkien and all those other, the, the worlds that are so fantastical, I love the ones where it's grounded in our reality and that it's magical if you just look close enough or if you just get that other glimpse of the other side of the curtain. And I really, I love that ability for our world to be infused with. in this case, the divine and the magical, or just the magical. So like those books, like always, I'm always going for them off the shelf where it feels like I could just get the owl flying in with the letter that I got into Magic School.
Lilly 12:53
And in this world that you've created, we see several different Pantheons represented, which I'll admit I had varying levels of familiarity with. I think I'm probably not alone in that. How did you decide which myths the reader needed? A little bit more background information for.
Andrew 13:12
Oh yes. This, and this is a battle that always is also even into the editorial process. It's like, how much how much do you need to bring to the reader without disconnecting them from the story and the things that are fun and engaging. For me, I feel it's, it's a very western. Perspective to say, oh, we all know Greek mythology. And it I think maybe in some sense it's true. Although I've, I've mentioned to people, this is a free telling of Hermes and Persephone, and they're like, who? So I don't think that's universal. I think it's universal among anybody that loves fantasy and loves these genres. And we'll grab Madeline Miller off the shelf and, and ate and all these other ones. HETI, I don't know. I've heard that there's debate over the pronunciation. I felt like in the writing it just developed as far as. Things that I found fascinating that I might have not realized when I was researching. And then if it was really fun and interesting to me, I tried to bring it into the story in a way that it was at least entertaining or just fun and maybe a little too cute. But just things that would be, if I was gonna bring it into the story, I wanted to bring it into the voice of Hermes and the way that I was crafting just a little bit of irreverence with it too. So yeah, the really, the, the litmus test was if it was something that I was like, oh my God, I love this. And if no, if the reader doesn't know it, it would be really fun for them to know it too. And, and that was I wanna say unconscious when I was writing it. And maybe I get sometimes get carried away where it's you when you do a lot of research or you do a deep dive into something, you're like, oh, I need to share everything that I've learned ever. And then you start pairing and then you're like this is more just me showing off that I've, I've found these things, these little breadcrumbs. So it's, it's always the, a delicate balance in the writing, making sure that it's, the reader doesn't feel like they're suddenly getting an academic paper or that it slows down the story that you disconnect from the emotional side of,'cause. This is really about hermes's rescuing as Sister Persephone.
Lilly 15:12
I'll say I really appreciated the extra details. Being one of those people who is very familiar with Greek mythology to the detriment of my familiarity with everything else in the world. It really helped me as even like some of the, the Mormon mythology in there. I was like, oh, I didn't know that and now I do, and I would've been totally lost otherwise.
Andrew 15:36
and now listeners are being like, wait a second, I thought we were doing Greek mythology. What about weight wise or Mormon mythology?
Sara 15:42
You're just gonna have to read and find
Andrew 15:44
Exactly. And, and you have to under, you're gonna have to find out why. Salt Lake City is the basically the Switzerland of religions. So.
Sara 15:53
In, in a kind of similar vein you do for, at least for the mythology that I was most familiar with, which is, like Lily said, the Greek mythology, you do a little bit of picking and choosing of what you want to use that's accurate to the mythology and what you wanna put your own spin on. How did you decide which parts to include and, and which parts you wanted to change?
Andrew 16:17
To me, it was the things that emotionally fit the story that I was telling. And yes, that is a really hard part with telling mythology because, and, and again, I had a little bit of a freedom for two, two ways with it. One, I have a lot of self-justification of oh, myths are always retold. They're, the glum became Frankenstein. And like things evolve and we're constantly orally bringing new myths or taking old myths and telling them in new ways. So that's just my own little sense of justification that I do when I change things that oh, I'm just a part of the tradition. But, but then there's also, ah. There are so many different versions of things sometimes. And, and I, I wish I could get into the slices of them'cause my brain is failing me. Exactly. Which was,'cause there are so many, I can tell you the ones that I chose, and then that's I'm locked into that now. But yes, it's, there's so many different variations that sometimes it's just me picking and choosing the one that best fits the narrative. And when you're locked into the writing of it, it becomes just the ones that feel most true to the emotional through line. There's various forms of like how Persephone was found in the mythology and who was it exactly that did it was it at Demeter or other people? I, I picked the ones that. I gravitated to and I sort of locked into them. And then, yeah, and then I kind of bringing it into modern day gives you a lot of license but I hope at the core of the mythology, the, all the research and my deep love of the Greek mythology, I hope is really in there, that I'm not just writing without any baseline of understanding of where these come from and what the origins of them are. So it's, if there's changes, it's, it's not out of ignorance, at least. I, I, if it is, I don't know it, so
Sara 18:04
No. I mean it definitely felt like you were being very intentional. Yeah.
Andrew 18:09
Okay, good. The intentional until it's something someone's really mad about and then I had no idea. So. but yeah, that's, it's, I, there's also, there's a lot of myths about how Persephone and Hades had this incredible marriage and, and partnership as king and queen, but in my version, I'm, I still can't get over that. The real myth is he kidnapped her. That was a crime, and there's, she did not wanna be buried to him, and she did not wanna be in the underworld. So for me, I took that and I ran with it, that this is, this was a marriage that was poisoned from the beginning, and she has, it's like a joint custody battle and she stuck and she can't get out. And what does that look like thousands of years later when, even the purpose for the marriage is not even there anymore. So that's kind of like, so that, to me, that was the more interesting story to tell versus them being, the Hades and Persephone of Hades town.
Lilly 19:03
Yeah you stole the words right out, out of my mouth because there has been such a trend of like re-imagining that myth as a romantic love story, and I, it is fun to twist it in that way, but it has been done quite a bit at this point, so it almost feels fresh To go back to the original.
Andrew 19:25
That's good to know. The funny thing is I, I like to call this book my 10 year Odyssey.'cause I've, I first wrote it 10 year over 10 years ago, and of course I was constantly rewriting it and imposter syndrome and all that. But yeah, I, it's, there is so much of retellings that I see now it's that this, this is great. It's in the, I guess it it's nicely falls into the romantic in their king and queen of the dead and it's macabre and you can fill in all those things, but. I really love to ground it in. I have a background in mental health and mental health education, and I'm like, this is, this was trauma and this is a, this marriage should have never happened. It was forced, it was an arranged marriage by, with basically a shotgun wedding. If you wanna use some of the, I mean, and so much of Greek mythology is about trauma and I think it reflects times of which they live. But there was, a lot of things about rape and sexual violence and not that I'm, particularly trying to make light or, I'm showing those graphically in the book, but I'm like, I liked, I want to be true to the core of what that is. And then bringing it into our very, I think more evolved sense of what people are dealing with. And I think the more human you make the gods, the more interesting they are. And they're, they're not just all narcissists that are detached from emotion and suffering.'cause then they're just not relatable. So I think, I think it's so much more interesting that you have, how does she cope? What is her routine? And in in my version, I don't know if this is the spoiler, but it's like she has her side of the palace and Hades has his, and it's like he can't cross and he's forever because he is now a little bit incontinent and a little bit has a suffering from a little bit of dementia. And he doesn't remember why. She's always upset at him. So he's constantly pining for her affection. And she's like, you kidnapped me. That's why I'm here in the first place. I don't want flowers on our anniversary. Don't get me a narcissist blossom. Screw you. And I'll never forgive you for it, but I feel guilty because I see you've declined. And so it's I like wrapping up. This our tangled perception. I, I, the things that we are dealing with, it's messy. Life is messy and the Greeks made their gods messy, so I love to lean into that.
Sara 21:42
So I think we have some further questions about that, that we'll save for the spoiler section. Because I, I do think that this could get into spoiler section territory but going back to seeing the gods in modern times and, and seeing how they have evolved was that something that developed organically as you wrote the book, or, or did you go into it with a clear idea of how you're going to portray them in the modern day?
Andrew 22:12
I would say. It was more the latter. I really had an idea of what they would be. Some of them as I would explore, they their behavior modified. But to me it was very crystal clear, especially with Hermes, I will say, as I wrote it and because I spent so many years with Hermes, like I found looking back at him at another stage in my life, I understood more the things that he was dealing with and why he was doing it. I imagine Hermes, he's the trickster and he is a messenger and he's low on the totem pole, and so I felt a kinship to him as, as probably we all do of the, he's the eternal intern. He has no respect. he's a part of the 12, but he's really not, and so he's always had a chip on his shoulder and, and so that's how that kind of developed for me. I will say. I wish the book got published years ago or I had the courage to bring it forward years ago. But I was just anyways, that's my own personal saga. But it worked itself into the, character of harmonies because looking back, how so in terms of the evolution of him, what I found, what was so interesting, cause I have a God that's no longer relevant. Hermes doesn't have a purpose. He was at the bottom of the totem pole back when the Greek gods were at the height of their power. Now in the age of email, he has nothing to do. So he's just gonna antagonize all the gods and screw around for all of eternity. And he is he's Deadpool vibes and, again, sort of in my own maturing with the character, looking back, I'm like, oh, it's really interesting to me that this is a story about a God that lost faith in himself and he's chasing. The adoration of other people and everything he's doing is out of insecurity and he's acting out because he doesn't, the only thing he values, the things he values most is having people worship you and having attention. And he's very jealous of all these new religions that suck up all the oxygen. They have all the worshipers, they have all the power, they have all the money, the success, the, you name it, go down the list. And, and to me, as I'm was working on it, what evolved with the character was this idea of it, it feels very relatable to us in the social media era. Like we define our value by how many people follow us and how many people adore us or worship us or like us or comment and those sorts of things. And so when I felt that, I really went back and I minded it and pushed that further into the character. As the main character and all the others, I had very clear ideas of what their behavior is and how they translate to modern day. But then Hermes to me took on another level of, relatability to, to us today and, or at least to my own evolution.
Lilly 24:55
Absolutely. We will definitely have more questions about Hermes and his character Arc for the spoiler section. So before we get there, I have one final question for Sarah Who should read this book?
Sara 25:06
So you should read this book if you want a high action, modern interpretation of Greek mythology that also incorporates other ancient and modern mythologies and is, like you've just said, applicable to real life to one's own journey with, social media.
Andrew 25:23
I can give a teaser before we move to the spoiler section, which is, this is the retelling of Hermes and Persephone. Persephone has been kidnapped again, but this time it isn't Hades. Then of course I have a hole. The conspiracy grows and gets bigger and bigger as you go through the next books, so I think that's the, that's a nons spoiler tease.
Lilly 25:43
Yes.
Sara 25:43
if it's on the back of the book it's, it's valid.
Lilly 25:47
Yeah. This episode of Fiction Fans is brought to you by sia.
Sara 25:55
That's our zine. Each issue has a different theme that celebrates genre and genre blending in a new way.
Lilly 26:01
PDF, and Epub Versions can be purchased on our website and Patreon, supporters of all levels get free digital copies.
Sara 26:09
You can find all the issues and more at patreon.com/fiction fans pod. Thank you for all of your support.
Lilly 26:17
The remainder of this episode contains spoilers. So Hermes and Persephone have a very complex sibling dynamic that drives a good portion of the plot in this book. What was your inspiration for their characters and their relationship?
Andrew 26:36
I guess we sort of, in hindsight when we do a lot of writing, we don't tend to see our own patterns, but I guess I've, I've done a lot of sibling relationships and so maybe I'm hoping my older brother isn't listening to this. But it's very different than our dynamic. We work together. We used to live together, so maybe that was like, I'm constantly trying to process that. Always. So, Of all the Greek mythology when I saw their half sisters and half siblings, and something about it just truly fascinated, fascinates me. And that was one of the core things that I loved about Hermes and Persephone. I love Hermes as a character, and I'm like, how is nobody? Why is he not the most popular God that everyone's retelling just because he is so much fun? But Hermes and Persephone, to me, was such an interesting dynamic. And what drives this sort of relationship was, him being sent down to rescuing, to rescue her. And the original mythology. He's what I mean, I, I expanded to be that he rescues her. That's, we can dive into the minutia of how the mythology plays out beat to beat, but I love the, I love the nugget of Zeus sent Hermes down to the underworld. To deliver the message that he had to bring her back. And he did. But on the way home, he wasn't paying enough attention or he missed the moment where she eats the three pomegranate seeds. And to me, that idea that he had, that he carried that failure with him. Maybe he didn't really think much of her before. Maybe he thought she was spoiled. That's kind of what I sort of interpreted like she was demeter's daughter, a goddess of the earth and of the bounty and of the harvest. And so, the myths, talks about her playing with her maidens in the fields and, and the Greek islands. And it's just garlands in her hair and, you know, it's all rainbows and sunshine for her while Hermes is off having to go deliver messages all day. And then this terrible thing happens to her. He goes and brings her back and then this ter and then this horrendous thing happens, which cleaves the world into winter and summer and it's all Hermes's fault because he didn't pay enough attention and he didn't, he failed in that one thing. And then to me that was like that bond of the two of them. As siblings, I would think they would be inseparable from then on. Hermes is suddenly the big brother that is forever wanting to look out for his little sister. But then I love the fact that Persephone having to take on the role of Queen, she suddenly is so important and she had so much responsibility that then she's the adult. So as much as Hermes wants to be the caretaker and and look out for her, she's really the one that needs to look out for him.'cause he's just endlessly irresponsible. And if we pull it into modern day, what I love is that we still have winter, we still have seasons. She still has meaning. She still has a purpose. She still makes the world go round whether people acknowledge it or not. We all are somehow indebted to her and the thing and the turning of the world and this beautiful thing of summer, spring, summer, fall, winter, spring. And here he is with no messages to deliver and screwing around and bitter. And, and yet they still have this bond. and she's endless. And that's what I fell in love with. And that's how I built this, the characters and what I brought them into at the beginning of the story. And that just, that dynamic felt really beautiful and interesting to me. And then this idea of she's constantly on his case. She's the one na, for his point of view, nagging him to be better, to find something, to occupy his time start a podcast, Hermes don't, don't do something productive with your days. Instead of just like pissing off the Catholics because you like to poke the lion in the eye. And that's the mo and then she goes missing again. And he has to, he has to do right, except this time there's no one telling him what he has to do. He has to figure it out himself. And he has to live up to, has to be the one delivering his own messages. He has to find his own voice this time. He can't just speak for his daddy. and it's the thing that Persephone has always wanted for him. And so that, that dynamic and that relationship, I just, I don't know. It, to me, it just, it's, It's very real. And not that that's mine. I'm not herme going around, pissing off, I'm taking it away from myself. Now this is fiction, but but I just, I really, I just really love that and I love that exploration for something really deeply personal inside Amids about gods and eternal winter and the earth freezing over if Hermes doesn't fix this mistake. And he has to make sure he doesn't make the same mistake he did last time.
Sara 31:23
So you've, you've kind of answered this already a little bit in what you were just saying, but one of the things that struck me while reading Hell or High Winter is how many myths and stories there are about men rescuing women from the underworld, where they're specifically ing a lover, they're not rescuing a sibling. Like it's, it's all stories about romantic love or mostly stories about romantic love. How did Hermes and Persephone being siblings change that framing for you?
Andrew 31:56
God, I love your questions and your, your show. You're, they're always so good. I was like, psyching myself up for like, I'm gonna have to bring an a game with these No. Knowing the questions from your other interviews yes. And by the way, I was very conscious of that. I, I've done a lot of screenplays. My background is in screenplay and oh my God, you have to live in tropes and cliches in that world and things to void. And I know that is a big one, the damsel and distress, I really, and it's like there's no way getting around that's part of this story. So for the first part is like, okay, yes, that, that is. That is a part of this, but I really wanted to make sure Persephone has agency and power. And, and that was really important to me that she's not helpless. But the sibling dynamic does change it. Yeah. In a very real way because, you know, you, you look at your, at um, Orpheus and Tices I was about to say Oedipus Orpheus, and that's a different story that actually that,
Sara 32:53
Orpheus and very different story.
Andrew 32:55
yes. And, and of course there's like that, it's such an easy thing to ring that bell, like true love lost and you're gonna go to the ends of earth in hell to bring her back and her him back and whatever the cost. And so it frames it in a different way because it's, it's a different pure relationship and it makes it more about one of personal responsibility. And I also think family is important, just as important. And, but I, I think it also forces the character to have a more internal dimension because I think the idea of going to rescue your lost loved one, it, it takes up a lot of oxygen and it, and it serves, it carries a lot of weight in a story like the motivation is crystal clear. And now Hermes is of course rescuing his sister. Yes, I think there's the, I have, there's the high stakes. It's cosmic is cosmic implications. It's eternal winter and all that. But I also think it forces, you, you don't have that sort of sexual aspect that kind of can mask internal, the internal changes that have to happen in a character in this journey. Maybe this is like a little bit scattered of a thought here. it totally does change it in a, because it's, it is a platonic rescue mission. There's, there's not that, they're going to kiss and marry in the end. the one thing I did find interesting, I know there's like the Riverside track, so there's like, people aren't gonna know why I'm like struggling through and I.
Lilly 34:29
You're being boring, just because they're pugs and therefore rude.
Andrew 34:32
I think you should keep it in with all the tracks. The pugs snoring. Don't edit it out. I am. I have literally put the dogs to sleep in this episode.
Lilly 34:43
Honestly better than them. Like it's not even growling. They're like
Andrew 34:48
No, this is, they need A-C-P-A-P machine. This is like full.
Sara 34:53
At least, at least when, like now, they're calm,
Andrew 34:57
to get back to what I was gonna say, the Oedipus part of it, the one thing that I thought was fun to play with is the idea of how myths are beyond mythmaking in general. And Hermes is trying to also outrun or deal with this, there, there are versions and there's the rumors of the myths that Hermes and Persephone were romantically involved. And of course in Greek mythology there was a lot of incestuous relationships. And so this idea of him desperately trying to also correct that myth and being very self-conscious that other people have thought that. And so while he's rescuing Persephone, he's also coming to terms with okay, what is the love that I have for her? And his own sense of finding himself, it isn't romantic. It is a deeply personal sibling bond, but he's always cared so much about what other people think of him, this perception of himself as viewed by others and how he's been written about, and the myths that we all know today because those existed. I like to think in my version of the. Stories like in the world that we're living in, the Gods know that the humans have transcribed their stories and we're living with them and they can't change them. So we have these perceptions of the gods that they're struggling with. And so there's like an interesting dynamic that he is also trying to grapple with the fact that, so in the absence of the romantic motivation, I think it is it was interesting to me to have Hermes grappling with how humans have been living with his, the ver a version of the story that isn't true to himself, and he's so self-conscious he can't own up his, that him just loving his sister and being willing to go to the ends of hell is enough. And he doesn't have to, he has to just get rid of the fact that forget. Anybody that has another version of it or wants to say something like, let them say whatever they want. I, I, I'm trying to, not curse, but yeah, it's like he has to get over the fact of like, fuck'em all. I love my sister and I will do everything to bring her back and screw everyone that has written a, a poem that says otherwise.
Lilly 37:10
Absolutely he. Also going on a journey of self-discovery in tandem with his journey to save his sister. How important do you think it was for those storylines to build off of each other over the course of this book?
Andrew 37:26
Oh, I, to me that's, that's the essence of how you move a story. And I think also that comes from screenplay background. I've done a lot of feature screenwriting and, and LA you really have to make sure your character changes by the end of your story. But I also just think that's interesting. I, I, I also agree with it. And for me it just, it's a very clear arc for Hermes. The motivation, I, I love, I hope it feels cinematic when people read it. Like I wrote it in a way that to me was like, I, I'm a, I cinephile grew up with movies and I'm hoping it feels like you're watching a movie as you're reading it. And because it is, it's a clear action. He's gotta get down, he's gotta get through the ends of hell. One challenge after another, get Persephone, bring her home, or the stakes are literally everything. But then tied to that is the emotional journey of him being the fuck it all screw around. Doesn't give a shit. God pretends not to care. Doesn't, actions don't have consequences. Or if they do not my problem, and by the end of it, he is going to grow up this journey, demands it. And I like to do a little bit of a tongue in cheek that, it's a little self-aware. It's like it, Joseph Campbell, your heart out. This is, I'm, I'm a hero. Like I am going to do this hero's journey, goddammit. Pun intended.
Lilly 38:45
Me damn it.
Andrew 38:46
and yeah, me damnit. Exactly. which I really enjoy playing with the actual like mechanisms and being aware of them in the story. Sometimes in a literal, like breaking the fourth wall sort of way, but. I just think he, his journey as a God and the character that I was finding at the beginning of the story, it really naturally and it needs, he needs to move that direction. And when it really crystallized for me that this is, Hermes is a God that lost faith in himself. And by the end of the mo, by the end of the book, he has. One recognized his own ability to, to, to have agency and not need somebody else to tell him what to do. So I have the moment in the book where he, realizes he's a free agent. Nobody else is gonna tell him what to do anymore. if he wants Persephone to be brought home and to rescue her, there's no one else that's gonna do it except for him. And so he has to do it. Zeus isn't gonna demand it of him anymore. And so that's one pivotal moment. And then as he's confronting through the underworld, the sort of litany of his past errors his, the relationships, whether it's Karen again, pronunciation, that's my version of it. People will have theirs, like when he confronts Karen and, and the Mess he left behind with his once best friend of the Underworld and Colleague, or with Li Lily, the, the goddess of the river Lith again. Don't kill me for pronunciations.
Lilly 40:16
My understanding is that no one actually knows how ancient Greek is pronounced and everyone is just making it up,
Andrew 40:22
Oh my God. I'm gonna go with
Lilly 40:23
yeah.
Andrew 40:25
I'm gonna, that's my new explanation. Thank you. and so as he, you know, each one of these encounters or of King Minnows, one of the judges of Hell, and each one of these encounters it shifts, it moves the needle for him. He is recognizing the error of his ways. and this is something that I carrying into,'cause I'm almost finished writing book two, which I'm really excited about and it really kind of deepens for me in, in the second book. But it's something that was really, I tried to mine in Book one, which is the Gods Worship is a drug, they're chasing it. They're left high and dry, they're addicts without a supply anymore, and they're just constantly acting out because they're just jonesing for humans don't just leave sacrifices and worship us endlessly. And that's where we get our power. That's our fix. And so they're dealing with that foul out and Hermes has been living in that shadow. And by the end of the story, I just think it's so powerful.'cause it's a journey that I'm always on. So I will, I will own it that it's, it's not the worship of outsiders, it's not the worship of everyone else that really matters. That the only faith that's important is having faith in yourself. And so that's, to me is it's inexorably tied with his journey to rescue Persephone because it's her hope for him at the beginning of the story that he finds that. And it's the only way he can rescue her is if he actually goes through the fires of hell to figure that out for himself.
Sara 41:54
You talked a little bit in the nons spoiler section about Hades. And I'm just gonna say reading about Hades and his dementia was a little rough in this time of America being governed by someone who, more than likely also has dementia. You, you have also said that this book was your tenure odyssey. It's, it's been a long process to, to write it. Can you, can you talk a little bit about making that decision for some of the gods to be senile?
Andrew 42:25
Okay. I am going to say I actually did have Hades that way before Trump. I will say he has gotten decidedly more Trumpian as my rewrites progressed. So.
Sara 42:40
We, it felt, yeah. Yeah.
Andrew 42:43
I, I may have thrown in a, an Elon Musk Tesla reference in my rewrites most recently in the editorial process. Yes. How could you not? How could you not? It's it's there for the taking and if you don't do it, it's negligent. It's literary negligence to have a character of that. If you're gonna write about a Mad King who wears no clothes come on. Like you can't. It's like the thing about the show Veep where the creator was like they had to go back and rewrite everything because they're like, the parody became real life became the parody and it wasn't enough anymore. Think it, I think it perfectly dovetailed the Mad King is the Mad King.
Lilly 43:21
I have a silly not technical question, but just like a, a little lower question that I kept wondering how durable are the gods? So obviously when they're fighting each other they can fight and kill each other. But anytime Hermes was on earth and in just like a regular human interaction, I was so curious what are the stakes here? Can he actually freeze to death?
Andrew 43:47
Okay, so I made a rule, and this is my own world building, like little, maybe nerding out part for me. I, I made a very clear rule and again, it was one of those things, how much do you write about this? Because how much do readers wanna understand your own process? To me, I have it when the gods are on earth, that is neutral ground. They can't be killed. But when they are in one of their own realms, they're vulnerable. So if they're, sitting on the toilet in heaven, like Uhoh, you can take one of them out. But if they're on earth, it's like they're all equal. And that's, they can't die on earth because that's the human's roams, that's where the humans die. So it's a bit esoteric. So I have him like, yes, he's trudging through winter and he's cold and. He's bundled up, but it's, it's more of they feel everything we feel, it's just they're not, he's not gonna, if he gets frozen in a block of ice, like he'll be there in a couple thousand years if someone chisels him out. So anyways, that gets into the weeds of my own I've crafted all the, the rules and, hopefully, I don't know if how, how that came across for you reading it.
Sara 44:54
so I do, I do have one question about that. How does that interact with the centar who get encased in cement in.
Andrew 45:01
don't put logic at me here.
Sara 45:03
Sorry.
Andrew 45:04
it's just a book. centar are creatures of earth. They're monsters,
Lilly 45:11
Yeah. I was gonna say they're not Gods.
Sara 45:13
They're, they're not gods. That's very true.
Andrew 45:15
Yes. So I will, I I, you try to get me, but centers, aren't they're earthbound creatures, right? So like they're not, they're not considered they lived on earth. So anyways, that's, that's my like, gotcha. No, I,
Sara 45:29
Yeah. No, no, that's, that's to, that's totally fair.
Andrew 45:32
But yes, I'm sure if you start putting this under a magnifying glass, there's so many holes you could probably poke in it, but I don't, I, at least, hopefully none that I've just tried to cover up and just I threw some leaves on it and no, you didn't notice it. I don't know. Or, hopefully that's not the case.
Lilly 45:49
While you were working on this book, were there any scenes that surprised you?
Andrew 45:54
Oh yeah. And those are always the best as a writer when, when the characters do things that. You don't expect of them. I will say the relationship of Hades and Persephone was, was a surprise. Like I knew that it was, they didn't like each other, but then in, in terms of writing their relationships, that was really interesting how that came out. And, and again, spoiler section here, there was a moment where it was the scene towards the end of the book when Hermes confronts Melano and, and she rifles through his brain and she finds the key to his resentment and why the thing that's driving him and the things that he's tried to hide in the back of his, his own consciousness. And that really surprised me and it was one of the earliest things I actually wrote. I usually write an order. I'm a very big, like I don't write. Sequentially out of order. I try to very much, and there was just a moment where I just, it was almost like, its own little, like it could have been a short story. And I wrote that and then I just parked it aside and it fit into the story later. Definitely those sorts of moments really surprised me. And then it's hard for me to get into other more specific ones also because I'm so much writing the second one now that I'm like, I feel like I'm gonna pull in the things that are surprising me now versus when they did back then. But I do know specifically that one moment since this is the spoiler section when she sort of, it's almost, it's the essence of his rage, which is that he sat in a corner while he watched all of them feast and he was. Gaslighted and, and told that he would get his respect and his due. And it was always later and when he tried to challenge, and it's I think any one of us who ever asked for a raise and then the boss was like, how dare you, you, it's, it's like that sort of that sort of sense of, of aggrieve and that really, that sort of catalyzed a lot for the character. So I, I, if anything, it could have just been an exercise to understand who Hermes was to begin writing his story. But that was, that was definitely a big surprise and, and a fun one.
Sara 48:10
How different is the final product, like the fi, the final version of the book from the first draft that you wrote?
Andrew 48:17
It's interesting because I would say the story, the core of it always remained the same. And, and even in the editorial process that wasn't, there wasn't like knocking on and poking like the, the crux of it. It was just, it's always so clear, it's a rescue mission. So the plotting of it was really very clear throughout the whole thing. But I would say like emotionally, it really kept evolving and deepening. And, and again, I think my own, going through this story, writing it, starting writing it over 10 years ago and then coming back to it in my thirties, later thirties. And there was a lot of evolution just because I had evolved and having lived more life and, and loss and losing a parent and the, these sorts of things that happened to you and then you things differently. And so, a lot of the story changed. And there were some really interesting things that I, I loved the editor I worked with. His name is Guy and he's just like an awesome individual and a person thinker. And so is someone that I've worked with. She was my manager in the screenwriting world, and she was instrumental getting this book published Maryanne and, and discussions with them because they're just, it's amazing when you see people that have such a grasp of how stories work and understanding, like they can tell you the essence of a book, like Snap of a Finger. And it's, it's incredible. and so like one of the things that evolved that was interesting for me, Was the idea of Hermes's perception of his relationship with Persephone. And there was sort of these two scenes that came out of a lot of conversations of, of a memory that Hermes had that he thought was like this really wonderful sweet moment that he gifted per seny, that the joy of, like, he saw she was depressed and it was like, turn your frown upside down. I'll show you that. Winter's no big deal, like humans have you know, pumpkin spice lattes, and then they get snowball fights. Like, look at all the joy you bring them and like, see, you're happy now. It's nothing to be sad about your predicament. And then as he evolves as a character, he looks back at that moment and recognizes the deep insensitivity of it and what he was really missing. What, what he didn't understand about her.
Lilly 50:30
What would you like readers to take away from this book?
Andrew 50:34
A deep desire to read the second one
Lilly 50:36
That's a great answer. More authors should say that.
Andrew 50:40
Why not? Why don't you just say what, what everyone, what they're really thinking. And, and to write a glowing review on good reads, know, and not say that they're my mom doing it. Uh, I do hope that the themes that I've talked about, and not to repeat them, but this idea that like, even the Gods struggle with finding faith in themselves and purpose and, and this idea that, that is, is universal and there's no, place that is immune to that level of constant daily insecurity. Um. And so even if the Gods are having difficulty figuring out the 21st century, we shouldn't feel so alone that we're all with our struggle with it, because I think this, this century really is difficult. I don't know. It's really complicated and it's really hard. And so if the Gods are struggling, then I think we can give ourselves permission to laugh about it too, how ridiculous everything is on a daily basis. And so I, I hope that if they love mythology, they come away loving this version of it. That it's, I hope it's a totally unique one. It's not sanctified and and so reverent that it's removed from their everyday life, that they feel like the, the Greek mythology that everyone loves is as accessible to them in the modern world as it is transporting themselves. 2000, several thousand years to ancient, ancient Athens and, and Troy. And so I hope, it checks all those boxes and I hope it makes people feel like they had a hell of a ride and a fun time.
Sara 52:15
There is a second book which everyone should read, and which I'm looking forward to. What can readers expect from book two?
Andrew 52:23
oh yeah, it, the conspiracy grows ever wider. So at the end, we realize Hades wasn't the one to kidnap her Seny but the entire conspiracy was set up by somebody else. So even though he's dispatched the kidnappers and brought her home, it's just the beginning. So I call it the Holy Trilogy because the first book takes place in hell. The second book is taking place on Earth, and it deals with all the cosmologies around. I don't wanna give the spoiler, but a unifying component of a lot of creation myths that are present from Chinese mythology to Greek mythology, Finnish mythology, west African. And so it's something that lives at the center of all these myths that is very much in play that they have to stop from a cosmic disaster occurring. So it's gonna be, it deals with all the sacred mountains on earth. And then the third book will conclude in heaven. So all three realms that the chase continues. and then it also kind of becomes a buddy comedy'cause it's Hermes and Gabriel are teaming up and the second book starts with them. The key to figuring out what's happening is the de the Jewish demons, Lilith. And to find her, they will have to go on a lot of. Horrendous dating apps in Los Angeles and
Sara 53:47
I am here for that.
Andrew 53:49
and Hermes has set up a honey trap and made a very uncomfortable Gabriel the bait. And then we're off to the races and also pers seny and isu. And it's, it's becoming like the world's most ridiculous aam of gods that are gonna try to figure out this conspiracy
Lilly 54:08
Awesome.
Sara 54:09
need this in my life. When is it coming out? When? When can people read it?
Andrew 54:14
from your lips to hermes's ears. Hopefully soon.
Lilly 54:17
Andrew, thank you so much for joining us. It has been wonderful talking to you. Where can you be found on the internet so our listeners can keep an eye out for things like the release state of book two and things that might be announced someday?
Andrew 54:31
Just like Hermes, I am desperate for the adoration of strangers on Instagram. And that's. I'm at Andrew Rubin, 77 is the handle. So I'm, pretty much on Instagram and doing all that, figuring that stuff out. And of course my website and there's hell or high winter.com. And I hope people, are interested enough, wanna, wanna join me on this really bizarre, crazy, weird world mythology tear that I'm going through. I don't know how else to put it.
Sara 55:01
This has been delightful having you on. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us.
Andrew 55:06
Oh, thank you. And thank you for letting me drink alcohol throughout so, so.
Lilly 55:15
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.
Sara 55:19
Come disagree with us! We're on Blue Sky and Instagram, at fictionfanspod. You can also email us at fictionfanspod at gmail. com. Or leave a comment on YouTube.
Lilly 55:30
If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and follow us wherever your podcasts live.
Sara 55:38
We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find exclusive episodes and a lot of other nonsense.
Lilly 55:44
Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated. Bye!
